#It would be great if there were more disabled cats in the books

[tertain-the-original]

Decided to draw them more anime because why not. Anyway, here’s JayPaw and his Aunt. (I really wanted JayPaw to stay a warrior, break his destiny, do his own thing. He always struck me as too stubborn to give in, but he did so 😔)

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Boiling hot take, but we're never going to be able to tackle the problem of bullying, especially in schools but also in general, unless we address the fact that some people, especially some kids, are just… not that great to be around.

And that's not always their fault.

Like, as an autistic adult, when I look back on the ways I was treated as a kid, on the one hand I think "fuck that was shitty to live through", but on the other hand, I kinda get it?

I was loud and regularly called out in class or interrupted people when they were talking.

I had a narrow range of interests that I was very interested in, and wasn't great at recognising when the person I was discussing them with wanted to talk about something else.

I couldn't judge my tone of voice and so things I said often came across as insulting when I didn't mean them to.

I was highly opinionated and argumentative.

I would sometimes lash out at people physically (when provoked).

I growled and hissed at people like a cat when I wanted them to go away, because I didn't know how to communicate that in human terms.

I used to hit and bite myself when I felt frustrated, and a couple of times threatened to hurt myself during stressful social interactions.

I had a loose grasp of personal hygiene.

Was any of this a justifiable excuse for bullying me? No. I was a kid, struggling with a brain that was structured very differently to everyone else's. I didn't even know what I was doing wrong a lot of the time. I had a disability.

But was this a justifiable excuse for not wanting to hang out with me? Fuck yeah.

Like, I would have liked it better if I'd been able to have close friends in primary school (without the teachers having to literally set up a structured group of people who were willing to befriend me, complete with weekly meetings where we discussed our social issues with an adult mediator present)? Yeah. That would have been great.

But I was also weird and unpredictable and gross and inconsiderate, and I wouldn't have wanted to hang out with me either. The other kids didn't owe me their friendship. (Even though, again, none of those things were my fault.) But that doesn't mean I deserved mistreatment.

Basically, I think there would be less bullying if we had more preschool books and Very Special Episodes about how to handle interacting with people who are essentially harmless, but who you don't really want to be friends with all the same.

Get rid of the dichotomy in kids media where everyone is either deliberately and purposefully being unpleasant because they can, OR Just Like You with no annoying or unpleasant traits whatsoever.

Sometimes people just are Annoying. It sucks. But part of living in a society is learning to walk away from those people and leave them be, rather than treating their existence as a personal attack.

[wc-confessions]

Since it's disability pride month I am dedicating this confession to lesser known/underrated disabled WC characters!

Everyone knows and loves cats like Briarlight and Brightheart, but there's quite a few others that aren't talked about as much

First off, One-Eye and Halftail, the two first arc elders. They don't show up much due to being in the Elder's Den, but when they do, they're a delight to see. I love One-Eye's bickering with Smallear and how she helps Brightheart a bit in A Dangerous Path! They're also the parents of Mousefur and Runningwind! One of whom dies fighting Tigerclaw in the same book Halftail dies of smoke inhalation after the fire. I like to think Runningwind rushed into battle against Tigerclaw impulsively since his father had died not long ago. Mousefur, on the other hand, takes after her mom in the new prophecy and onwards as a grumpy old lady lol. Very great characters, I love them a lot!

Speaking of the 1st arc, Brokenstar. He's honestly a really entertaining and threatening villain, and people don't talk about him much or his disability. Him and other cats with damaged tails like Berrynose and Finleap aren't really talked about in conversations about disabled characters. I find Brokenstar very interesting, not because of his motivation (or lack there of lol) which is pretty generic, but because of his lasting effects on the clans. His reign directly or indirectly led to several key events in the first arc or beyond. Tigerclaw becoming the deputy of ThunderClan was caused by Brokenstar killing Lionheart (canonically, we don't know who killed Lion, but I think it was Brokenstar), him being still alive led to Nightstar not getting nine lives and dying in Rising Storm. Which led directly to Tigerstar taking power. He directly killed several cats, but his orders and actions led to many more that wouldn't have happened had he not been leader, which I will not list out because this confession would be way too long. Another thing I like about him is that he is a fantastic villain in OOTS. People often depict the main leader of the Dark Forest being Tigerstar or Mapleshade, but in reality, it's actually Brokenstar. Tigerstar is more of a secondary leader to him. Brokenstar was the first Dark Forest cat to cross into the living world, and he later seemingly detects StarClan cats at the border to the Dark Forest somehow and confronts them, so Jayfeather and Spottedleaf have to sneak in, and he leads Flametail into the Dark Forest so Ivypool can ghost kill him (but this plan was foiled by Tigerheart), and in The Darkest Hour, Ivypool refers to the plans as "What Brokenstar is plotting". So yeah, he's the leader of the DF, not Tigerstar, and Tiger wouldn't have gotten very far without him lol. Crazy how we got multiple disabled leaders and deputies in the first arc and then not ever again, unless you count Berrynose lol

Next is Volewhisper! Who has quite a few parallels with Cinderpelt! One of their back legs were both injured by a villain's scheming (Tigerclaw's trap for Bluestar and Brokenstar making kits fight rats), they were both then inspired by a senior clanmate (Yellowfang and Nightpelt), and Cinderpelt chooses to become a medicine cat while Volewhisper chooses to be a warrior instead. I find him very fun and he's one of my favourite characters in Exile From ShadowClan!

The next cat I wanna talk about is a bit controversial due to some pretty bad writing choices by the team. Finleap. I really really loved him in Darkest Night and River of Fire. He and Twigbranch had a really sweet relationship, and I love how he follows her to ThunderClan. I also hate Sandynose, but that's besides the point. They were really cute and I liked them a lot... but then The Raging Storm happened. Where instead of focusing on the actually interesting plot of Twigbranch struggling to be a mentor, they decide to make her nice, sweet, and sort of goofy boyfriend... a jerk. He's rude he gives her the cold shoulder, it's awful, and so out of character. At least he actually does apologize for it and improve his behaviour, which I admit was a sweet moment in an otherwise pretty bad plotline. Then, after that, he's sort of a background cat. He briefly stands up to The Impostor after Twiggy is punished. In Sky he has a sort of friendship with Nightheart. He and Lionblaze laugh at Nightheart after he gets bit by a Squirrel, but later in the book Nightheart thinks of him in a positive light and he's one of the first cats that Night thinks of telling about Sunbeam. Overall fun guy, nice character despite one really bad book (which is basically every warriors character lol)

Some other underrated disabled cats who I don't really have as much to say about:

Fallowfern (deaf)

Shrewtooth (PTSD)

.

[thehauntingofharrenhouse]

SIGHING the age difference between margaery and sansa is p big for teenagers! margaery is closer to jon and robb's age than sansa's. margaery and her family actively pursued an interest in elevating her to queen from at least the first book if not longer, tywin was actively trying to arrange a marriage between cersei and rhaegar before the maggy scene, which takes place when cersei was younger than sansa is at the beginning of the series. ned and catelyn had barely discussed sansa's options before joffrey shows up; they might have thought of it later or they might have chosen someone else. the wealthy southern houses are ambitious, but starks rarely send their daughters south to marry. sansa has talent and big dreams, and cat would at least think to take that into account. likely cat was expecting to marry her into another great house, but we know cat wanted her kids to be happy?? and be children?? for as long as they can. she was surprised and a little upset that robb was wearing live steel, even tho he's nearly an adult by westerosi standards and competent enough to manage winterfell when she understandably neglects her duties while bran is in his coma.

this is not a bad thing!! this is reasonable!! and cat did teach sansa how to be a lady the same way ned taught robb and jon to be a lord, through example and demonstration. all highborn girls have lessons with a septa, not least to occupy them while the boys are practicing hitting each other with swords. sansa and arya were also given lessons with maester luwin, which is a significant advantage that not all highborn girls get. and honestly this solid foundation gave sansa and arya the tools they needed to survive thus far!!

catelyn was expecting sansa (and arya!) to continue her education at court, under the supervision of ned and with the help of septa mordane. and cersei did try to educate her in her own terrible way––catelyn could not have known how incompetent cersei was (honestly cersei had robert killed in an incredibly sophisticated way that would still be hard to prove in real court, she is a lot more together in the first book). ned resolved to end the betrothal as soon as he saw what joffrey was like, he definitely believed revealing joffrey's parentage would make this easy.

margaery came to king's landing with an army at her back, knowing there was a possibility, however slim, of the lannisters rejecting an alliance. she knew she was entering a city her family had been starving out for months!! she brought food!!! she was prepared. she knew exactly what she was getting into!! loras had almost definitely been feeding the tyrells information about the court for years, if only so they'd know what was going on lol.

the tyrells are absolutely the lannisters' foils, I think that's pretty clear? margaery is the political powerhouse cersei wants to be, and she has the support and respect cersei craves. loras is the new Best Tourney Knight who mostly lives up to the ideals jaime strives for without really trying, and his relationship actually is unfairly discriminated against instead of just creepy (affectionate). willas is the scholarly heir trusted absolutely, like his claim is so rock solid he is just left with the castle, and he has a more 'socially acceptable' disability (in tyrion's mind especially!). like they are both engaged to sansa even. and olenna is who tywin thinks he is, except she also has the power of being a reasonable adult who would prefer that people (not joffrey) didn't get hurt. then garlan is just a good guy, all the lannisters wish they had a garlan

for the record, also, sansa tried to 'talk up' joffrey because she was terrified. she does not like anything about joffrey at this point and is desperately trying to think of things to say that won't get her killed?? what olenna and margaery do so well, and what is indicative of their strength as politicians and the power of being nice to people, is put sansa at ease enough that she's willing to tell them the truth. like yes sansa was fully deluding herself at one point, accepting joffrey's apology for lady's death, but she starts to hate him as soon as he has ned arrested (and their household killed??). how many of us can say we have not gone a little delusional over a crush in middle school regardless of what our parents taught us. lmao.

cat and ned may not have prepared sansa to be queen but they are the reason alayne is still kind, and that is why she inspires the kind of loyalty littlefinger can't, which will prove to be her greatest weapon.

[troutfur]

@gophergal @doritopaw101 Great minds think alike I see!

5. Yellowfang

Favorite character in TPB bar none. She made for excellent contrast to Fireheart and bounced off Cinderpelt perfectly. Definitely fits a similar niche to Jayf in the department of having an entertaining character with a sharp tongue. I live in bliss not having read Yellowfang's Secret. I hear she's totally butchered there but I refuse to see it. 🤗

4. Flametail

Half the reason I prefer the Po3 parentage reveal to have pushed Jay and Lion closer to Bramble. One of these days I need to revisit his PoV in OotS and his attitude towards his cousins shown there, if only to reacquaint myself with the ways in which canon disappointed me.

Of the relationships between the Po3 meddie apprentice generation, Jayfeather and Flametail had the only one I genuinely weep canon forgetting. They had legitimate buildup and I would have loved to see it develop.

The way Flamepaw idolizes his older cousin and shows this genuine enthusiasm for the job Jayfeather only has ever resented, the scene in which Jaypaw reacts to an insensitive comment by giving Flamepaw a scare but then gently explains his disability and why he doesn't bother focusing his eyes, the potential for Jay to seek refuge in their familial connection while still mad at Leaf and Squilf...

*clenches fist* I can't get over what we were robbed of.

3. Mothwing

I first became attached to her because one of the first things I learned through fandom osmosis, even before knwing her very well beyond my spoilers binge, was the constant attitude that her and Cloudtail were willfuly blind idiots. I'm not going to go on my tirade on how atheism can be rational even in a world in which deities of some kind are completely real. But it really got to me.

But besides that, I find her, her relationship with Hawkfrost, and the hardships she's had to navigate as an atheistic religious figurehead not only extremely compelling but also extremely resonant as a religious atheist since about age 15.

I honestly really hate how ASC has been treating her, especially with the latest books emphasizing her as the good kind of nonbeliever vis a vis Splashtail. I swear the only reason they are showing her as much sympathy as they are right now is that it's kind of hard not to when she's being contrasted to someone right out of a PureFlix Entertainment movie.

2. Leafpool

We love to see the world's most Catholic schoolgirl core kitty cat.

Leafpool hits a couple notes on the themes my history with the religion I was raised with got me obsessed with and I greatly appreciate her on her own. But to be perfectly honest where I think she shines best is in relationship with my blorbo Jayfeather. Their tenous, mutually frustrating, and abrassive relationship is one of those dynamics that just gets me to spill out words on the page whenever I'm writing them interacting.

I'm honestly really disappointed that so much of the fanon seems to focus on giving them a more smooth relationship that's almost pseudoparental and kind of Leafpool wish fulfillment. Which is really at odds with how I see them in canon, where at best they are cordial co-workers, and even then only after the mess in OotS is sorted out.

I get the urge of wanting to dote on Leafie, I also get it from time to time, but I feel that it really leaves on the table a very interesting canonical facet of both these characters. (Also let's be real, it honestly stinks of people sanding off all the flaws off their faves given one of the main ways Leafpool let out her frustrations was in making ableist remarks. It is perfectly reasonable that given the society of WC she'd have those attitudes, people. It's fine to let her have that as flaw.)

Jayfeather

The blorbo of all time! ❤

I don't know if I've told the story in this blog before but I actually came into the series primed to like him, if only for familiarity bias. For the longest time I knew Warriors as those books that every furry my age seemed to have read and which I saw discourse about ocassionally in my dashboard. His name came up a lot and was seared into my mind so of course when I really got into the thick of reading it I was curious to see what the fuzz was about.

But I do love him for his own characteristics. For one, I'm a sucker for the asshole with a chip on their shoulder character type. I also really like his and his siblings' megalomania and overall bratiness over Po3 (and I really wish they had gotten worse tbh). He also resonates with quite a few themes of my raised Catholic brand of religious trauma. And the way his character arc was fumbled by the writing is a stimulating challenge to go "I can do better!" and then try to do better with.

But overall, it's really just that I have a great time whenever I'm reading/writing about, analyzing, reinterpreting, or doing research to write him. At the end of the day he's just fun to engage with.

[sepdet]

To nobody's surprise (except followers of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party), this excerpt is chilling:

In May 2020, Fred attended a meeting with Trump at the White House alongside several health advocates, as well as Trump’s former Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and Brett Giroir, the former assistant secretary for health. At first, things were going well.

[CW: extreme ableism and gratuitous cat photos below the cut. The latter is in no way meant to make light of the former.]

“The meeting I had assumed would be a quick handshake hello with Donald had turned into a 45-minute discussion in the Oval Office,” Fred wrote. “Donald seemed engaged, especially when several people in our group spoke about the heart-wrenching and expensive efforts they’d made to care for their profoundly disabled family members, who were constantly in and out of the hospital and living with complex arrays of challenges.”

After the meeting concluded, however, Trump called his nephew back in to speak with him.

“I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members,” Fred wrote. “But I was wrong.”

He recalled his uncle’s words to him: “‘Those people …’ Donald said, trailing off. ‘The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.’” Fred wrote that he hadn’t known how to respond to the former president’s comment, so he quickly left

But Trump’s callous, inhuman attitude toward Americans with disabilities did not end there. Fred recounted a later interaction with his uncle, where he had called the former president to ask for help buoying the fund that supported his son’s care.

Fred wrote that his uncle didn’t seem convinced. “‘I don’t know,’ he finally said, letting out a sigh. ‘He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.’

“Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear Donald say that. It wasn’t far off from what he’d said that day in the Oval Office after our meeting with the advocates. Only that time, it was other people’s children who should die. This time, it was my son,” Fred wrote.

This time, Fred hit back, he wrote. “‘No, Donald,’ I said. ‘He does recognize me.’”

Oop, there it is: Donald Trump, eugenicist.

Childless cat lady reaction:

You can't imagine what it was like going through the pandemic as a medically vulnerable person, watching the President encouraging people to drop precautions against spreading a deadly disease. He forced me to self-isolate even more, because I couldn't enter any building without encountering unmasked people before there was a vaccine. "Childless cat lady?!" Fuck you, Vance, that cat was my life support when Trump threw us under the bus.

Which reminds me, I need to order the next $6000 injection I've had to take since COViD plus arthritis turned my immune system into a hit squad against my own organs.

Trump would tell my father, who pays my medical bills, to let me die.

And I'm keenly aware how lucky I am to have family to support me, unlike all the people like me who did die.

@pumpkin-belly passed away peacefully in my lap in May. I spent more on an elderly cat’s medical bills than a billionaire was willing to spend on his own great-nephew. That bighearted orange fluffball was worth infinitely more than the orange carbuncle running for president.

Whom I don't trust not to follow through with his notions of eugenics if he is reelected.

Avenge Pumpkin. Defend disabled people. Vote blue. (Please)

[bonebabbles]

First Battle Aftermath

For the first battle itself go here

lol. Lmao, even.

Not, "Oh my god what have I done," but "I'm so weak. I can't even kill," while wearing Rainswept Flower like a new pair of fur boots

first Adoption Win in 3 books. What's the tally on that one-- 1 to 10?

Clear Sky doesn't understand the point of burials lmao. Dude did leave that dead mom he killed out in the open for the flies to find, until Wind Runner and Gorse Fur came across the corpse and put it in the ground.

And he can't remember killing Rainswept Flower either, in spite of the fact he was coherent enough to justify his actions to Gray Wing, because the Clear Sky chapters aren't meant to be a glimpse into the mind of a detestable character. They exist to garner your sympathy.

Was that enough regret for you? Hope you got your fill because it's RIGHT back to Gray Wing's Excuse Hour

WE?!

WE LET IT GET TOO FAR

We Let It Get Too Far

"My brother :(((( He's a good man :(((((((( He's a good guy even though he just starved Jackdaw's Cry before trying to murder everyone and told Thunder he shouldn't exist and slaughtered Rainswept Flower in a fit of rage :((((((((((((((((((( He gave up some food after I asked him to when we were like 17 so that means he could never be a bad person"

It's right there on the goddamn page, Clear Sky wasn't BORN EVIL so he's GOOD ACTUALLY because NO CAT CHANGES THAT MUCH.

It's EXPLICIT, am I going crazy here?! The narrative says EXACTLY that because he was good when he was young, he can't possibly have changed into a monster. "No one changes that much"

FEAR OR GREED. GOOD OR EVIL. The writing is SO BAD that they attempted to tell a story with an ounce of more nuance than usual and just ended up re-inventing a Light vs Darkness dichotomy with different nouns!

And just when you thought we'd hit rock bottom, StarClan arrives with the reinforcements needed to DIG DEEPER

Enjoy Clear Sky being called a fool once, just a silly little slip-up, an Oopsie Daisy. "I only wanted--" goes UNADDRESSED as Turtle titters about "killing only ever leads to more killing" because they have to find SOME way of getting mad at Tall Shadow too.

Turtle Tail says some romantic schlock to Gray Wing about the kits and thanks Thunder for scraping her pancaked body off the pavement where she died, and then Gray Wing decides that actually he's mad that her magic ghost came down from the heavens because it's Too Painful to see her again or something. Because he's a GREAT character.

"We came to spread the Good News Gospel, Gray Wing. You need to know that god is real to live here peacefully."

DOTC is about to say that the cats need StarClan to avoid these sorts of massacres, because actually Clear Sky is fearful, NOT greedy, and believing in God means he won't be so scared that he feels the need to abuse women and children

(But also that everyone's kinda responsible for the First Battle because Clear Sky is a good boy and WE let it get too far)

Anyway, Fridge Wife 2 starts interrogating Clear Sky. They do this incredibly insulting chapter transition where Gray Wing goes, "idk if he wants to listen to herrrr..." and Clear's chapter opens up with "LOVE OVERWHELMS HIM" because, AGAIN, Clear Sky's chapters exist to garner your sympathy.

"I was scared my heart would break if I had to see someone else die, which is why I wanted to kill orphans, threw disabled people out into the wilderness, clobbered a kitten, told my son he shouldn't exist, performed public humiliations, and beat 3 women to death"

Wanna take a break and go check out the tally of things he did in the past 3 books, and compare it to his self-defense? Be Storm! Go check that out, keep everything he did in mind.

Ask yourself this; were his actions truly consistent with someone who was just scared he would see someone die of starvation, OR, were they consistent with a domestic abuser who enjoys the power he has over people?

Storm buys it.

"FEAR IS WHAT DROVE YOU," she said with relief.

If you're AFRAID then ABUSE IS UNDERSTANDABLE. IT'S OKAY! It's all fine in the end if your motivator wasn't greed, AKA "BORN EVIL"

"Now you see there's no need to be afraid because God is real, death isn't the end, and the assurance of religion with an eternal afterlife will make you a better person"

They're saying pain is less painful if you believe in God and this is why Godless Heathens are bad in the Warrior Cats series. When Gray Wing decided to proselytize to Wind Runner and tell her it was good that her weakest child died, because it meant he was in a "better place", THIS is what that was building to narratively.

PIETY will fix Clear Sky's abusiveness. YAAAAAAY!

ALSO THIS IS TALL SHADOW'S FAULT TOO SOMEHOW?!

DIE AGAIN, SHADED MOSS, BEFORE I BEAT YOU INTO COSMIC DUST. I HOPE THERE'S MORE TRUCKS IN HEAVEN

"how did you know he was going to kill-" CONTEXT. CLUES.

SHE MADE AN EDUCATED GUESS BASED ON ALL THE CATS POKING HOLES IN EACH OTHER AND SHOUTING "it's murderin' time!!!"

She was a female Warrior Cats character in the general vicinity so they had to make sure to shame her because god forbid they imply that Clear Sky is the only one to blame for this bloodbath

In fact they do it again, Clear Sky snaps and starts barking at River Ripple for being a foreigner in his presence, right in front of God, and they don't skip a beat,

It CANNOT remain about Clear Sky, EVER. Storm whips over to GRAY WING and accuses HIM of bringing death to the mountains too, closing out the whole rant with, "ALL of you need to make amends"

This is like when a bully spits on you, calls you insults, and slaps and hits you where the teacher won't see, all while you keep trying to negotiate, but then YOU punch back and you both get equally punished because retaliation is just as bad as being attacked.

The book ends on the cats deciding it's time to bury the dead. Thus concludes The First Battle, and Clear Sky's Redemption Arc begins in Blazing Star. Because this means they nonsensically get rid of their main antagonist, they have to conjure up an Evil Foreigner to take his place.

"Unite or Die" isn't a message about actual peace and unity, that thing that the Non-Clear Sky cats have been hopelessly committed to, it's actually a message about how they're about to have a very convenient common enemy.

Y'know, someone who isn't "scared," just "greedy," one of those evil Godless Heathens, so we don't have to 'feel bad' about murdering him. One Eye time!

[tumblydovereviews]

In Defense of Caillou

Growing up, my family was one of the very few who weren't avid members of the Caillou hate wagon. It was, and still is, one of my dad's favorite shows that I watched as a kid, and he was genuinely surprised when I revealed to him all the hate the show has managed to amass. I watched plenty of Caillou as a kid, and I'm happy to report that I came out perfectly normal, if not a bit energetic for my age.

Yes, Caillou is not a perfect show by any means. With the characters having little-to-no personality outside of existing in this hairless child's kingdom, annoying voices, and the infamous tantrum scenes, it's no wonder why this show has become so hated, and still is to this day. But I don't think I'm being too generous when I say that Caillou has some merit to it that I feel is overlooked by the general public.

Contrary to public belief, Caillou isn't actually a lonely cancer patient or an alopecia victim- he is actually based off a French book series that originally depicted him as a baby rather than a toddler. To make sure kids could still recognize him even with the age increase, it was decided that Caillou would remain bald. In my personal opinion, I think the creators made the right call. Young kids are still learning how to recognize differences, and chances are if Caillou did have hair, the sudden change in appearance would be overwhelming. It may be weird to us older people, but to kids, keeping Caillou as recognizable as possible was a serviceable move.

A lot of people tend to forget that Caillou is a four-year-old, which is surprising considering that it is established in the literal first line of the theme song (I'm just a kid whose four.) Being four, Caillou is destined to have tantrums, moments where he acts bratty and less than a saint. The real issue comes with the lack of emphasis on condemning the behavior and instead focusing on solving rather than learning. Caillou's parents are the original permissive parents, and one could compare them to the overly gentle parents that exist on TikTok. They rarely call out their son when he does act out and instead dismiss his behavior to the side. The 2020s revival series does a much better job at balancing gentle fairness with firmness. When Caillou or Rosie misbehave, they are scolded for it while also steered in the right direction in an imaginative way, arguably more creative than Boris or Doris' tactics in the original show ever amounted up to being.

Caillou has surprisingly great representation for a preschool show in the 90s, especially in terms of disability and other medical conditions. The show features episodes spotlighting deafness, Down syndrome, autism, wheelchair usage, and even Type 1 diabetes. The episodes in particular talk mainly about how the chronically ill/disabled character is still able to function perfectly normally, even with the condition they have. As a diabetic myself, the episode Emma's Extra Snacks always stood out to be, even before I was officially diagnosed. Diabetes representation and the stigma surrounding it is an issue that not many pieces of media discuss, and I'm happy that Caillou has the courage to tackle a subject that can and has been botched so easily.

And let's not forget the puppet segments, arguably the best part of Caillou. These puppet segments focused on three of Caillou's furry companions: Gilbert the cat, Rexy the T-Rex, and Teddy the teddy bear as they go on miscellaneous adventures around Caillou's house. My personal favorite of the trio was Gilbert and his 'odes.' The segments, while on the more basic side, provide a good enough distraction from Caillou's escapades, even if only for five minutes, before we were forced to go back to the bald boy's basic ballads.

While writing this post, I came up a post online asking if people would rather have their kids watch Caillou or Skidibl Toilet. If faced with a decision like this in real life, I'd turn on Caillou in an instant. Caillou has done a lot of bad, but deep down, we can't forget that the show's main intention, no matter how botched it ended up turning out, was to teach kids about life. I would much rather live in a world with mildly annoying preschool shows than brain rot which serves no purpose but to gradually disintegrate a person's cognitive functions.

He's just a kid who's four, and each day he grows some more, so I think that we need to start growing on him, just a smidge more.

[inks-books]

Writeblr Reintroduction Under New Name

FORMERLY PGA-BOOKS I'M NOW INKS-BOOKS for publishing reasons.

Call me Ink(s)! Or I. N. Knight as my published name will be once I get there.

Note: I follow from xxinksxx.

I’m using this to find more writeblrs as well as promote my work written so far The Tales of Dai-Nē, Curiosity Killed the Elf, Love Triangle Gone Wrong, and more! 

First off I’m looking for: 

-Writeblrs who do fantasy, romance, and mystery but anything with supernatural elements is my jam.

-I’m also a sucker for witty characters and great dialogue!

-I would like to see more disabled characters, POC characters, and just generally fun characters to read about because that’s what I like to write about. 

Some Things You’ll See Here:

-Tag games (comment on this if you would like to be tagged in tag games!)

-Positive writing memes

-Writing ramblings

-Posting of snippets

-Boosts from other writeblrs

My works:

Curiosity Killed the Elf: Available for order here https://a.co/d/2n8QzP9 on Amazon.

(Working Title) The Blue Eyed Thief: When her friend Melody is stolen right before her eyes by men in masks, Nindé tries to go after them to stop them but fails. Nindé then goes to her family for help, but her father and brother turn against her, thinking she's lying and leading them into a trap by the government to harness dragon shifter's energy. Setting out on her own to survive and find Melody again, Nindé goes on a journey where she meets several people that change the course of her fate. Will she ever find Melody again? Or will her family get to her first? In this action thriller, Nindé finds hope, loss, and love in the journey of a lifetime to get her friend back. With no leads and nowhere to go, can she find where she belongs or will she die trying?

The Tale of Dai-Ne: The adventures of 4 teens who are swept into a world of magic and chaos and must prevent the veil between the magic and non-magic world from collapsing, all the while surviving their training to become the most powerful magic users in the two worlds. Can they unlock the secrets of the past before the forgotten race of Fae tear down the veil and take everyone out with them?

Love Triangle Gone Wrong: Ethan is a werecat in a small southern town full of paranormal beings that hide from the rest of the world. Lucien was cursed to be a wolf when the moon present and is only free on nights when there is a no moon showing. The two of them imprint on a newcomer in town named Hope. The kicker? Hope is married with a kid on the way and the boys catch feelings for the wrong person. Follow Ethan, Lucien, Hope, and their friends as this love triangle unfolds in all the wrong (right?) directions and they try to keep Hope from finding out the dark truth about their small town world.

Bonus Story:

Pinjas of the Corn (working title): A webcomic where pig ninjas and cat samurai work against each other to find the missing pieces of an ancient armor that can command the dead armies that were buried with the old emperor. The ninjas must find it before it falls into the wrong hands and the cat samurai try to take over the world. But is everything quite as it seems or is there someone working against them that they trust very dearly?

Conclusion:

Thanks for reading this far! Please tell me what you think, a little about yourself if you’re a new follower, and boosts are appreciated.

[petalstem]

Thoughts on the new graphic novel excerpt!

This is the first time in years that I have been GENUINELY excited about something relating to canon WC. Genuinely. Like, the past few graphic novels WERE good, I'm a big fan of Winds of Change, but like. I wasn't HYPED over them. I still pirated them (I did buy Winds of Change after I pirated it though, it was on sale).

I ADORE what we've seen of the art so far, the character designs are really cute and seem very in-line both with the characters, as well as just... being good! I love Rustys little striped tail and his brown ears especially. The expressions and movement is really good as well, I love the characterization we're seeing already with Rusty and Graypaws expressions.

I LOVE the inclusion of Princess! This is great for several reasons, firstly, it shows they are willing and able to make changes, something I'll elaborate on in a bit, and it also helps with the cohesion between Into the Wild and Fire and Ice. Fireheart randomly remembering he has a sister he's never mentioned or thought about ever in the middle of Fire and Ice was just... weird. Especially given how Princess is ALSO an outdoor cat who lives nearby, it's clear that he just. Wasn't written with a sister in mind. Having Princess show up as an established character BEFORE she's relevant is a subtle change I really like.

Now. To elaborate on changes. I am desperately, DESPERATELY hoping they change some stuff from the original books. While I think arc 1 is still worth reading, and still solid books, so much of it has aged HORRIBLY, namely, all of the constant horrific ableism that goes unaddressed and unchallenged. In an ideal world, they would

1. Introduce Snowkit before his death. Preferably establishing that the idea he 'can't learn' is unfounded (It is, IN THE TEXT ITSELF, shown that he IS capable of learning, given how Dappletail communicates with him through gesture. He is ABSOLUTELY capable of learning and it's ableist of the series to continue to shove the idea that he can't).

2. Have Fireheart either not make constant comments about Cinderpaw having a miserable life for being disabled (Despite the fact she's literally happy as a medicine cat), or have someone actively challenge him on this. This might not even be that big of an issue in the graphic novel if they don't let Fireheart's thoughts show up as often as they do in the books, as it's mainly him THINKING about how 'miserable' Cinderpaw is and not outright SAYING it, but I just found him incredibly tiring with HOW often he'd sulk about Cinderpaw during scenes when she was literally acting happy and healthy.

3. Give Brightheart more agency. One of the most shockingly ableist moments in all of arc 1 is when Firestar tells Cloudtail that he has to take Brightheart as an apprentice, that she'll never be a true warrior, and that she's entirely his responsibility now. While Brightheart is sitting with them. Firestar quite literally talks to her BOYFRIEND as if she's a small child who needs to be looked after and not like the fully grown adult woman she actually is. This scene could very easily be fixed, by just having Brightheart being the one talking to Firestar, and to get rid of the comparison to her being Cloudtail's apprentice. Brightheart going "Hey Firestar, I'm ready to be a warrior again and Cloudtail and I have some ideas on how I can best hunt" solves basically 90% of the problem. Also, remove the scene of Firestar saying how Brightheart being moved to the elders den was because she was going to have to be an elder. That's literally not even true, she was moved to the elders den explicitly because the elders liked having her around, and because they needed room in the medicine den, but Brightheart still needed time to heal. Firestar's literally objectively wrong there

4. This one isn't about ableism, so it's less important, but get rid of Princess's bizarre dialogue about how she "wants to decide Cloudkits destiny" and how Fireheart needs to "make him a hero just like him". It's baffling and it's really uncomfortable, why does Princess think she "deserves" to choose her kits "destiny" because he's her firstborn.

5. Also not about ableism, but I feel this is also incredibly important, don't fucking include the lines about StarClan being the reason Clan cats are moral. It's disgusting on so many levels how BloodClan is said to not care for the young, sick, or elderly ENTIRELY because they don't believe in StarClan. This childrens series should not have the fucking moral of "religion is what makes us moral", that's revolting. Just change it to its their lack of community, not their lack of religion

Ultimately, I think things are really looking up for the graphic novel. I'm certainly buying a copy, and I'm really excited to see how it turns out. I have some hope of them changing some of the worst parts of the first arc, namely, the limited ability to see Fireheart thoughts as often as the books do will most likely cut down on how often he's able to be ableist towards his Clanmate, but ultimately, even if they don't change the worst parts, I'd guess that the art alone would still warrant a purchase!

[everybody-loves-purdy]

When it comes to Briarlight, wasn't she pretty miserable when she became disabled? At least in OotS, I definitely remember it getting to the point where she was starving herself, and even in Bramblestar's Storm, we have a little scene of the Clan reminding her how big of a help she is when she was feeling down. I totally agree that there's certainly a conversation to be had with how this series handles disability, but coming in as someone who's also disabled, I don't think it's unrealistic for someone like Briarlight to want to literally walk for eternity in the afterlife either, regardless of whether she eventually came to terms with it or not (to be honest, I always saw Sandstorm's comment as a more pressing issue than Briarlight walking at all).

I don't know, I just feel like if a cat (or anyone, honestly) was so traumatized by their disability and they were then given the opportunity to heal from it, then I don't see the problem because, hey, we're not monoliths. Sometimes learning to fully accept your disability will just never happen, at least not to the point of willing to hold onto it even after you die.

That said, I would honestly love to see a cat keeping their disability in StarClan. Sure, we have Crookedstar and Deadfoot, but let's be honest, they're pretty minor characters when it comes to the main books. It's already been confirmed that Jayfeather will still be blind when he dies and who knows when that'll be or even if it'll change later, but the fact that Longtail healed from his own injuries should probably say something about him specifically, and I think it's implied Cinderpelt's leg healed as well.

Basically, I can see both sides. And in regards to Brightheart, while I wouldn't be surprised if her injuries get healed, I genuinely would love it if she kept them, especially considering the journey she went through. It'd be really fitting, especially after all this time.

Oh I definitely agree, I was only talking about the “happiest time of their life” thing with Briarlight because after Bramblestar’s Storm Briarlight was a lot happier. I just didn’t like the implication that her teenage years were literally her best ones when she did get a lot of happiness before her death.

And her appearance in Squirrelflight’s Hope is most definitely soured by Sandstorm’s comments. It just feels like Briarlight is there to show the reader and Squilf “look you won’t have to live with a disability here isn’t that great! Better to die instead!”

I feel like the most ideal solution with Briarlight to get that balance between what she would want and disabled rep would be to maybe have her legs be supported by extra stars like braces to enable her to walk (so the stars are the ones that enable the movement, like these new robotic leg braces that are being developed irl). But when she sits or lies down to relax they fade so she still sits and lies like she did in life, but the moment she wants to walk or move her legs again they instantly appear and assist her? I feel like that could strike a good balance perhaps? But I don’t have a disability myself so let me me know what you think.

[landoverwater]

15 questions for 15 friends

Tagged by @kasadilla11

Were you named after anyone? Yes, my grandmother died just before I was born so I was named for her.

When was the last time you cried? Oh boy, I cry a lot these days which is partly down to perimenopause. Hormones are crazy, kids. I wish you all a soft and even ride. I think the last time I cried was probably to music in the past ten days or so. Cannot remember which tune now, but it's a reasonably frequent occurrence.

Do you have kids? Nope, never had any desire to have them.

What sports have you played/do you play? I played camogie and tennis as a teenager. Tennis as an adult until I became disabled.

Do you use sarcasm? What do you think?

First thing you notice about people? Generally their vibe. Whether they're a drain or a radiator. This has become more apparent to me since I got an energy limiting condition. Some people will wear you out in the first five minutes and still want more. Others are calm and steady. I think we all fluctuate between the two at times, depending on circumstance.

What is your eye color? So blue.

Scary movies or happy endings? I'm all about the happy endings these days.

Any talents? Yep, I'm a musician. Was professional, made a couple of albums, toured etc. I can sing, play guitar and write songs.

Where were you born? Ireland

What are your hobbies? I LOVE books. Like, really really love 'em. Voracious reader, particularly audiobooks which are much easier for me now since becoming disabled. Favourite publisher - @torbooks Sports fan, particularly women's football. Follow the WSL, WCL and internationals. Always follow the Six Nations rugby every year. Wimbledon is a highlight of the summer for me.

Do you have any pets? I don't but I am Dogmother to my pal's dog. He lives close by and visits a lot and we like to nap together. I love dogs. All cats are bastards (although I secretly like them, and they like me).

How tall are you? 5' 2"

Favorite subject in school? English. I had a great teacher and I loved to write short stories.

Dream Job? Right now, winning the lottery and retiring would be my dream job. I'm struggling to keep my job because of my health and it sucks because I'm good at it and I love it, but I am very close to not being able to do it anymore. BUT change is good and what happens happens.

Tagging a couple of mutuals (no pressure, please ignore if it's not your bag) but if anyone sees this and wants to do it then have at it: @library-graffiti @thehardveneer @vampirerex @agitated-wasp

[dragonomatopoeia]

Do you have any recommendations for zines?

I ended up writing a pretty long front-matter to this ask, so I've put it all under a Read More. If you only want the resources, feel free to skip to the end

So: I am always going to be a little too pedantic and autistic for a comprehensive, unambiguous rec list. Someone asked me what my favorite book was once, and it felt like my brain stalled and rebooted five times.

Don't get me wrong! I love putting specialized recommendations together, like puzzle-box mystery novels, or horror genre video games with thematic emphasis on grief, or documentaries on sewage treatment

But I am very, very bad at recommending general purpose Media full stop. alas I am a fussy and particular creature who hisses at five star rating systems on review websites because I think using the same Quality Metric regardless of genre and medium and purpose is Silly

Making recs gets even more difficult with things like zines, where they are small press by nature. A lot of my favorite zines are DIY projects with Very Small Distributions. One of my prized possessions is a small, hand-drawn zine of one hundred cats the artist drew with their eyes closed, which they gave to me for free because they liked my shirt. But that's a zine that means something to me because of circumstance and taste and my own ability to pick it up in person

Your mileage tends to vary with this stuff. If I found a Repo The Genetic Opera zine that ranks every organ in the human body, I have friends that would love that WAY more than I would, and I'd probably send it their way. If I found a zine about Gundam and gender and disability and idealized bodies that have been shaped into weapons, then I have dozens of friends I would need to send copies of it to, but that wouldn't make it any less niche. Zines are for VERY specific audiences. That's one of the best things about them!

That Being Said! There ARE popular, more-accessible, or more well-known zines and artists with broader appeal, and I mean that in an enthusiastic, complimentary manner.

I've even seen zines being advertised on my tumblr dashboard. Zines like:

Oh No! A kidpix zine by Louie Zong (Pay what you want- all proceeds donated to LA Foodbank)

Golem Zine is a publication by and for Jewish creatives living in areas where Jewish life is challenged. Their Out West issue sold out before I could grab a copy ($10 per issue, physical)

FYMA: A Lesser Key to the Appropriation of Jewish Magic & Mysticism goes hand in hand with the previous zine, I think (Pay what you want)

But you're more likely to get something that caters to your specific interests and artistic sensibilities by getting in touch with your community members, asking friends who have similar tastes, or checking out some of these resources:

Your Local Library (I'm being serious here-- your library likely has connections to local artists, galleries, resources, and e-resources that can set you on the path to zines you'll enjoy)

Any local art walk or small press events near you (your library can help you find these)

Itch.io's Zine Tag (Adding more tags will help you filter these)

Papercut Zine Library's Virtual Library

Internet Archive's Zine Collections

The DC Punk Archive Zine Library (Specific to punk and DIY interests, as you might imagine)

The Library of Congress Online Zine Web Archive Collection

QZAP (The Queer Zine Art Project)

POCZP (People of Color Zine Project-- and they're on tumblr!)

Hevelin Fanzine Collection (Literally a bunch of sci-fi, horror, and fantasy fanzines that were all collected by one guy which are now being digitized)

From Staple to Spine: A Compendium of Zine-Related Books (This doesn't have zines itself, but the books included can be a great starting point for where you should be looking and what will be of interest to you)

I also recommend making your own zine! It's fun to make things and put words and images on paper.

And if you downloaded the bundle for Racial Justice and Equality off itch.io, you already own the Electric Zine Maker (Warning for brightly colored, glitched, and moving visual elements that may cause eyestrain. I would also be wary if you're prone to migraines)

I know this has been a Lot and I got a bit carried away, but I hope that this helps you in your quest for finding cool, obscure art made by people who care deeply about niche topics. Personally, that's my favorite kind of art

[lordofryoshimacoast]

How I make ocs, part one. Names, quite literally copy and pasted from a Wattpad book I made today because yeah.

Before you can even write a story or join a roleplay, you must think about your basic cat! Who are you writing/playing? What is their background, thoughts, relationships?

The best way to start with a character is with a name! In the case of warriors, names do not have significance unless they're for a specific title like leaders. But it does not mean your cat cannot have a name that means something. (Do not police people for random names either, even if it doesn't make sense.)

Well what do I consider realistic names? It all depends on setting! If your cat is in a forest, think of things that live in the forest, if your cat lives on the seashore think of sea themed names ect.

A cat named Parrotpelt sounds interesting! But would not make sense unless the character lived in a place where your cat would know what a Parrot is!

I also find it helps by thinking: what would my character's parents want to name their kit?

Being honest here, what type of parent looks at their kid ((even if they're an abusive parent)) and goes: ah yes! SKULLKIT/DEATHKIT or any other 'edgy' name. I am not saying your cat cannot have an edgy name, perhaps your cat changes their own name during a warrior ceremony or gets it changed after a bad omen or some shit.

//If you want mean names, I suggest thinking about something more realistic like perhaps: Dogkit, Ratkit, Dirtkit, wormkit, mangekit, maggotkit//

(Dirt is included because fun fact: it is a term for shit. Somehow some people don't know this.)

Think about how your cat was raised, would their parent name them based on appearance, or wait till their kit was able to play before naming them?

I'll start with a prefix for our kit.

Tumblekit.

What does this name make you think? A clumsy kit who stumbles over their own paws, maybe a kit with messy fur or a goofy demeanor? Maybe a whimsical and carefree kit?

Apprentices of course keep their prefix when they're apprenticed, so I'll just drop some other names.

Viperpaw, Bubblepaw.

Now if you were to think of these two cats, what would think of them? Who's more sharp looking, perhaps meaner?

Sharper sounding names tend to fit better with more rude/evil/snarky characters, while a softer name will fit better with a cute/kind/innocent cat.

Now your kit has grown to an apprentice now finally to a warrior! This is where a cat gains a true suffix based on their skills, personality, and even appearance sometimes. This can be really fun thinking about how your cat behaved as an apprentice then matured into a warrior!

Doeleap, sounds like an agile yet graceful cat, perhaps the highest jumper out of the apprentices!

Lizardtongue, perhaps your cat was a gossiper or a great liar!

Birdsong, makes you think of a beautiful cat, maybe with a smooth voice/appearance, maybe just great with words in general.

If you want a meaner name for a cat, maybe a leader disliked them along with a parent, then try other things like:

Ratfur, rats aren't considered clean by clan standards, maybe Ratfur was named that for their thin fur.

Perhaps your prefix is outright changed based on an event! Maybe your cat was held back from being a warrior due to failing the assessment.

Burnfur, a balding cat maybe, or a cat who was burned.

Stumblefoot, perhaps a clumsy cat who got into an accident before their assessment that held them back for a few moons, or maybe just a really accident prone cat.

Icyslip, again, maybe a really accident prone cat, maybe with ice or something.

Remember mocking names should have some sense behind them! Is the leader generally not a good cat, who likes to harm cats, then it makes sense for your cat to get that name! If your leader is a sweet angel who suddenly names someone: dookiefur, it seems oddly out of character.

Now onto a different subject, what's acceptable to name your OC. I will be covering some topics about disability, so yeah.

As stated names depend on what type of cat the leader is. Your leader could be quite ableist, but if your cat isn't ableist, DO NOT NAME THEM IN AN ABLEIST WAY.

Please for the love of god do not name a blind oc: Blindeye, or Nosight. Basically, do not name them like the arc 1 thunderclan elders!

Disabled cats if they have a good leader and parent, will usually have a normal name too! Unless the leader is intentionally bad, your character will have a normal name.

Tangent over!

Warrior cats names do NOT follow guidelines whatsoever, this is generally just the system I use when making characters. I am not your mom, if you want a OC names Bobatea or Skullcrusher, go ahead! Your OC does not need a fleshed out name!

This mainly covers clan names, rouges, kittypets, Bloodclan cats can have whatever the fuck name they want.

Go ahead, name a kittypet 100 McDonald's sprite.

[myupostsheadcanons]

Book's "Read" In 2023

Ranking of the Audio Books I've "Read" this past year. This is my opinion on the books, as "Fun Garbage > Boring Navel Gazing" and books that may be objectively better written are not always fun or engaging to read. Sometimes a really good actor can make an average book sound really good.

List from 2022

Previous entries 2021, 2020. 2019, 2018, 2017

My Top Books/Series:

Rabbits - Terry Miles: If Ready Player One was good. There is a game called "Rabbits" being played that involves looking for "glitches in the matrix" in the world around you. The winner of the game gets an unknown wish. But this round of the game is off... something is wrong... people are dying... and our main character, her girlfriend, and their best friend are putting together the clues and finding out that there is more to reality than they first thought.

Under the Whispering Door - T. J. Klune: Asshole Lawyer dies and realizes he wasted his life. Finds himself in the waiting room to the afterlife, which is a little hipster coffee and tea shop out in the middle of the North West USA. He refuses to accept his death and lingers around the shop as a ghost... wacky adventures ensues.

Alice isn’t Dead - Joseph Fink: Woman becomes a truck driver while searching for her wife?/girlfriend/so that she thought died. Until one day she saw said wife in the background of a news report. There are wicked cannibals on the road and a secret Area 51 town of murderous ghouls.

Dead Water - C. A. Fletcher: Small Island Town in Scotland gets a zombie outbreak problem. From the same writer as "A Boy and His Dog At The End of the World"... The main character is a woman from Scandinavia that married into the family from the island, she became widowed and remained behind on the island. She ends up looking after her orphaned disabled niece as there is a festival inland that the grandparents and most of the villagers left to see. The author loves the Scrappy Dog Companion Trope, and I am all for that!

The Emperor’s Edge Series - Lindsay Buroker

Conspiracy, Blood and Betrayal, (Forgotten Ages Saga), Forged in Blood (Part 1 & 2)

This is one of Buroker's first series, older than the Star Kingdom, Fallen Empire, and Dragon's Gate Series. Many of her archetypes are present, the main female character gets a crush on the Dark and Mysterious Badass. The Badass may be a killer but has a code of honor and a secret soft spot that he eventually trusts the main character with. Lots of Snarky back-and-forth dialog between all the side characters, and the main character can usually talk people into doing what she wants.

The Forgotten Ages Saga is a Prequel to The Emperor's Edge series, but I HIGHLY suggest that it gets read before Forged in Blood, as it introduces us to General Starcrest and it will be easier to understand what goes on in Forged in Blood, and reading it after Blood and Betrayal doesn't spoil the 'zinger' twist about their world-setting.

Super Powereds - Drew Hayes

Year 2, Year 3, & Year 4

Drew Hayes's first real long-form novel series. It shows some of the clunkyness of being a first series that would later be hammered out before getting to Villains' Code, Fred The Vampire Accountant, and NPC's/SS&S. It is also one of those series where the books get bigger with each installment, the 4th book could kill a cat. (suggest listening to the audio books on a higher speed)

It has a lot of collage tropes from the 2000's, young people with super powers going to parties and drinking while worrying about grades and studies. The twist really wasn't much of a twist, as we could easily guess who the actual bad guy was early on and that who we thought was the bad guy wasn't really bad... I don't really care for the "everybody is related" kind of twist, where like half of the cast ends up being from the same family and all this was some kind of messed up family feud.

It is a Young Adult Series, but it feels like the characters are Young Adults and not written specifically for a YA crowd. There is still swearing, violence, has dark themes but it isn't grimdark (like Cline's Ex-Heroes series). Explores topics like discrimination, not just the main characters being Powered, but there is a plot line where one of the main character's father was disgraced hero because he was having a secret affair with an other guy. It isn't so much that this hero was outed as being gay that caused the son to be mad at him, but that the father left them and broke contact with them that causes most of the rift in their relationship. There is a spin-off series called CORPIES that follows along on the Father trying to get back into the super hero game that takes place along side Book 3.

Other Favorite Books/Guilty Pleasures

The Grief of Stones (Goblin Emperor, Book 3) - Kathrine Addison: It was left a little ambiguous if there is going to be more in this series near the end, or if the author is going to change protagonists for another in later books. Third book in the Goblin Emperor Universe, Second in the Witness for the Dead series. The Witness for the Dead books can be read together, they are shorter together than the GE book. I wouldn't mind there being an on going series where new protagonists take over the narrative as the series progress and expand on the world building. The Witness for the Dead series is made for getting people familiar with how people live in their world... because we can't escape death no matter how rich or lucky you are.

Villains Vignettes Vol. 1. (Villains' Code, Book 2.5) - Drew Hayes: A collection of short stories that take place in the Villains' Code Universe: Including a Halloween-Town-themed story and a Christmas story where Santa is real and Fornax has to save the North Pole. Another is a better version of "Glory Road" (see bottom of list), but it is Ivan/Fornax instead and he was summoned to save a planet from demons... and leaving a trail of bodies behind.

A Fallen Empire Omnibus (Books 1 - 3) - Lindsay Buroker: Aftermath of a Revolution War that did not plan out what was to happen with the freed systems once out from under Empire Rule, and lawlessness spreads across the galaxy with entire systems left to defend for themselves. A former Revolution Army Pilot wants to head home to her daughter, but travel is expensive and the only known means of escaping the planet is by a freighter ship that was once owned by her mother. However, a Empire Super Soldier Cyborg got to the ship first and has somewhere else he wants to go. (This is a Lindsay Buroker Book, and considering her other "ships" from the other series, the main female lead gets the hots for the troubled and dangerous badass)

Eyes of the Void (The Final Architecture, Book 2) - Adrian Tchaikovsky: The Architects are on the move again, and even places that were once safe from attack are no longer. A race of people in the past left artifacts behind that once repelled the Architects. Our protags find themselves on a planet that has a city of these ruins upon it that is being systematically devastated. Humanity is fractured and don't hold an united front against the threat.

Noble Roots (Spells, Swords, and Stealth, Book 5) - Drew Hayes: Their is an estate that holds a tournament of challenges with prizes at the end for the winning team. Not a whole lot to say, one of those books that you will love if you already read the ones that came before it.

Farilane (Rise and Fall, Book 2) - Michael J. Sullivan: The one book this year that had me crying at the end... But by that point I've spent 10 books following that one character's journey and got attached to the main character of this one.

Kingdoms at War (Dragon Gate, Book 1) - Lindsay Buroker: Sweet Sciencey-Magic. A setting where magic acts more like science fiction. The Dragons created gates that allowed them to travel between worlds, the dragons left one world but the gates remained behind. The gates and the metal they are made of are very valuable and wars are fought over the possession of the gates, even though the means to use them is unknown. A young man and his mother figure out how to use these Gates to some degree and become wanted fugitives. (one of the villains is a r-pist, so this is a very much adult series)

Flight of the Magpies - K. J. Charles: Get some good smut in with your Supernatural Victorian-London Crime-solving.

The Sandman (Act 3) - Neil Gaiman: The majority of this installment involves Orpheus, Morpheus's son: their past, why they fell out with each other, and Morpheus reconciling with his son.

The 13th God (Cycle of Galand, Book 8) - Edward W. Robertson: Dante and Blaze are still trying to save the mortal realm, this time it requires having to kill a God and they have to team up with another villain to do so. I love this series... but even at this point, I hope it gets wrapped up in the next couple books.

Travel by Bullet (The Dispatcher, Book 3) - John Scalzi: If you like the early Dresden Books, give this series a shot. Uses the unique "people can't die of unnatural causes" rule, while people try to cause crimes and find work-arounds to killing other people or themselves.

Good Books, But Not Everybody's Cup-of-Tea

Song of Night (Dying Lands Chronicle, Book 2) - Jacob Cooper: Read the first book a few years ago. There is a "redemption" arc in this installment, a new prominent character who was a villain long ago becomes good and is trying to fix things (like Caeden from Licanius Trilogy or Malcolm from Riyria)

The Mad Mage of Sevendor & Marshal Arcane (The Spellmonger, Book 14.5 & 15) - Terry Mancour: The Mad Mage is a collection of Diary Entries from Minalan recording personal events that happened during Marshal Arcane. It comes off as if these entries could've been slotted in between the earlier chapters of MA, when Min isn't the person telling the story but the secondary people around him getting their first-person spotlight chapter.

Seas The Day & High Gloom (The Bad Guys Series) - Eric Ugland: Morally Gray Main Character, human gets Isekai'd into a MMORPG. The Gods of Good and Evil fight for his favor, and he frequently pisses off both of them. Don't get too attached to side characters.

Explorer of the Endless Sea & Fate of the Free Lands (Empress of the Endless Sea, Book 2 & 3) - Jack Campbell: Read Book 1 a couple years ago. A prequel to the faux-fantasy series Pillars of Reality. The series as a whole heavily reminds people about the Prophecy that a savior will be born to free the people from the oppressive governments that run their world. This series is about the woman Jules, who's decedent would one day be that person.

Resolute (The Lost Fieet: Outlands, Book 2) - Jack Campbell: Continuation of one of my favorite space series, with the most realistic space battles I've came across. This is like the 20th book in the canon, starting with The Lost Fleet: Dauntless. They are short books, can be consumed in under 12 hours each.

Vampire Hunter D: Riser of Gales, Vampire Hunter D: Demon Deathchase (Vampire Hunter D, Book 2 & 3) - Hideyuki Kikuchi: Riser of Gales is D coming across a hidden Noble fortress. In the recent past, a group of kids from a nearby town went missing exploring the fortress grounds, but showed up with loss of memory as to what happened. They did not come back whole. At least one graphic scene of sexual abuse to a minor... Demon Deathchase is the book that Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust was mostly adapted from.

Architects of Memory, Engines of Oblivion (The Memory War, Book 1 & 2) - Karen Osborne: Classism in Space. The non-citizens are poor and live as indentured servants to the mega corporations that govern society. Aliens seek out an artifact that contained the memories of their people, lost during the war they had with humans that they ended abruptly. Has a "Darth Vader" twist between the antagonist and the main character.

Priest of Lies (War for the Rose Throne, Book 2) - Peter McLean: Punk street thug, to mob boss, to wealthy lord... and not by choice. Strings are being pulled, people he once depended on can no longer be, and former allies turn as they become angered by the MC's rapid jump in status, "becoming what he once despised."

Doors of Eden - Adrian Tchaikovsky: in some paces the walls between the multiverse is thin. LGBTQ book, the main character is trying to find her lost girlfriend that fell through one of these Doors into another world. The other is a transwoman that discovered the method of creating these portals. Rich asshole bad guy.

Malefactor (War with No Name) - Robert Repino: The Sad and Depressing books about animals turned humanoid. Peace is fragile between the animals and humans, a wolf pack in the woods is stirring up discontent and rebellion.

The Elfor One (The Code Series, Book 3) - R. R. Haywood: Final book in the trilogy. They free the ships from the shadow organization and bring equality to the Lower 40's.

Stormbringer (Elric Saga, Vol 2), The White Wolf (Elric Saga Vol. 3) - Michael Moorcock: Elric fights Nazzis.

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking - T. Kingfisher: cute story, not as fun as Too Many Curses, but on the same quality and reading level. Main character should've been older (16-18ish) because she acted more like a sheltered adult rather than a kid. Bread Wizard. The Yeast Beast is the best character.

Second Hand Curses - Drew Hayes: a group of cursed story characters team up to create a task force to resolve various curses around the literary world. Hunting down wicked witches is their specialty.

Posthumous Education (Fred The Vampire Accountant, Book 8) - Drew Hayes: I love the idea, a collage for the supernatural. Kinda getting sick of Quinn's schemes tho after so many books. Dude's gotta go, please, sometime in the next couple books, Drew.

The Halloween Moon - Joseph Fink: If you liked Gravity Falls, Goosebumps, and Welcome to Nightvale. A story for middle-school aged kids that isn't too childish for older people to enjoy.

God of Neverland -  Gama Ray Martinez: Peter Pan goes missing. Michael Darling, now an adult, worked for the Magical Detective Agency. He is sent to Never-Neverland to solve the problem. Jaded Adult Visiting a Magical Land of Fantasy ruled by The God of Children.

Average Sauce

Ithaca - Claire North: It tells the story of Penelope through the voice of Hera and her omnipresence in the story. There is a lot of "men are either scum or useless" messaging and that powerful women get punished unfairly.

Pandora’s Jar & Stone Blind: A Novel - Natalie Haynes: Pandora's Jar is closer to an Essay on Women in Greek Mythology. Stone Blind is a retelling of the Medusa Myth, and why she was different from her other sisters and the loss of her compassion after her death.

The Archived - Victoria Schwab: Girl and her Family move into a spooky old hotel that was converted into apartments. Girl is a ghost-buster. Runs into two guys around her age that become potential love interests. One of them ends up the villain, and it isn't the nice guy.

Gallant - V. E. Schwab: A girl from an orphanage is found by a long-lost relative and moves to a creepy house. There is something spooky living in the shadows of the estate grounds. Author needs to work on Villain Twists.

Persephone Station - Stina Leicht: Main characters are women and non-binary on the LGBTQ spectrum, working as a team of Special Ops Mercs for Hire. The natives of the planet are being killed by the colonist humans. Main characters are sent out on a suicide mission to save the natives.

Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices - Swapna Krishina, Jenn Northington: Retelling of King Arthur but with Women, LGBTQ, and POC taking the roles of the main characters. Some of my favorite versions is the Latino Baseball Player, A Wild West Prospector turn Mogul, and Merlin visiting the AIDS clinic as a fake magician.

Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa: The Badass Swordsman. Based on a real person, but this is extra meme. Written in an era of wanting to glorify the Empire of Japan around WW2. Lots of elements went on to be used more commonly in fighting manga, movies, and other media from Japan. Adapted into several TV series and a manga (Vagabond).

The Sheep Dragon (Unconventional Heroes) - L. G. Estrella: an in-between book. Most of the stories follow around Spot The Dragon and a scheme of Timmy's to breed sheep with special wool properties. The series has a habit of getting lost in the minutia, and over explaining things.

Cosmic Delivery Boy -  L. G. Estrella: Over explaining things looks to be a quark of the Author themselves. I don't always mind it. Explaining how the Cosmic Hamsters rule over multi-dimensional shipping, how the MC's new job works, and the dynamics of the different worlds they visit. I am not nearly as invested with the world and characters as I am with the author's Unconventional Heroes books.

The Great Courses: They are Educational, non-Fiction.

Albert Einstein: Physicist, Philosopher,  Humanitarian (The Great Courses)  - Prof. Don Howard

England: From the Fall of Rome to the Norman Conquest (The Great Courses) - Prof. Jennifer Paxton

King Arthur: History and Legend (The Great Courses) - Dorsey Armstrong

The Iliad of Homer, The Odyssey of Homer, The Aeneid of Virgil (The Great Courses) - Elizabeth Vandiver

Readable/Passable

The Red Sphinx (The Three Musketeers) - Alexandre Dumas: A political, historical fiction novel taking place in the same timeline as The Three Musketeers, they do not appear in this novel. Lots of names, intrigue, and court politics done by a cast of over-the-top characters. The only real "downer" part of the book was a chapter on the Plague. The version I read had an additional story at the end to resolve an abandoned love story plot, it was better/more memorable than the book itself.

Archetype - M. D. Waters: An 'updated' version of The Handmaid's Tale. Women are having fewer children and the poor women are being bought and sold as slaves. A technique was discovered to restore the fertility of women, but is only accessible to the super rich. Main character is one of the women in the program, placed there by her husband; she has holes in her memories and her memories were not lining up as they return to her. (expect a lot of gaslighting, manipulation, and "women vs. men" flag waving)

The Collective Works of Arthur C. Clarke -  Arthur C. Clarke: Clark was one of those authors that didn't understand women IRL. It is reflected in a majority of his stories that the women are not the main characters through most of his career, and often were treated as passive and either only going along with the men, being in the way, or only pined after when absent. Like most Old School Science Fiction - many stories had cool concepts, but poor execution.

The Dark Decent of Elizabeth Frankenstein - Kiersten White: It would've been a better story if it wasn't restrained by the Young Adult genre. It wanted to go grimdark, but had to hold itself back when it would've been better to just full-send it. It depicted Victor as someone who was a sociopath since childhood and Beth was adopted into the family as a "nanny friend" that became dependent on him. She would lie for him when ever he "slips up" and was a passive protagonist for most of the story.

Bottom of the Barrel

Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny: Masters of hyper advanced technology that have taken over civilization using the names of old Earth Gods. The idea that "the gods aren't that much different than the people that created them" but in a science fiction setting.

The WORST

Glory Road - Robert A. Heinlein: Ex-Pat, Ex-Soldier Libertarian gets Isekai'd into a Conan The Barbarian Type Fantasy World. Tip toes around the idea of "is this advanced tech or is it magic?" Man solves problems of backwoods Fantasy Stereotypical world through being a dick to most people (a typical Heinlein Hero).

[liber---monstrorum]

2 ⭐ - sorry if the review sounds mean, I got infected with the nightmare vegan evil disease

SUMMARY

Grace isn’t exactly thrilled when her newly widowed mother, Jackie, asks to move in with her. They’ve never had a great relationship, and Grace likes her space—especially now that she’s stuck at home during a pandemic. Then again, she needs help with the mortgage after losing her job. And maybe it’ll be a chance for them to bond—or at least give each other a hand. But living with Mother isn’t for everyone. Good intentions turn bad soon after Jackie moves in. Old wounds fester; new ones open. Grace starts having nightmares about her disabled twin sister, who died when they were kids. And Jackie discovers that Grace secretly catfishes people online—a hobby Jackie thinks is unforgivable. When Jackie makes an earth-shattering accusation against her, Grace sees it as an act of revenge, and it sends her spiraling into a sleep-deprived madness. As the walls close in, the ghosts of Grace’s past collide with a new but familiar threat: Mom. (Source)

Review below the cut. Warning, this review will contain spoilers.

REVIEW

I'm going to be honest: there's not a lot in Mothered that I particularly enjoyed. The pacing, story, prose, and characters were not at all what I want from a horror book. There were exactly two characters I liked seeing on the page (which is stretching it, since one of them is a cat) and one horror moment that I found to be memorably creepy. While it was a fast read, if I hadn't gotten this book through Netgalley I almost certainly would have DNF'd it pretty quickly (and that is if I had picked it up at all, since it would have failed the page 99 test).

STRUCTURE AND PROSE

As it opens and ends the story, I may as well discuss the prologue and epilogue. These two follow a therapist named Silas, who claims he is excited to work with an unnamed patient due to the brutality of the murder she committed. It's obfuscated which of the two women, Jackie or Grace, committed homicide. (Keep a pin in this as we'll be returning to it.) As the prologue concludes, we are told that “[Silas’s] job, as it often was, would be to filter the drop of truth from a waterfall of magical thinking” (13). This setup, with Silas being directly indicated to be a character who would engage with the narrative about to be told, indicates that the main bulk of the narrative would be in a narrative frame. Grace would speak to Silas to confess her life story and convince him of her point of view (a la Frankenstein, the reason why I love a good frame narrative). This is not the case. Rather than being nested, the narrative is delivered by a close third person narrator, with Grace’s story bookended by Silas’s. The prologue and epilogue might as well have not been there; they add little to nothing to the narrative. All that was achieved was disappointment. The completely normal third person narration was. A Choice. Look, I’m a fan of close third person. It works fine, but it was a disappointing choice, espcecially after that prologue setup. Grace as a character does have interesting elements to her that I feel would have been far more interesting to me as a reader had we navigated the narrative directly through her eyes. Speaking of characters, wasted potential is the name of the game in Mothered. Characters have features and traits, but aren’t well-rounded. Part of that issue is with the dialogue; it is middling at best, and stilted, awkward, or shallow at worst. Additionally, there's not as much of it as one would think for a story about a toxic mother-daughter relationship stuck in close quarters.

The standout issue with the characters for me is that they are their role in the story before they are a character. Silas is not a character who is a therapist, he is the therapist character (and, upon a re-read of the prologue, is I think supposed to be some sort of reader stand-in? Which I also am not a fan of). Miguel isn’t a character who is the main character’s best friend; he is the best friend character (worse, he falls into the gay best friend trope). Jackie isn’t a character who is Grace’s mother; she is the mother character. Grace, by virtue of being the protagonist, somewhat escapes this issue, but still is not well-rounded or developed by any means. She’s supposed to be an unreliable narrator, something I normally love, but in her found to be unengaging.

Grace as a protagonist could have been interesting; she has a lot of childhood trauma, but does genuinely try to help those around her. She’s kind towards her friend Miguel and drops everything to help him when he gets sick. While has the bizarre hobby of catfishing women (which she calls damsels) online, she describes it as intentionally trying to help build these women’s self esteem and help them improve their lives. The interesting elements of her, however, aren't really fleshed out enough. The damsels plotline especially had a lot of very interesting potential that’s completely unfulfilled. It really only exists so that Grace has something to feel guilty about and hide from her mother. The pacing. God, the pacing. The pacing was strange, due to the fact that a bulk of the narrative is dream sequences. The narrative jumps forward in time rather suddenly in order to dump the reader into a dream without indication. Not only does this make the pacing feel jerky and inconcistant, it also means that the dream segments are also far less effective. While suddenly jumping from reality to a dream can be a valuable strategy because it puts both the reader and the character into a state of uncertain reality, most of the time it did not work in Mothered. The only time I did find it effective and memorable was the first; after that, since I knew what the author was trying to pull, the strategy was ineffective because I knew it was a dream, even if Grace did not.

The pacing during the non-dream segments was jerky as well. It often felt like the narrative was just trying to hurry to the next dream sequence. For example, chapter fourteen ends with Grace texting her best friend Miguel; chapter fifteen jumps to her having been hired by her old boss and visiting the new salon space. From that first paragraph, it's obvious that it's a dream. As a result, the non-horror section of the dream dragged on for far too long (since the conversation the characters was having was not only not real but also completely banal) while the horror section of it was not horrifying (as the physical danger, social rejection, and reality break Grace was experiencing was obviously just a dream). During most dream sections, especially during the second half of the book, I was bored. For a mystery/thriller novel, Mothered is not very mysterious or thrilling. While there is certainly a hidden past tragedy that is eventually revealed, the actual reveal is... kind of boring. The narrative takes, in my opinion, the most uninteresting route. In the prologue, Silas muses that the case is “a good puzzle… one that look[s] on the surface like the gory movies he still so loved” (13). But this isn’t a puzzle. All the answers are spoonfed to the reader, and if the narrative makes an attempt to hide it, it does a terrible job.

One example of a very unmysterious mystery is the intentional obfuscation of who killed who in the prologue. My thought process during the first half of the novel was this:

A) Because the narrative follows Grace in close third person and

B) never follows Jackie,

that would normally indicate to me that

C) Grace, as the POV character, will be the surviving party.

However, because the identity of the patient in the first chapter is intentionally and carefully obfuscated from the reader, then

A + B might not equal C, but instead equal either

D) an upset of expectations (for example, Jackie killing Grace)

or

E) a third act twist revealing a previously unknown actor or plot element that reveals that the killer, the victim, Grace, and Jackie are in a more complicated configuration than first presented.

As I continued reading, it became clear to me that the narrative was not going to pull anything that interested. Despite this, I held out hope that the final chapters would have some kind of twist. That hope was futile. That setup of not knowing who dies is never cashed out. It just follows the most basic, obvious route: Grace is the protagonist, and because she is a protagonist, she can’t die so she has to be the murderer. Why bother to intentionally hide who kills who and then just not do something interesting? Especially when that problem is directly presented as being a puzzle!

Speaking of basic, the prose in general was boring. It’s all very direct and blunt, which can sometimes be a fantastic way to write a horror/thriller, but it just didn’t work for me here. The prose relies so heavily on telling over showing I felt as though the narrative was spoonfeeding me. Look, I don’t always need purple-literary-Romantic-big-words-long-sentences prose to enjoy a novel, but I do need something to chew on. If I’m not finding that in the structure, characters, horror elements, or central mystery, then by god at least give me some chewy prose.

THE DREAMS

I love dreams in horror. Exploring unreality, watching the line between waking and dreaming blur, having one encroach into the other. I love it all. Therefore, believe me when I say that the premise of incorporating horrible nightmares into a horror story isn't the issue. The issue with Mothered’s dreams was the execution. First off: the horror elements were almost completely restricted to dreams. Although there were one or two moments of horror that I found genuinely intriguing, memorable, or creepy (for example, the "Mona needs a calfskin bag" dream), most of the rest of them were tropey, predictable, or overdone. While I bought that these dreams were upsetting for the character, they were not particularly upsetting to me. At some point it just got old. The use of dream horror is, to me, something that has to be done subtly, carefully, and sparingly, especially when we have a protagonist presented as unreliable. It's none of those things in Mothered. The few horrifying elements outside of dreams are hallucinations. Grace dismisses them as such pretty quickly, and the hallucinations themselves fail to be credible from the get-go because they aren’t believably slotted into Grace’s reality. Horror-wise they aren't even good ones; they're even more tropey than the dreams. Even the horror of Grace and Jackie’s toxic relationship and the childhood trauma was restricted to these dreams as well; while there were some good moments of toxicity, gaslighting, or emotional manipulation in the waking world (such as Jackie letting Coco outside), almost all the detail and nuance we get about their history is dreamed.

Even the dreamed details about their past that do carry over into the real world aren’t fully fleshed. For example, during a dream, we are introduced to the paper dolls that Hope and her sister Grace used to play with. Later, while rummaging through her mother’s things, Grace finds her sister’s doll but not her own. While the doll imagery comes back in later dreams, that doll as a symbol of her mother’s favoritism and her relationship with Grace never beomes a point of conflict between the two. There isn’t ever a conflict about it, even when those dolls get brought up in conversation. I wanted a blow-out fight about those dolls; I wanted those dolls as an element of gaslighting; I wanted those dolls to be something that lead to a direct conflict that further develops Grace and Jackie’s current day relationship. But they don’t, and neither does much else.

The book’s summary claims that moving in together makes “old wounds fester” and “new ones open.” Sure, old wounds get re-opened, but calling what happens “festering” is a bit of a stretch. Grace is reasonably stressed about her mother being a bad roommate at times and Jackie occasionally apologizes for being a bad mother to her (though those conversations are rather surface level and nowhere near as toxic as they could have been). The only “new wounds” that open are are the ones that kill Jackie, with nary a new psychological wound in sight. As a result, the level of intensity between the two never quite reaches the fever pitch needed to make that final snap believable, narratively satisfying, and sharp.

One final complaint about the dreams I couldn’t shoehorn in elsewhere, so I’m shoehorning it in here. Sometimes (typically during dreams where Grace is reliving a childhood memory), Grace calls Jackie “Mommy.” I get why—as a child, she certainly did not call her mother by her first name—but it really did not work for me. Grace was a child forced to grow up too soon; I could buy her calling Jackie mom, maybe, but mommy? I certainly can’t see an overworked, exhausted Jackie referring to herself as “mommy” to her children. It was just weird and off-putting and out of place because it was so infantile, and, to be honest, came off as funny and unserious.

All that said, the dream scenes were far better written than the scenes that took place in reality. If they'd had better connective tissue and were more subtly handled, they could have been very effective. As it is, they're disappointing.

REALITY

From the premise, title, and setup of Mothered, I expected a book about a toxic mother-daughter relationship. I expected the narrative to explore that relationship in-depth and push the tension of it to its very limits. I wanted to watch them try to navigate an enclosed space. I wanted overtures of forgiveness turning nasty. I wanted conversations about Grace's childhood! I wanted them to have small disagreements that balloon out of control! I wanted a slow build of tension and complex hatred! I wanted gaslighting, damn it! There were a few times—for example, the dinner party with Miguel—where there was subtle friction between actions and intention between Grace and her mother. Grace questions who her mother is now and how she relates to the woman who raised her. Jackie is the traditional boomer parent and brings up grandchildren. Miguel and Grace share the occasional bemused glance. It was a good early scene, which I thought would lead into later, complex, more dramatic scenes. For the most part, though, Grace and Jackie’s interactions were not all that complex, did not have subtextual implications, and were so direct and unnuanced it just was never all that interesting. While Grace certainly had reasons to doubt the reality around her, as a reader, I did not have any reason to believe what she was being told by her mother was untrue.

As mentioned earlier, most elements of the novel’s central mystery—what happened to Grace’s twin sister—were introduced in dreams, then (maybe) introdced into the waking world. The only piece evidence that emerged from a direct confrontation between Jackie and Grace was the box. While what it revealed wasn’t particularly funny, I couldn’t take the contents seriously because it just gave me Assassin’s Creed 2 flashbacks.

Anyway. On all accounts, even down to the title, Mothered is supposed to be about a toxic mother-daughter relationship. It's also about:

The pandemic (which didn't really work for me. If it had been a book set during the pandemic, it might have worked. The difference between the two is a bit difficult to explain, but it's something that made a huge difference)

Her career as a hairdresser

Growing up being the primary caretaker to a disabled sibling

A weird disease that causes nightmares and turns you vegan

An ace woman’s relationship with her sexuality and desire to be a mother herself (complete with guilt over telling a teenager to have an abortion so her life wasn’t ruined!)

The close friendship between two queer people

That same woman’s hobby catfishing other women, pretending to be a man so that she can help them improve their self-confidence

The book just tries to juggle too much in the 300-ish pages it has. While a novel of that length certainly can incorporate that many or even more plot points, Mothered just doesn’t pull off weaving them together as cleanly as it could have. As a result, the narrative becomes muddled and shallow, with the titular mother-daughter crowded out by the rest. Before I close out, I just want to complain about the whole mystery illness plot point. It's another unnecessary, underdeveloped plot element that muddies the narrative waters even further. The final hook it provides in the epilogue (the therapist is like "oh no I'm having nightmares... just like Grace did!!!") was so cheesy I actually laughed out loud. It became doubly funny when I realized one of the symptoms of the disease is becoming a vegan. I'm sorry, but I genuinely cannot take the narrative seriously enough to be thrilled or frightened.

FINAL THOUGHTS

In writing this review, I had the opportunity to sit with the novel’s themes and really consider: what are they saying? What do they mean? It’s interesting to me that initially I read this book as (at least attempting to be) feminist. Yet after ruminating on how the book handles themes such as abortion and birth, motherhood, disability, and childhood trauma, it surprised me how shallow and at times contradictory it all ended up being.

While I can see why other folks enjoyed this novel, it's absolutely not to my taste when it comes to horror, thriller, or adult fiction. Further, in my opinion, I think it's ineffective in its exploration of mother-daughter toxcicity and childhood trauma. I requested Mothered because I always heard such great things about Baby Teeth; unfortunately, I think this has indicated she's not an author for me. Thank you again to Thomas & Mercer for providing a digital advance review copy through Netgalley. If you're interested in reading Mothered, it releases March 1, 2023. Find more information about the book here.