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bloodngvts · 2 years ago

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Lorenz Love Exchange 2023 Dear Creator Letter

Dear Creator,

Thank you so much for participating in this exchange with me! I’m looking forward to seeing what you create. I’m not super picky, and I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll love whatever you decide to do. These are nothing but a brief look at my interests for certain things like tropes and ships.

For prompts, I’ve been obsessed with political intrigue and general aristocratic behavior and settings lately. Any excuse to get Lorenz into fancy attire. I like tea parties and ballroom dancing. I would prefer to keep to the main setting, but if you have a unique idea for an AU I’m down with it! I would also like to put an emphasis on Lorenz’s magical and physical combat prowess.

Storywise, I adore plot and flowery prose; in fact, the longer and more detailed, the more I like it. I’m big on writing with a strong sense of setting too. I want to be immersed, feel what the characters are feeling and sense what they are sensing. Whether the characters are rooted or adrift, where they are matters to me, and I always crave those details as a reader. That said, I also love small, bite sized one-shots. Short, succinct, and sweet! Experimental writing or poetry is always welcome.

I’m down for any combo of ships and any work that features transgender, genderfluid, and non-binary headcanons. I would enjoy narratives that explore queerness and queer sexuality in general too. This can encompass so much besides a coming out narrative. Maybe they’re on a journey of self-discovery? Maybe they already know themselves very, very well. Maybe they’re coming to terms with their gender identity or suppressing it (Lorenz is a perfect character to use to toy with these ideas).

While I’m interested in a story that–as the exchange itself centers on–is about a romantic and/or sexual relationship between the characters in the pairing, I’ll be happy with a story anywhere on the spectrum that ranges from mild to explicit sexual activity. I do enjoy erotica as much as the next person, but I also appreciate writing without it. Pure fluff or romantic buildup that ends with a kiss works for me just as well. In fact, I enjoy it more, because sometimes the chase is better than the catch (if you know what I mean).

I like mutual pining or minor miscommunications, since those are really common tropes within lighter tropes. I would only like unrequited love if it’s someone who’s in love with Lorenz, not the other way around. Romantic or sexual tension is great! Friendship and loyalty are preferred themes as well.

I am good with light to heavy angst, the latter being of the death and major injury variety, as opposed to non-con. Fight scenes and body horror are good too. Hurt and comfort is a go-to, though if the piece features a woman or non-binary person, I would prefer them to not be the one being injured. I’ve listed my general DNW below. I think that’s about it but feel free to reach out to me if anything needs clarification or if you want to know something specific. You can reach me on here, Twitter, or AO3.

Do Not Wants

Pregnancy/Childbirth/Kids. I'd also rather not receive a work that has pregnancy/childbirth/kids as the central concept(s), unless used in a horror theme kind of way. There’s an exception when it deals with the complications of a trans individual dealing with pregnancy and possible fears or anxiety around it. In general though, I don’t like family-kid fics and that’s mainly what I’m concerned about. This includes mpreg or anything that involves A/B/O.

Infidelity. Any story in which a character is cheating or is being cheated on is not for me. A miscommunication that involves somebody mistaking an action for cheating is fine, as long as it is resolved at the end. If a triangle is resolved with polyamory, that works just as well.

A/B/O dynamics.

Non-con.

Amnesia. It’s a tired trope. Unless there’s something special or there’s a unique situation to how it’s used, I don’t want it.

Bodyswap.

Genderbending to make a pairing straight.

1st Person POV

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ymiwritesstuff · 4 years ago

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Just a Little Longer

MORE NSFW, MORE GENSHIN IMPACT! This time I wrote for the wonderful Kaeya, I just thought that this particular concept was perfect for him, and I hope it is to your liking as well!

Genshin Impact

Kaeya Alberich x Fem!Reader

Summary: When you finally find the Cavalry Captain and seek his advice on a peculiar situation, he has other things in mind that quickly turn rather troublesome for him.

Notes: SMUT!, Oral (m! receiving), swearing, 18+ ONLY, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

With hurried footsteps, carrying papers in your hand you walked towards the Grand Master’s office after failing to find the Cavalry Captain in his own one, though it did not surprise you. Kaeya was never where you first expected him to be, never staying in one place. You were rather used to this, and a part of you didn’t expect to find him in Jean’s office, but once you opened the door and your eyes met his icy blue ones, you were relieved that your search had come to an end.

There he was, sitting in front of the large table, emerged in a book he had no doubt snatched from one of the many bookshelves in the office. The sound of the door opening caught his attention and he was quick to wear his usual charming smile as soon as his eyes set on you.

“Oh, it’s you (Name),” he spoke with his usual tone, not taking his eyes off you as you walked towards the table. “Is something the matter?” There was an obvious hint of mischievousness in his voice as if he had some ulterior motive. This, however, went unnoticed by you in the midst of looking through the papers. It was not uncommon for him to have that kind of tone after all.

“Have you seen these commissions?” You asked, walking next to him and placing the papers on the table, resting your other hand on the top rail of the wooden chair. You kept your gaze on the text, oblivious to the admiring eyes glued on you.

“There’s an obvious increase of hilichurls around the area, according to these,” You began, going over the papers one by one to summarize their contents. It was abnormal to have this many concerning reports about anything, let alone simple hilichurls. “I’ve ruled out the possibility that it might be just children messing with us again, there are so many of these and they’re all written with different handwriting.”

Your words went unheard by him, as he was far more interested in watching you as you leaned against the table. How close you were, how your lips moved as you talked, how your exposed neck was downright begging to be filled with kisses and marks produced by his lips. His smirk grew while you continued talking.

“I’ve already shown these to Jean, she thinks it’s for the best that the knights take care of them before they get too close to the city.” You sighed, recalling the Grand Master’s words.

“It’s just that there are so many of them. We might need every single- Kaeya, are you listening to me?”

In the middle of your speech, you had managed to lightly glance at the navy-haired knight, only to find him paying little attention to the subject at hand, only staring at you rather intensely. The answer to your question was clear from his gaze and smirk alone and when his hand settled on your waist, you knew where this was going.

“Hm? Oh, these?” For the first time he blessed the papers with a glance that didn’t last long as he quickly returned his eyes to you. “Can’t they wait? I’d much rather do something else right now.” Kaeya lightly squeezed his hand that rested on your waist, a teasing action that made you understand his motives. A sigh left your lips, though your face warmed up.

“Kaeya, these are urgent commissions, and like I said Jean wants every knight to-”

Without letting you finish your protests, Kaeya pulled you to his lap with surprising ease and immediately pressed his lips against yours. His grip on your waist was strong, belonging to a starving man that wanted nothing more than to explore every inch of your body. The way his mouth moved against yours made your stomach tingle and you instinctively placed your hands on his shoulders, quickly forgetting all about the papers that still remained on the wooden table.

Kaeya smirked against your lips, his hands moving along your sides in a way he knew he would make you melt. His small mission was a success as the combination of his hands on your waist and his tongue exploring your mouth caused a faint moan to slip from your lips. You tugged his silky locks with your fingers, pressing yourself against him in an effort to have him as close as possible while leaning into his burning touch.

His lips found their way to the sensitive skin of your neck and they settled on a familiar area that he had traced and sucked on many times before. He nibbled on the area, ran his tongue over it, and groped your covered breasts, earning him a set of soft sighs and whimpers. The heat between your legs only increased when you felt his clothed erection poke the flesh of your thighs.

A whisper carrying his name left your lips, which he was more than delighted about, enjoying the way your voice sang his name in pleasure. He moved to a fresh, untouched spot and continuing his effort to mark your (S/C) skin with his lovebites. You moved one of your hands down towards his crotch your fingers teasingly leaving light touches on his hardening cock. Kaeya let out a groan, your touch sending sparks throughout his being.

With a soft push from you, he pulled away from your neck, his eyes admiring the two marks covered in a thin layer of saliva his mouth left behind. His hands were still on you, which he then used to impatiently remove your shirt, leaving you in your bra. Wanting to see you fully exposed, he went to remove your undergarment as well, but you swatted his hand away, a playful smirk on your lips.

“Not yet. Just sit back and relax.”

Kaeya watched in awe as you lowered yourself to his crotch, his eyes glimmering in anticipation and his twitching cock begging for your attention. You were more than happy to fulfill his silent wishes he didn’t even need to state out loud.

Your hands went to unzip his pants, but the sudden sound of the door opening startled you and before you knew it, the Acting Grand Master herself was entering the room. With quick movements you slipped under the table, having been almost under it anyway, hoping and praying that Jean hadn’t noticed you.

“Kaeya! There you are.”

The cavalry captain, nervousness plastered across his face, quickly leaned against the table in hopes of concealing your presence further while trying to somehow ease the crimson shade dusting his cheeks. He cleared his throat, his heart hammering in his chest at the fear of Jean discovering what sinful acts you were about to perform.

“J-Jean! What brings you here?”

His voice was fairly normal, though it had a slight shake to it which you hoped the blonde didn’t hear.

“Actually, I was just going to ask you if (Name) had already told you about the unusual commissions.”

Kaeya swallowed a lump of nervousness as he realized that he didn’t have the slightest clue about what Jean was talking about. He was so focused on feasting your eyes on you that your explanation went over his head like a slime thrown by a hilichurl.

“Oh, (Name)? She left some time ago,” Kaeya replied, trying to appear as normal as possible and perhaps avoid having to explain the hilichurl or whatever situation as he knew he wouldn’t be able to.

As you listened to them in anxiety, your eyes traveled to his unattended crotch, his erection still very much apparent. You stared at it, your mind wandering and dirty thoughts filling it completely. You thought that since it was technically his fault that you were now uncomfortably crouching under a table, it was only fair that you’d use this opportunity to make things as difficult for him as humanely possible.

With a mischievous smirk, you placed a single hand on his thigh. He jumped slightly at that, his eyes immediately glancing at you, only to meet with your impish one.

“I see,” Jean said, pacing around the room, deep in thought. “Such a bizarre situation. Hilichurls have never been this close to Mondstadt. I already sent some knights to deal with a fraction of them, but it seems there are even more of them than we thought.”

Kaeya tried his best to remain calm but the feeling of both your hands running along his thighs didn’t make his efforts any easier. One of your hands found his crotch and his breath hitched as he felt you pressing your palm against his twitching cock and gently rubbing it.

Your eyes glued themselves on his expression that tried its hardest to remain neutral but was torn between wanting to let you pleasure him and trying to remain professional. A small part of him enjoyed the thrill, though.

Fortunately Jean hadn’t paid too much attention to her colleague’s expression, focusing more on trying to comprehend the current situation. Kaeya mentally thanked the Anemo Archon for that.

“What I’m wondering is why are they so active all of a sudden? Usually, they stay relatively still in small camps, but now they’ve been seen trying to make their way into the city.”

With painfully slow movements, you unzipped his pants, freeing his hardened cock. The red tip was dripping with precum, almost begging you to lick it off. Kaeya took a deep breath and was close to letting a moan out when he felt your hand gripping his shaft, giving it a few, slow pumps. He bit his lower lip and his breathing became heavier. His throbbing erection yearned for your touch, but his mind was chiding him for allowing you to risk getting caught.

“Could the Abyss Order have something to do with this? They always seem to be behind abnormal situations like this one…”

When Jean’s eyes turned back to him, Kaeya immediately attempted to steady his breathing and cover any signs of discomfort. Not that what you were doing was uncomfortable, on the contrary, the confrontation with Jean just made his stomach churn.

“Who knows..? Whatever the case may be, I’ll be sure to-”

His icy eyes widened when your tongue touched his tip, licking the precum away. Your hand stayed around the base, pumping him while you tauntingly wrapped your lips around his tip. Only his tip. This made Kaeya want to grab your head and push it down so the entirety of his length would be engulfed by your hot mouth but he mentally cursed at the situation for allowing you to get away with teasing of this caliber.

Kaeya shuddered and ran his hand through his hair, the feeling of you sucking on the tip of his throbbing cock sending sparks and shocks of pure bliss to every part of his body. His face got hot and he bit back a moan or two, faintly hissing under his breath.

“What was that?” Jean asked, slight concern in her eyes. “Is everything okay?”

Kaeya was almost too quick to answer which only made your smirk grow.

“Yes! Yes, everything is… fuck… E-everything is fine.”

He swallowed another moan, faint pants leaving his mouth as you slowly took his entire length into your mouth. Kaeya fought the urge to throw his head back and instead opted to dig his fingers into the palms of his hands, biting his lip with such force he wondered why he hadn’t drawn blood yet. Still, he somehow managed to keep talking.

“I… I’ll make sure to get rid of them as soon as possible.”

Your tongue glided along the veiny surface, your cheeks hollowed as you bobbed your head up and down. Kaeya took the tiniest risk and looked down at you and immediately regretted it as the sight was far beyond what he could have imagined. You stared right back at him, malicious sparkle in your (E/C) eyes that send shivers down his spine as if you having your pretty lips around his cock wasn’t enough already.

“That’s good to hear. Thank you Kaeya.”

Jean gave him a smile, somehow still oblivious of what was transpiring underneath the table she so often sat in front of.

Kaeya was on edge, your movements showed no signs of slowing down, if anything they became faster, hungrier and he was sure that it was only a matter of seconds before he would give in and accidentally let out a lewd moan or brutally buck his hips against your mouth that so skillfully pleasured him.

The feeling was beyond anything he had ever encountered, it made him wonder if it was due to the intense situation mixed with the anxiety of getting caught doing such dirty things. It was unbearable, but he loved it. Your mouth was perfect around him. Hot and wet, sliding along his length wonderfully, taking all of it so well.

“It’s still so strange though…” Jean placed a hand on her chin, eyes falling to the ground as she wondered. “What could be sucking them towards Mondstadt?”

The choice of words Jean let out almost made Kaeya choke on his saliva, and only made you more eager to make him cum. You moved your tongue against the underside of his cock, knowing how that particular action made him see stars. He pressed his eyes shut, unable to prevent the tiniest of moans from escaping his mouth. This only prompted you to keep going, wanting him to come undone from your mouth alone.

He was close, you could tell by the way his dick twitched in your mouth and how labored his breathing had become. It was adorable how he attempted to look unbothered despite being entirely at your mercy. A sadistic side of you loved this, bending him to your will, and the sight of him biting his lip while trying to mask his lewd sounds made your panties wet.

“Well, whatever the case, I’m sure we’ll be able to handle it.” Jean threw him a smile and began heading towards the door, much to Kaeya’s comfort as he was more than certain that he wouldn’t be able to hold his voice back should he reach his orgasm soon. And judging by your unrelenting pace and the fact that you effortlessly took all of him that was most definitely the case.

“Let’s hope the situation calms down, I’m glad I can count on you Kaeya.”

The only response Kaeya could give was a moan disguised as a hum of agreement. It seemed to be enough as Jean opened the door and gave him a final goodbye before finally leaving, giving you the privacy that was so dangerously challenged by the Acting Grand Master.

Now it was your turn to let out moans as you milked him with your mouth, head bobbing faster and your hands lightly caressing his balls in an effort to make him cum. This seemed to send him to a totally new state as Kaeya finally let his voice out, muttering swears under his breath as he watched you work your magic on his cock.

“F-fuck… (Name)...”

The way his voice came out with a set of sighs and whimpers only made you moan more and you grabbed his base once again, pumping him while your hungry mouth sucked him harder.

Kaeya felt the knot in his stomach come undone and with a heavy groan he came in your mouth and you did your best to swallow it all, not wanting any of the sinful fluids falling on the clean ground. His pants filled the room and he threw his head back, the anxiety from before washing away with his intense orgasm.

You released his cock with a few lingering touches that made him twitch before finally settling in his lap once more. You kissed him and he happily returned it, placing a hand on your cheek. When you pulled away, you noticed a strange glint in his eyes. It was almost disapproving but at the same time, playful.

“That one got real close, angel,” he breathed, to which you merely laughed.

“Maybe next time you should actually listen to me instead of thinking with your dick.” He mirrored your smirk and chuckled.

“You naughty girl. Teasing me like that.” His hands were on your waist again.

“You brought this on yourself.” You whispered and touched his nose with your finger before getting up and grabbing the papers with which you had originally come into the office.

“Let’s go take care of these, or would you rather actually get caught by Jean or someone else?” You glanced at him, noticing how he had zipped his pants back on and stood up. He chuckled.

“No, you’re right. We’ll have plenty of time to play later.”

You smiled in approval and turned towards the door, but stopped when you felt his hand on your shoulder, lips practically glued to your ear as he whispered:

“You better prepare yourself, angel.”

He placed a single strand of your (H/C) hair behind your ear before planting a kiss on the shell of it. The action sent shivers down your spine.

“Once we are done with this, it’s payback time.”

#genshin impact #GI #genshin impact x reader #原神 #kaeya #genshin impact kaeya #kaeya alberich #genshin impact kaeya alberich #kaeya x reader #genshin impact kaeya x reader #kaeya x you #genshin impact imagines #gi kaeya #gi kaeya x reader #kaeya alberich x reader #reader insert #not sfw

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persepholline · 4 years ago

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I've read that article about the romanticization of the Darkling and while I absolutely understand people who are pissed off/sad and I agree that it's shitty, I find LB's attitude towards Darkles stans very funny in a "girl what are you doing" sort of way because it's so petty like I've never heard of a bestselling author writing a portion of their fans into their books as a crazy cult before, it clearly hit a nerve

I'm new to the fandom but the feeling I get is she wrote something problematic ten years ago and became very embarrassed about it afterwards so she turned on the fans that liked it as a way to absolve herself. Especially since fandoms in general have become a lot more focused on discussion of what constitutes healthy/acceptable relationships to write about. And in a way I get it I had a huge Twilight phase in high school and afterwards I was super embarassed about it because of how problematic and cringe it was. But now with distance and more maturity I'm able to both still see why it was problematic and also why I was drawn to it (mostly the very unhinged representation of female desire) and like...it's really not the end of the world and no it never made me believe that breaking into somebody's room at night to watch them sleep was actually ok in real life lmao. This feels so obvious to me but apparently it needs to be said.

(More under the break this is turning into an essay, I've been thinking of this a lot recently)

And of course it's good to have these discussions about how historically romance tropes have echoed social dynamics of men's shitty behavior being romanticized and excused. But these days they often are so simplistic and focused on chasing clout that they become this weird new puritanism and moral panic about oh now women are reading novels it's going to make them hysterical or something

So you have these weird assumptions that you can't like a character and also be critical of their actions, or enjoy certain parts of a character and not others, or wish they were written differently and like them more for their potential (which I'm sure stings a bit for an author lol) - it assumes that if you like a character it means you would approve of their actions in real life, or that people just stupidly reproduce whatever they see on TV. That tendency to treat fictional characters like real people is the thing that actually worries me, to be honest, because it indicates a lack of distance and critical capacities regarding how stories are used and received. But people - fans and authors - are so scared of being called out as problematic and harassed for it that they're going to shy away from any nuance.

And yeah I think that it's good that standards of what constitutes an ideal relationship are evolving and becoming more feminist and communicative and all that and we definitely need more of that. But not all fiction has to be aspirational! Sometimes you just want to read about fucked up shit, because it's cathartic or fascinating, even healing at times because with fiction you are absolutely in control and can choose when to close the book. Toxic relationships in fiction can have an appeal specifically because they go to extremes of feeling that we don't want to go to in reality, in exactly the same way as horror movies or very violent action movies - which I don't see a lot of people besides fundamentalist Christians argue that they turn you into violent psychopaths (and that feels very obviously sexist). And for women, who are often taught growing up that love is the purpose of life, the "saving someone with your ability to love" can be a power fantasy in the same way that being a buff superhero who saves the day with their capacity for incredible violence can be a power fantasy for men. Still doesn't mean those women are going to fall in love with actual murderers or that those men are going to start beating up people at night. And love is scary, and weird, and weirdly close to horror at times, with all the potential for loss of self and being vulnerable and overwhelming feelings and potential for being horribly hurt and it should be possible for stories to explore that without anybody screaming about how this is going to Corrupt the Youth or something

And I mean I get it LB wanted to write a cautionary tale for teenagers, but it just did not work for reasons a lot of people have already written about - the fact that the Darkling is the leader of an oppressed minority and is the only one with a real political agenda to end that oppression in the first trilogy, the fact that he helps Alina come into her own power while her endgame LI is someone she keeps herself small for, that she's shamed for wanting power after growing up without any, a generally very wonky conception of privilege, and a lot of other stuff with yucky regressive implications to the point where stanning the villain actually feels liberating and empowering which is a surefire sign that the narrative is broken (unless it's a villain focused story lmao). But of course that Fanside article makes almost no mention of the political dynamics, it's all about interpersonal stuff which is an annoying trend in YA, there are those massive events happening in the background but it's made all about the feelings of the hero(ine) ; war as a self-development quest (which is kind of gross). Helnik is kind of an example of this too - I like them, I think they're fun ! But Matthias spends a big part of the story wanting to brutally murder Nina and her kind, and he mostly changes his mind because he finds her hot. Like you don't feel there is some sort of big revelation that his entire moral system and political framework is completely rotten ; it's all better because of feelings now.

As a teenager that kind of sanctimonious bullshit would have annoyed the hell out of me ; I read those books in my early twenties and I found the ending so stupid I wouldn't have trusted any message or life lessons coming from them. And I liked reading/watching dark stuff as a teenager, as a way to deal with the very intense inner turmoil I was dealing with - and I turned out fine ! Meanwhile I've seen several times women in very shitty relationships being obsessed with positive energies and stories ; they were so terrified of their life not being perfectly wholesome they ended up being delusional about their own situations.

Like personally I think the Darkling is a compelling, interesting, alluring character and also a manipulative, murderous piece of shit and that Alina should get to punish him (like in a sexy way) - but he's also the end result of centuries of war, oppression and trauma and reducing that to "toxic wounded boy" feels kind of offensive ngl ESPECIALLY since the books don't offer any kind of systemic analysis or response to oppression beyond "the bad guy should die" and "now the king/queen is a good guy our problems are solved!!!!"

In Lives of the Saints, we see how Yuri is abused extremely badly and almost killed by his father, and so when his father dies when the Fold swallows Novokribirsk, he thinks the Starless Saint has saved him. Later in KoS/RoW he's turned into this fanatic who explains away all the Darkling's crimes. The other followers talk about how the Starless Saint will bring equality for all men. Then the Darkling comes back and actually thinks his followers are pathetic, which feels again like a very pointed message to his IRL stans. Which is absolutely hilarious to me. Like oh no, if he was real he would not like you and think you're pathetic ! Yeah ...but he's not. Real. Damn right he would not like the fics where Alina puts him on a leash. I'm still going to read them. What is he going to do about it, jump out of the page ? Jfjfjjdhfgfjfj

Anyway I think the intended message is "assholes will use noble political causes for their own gain and to manipulate people" and "being abused/oppressed is not an excuse to behave badly." Which. Sure. But that's kind of like...a tired take, honestly ? A big number of villains nowadays are like this ; either they've been bullied as kids, or they're part of an oppressed group, or they have "good ideals but too extreme". This is not surprising because a lot of mainstream heroic narratives present clinging to the status quo as Good and change as chaotic and dangerous. And like sure in real life people often do bad shit because they're wounded and in danger. But if you want to do a story like that, you have to do it with nuance, talk about cycles of violence, about how society creates vulnerable people to be exploited, about how privilege gives you more choices and the luxury of morals, etc. The Grishaverse does not have this level of nuance (maybe in SoC a little bit but definitely not in TGT). So it kind of comes off as "trauma makes you evil" and "egalitarianism is dangerous" and "if you're abused/oppressed you're not allowed to fight back". And ignores the fact that historically, evil generally comes from unchecked privilege.

I guess my point is that there are many things I like about LB's writing, she knows how to create these really exciting character dynamics, and the world she has created is fascinating. But these stories are not a great starting point for imparting moral lessons. And her best characters tend to be, at least in canon, the morally grey ones. I hope one day she'll be at peace with the fact that she wrote the Darkling the way she did and leave his fans alone but in the meantime I'm just not going to take this whole thing seriously I'm sorry

#darklina #the darkling #alina starkov #aleksander morozova

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enbylesbianism · 3 years ago

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ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS: Simon Snow trilogy wrapped! (review)

Hi, there! It took me a while to finish this post, as I could talk about it for... a long time (not necessarily a good thing), but I got it! I like praise, so if anyone wants to tell me I did a good job... Also, I might edit this post later on. I don’t remember anything else I’d like to add, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I did after posting. My brain does not obey me. Anyways, off to it! By the way, I won’t give this book a real rating.

While this is a review on Any Way the Wind Blows, I intend on analysing some points of the overall series too. The book starts where Wayward Son left off, the end of the road trip, Simon and Baz having problems in their relationship, Penelope helping Shepard with his curse... and the whole situation of the NowNext vampires. Rainbow Rowell only seems to remember the first part. That leaves us with the second book of the series ignored almost completely, with the exception of Simon and Baz’s feelings as well as Shepard’s existence.

Don’t get me wrong, aspects of the book are mentioned, but never in a truly important way. Lamb, the Vampire King, is mentioned by Simon, but only focusing on his and Baz’s relationship, never about the fact that there are a bunch of vampires (supposedly ‘evil’) in the U.S. but I guess what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? I could count on one hand the times the NowNext vampires were mentioned (like, literally, this isn’t an exaggeration, I looked up ‘NowNext’ on the e-book and only got five results), all of them either being one of them considering telling someone else about it, then not following through with it, or dismissing it as a concern for Lamb. Which makes the plot of Wayward Son completely useless for the trilogy. Now, that wouldn’t matter as much if everything else had been properly developed, but we definitely can’t say that.

We are introduced to a brand new, poorly developed villain, Smith-Smith Richards, whose character arc is as ridiculous as his name. He’s one of the fake Chosen Ones that started appearing after the events of Carry On (and the only one to be mentioned and/or defeated, for that matter). It becomes clear that presenting as Simon Snow-ish is part of his brand, especially when Baz describes him as looking like the Netflix adaptation version of Simon, and that he was raised and guided by his uncle, who’s just... there. I don’t think it would’ve been hard to make him manipulating Smith-Smith into believing he’s the prophetic savior of the Magickal World, which would not only make both of their characters more interesting, but it could also serve as a parallel of Simon’s relationship with the Mage. Richards also has some special powers such as increasing a mage’s magic for a limited amount of time, but taking it away afterwards, as well as making someone immune from spells. It’s worth saying those aren’t skills that are usual in the Magickal World, or else there wouldn’t be so much confusion and shock from people (specially Baz and Penny, who would definitely have heard of something like this before), but we get no explanation on why or how Richard has them.

Then, we have the Salisbury’s. We, as readers, already know Lucy and Davy are Simon’s parents, making Ruth his grandmother. It’s noticeable that Rowell builds up to that discovery, by making Simon get along with Ruth instantly, him thinking about Lucy a lot etc. It makes us excited to read the part where they actually figure it out, to know how Simon would deal with that, him dealing with the fact that he’s the Mage’s son and the fact that, technically, he killed his father. I suppose that’s the point, but actually getting to that part was incredibly underwhelming. The way they discovered about Simon—being able to lift a family sword—hadn’t been mentioned or hinted at before. One would’ve expected Simon, who’s particularly interested in swords as it’s mentioned many times throughout the series, to notice a freaking Excalibur at the Salisbury’s place before.

And speaking of noticing things: when it’s finally revealed that Simon is Lucy’s son and the Mage’s heir, Baz pointed out the uncanny similarities between his boyfriend and the deceased Watford principal. “Those narrow eyes. That tilt of his head. I thought... I thought he’d learned it. Was imitating it.” + “Merlin, Simon, you even look like him.” (Any Way the Wind Blows, chapter 86) Simon was the Mage’s protégé for years and I assume the Magickal authorities knew that he was the one to inherit all of his money and personal belongings, but no one, in the whole British Magickal community, thought about them being related? I refuse to believe there were no conspiracy theorist teachers at Watford or that Mitali or even the Pitch’s alongside everyone who was against the Mage didn’t at least check to know if there was something behind those characteristics. Baz literally said (chapter 88), “I think it’s undeniable. I’d cast ‘Flesh and blood’ on them, but it would bounce right off of Snow (...)”, so there is a spell for that. Plus, we didn’t even have one whole chapter of Simon dealing with this information! The chapters (no more than five, out of ninety-one) were divided between Simon, Baz and Lady Ruth’s POVs. He’s the main character, so one would think he’d get more development.

Another point that felt rushed was the romance. While Simon and Baz’s relationship wasn’t, as it’s been a topic Rowell has explored for three books (we’re not counting Fangirl here, as their ‘participation’ on it was minor and their personalities weren’t as consistent as in the trilogy. Not that it is that consistent there), the others just felt like she wanted everyone to finish the trilogy with a pair. I’ll start with Shepard and Penny. There were fans who liked them together before Any Way the Wind Blows, but it wasn’t hinted at—it was more like a fandom thing. I personally like them as a couple, but it could have had development and, maybe, foreshadowing in Wayward Son. I mean, they did fight monsters during a huge part of a road trip together.

The next one I’ll talk about is Agatha and Niamh. I love them, don’t get me wrong. Actually, it’s precisely because I love them that I wish they’d gotten a better treatment. Niamh wasn’t introduced before Any Way the Wind Blows. I get why she wasn’t introduced in Carry On—it was interesting to see a character who wasn’t caught up in Simon and Baz’s drama during the school years—but a hint of her existence could’ve been left in Wayward Son. Agatha is an important character on it, and a mention of her father training an aspiring veterinary could’ve fit somewhere, as a hint, maybe. (Also, Lucy, the dog, being absolutely forgotten during this book when a lot of Agatha’s time is spent in a veterinary clinic...) Besides, we could get the vibes from them, but after they kissed, there was barely any content. We didn’t get them calling each other ‘girlfriend’ (or if they even like that label at this point), or the aftermath of the kiss, or a POV from Niamh. Or Niamh appearing the epilogue? If Agatha was taking care of the goats, I’m sure Niamh would have a part in that too. Still on Agatha’s character, but not on Niamh’s, it felt like Rainbow Rowell was setting up for aromantic and asexual Agatha, specially because of this quote: “It was like she'd pulled the feeling right out of my heart. I could have kissed her. (I still wish sometimes that I wanted to.) (That would feel like an answer to... the question of me. Then I could say, 'Oh, thats who I am. That's why I've been so confused.')” (Wayward Son, chapter 4).

And I was leaving the best (I need to be sure everyone knows I mean this sarcastically) of the romance topic for the end: Fiona and Nicodemus. It’s just... so forced and undeveloped. Not even because, to me, they’re both gay as hell. There was just... such a lack of development! I don’t think we had any interaction between the both of them before Any Way the Wind Blows. There was no foreshadowing or why would Fiona, a vampire hunter from a family of vampire hunters, would marry... a vampire! I’d already find it weird to see fanfiction of them as a crackship, but it’s canon?! Like, canon as in they’re going to get married and use Fiona and Natasha’s mother’s ring? Seriously, nothing will take from me that this is a lavender marriage (as I’ve already discussed with my best friend, which inspired this post of theirs.)

I’d also like to speak about a topic that’d been hinted throughout the series, especially post-Carry On, which is the criticism towards the Magickal Community in the U.K.. That criticism is very much embodied in Shepard’s character. It’s explicitly said that the British mages have some kind of supremacy towards other supernatural beings, such as vampires for example, gatekeeping literal magic. Up until relatively recently, mages with weak links with magic couldn’t attend Watford (and that’s a major plot point in the final book) and there’s a denial towards any other kind of magic except the ones that are part of their craft. Even within the Magickal community itself, there are more important families that are more likely to succeed, like Natasha receiving criticism for marrying Malcolm, as a Pitch. It felt pointless not to tackle the issues you’ve set up yourself in your own universe. Penelope has very strict morals related to magickal law and beliefs, something that she could’ve deconstructed, especially considering Shepard, her love interest, symbolises that. Another point related to that is, the trilogy is very clearly heavily inspired by Harry Potter, where many of those points are very clear (e.g. wizard supremacy in relation to other species, such as werewolves and domestic elves and the status quo that makes some traditionally magical families more influential than others, like the Malfoy’s vs. the Weasley’s), so it’s not an easily forgettable concept.

The series also had a lot of inconsistencies. The one I’ve seen talked about more often is Simon and Agatha’s... intimacy status, let’s call it that. Simon’s whole thing in the first book was that he struggled controlling his magic when experiencing intense emotions, which makes it hard to believe that he managed to have sex withount an... accident. Besides that, though, there’s this quote, “She (...) presses a kiss into my temple. No one has ever kissed me there. No one has ever kissed me anywhere but on my mouth” (Carry On, Chapter 27), but in Any Way the Wind Blows, when Simon’s about to have his wings cut, Agatha says, “It’s a strange feeling to look at someone’s chest and know it’s nothing to do with you anymore, but still to remember kissing every inch.” (Chapter 14)

So, we have established that Rainbow Rowell’s work, both character and plot driven, is flawed. “But we got the characters interacting for the closure of the series, at least!” Well... we got interactions between the canon romantic relationships, yeah. But besides that, we didn’t get much. There were no interactions between Agatha and Penny, or Shepard with Simon and Baz. Or Penny and her mother figuring stuff out. Or literally anyone with a therapist. And not gonna lie, the interaction we got between Baz and Dev was underwhelming, to say the least. Niall is nowhere to be seen, too.

Rainbow Rowell’s writing is beautiful: she writes poetic lines that make the book seem perfect at first glance, if you don’t think about it for too long. Her words are very shiny, but once you get use to that light and see what’s behind them, what’s between one shiny quote and another, it has so many flaws and plot holes that it reads like a first draft. There are many concepts in there that are genuinely good: the rest of the trilogy focused on the protagonist dealing with the trauma of being a child soldier instead of being entirely an adventure, Simon being unlabelled, a fake Chosen One that gives mages fake hope... Those are all good ideas, but so poorly explored that, despite being an entire book/trilogy, it still feels like a writing pitch or something among those lines.

I felt iffy about other things during my reading of the series, but they aren’t exactly plot points, so I’ll just list them below:

Mitali, Penny’s mom, including ‘discovering your bisexuality’ as a mid-life crisis thing

As I’ve seen people talking about biphobia/bi erasure in the books, I’ll be including this post that features both unlabelled and bisexual individuals talking about the topic (it isn’t my place, as a lesbian, to talk about this, that’s why I decided not to do so.)

Romanticising of Baz’s suicide (a.k.a. chapter 61) in the first book. If you’re not in a good place mentally, like I was when I first read Carry On, I hope you know that a kiss or romance doesn’t help any mental illness you or others might have. Don’t let anyone use your guilt to manipulate you. Paraphrasing Alice Oseman in their graphic novel Heartstopper, love can’t cure a mental illness.

Any Way the Wind Blows was... very horny. I can’t point out how this makes the book bad exactly, but it wasn’t something I enjoyed. One of Rainbow Rowell’s strongest skills is that her quotes, when loose, are good. They tend to be poetic and just beautiful, overall. But in the... explicit scenes, these skills were barely used, and I felt like I was reading NSFW tweets off of someone’s private account on Twitter. Besides, the first two books of the series weren’t written like that, so the change was very sudden.

The older people could’ve been more explored. Penelope and Mitali’s relationship and how similar the both of them are compared to each other, Daphne and Professor Bunce’s insecurities and why they believed in Smith-Smith, Fiona, Nico, and Ebb... Also, the Mage and Lucy. We could’ve had more on them, y’know.

The pop culture references. They made the book read even more like Twitter’s feed. Honestly, if I wanted to read prompts and nice ship content alongside memes from Twitter with some horny thoughts sprinkled all around, I would’ve opened the Twitter app. Or Tumblr, Instagram, whatever.

The POV switching felt lazy to me at times. It’s nice to know how different characters are experiencing that situation, yes, but sometimes, like during the discovery that Simon is a Salisbury, it read as if Rowell wanted to create tension, but couldn’t think of any other way to do it except the switching around.

Narrative wise, I think Simon and Baz should’ve spent more time broken up.

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astermacguffin · 4 years ago

Text

The semantic logic of AMVs

I finally finished the post I promised to @katebushstandean , so here's my contribution to the blossoming field of spn amv studies.

In this post I made about fanworks and intertextuality, I argued that AMVs can be referred to as a "discourse between discourses." What I meant by that (and I elaborated on this in the post) can be summarized in this argument structure:

(1) AMVs are typically a dialogue/discourse between a song and a show/film.

(2) A song is already a discourse of its own (i.e. it's the dialogue between music and lyrics).

(2) A show/film is already a discourse of its own (i.e. it's the dialogue between the visual and auditory elements of the show/film).

I want to push this argument even further and argue for a more generalized theory of meaning that should (ideally) be applicable to any piece of media.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

Let's start by analyzing at least just one medium at a time. Take music, for example. Without lyrics, how does music convey meaning at all? Now, I won't go too much into either music theory or the psychology/sociology of music (since I don't think I'll be able to give these subjects any justice anyway), but I want us to look at music more structurally/linguistically. (I am certainly not a linguist, but I am a training logician and I think it would be interesting to extract the logical/semantic relations that occur in music if we treat it as a "text".)

If we want to break down music into its smallest possible units of meaning (the same way we break down language into morphemes in morphology), then we would probably end up with notes, beats, and chords as our basic units (among other stuff, like timbre). Obviously, we cannot subject music to the same reductionist approach we do with either natural or formal languages (e.g. breaking down language into morphemes/propositions/subject-predicate relations/functions).

This is due to the fact that music doesn't really agree that much with the principle of compositionality—that "the meaning of the whole is a function of the meanings of its parts and their mode of syntactic combination." (If you disagree with Montague semantics, you might even argue that the same is true for natural languages and that only formal languages are truly compositional, but I digress). Generally, there is "more than the sum of its parts" when it comes to music; the meanings of a chord don't solely depend on the meanings of the individual notes that make up the chord.

Anyway, back to music and meaning-making.

Yip Harburg has this interesting quote on songwriting, which Adam Neely references here at this mark (15:29–16:10), a quote he originally got from Ben Levin. The quote says: "Music makes you feel feelings, lyrics make you think thoughts, songs make you feel thoughts." I think this quote best encompasses what I mean when I argue that songs are "discourses" of their own.

But even without the lyrics, music on its own is already "discursive." A single note played once doesn't really "mean" much, in the sense that we can't really gather as much meaning out of it alone. The note's relationships with other musical elements is what opens up the realms of meanings that we can attribute to it. (This concept is explored much better in here.)

The same thing is true with natural languages. Morphemes and words have meanings on their own, sure, but they don't really say that much on their own until you place them in a specific order with other morphemes/words. A single sentence is already a discourse between the units of meaning that compose the sentence.

I have been using the term "discourse" a lot, but what do I mean when I use the term? Without spending too much time explaining my own theory of discourse, let's define a discourse as a "series of discursive units." A discursive unit consists of two parts: a prompt and a response. What's important to know about responses in a discourse is that you won't really be able to fully grasp what they mean without knowing what the prompts are (i.e. what they are responding to).

When I describe song and lyrics as "discourses", what I think I really mean is that they are "discourse-like" (hence the description, "discursive"). The words of a sentence treat each other as their own prompts/responses; they're not as meaningful alone, but when taken together, meaning emerges. The same goes with music.

Taking this to a more macro scale, we can treat each episode of a show as their own discourses, and each episode "responds" to the others in some way. The harmonies, tensions, and contradictions that emerge from the "conversations" between these episodes are what we often respond to when we make fanworks (fanart, fanfics, meta, and the likes).

Generally, there are two kinds of "conversations" that happens within and among pieces of media:

The intra-discursive (the conversations that happen within a single text, like how a show's episodes converse with each other), and;

The inter-discursive (also called the intertextual, or the conversations that happen between different texts).

Now that we have established these terms and concepts, we're FINALLY talking about AMVs.

THE DEAL WITH AMVS

I've already touched upon this in my intertextuality post, but it's worth repeating. What I believe AMVs do is reveal the intra-discursive using the inter-discursive. What this means is that by making the subject text converse with other texts (e.g. by making clips from Supernatural "dialogue" with a song of your choice), you are somehow extracting the implicit discourses present in the original text.

When we talk about fanworks (and transformative works in general), we often talk about it in terms of recontextualization, as well as adding something new that wasn't there in the original text (e.g. fix-its). But a neglected aspect of fanworks that I believe AMVs bring to light is the revelatory power of fanworks, like the way it makes the people (may it be the audience or the original creators) confront the implications and implicit meanings already present in the text.

(Learn more about the semantic logic of AMVs below the cut)

Another interesting thing that AMVs do is that it often makes the subject text subservient to the song. More often than not, it's the show that has to adjust to the song; it's the show that has to be sliced and diced in order to fit the song. This is simultaneously a form of violence and a form of liberation—violent in the sense that goes against authorial intent (with "author" here used loosely to refer to the forces that brought the piece to life, may it be a single person or an entire production team) and liberating in the sense that the latent or supressed narratives are brought to light.

Even before the AMV is done, this discursive process is already made explicit by the act of editing. In most editing softwares, you get to see the timeline of your material and an explicit divide between the audio and the visual elements. The audio stream is already a discourse of its own, and the same goes with the video stream.

When you vertically slice these juxtaposed streams and cut out a portion of it, you now have what I call a "semantic moment" locked in time. We can imagine the audio being divided into these little semantic moments (e.g. the chords, a key change, a shift in dynamics or tempo, etc.) and something similar can be said with the video (e.g. vital scenes in the show). Now, a semantic moment doesn't have to be special or eventful; in fact, most of them aren't. In fact, all of experience is nothing but a series of semantic moments (i.e. moments of extractable meaning).

Now, imagine an AMV playing in front of you right now. Let's represent the audio as a series of semantic moments from A1 to An and do something similar to the video, from V1 to Vn. If we represent the flow of time from left to right, then we can talk abstractly about experiencing an AMV like this:

A1-A2-A3-A4-A5...-An

V1-V2-V3-V4-V5...-An

Every moment of our experience of the AMV can be divided into a series like this. AMVs are art objects that unfold over time: they are temporal, and therefore we cannot immediately access all parts of the semantic "discourse" of the text all at once—we have to wait for them to happen.

Let's say I want to analyze Semantic Moment number 6 because something interesting happens there: the chord suddenly shifts into a minor key while at the same time, the video shows a character turning their back to the camera. Now, there are three possible ways to handle this (none of which are mutually exclusive; we usually perform these modes of analysis simultaneously):

Vertical analysis - analyzing the discourse between A6 and V6. What meanings are brought up when we take these two elements in conjunction? What associations do we have with minor keys, with people turning around, and how these associations influence the other?

Horizontal analysis - analyzing the discourse between A6 and its earlier counterparts, A1-A5, or between V6 and V1-V5. Earlier, we have discussed that a single chord or a single word on its own doesn't mean that much; it's their relationships with other elements that bring out their "meaning space." What "narratives" or "metaphorical gestures" are brought upon when you consider these semantic moments as discourses/texts as a whole?

Diagonal analysis - analyzing the discourse between A6 and V1-V5, or between V6 and A1-A5. Here, you make the semantic moment converse with the "history" of its counterpart. What are the events that happened in the earlier parts? For example, knowing that the earlier parts of the song were in major key before the turn-around scene might influence our reading of it. Similarly, knowing that the earlier scenes depict a happy relationship might influence how we read the minor shift.

Again, we often do these analytic slices as quick as possible (and often simultaneously); it's not something that we often do consciously (unless the subject text is actually that dense and difficult). It's instinctual to us to bring up these comparisons and engage with the explicit and implicit discourses of meaning happening with any kind of text we interact with.

Now, here's where it gets more complicated. Unless the AMV in question is just a scene lifted from the show and overlaid with a song, it would usually involve a bunch of cutting and joining between different scenes/episodes. What this means is that you're taking an already temporal object and reassembling it into a new order in time. This means that we might've initially thought of as V1-V2-V3-V4-V5...Vn might actually be V3-V1-V6-V19-V8...Vn or some other permutation.

Again, this process is simultaneously violent and liberating—violent because you are destroying its intended order, and liberating because you are negating the tyranny of linearity and contiguity. What I mean by this is that people tend to focus on the discourse of the semantic moments depending on how close they are in space and time. For example, we might focus on how V1 is in dialogue with V2 and how V2 is in dialogue with V3, but the farther the semantic moments are, the less likely we are to notice their discourse.

What AMV editors do is rebel against the tyranny of this habit and bring into light the connections that might have gone unnoticed without the intervention. We often talk about how certain fanworks are more analytical than transformative (e.g. fanfics that function more as character studies and meta analyses of the source text), and there certainly is a spectrum of this among different genres of fanworks. I believe that AMVs, no matter how transformative they are, cannot help but invoke a certain analyticity in their production and reception.

And that concludes my AMV essay. I'll probably add more to this when I gather more thoughts (like how these three posts are related in some way).

Lemme know if y'all wanna hear more about my theory of discourse or something else related. Support your content creators and reblog!

#spn #spn amv studies #long post #aster writes

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ms-demeanor · 4 years ago

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What makes you believe the idea that god doesn’t exist? I was spiritually abused growing up and as a result have become very anti Christianity but I consider myself agnostic because I can’t quite make up my mind as to whether or not god exists at all in the first place. I think you you’re good at expressing your thoughts so I figured I’d ask and maybe it’d help me come to terms with what I do or don’t believe myself.

I’m sorry about the abuse you dealt with. That’s terrible and I hope you’re in a safer place now.

I’ve just never been presented with evidence compelling enough to make me believe that gods exist. Anything that people have presented to me as proof of a god or gods seems at best like philosophy with no grounding in reality and more frequently like grasping at straws.

My catholic godmother liked to argue that a single eyeball was too complicated to evolve alone, isn’t that proof enough that things must have been made, not evolved, and that always seemed remarkably silly because you can watch generations of bacteria go through tremendous evolutionary changes in real time so with *four point five billion years* of course very complicated things could evolve.

Almost everything that people point at that is seen as spiritual or supernatural has some perfectly mundane, reasonable, usually scientific explanation so it seems like MUCH more of a leap to believe there’s an ineffible spirit illuminating humans that carries on to an afterlife that we’ve got no way of testing for or exploring and no trustworthy accounts of even from people who have temporarily died than it is to simply believe that we’re alive and when we die that’s it, we’re gone, we end like trees and rabbits and stars do, no further magic or mystery than that.

Also people describe their religious miracles to me - eight nights of light, transubstantiation, rising on the third day, floating through focused meditation - and it all feels like hearing about the labors of Hercules. Neat. A cool story. Pleasant if it helps someone find meaning.

And utterly impossible to literally prove or verify.

And I really, honestly do not begrudge people for believing in these things, and I was not joking when I mentioned my friends who literally believe in the Norse pantheon - I don’t begrudge them and I don’t begrudge modern Hellenist practitioners or witches or what have you. That’s all fine. So long as the beliefs don’t hurt people then I don’t have anything to say against them.

(And before we get into it with atheism: yeah, atheist states that subjugate religious minorities DO exist and I think they should stop sending their Muslim population to reeducation camps and should stop persecuting their christians and should stop imprisoning people for political speech)

But I really don’t have a good, compelling argument for you because I don’t feel the need to prove a negative. I’ve never seen any positive evidence that would prove the existence of the supernatural and until I see such a thing I’ve got no need or desire to update my position.

These are literally all just stories to me. A lot of them are beautiful stories, all of them are culturally relevant to someone, many of them are important in ways that I see as good and many of them are important in ways that I see as harmful.

My mother in law likes to tell me about miracles all the time. “And then, even though no one thought it was possible, the little boy walked off the stage.” “And then the woman who had prayed to the saint was cured of her illness.” “And then the little girl came back from the dead and said that she was surrounded by a white light and the love of christ.”

Those. Those sure are stories. I’m glad if they help comfort her, I wish she’d stop telling me that me and my partner would be healed of our illnesses if we’d just go to church because it is harmful to hear that you’re sick or chronically ill or in pain because you just don’t believe enough or you don’t believe the right way.

I know it’s a lot harder to walk away from a faith you were raised in. I know that you were taught miracles as miraculous and were presented with these stories as self-evident, but if you find yourself asking how it’s possible to NOT believe these things I’d say to play with that thought a little. Ask yourself why you DO believe these things. Ask yourself if someone came to you with a claim that no, that wasn’t a flood the god of Abraham wrought, it was pralaya and the destruction of the lower ten realms, if you’d believe that and why or why not (deluge myths are an interesting way to play with this concept because so many cultures have them).

My grandfather was a magician from the 1930s until the 1990s. Sometimes I feel like that explains a lot about my worldview, sometimes I feel like it explains nothing at all. But what it meant to me is that I grew up knowing that magic was something that people could make. You could make people believe a lot of things with thread and mirrors and silk scarves, so if you wanted to know if something was REALLY real, you had to poke it and prod it and ask it a lot of questions and look at it from different angles.

The supernatural doesn’t really stand up to that scrutiny. You poke it and it falls over, you look from a different angle and you see the plywood behind the mirror.

And in spite of all of that I do believe that people in general are good and courageous and wonderful. There are miracles that I *do* believe in but they’re all the very mundane, provable kind. I believe in the RMS Carpathia shutting down hot water to the ship to make it to the survivors of the Titanic just a little faster. I believe in people leaving water in the Arizona desert to help people trying to find their way to someplace safe. I believe in divers swimming in the dark to save some little boys in a cave. I believe in Jonas Salk saying the patent of the polio vaccine belonged to the people because you wouldn’t try to patent the sun. I believe in handing out sandwiches in the park and helping your neighbors.

Laying on hands to heal the sick is a nice story. Doing all that you can to help the people around you is a miracle. And I don’t really need the nice story if I’ve got that.

#atheism discourse

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chemicalpink · 3 years ago

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Hey, I hope you are doing good this was a thing that was wondering me so there are lot of bts future spouse /soulmate/twinflame videos being made on youtube and honestly everyone is being psychic like it has become a shitshow and what was previously just for curiosity fun and entertainment are becoming extremely emotionally invested in the topic especially for maknae line soulmate it would be interesting if the can do a tarot reading or your spiritual experience why is the future spouse saga turning ugly and does universe what us to know something through it !? Because it's becoming pretty crazy right now

Okay so I believe that yes, the spiritual part has a lot to do behind this occurrence, but I also think its roots lay on psicosocial matters and honestly I could go on for days about this but I’ll try to restrict it to a few points that you’ve mentioned

Why all of a sudden everyone seems to be tarot readers/astrologers/psychic?

The capitalism behind celebrities and how does that play a part in what is going on?

Are these people accurate at all?

How does energy shifting play a part in this?

Is the soulmate journey even something a third person would be able to note?

But first a Disclaimer: this opinion/rant is based on my experience with spirituality, I am obviously a mere mortal, so I do not hold the absolute truth. Spirituality is a constant learning process and it is open to discussion and interpretation of each person. I am also now a proud sociologist graduate that specialises in a lot of the stuff that has to do with what anon is asking, I’m a social behaviouralist applied to the entertainment industry as well but I’ll also provide my resources in the end.

A/N: Some of you might not yet be ready to read all of this, if I see ANY of you trying to start beef with me, even after the disclaimer, I'm gonna block you. If you want to talk more about it or want to discuss it further, DO SO OFF ANON. ISTG you’ve been warned, I’ve been working on this for the longest time, it even has resources to back all of it up! I’m so glad anon asked, I’m done being diplomatic on this topic (I know people that usually ask stuff are so respectful and i love you guys for it, this note is for those people that regularly jump on my asks to stir things up)

You guys are in for a whole academic article if you decide to read this

SO FUN AND EXCITINGGGG Let us start with behavioural economics as our base to understand the whole phenomenon, it's such a broad and kinda complex concept (especially since I’m trying to extrapolate it to this particular scenario) so let me do my best. It has a lot to do with trend following, although at least to me, it's unclear how exactly this content came to be (soulmate readings, channeling messages, etc) I am guessing it had something to do with an intersectionality between the general spirituality boom that we’ve met with during the pandemic and some person that just as any other marketable opportunity, saw a bridge between fandom life and this spiritual life (both prominent trends in the last two years or so) and honestly, it worked perfectly, whatever their initial intentions were, they threw out a new “product” and it kind of sold itself, two different trends coming together… turned into a behavioural game theory where if you played the part that allows your content to be consumed, you’ll get rewarded for it. In more simple words, tarot meets fandoms (alternatively, tarot meets BTS) is great as it is! but the fan behaviour (which we’ll talk about in a bit) positions the most private parts of the celebrities’ lives to be much more interesting than things that we are already able to see (personal experience, love readings do so much better than idk career readings and it all comes down to behavioural trends of perceiving ‘love’ as something very intimate)

Now, this is where we’ll begin to talk about capitalism as a whole, even in non-monetary systems like social media, where it takes more of a rewarding system via likes, views, reblogs, etc. The whole principle of us living in such a system is being aspirational, we see others profiting off of something, we might want to reach out and do the same so we can profit ourselves, which honestly, I think is what happened with the whole BTS soulmate readings boom, they get a lot of attention, and as a basic market law, as demand goes up and a few people that initially did these readings are no longer capable to satisfy the need of the people wanting to know all the tea, there are market opportunities for other people to do the same thing and increase the offer, although since this whole theory is behavioural, it is very context-dependant, which ends up not following the principle of the consumers being rational about how much and what content they consume, they just sort of consume all of it, regardless of whether the content creator is qualified to offer such content or not, which ultimately only adds onto a never ending cycle of more people claiming they are tarot readers/astrologers/psychics and fear nothing because this is the internet, you don't really have to enter any qualifications to be able to create content, whether someone is reliable in internet terms is basically all about how many likes they’ve got (which is why I always tell you guys to please consume content responsible).

When it comes to accuracy- I guess that’s the hardest part of all, we can’t just have pointers that would automatically tells us if someone’s craft is valid or not, since everyone’s craft is different all craft is valid to a certain extent (you can easily find scammers of course but that’s another story) what we can have are personal standards and deciding what content to consume or whose content to consume, but that’s entirely a personal decision and since so many people are invested in it- it seems really hard that these “market tendencies” might change any time soon. On that same note of accuracy, I really feel the need to talk about a major occurrence I’ve come across in this whole soulmate scene, minors. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a minor and approaching spirituality (I was very much a minor when I started) but there’s a huge difference between just playing around and deciding to create content for the whole world to have access to. Of course I’m aware not all tarot readers in the BTS fandom are minors, and ARMY is very diverse and even if they were only minors it would be wrong to invalidate them, but we can’t ignore the statistics of it when touching this particular topic, according to 2020 data, 50,31% of ARMY are below 18 years old, and 42,59% are between 18-29 but why is this important? because the exact historical and economic moment we are living in mainly impacts these two age groups, thus making all 92,90% of ARMY a potential target to consuming or falling in a behavioural game theory of creating this content without them necessarily being qualified for it. But hey, why do you keep talking about the importance of being qualified? Glad you asked, creating spiritual content all comes down to one amazing term: accountability.

And this will explore two main phases of it, one applicable for that 50,31% that could potentially be drawn to create spiritual content and other for the 42,59% that could potentially be dragged to creating that content without much spiritual knowledge. For the first one, it has a lot to do with cognitive aspects, young people tend to do stuff without much further thought about how their actions impact other people, which, as they should, they are kids, they shouldn’t have to worry too much about emotional responsibility as us adults do, furthermore, they are in life stages where they can’t really comprehend many abstract concepts that we later learn in life, and spirituality is one of those concepts, so they tend to just have fun with it with no regards on how their content might impact other minors (this is where the whole feeding a false scenario that is potentially delusional in exchange of more views, likes comes into play) on a more spiritual level, they also aren’t able to comprehend the boundaries of the celebrities they’re reading for, us readers have to always be careful about the information we give out since it is not ours to give. As for the second group, some of this is still applicable since theorists consider a full cognitive maturity until 23 years of age, but since it is very intersectional itself, i would found it more to a spiritual responsibility, since they are young adults, and if they haven’t been spiritually guided as kids, they’re most probably eager to learn and just awakening yet to some of them the drive to this spirituality is content creation instead of inner work, so they get their hands on a tarot deck, might kind of read a few things, call it a day and start reading for BTS (note: not all of them, I’m aware)

As for the maknae line being the most sought out people with this content, I guess it kinda makes sense now that I’ve said all of the information above, maknae line is closest to the age group of 92,90% of ARMY, so they instantly become more marketable to this content creation and the whole Game Theory that we are seeing. With all that being said, and just adding a note coming from my own spiritual experience, soulmates in any form are a difficult topic for a third person to prode, which is why I, personally, tend to not touch that topic, love is one hell of a concept, especially since we all have different conceptions of love and interpersonal relationships. I do know for a fact that there’s only so far we can go in terms of fated connections, like with astrology, but even then, we would have to know their birth times exactly (so we can check for any indicator or a soulmate connection), and/or compare BTS with the rest of the world’s population in order to accurately tell if someone has a soulmate synastry/overlay/composite with them. Also, soulmate journeys are intimate and we are all just fans, what right do we even have to look for things that do not and will never belong to us?

This is why I’m always telling you guys to PLEASE consume content responsibly! Really! Us content consumers also have our part to play that can help us get more accurate, more drama-free content

REFERENCES (what? you thought I was joking? they’re in alphabetical order)

ARMYCENSUS 2020

Loewenstein, G., O’Donoghue, T., & Rabin, M. (2003). Projection bias in predicting future utility. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(4), 1209-1248.

March, J. G. (1978). Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice. The Bell Journal of Economics, 9(2), 587-608.

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion and motivation Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.

Mazar, N., Amir, O., & Ariely, D. (2008). The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self-concept maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research, 45(6), 633-644.

Murphy, S. T., & Zajonc, R. B. (1993). Affect, cognition, and awareness: Affective priming with optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 723-729.

Samson, A., & Voyer, B. (2014). Emergency purchasing situations: Implications for consumer decision-making. Journal of Economic Psychology, 44, 21-33.

Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. New York: Ecco.

Shah, A. K., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2008). Heuristics made easy: an effort-reduction framework. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 207-222.

Thaler, R. H. (2015). Misbehaving: The making of behavioral economics. Allen Lane.

Thaler, R. H. (2008). Mental accounting and consumer choice. Marketing Science, 27, 15-25.

Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2009). The habitual consumer. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19, 579-592.

#i really said: thesis? wHERE #im sorry i jump at any given opportunity to rant #especially if it gives me an opportunity to share knowledge with you guys

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sardinesandhumbugs · 4 years ago

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For the musical quote prompts, 22 and maybe Badger, if you like?

Sure thing! 22 was “Stay awake, don’t rest your head” from Mary Poppins, and this was a long while coming because I wanted to do something interesting with this prompt but no inspiration struck until I saw @rainbowratsstuff's 'humans are extinct' AU, so this is dabbling a little in that concept, particularly exploring how Badger's home was once occupied by humans, and how... uncanny humans probably would look to animals who had never seen them. This ficlet doesn't use the prompt exactly, but kinda embodies it towards the end; I hope that's okay!

Badger's sett was haunted.

Not by the fanciful spectres of folklore – although there were plenty of animals who would swear otherwise – but by the far more persistent presence of history. It was moored in his home, founded into the walls that people from another era had built to outlive them. For the most part, generations of badgers had scuffed smooth the once-sharp stonework, rendering it nearly indistinguishable from the claw-dug tunnels of his beneath-ground kin, but out in the less-trod tunnels the manmade origins stood clear.

It was these lesser-used tunnels that the more superstitious animals shied from venturing into – not Badger, of course; he knew there was nothing more than broken fragments from a broken age to be found. Some trinkets were identifiable – pots and pans and shoes and sealing wax – but others were more enigmatic in their purpose. Remnants of machines – or at least, Badger supposed them to be machines – lay forgotten in the earth, almost wholly untouched by the natural process of decay, save for where their finer details had been eroded away by mud and stone. They possessed buttons that clacked and darkened windows that viewed no inner room, and so they sat, dim and dead and persisting.

And then there were the figurines.

"Creepy-looking things," Badger heard Rat mutter to Mole during one visit when Badger was briefly in the next room and evidently assumed to be out of earshot. Badger paused long enough by the door to watch Rat swivel one of the ancient statuettes to the wall with visible distaste. "With their flat naked faces and wrinkly ears."

"I'm sure they would find us just as strange," Mole replied back, his tone diplomatic. "Anyway, they're not so bad once you get used to them."

Badger could almost hear the penny drop, followed by the hasty backpedal as Rat recalled that a few similar remnants of plaster statuary sat in the forecourt to Mole End. "I'm sure they're not, Moley, it's simply that I find them to be..." and Rat hesitated, clearly searching for the kindest truth, "uncanny." He moved as if to set the offending statuette back to its original position, but faltered before his paws could find contact.

Silence lingered.

"My dad used to tell stories of the people from before," Rat said eventually. He brushed a paw against the statuette, only to push it a half-inch closer to the wall. "About a pied piper that would spirit misbehaving rat pups away with its song."

"The Piper?" Mole asked.

"Not The Piper," Rat amended. "Just a – a human with flutes." He chuckled ruefully in a manner that was probably designed to sound casual to the unfamiliar ear – which Mole was categorically not. "Of course, it's just fairytales to scare the pups, to keep them in line."

"My mothers told similar stories," Mole said. "Not about a piper though – about a miner."

"A minor what?"

"No, a..." Mole chuckled. "Like, a digger. A miner."

"Oh." There was a pause. "That makes more sense."

"They told me that pups that go wandering too far along old forgotten tunnels get stolen away by a human with torch beams for eyes and whirring digging claws for hands." Mole curled his paws in an approximation of just such a monster, before releasing them with another chuckle. "I never saw anything, but it was a good way of keeping pups from exploring abandoned tunnels. Never mind miners; the biggest dangers were getting lost, or the tunnels collapsing. Especially with the old human ones."

Rat shivered. "Underground has enough dangers without human ghosts."

"Oh, and there wasn't just the miner. There was the burrower, who would dig down from the surface and snatch pups up–"

"Please stop."

"–and the flooder, who wasn't a human ghost so much as a presence, but it would bring water down into the tunnels that–"

"Mole."

Mole hesitated. "Sorry."

"It's official," Rat grumbled. "I'm never sleeping beneath-ground again."

Mole gave a half-laugh that he only partially managed to smother, evidently thinking of Rat's track record with unplanned naps when it came to being underground.

For what it was worth – although he suspected such claims would do little to calm Rat's anxiety – Badger had never seen any such ghosts. No miners or burrowers or flooders roamed the half-forgotten tunnels, just dust and brick and bittersweet remnants of a bygone era.

And if the dust was sometimes kicked up as if by footsteps unseen, or the light on the brick walls shivered as if something translucent passed by, or new artefacts appeared where previously there had been none – well, there were all very logical reasons for that.

Logical, non-haunted reasons.

Reasons that were easy to hold onto in the busyness and brightness of the day, but far more elusive when evening settled in and the world both above and below quietened to night. In winter it was the worst – those cold months froze the earth and sent it crackling when the ice yielded, and the sound would echo along the tunnels until they were half-heard whispers in the heart of Badger's home.

In those moments, even Badger found himself tempted to turn the human statuaries away.

He knew there was nothing more than broken fragments from a broken era to be found.

But still...

When bleak midwinter sank its teeth into the earth and the world settled into a somnolent haze, the foundations of What He Knew shifted into What He Believed and in the space between, phantoms lingered. People – humans – with their furless features and their spiderlike hands and their limbs that seemed altogether too long for such creatures flickered in the corners of his gaze.

Poppycock, naturally.

Nonsense, of course.

Hogwash, obviously.

And yet...

Humans lived here once, his mind would whisper in such moments. Generations upon generations, a city's worth, lived and walked and slept and talked; is it so unbelievable that these old walls might remember them still?

On such nights, he slept little.

Badger's sett was haunted and sometimes – just sometimes – by more than history.

#wind in the willows musical #cat writes #chiropteracupola #witw fanfic #replies #also snuck in an alice in wonderland reference there I think?#even if it is just in 'shoes and sealing wax'#I'm also a sucker for the 'ancient race' concept but PARTICULARLY the 'and they look creepy af' applied to humans #also the original idea that linked this concept to the prompt was badger not being able to sleep properly due to the haunted nature #of his home #but then it uhhhhh expanded #as my ficlets are wont to do #also the fact that wind in the willows CANONICALLY has Pan and a chapter called the piper at the gates of dawn #makes using the pied piper story uhhhh interesting #cause if I reference the pied piper then there's overlap with pan #and I just #ehhhh #also the pied piper thing is drawing from a headcanon adrian shared #which I am adopting #just humans being the bogeyman of the animal society #is just *chef's kiss*#also I'm not saying badger's home IS haunted #but that living in a place that has such history would for sure have it's uhhhh quirks #also I wasn't sure about this ficlet at the start #but I like the last few lines enough to be pretty proud of the outcome #also I hope my GSCE english teacher is proud #look Mr S I'm using CIRCLES in my stories

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bywordofaphrodite · 4 years ago

Text

Book Reviews 1 & 2: The Enchanted Wood and Adventures of the Wishing Chair by Enid Blyton

This review’s theme is magical children’s fiction ! Audience age range: early childhood !

Fun fact about me: I have fairy tales running through my head most hours of the day.

Magical lands and whimsical characters run freely through my mind any minute I have to spare, or even the ones I don’t. It has always been this way for me, whether in school, university or at work- when I am meant to be working on assignments or attending to patients in the hospital I work at- and Enid Blyton’s stories played a part in this, so it seems fitting I discuss her writing for my first post.

When faced with choosing a project for myself this semester, it was actually the memory of Enid Blyton’s novels that prompted me to decide to write book reviews of childhood favourites. I’d forgotten her name at first, and all that remained was an illustration of blue jelly and a boy with silver hair… and the name of the artist who illustrated my copies of the series: Georgina Hargreaves. One google search was all it took to remember it all! Then I ordered all three Magic Faraway Tree books and the Wishing Chair ones in the exact editions I had as a child, because I have no impulse control whatsoever.

Nostalgic review

Rating: ★★★★★

For my nostalgic review- otherwise known as my thoughts on these novels purely as I remember them from childhood- I’m giving five stars. They meant everything to me as a kid, and I reread them more than any other books I owned. I would choose a chapter before bed and travel into the magic lands at the top of the tree along with the main characters, exploring whatever good, evil or downright silliness happened to be up there at the time (and then stay there for a good few hours past my bedtime using the light under my door to squint at the pages and destroy my already dreadful vision just a little more for good measure. Sleep schedule who?)

I easily favoured the Magic Faraway Tree books over the Wishing Chair ones, though I loved them both dearly. I’m going to assume the reason behind this was because I preferred the tree to the chair, as- aside from Jo- I don’t recall ever having an affinity for any particular child amongst the main characters. I do also remember a great deal more of the goings on in the lands above the tree than I can the adventures in the chair, so it seems fair to say I read one a lot more than the other.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, these books cemented who I wanted to be when I grew up: a writer- a published author, to be specific- and an artist. Not just these two series, but anything Blyton wrote- her teen detective and boarding school series being notable favourites of mine. As detrimental as this dream has been to my family’s wish for me to become a lawyer, I must insist that everyone blame Enid Blyton for this and not me!

The Enchanted Wood Review

Post-read: ★★★

Synopsis: three children move from the city to a small country house with a forest out the back which they later come to know as the Enchanted Wood. There they come across a giant magical tree known as the Faraway Tree, where they befriend the many magical creatures living inside the tree, and explore the lands that settle above the tree every day.

Okay so! First up, I finished it so quickly. I’ve always been a very fast reader but even so I expected it would take several hours to read… it took roughly an hour despite minor interruptions by my siblings, so it’s very simplistic and easy to read. However… this level of simplistic is not, in this case, a good thing, at least in my opinion. I’ll elaborate on this further toward the end of this post, but the best word I can think of to describe the writing is ‘stunted’.

I read a few articles to see others’ thoughts on the novels, and one review stood out as being critical in multiple ways, some of which I agree and some I don’t really care about. I’ll link it here.

This review reflected a lot of the same points I considered upon rereading the books. Charming points: google buns and the Land of Birthdays; weak points: repetitive and a bit too holier than thou in the attempt to teach ‘lessons’. In terms of Flood’s (the review author) criticism, the renaming of the children from Jo, Bessie and Fanny to Joe, Beth and Frannie in new copies does not really bother me, although my own editions have the original names (the change of the children’s cousin from Dick to Rick was a wise choice, though Rick is an ugly name as well, but I digress). As with many modern changes to old novels, older generations criticise ‘politically correct’ motives, and Flood does exactly so here- miffed at the decision to rename one of the recurring Faraway Tree villains from ‘Dame Slap’ to ‘Dame Snap’. Flood likens the character’s previous habit of slapping naughty children to the witch in Hansel and Gretel locking children in cages, (I would think the cannibal element of this tale would reinforce the comparison more but maybe that’s just me???) asking why, if that fairy-tale hasn’t been changed, should Dame Slap have to adhere to modern discipline? Personally I’m mostly unconcerned with this either way, though Flood makes an interesting point. The woman is a villain either way, so a little clip over the ears is likely to properly drive the point home in my opinion, anyway.

And before I move on from this review, Flood’s hot take on the Saucepan Man is 100% on the ball- why was a grown, non-magical man walking around strung up with pots and pans all over himself and hanging out with a group of children? To be sure, he was not in his right mind, so I’ll shift the question to the parents here, who were fully aware that their children were spending time in the woods with this man. Very odd business indeed.

Characters who aged well: Most of the main characters remained likable to me. Jo was always my favourite as a kid, and he remains so- his impatience provides some comedic quotes and he never leaves his younger sisters behind on adventures, unlike many male characters in Blyton’s novels (I am looking DIRECTLY at you, Famous Five boys). He also doesn’t belittle his sisters at any point, even when they’re frightened, which is another thing that irked me about many of Blyton’s male characters. Using only the first book of the series for this review means that it’s possible that Bessie and Fanny are more prominent characters in the other books, but in this one it felt very much centred around Jo than I remembered- they are likable but don’t really do too much aside from Fanny’s banger of a birthday party which I’m rather jealous of. Upon rereading I like Moonface a lot more, but that’s probably because I resented my grandmother calling me ‘Moonface’ (I’m aware I have a round face, I do not need to be reminded of my eternal struggles on the daily). Silky is still a queen in my eyes- pretty, feminine, funny, kind and best of all a fairy. No flaws at all, I love her. In retrospect, Silky is equally my favourite alongside Jo.

Characters who aged badly (to me): as aforementioned… the Saucepan Man. To be fair, I never cared for him in the first place, and the same goes for his best friend Mr. Watzisname because he was downright maddening. Also, Dame Washalot can drown in her own washing. She managed to annoy me more than Dame Slap… at least Dame Slap was entertaining.

Favourite scene/quote: “‘Fishing!’ said Jo, in disgust. ‘Who wants to go fishing in the middle of a birthday party? Let’s get back at once.’”

This quote sounds so mundane but in context I just find his tone very amusing- Jo is always exasperated and impatient so his perpetual annoyance with everyone’s nonsense is relatable and funny. Furthermore, he says this during my favourite scene in the final chapter where they all travel to the Land of Birthdays for Bessie’s birthday. Bessie invites everyone living in the Faraway Tree to her party, which is essentially formed up in the land above the tree. Upon arrival, everyone can go into a small house with fancy dress costumes and choose anything they like, and then choose a table in the middle of a field. The table is set with cutlery and plates, and from there you must ‘wish your own tea’, as Silky says, which fills the table with jellies, lemonade, chocolate blancmange and other party food. Best of all is the birthday cake- also known as wishing cake- which grants a wish to anyone who eats it. Unfortunately, the Saucepan Man’s poor hearing ends up turning ‘wish’ to ‘fish’, and Fanny has to waste her own wish to get them back to the party, hence Jo’s vexation. The ending is very sweet though, with Moonface gifting his wish to Fanny and all of them happily going home. It was a lovely way to end the first book in the series.

Adventures of the Wishing Chair Review

Post-read: ★★

Synopsis: two children discover a magical chair with wings in an antique shop that leads to a host of new adventures and a new pixie friend they rescue along the way.

Like I said earlier, I preferred the Faraway Tree series to the Wishing Chair and that remains the same. The concept of lands coming to the top of a tree- and choosing whether to go up there or not- is more my style, and if the weather is bad you can just stay home, while the chair you just have to go with it. The Faraway Tree itself is also really wonderful, with all the interesting houses and shops inside it, and especially Moonface’s slippery-slip. On the contrary, the main location for the Wishing Chair series is the children’s playing room, and the chair itself is an utter menace. The villains are more irritating in this series- which is their job, I get it- but the children themselves aren’t quite as likable as Jo, Bessie and Fanny either. Mollie and Peter argue plenty and can be very selfish and silly at times, which is realistic, sure, but that doesn’t make them any less meh. The other main character is a pixie called Chinky (yes, I’ll get to this soon) who they rescue from slavery in a giant’s castle, and my opinion on him varies between chapters. There are some really cool places they go to and the illustrations make reading this more enjoyable despite the hasty writing and relatively flat characters.

Characters who aged well: ???? I mean… Mollie and Peter aren’t exactly my favourite children ever but they’re not too bad. My main criticism would have to be that there isn’t really anything defining about their personalities; to a degree I would say they are just a whinier version of Jo, Bessie and Fanny. I don’t think Enid bothered too much about changing base character traits in her stories, to be honest. There are a few characters like Witch Snippit and the Windy Wizard who help Mollie and Peter when troubles arise, but as the adventures always begin with the chair in the children’s playroom there aren’t really many magical recurring characters to properly consider.

Characters who aged badly: the children’s MOTHER. She is beyond irritating in certain chapters- like when she decides to take the wishing chair to her own lounge room simply because she likes it, even though the children themselves bought it and expressed how much they love it. Plenty of parents do this in real life and it is just as annoying in fiction. Secondly, the wishing-chair. Magical chair that grows wings and can fly to magical lands is cool, yes? Sure, except when it has mood swings and randomly decides to fly through storms or simply land in the sea for no reason I can think of. This is a very petty chair… yet I know I would keep it anyway so I can’t complain too much. I’m going to add Chinky here too, and not because he got saddled with a slur for a name- he gets fired up about minor things way too quickly and causes drama for no good reason, though perhaps I should cut him some slack after his time spent in forced servitude. Also, he makes a few sexist comments to Mollie so maybe the giant had a point after all.

Favourite scene/quote: ‘One rabbit turned upside down and danced on its ears, and that made Peter laugh so much that he had to get out his handkerchief to wipe his tears of laughter away.’

Peter being this happy just made me happy. This quote is from my favourite scene, when the children fly with some elves to attend a magician’s party. There is no villain to be seen, and the room is filled with classic Blyton details of top tier food like cream buns and blancmange, and beautiful birds that sing sweetly before flying freely. The magician has dancing cats appear, and ‘six plump rabbits’ that dance while the cats play violin. Finally, the magician gifts everybody a tiny egg he tells them will hatch later. When they arrive home, Peter’s hatches to reveal a tiny silver watch and Mollie gets a necklace of beads that look ‘exactly like bubbles’. This always sounded so pretty to me, and I had a necklace from my mum that looked exactly as Mollie’s was described, so I’ve always remembered this scene very well.

Overall verdict:

I’m torn. I love parts of these books so much, I love the nostalgia surrounding them, and yet I must admit that without a childhood connection it would difficult for a new reader to enjoy, and probably not the first choice in a bed time story to read to children nowadays. I think for me, I like having these books back on my shelf again, and I like knowing I can go back to read my favourite chapters whenever I want, despite the criticisms I have. In a way, I like knowing I am capable of recognising the books’ faults while still appreciating the good parts of them. I do not regret buying these books again- in fact looking at the artwork and reading the words has inspired me to get to work on my own plan to write a book of fairy tales (with the representation I would’ve loved to see alongside the magic as a child, and minus the problematic details).

With this in mind:

- Blyton’s writing skills… are sorely lacking. Her sentences are stunted and sometimes she changes locations so hastily within one small paragraph that if you so much as skim over one sentence you’ll find yourself in another land entirely (haha). I am wholly aware these books are intended for children but I have read other novels for that age group that have been well-written, so my criticism stands.

- I should just rewrite the books myself. I don’t care if this sounds arrogant, I know I could make the stories more compelling with a few tweaks to, say, writing skills, story structure, making better use of the amazing concepts, fleshing out the characters more, etc. (again I’m aware they’re children’s books)

- Enid Blyton herself was not a very nice person, and her own daughter criticised her writing for being emotionally immature and seeing things as ‘black and white’. Anyone who has read her other novels knows that she was very racist- ‘gypsies’ managing to be the villain in most of her teen detective stories, amongst other issues, so Chinky the pixie is not exactly a surprise appearance. It was Chinky, in fact, who first alerted me to racial slurs. As someone with partially Asian heritage at an almost completely white school, it took me asking my (rightfully) concerned father what ‘chink’ meant when some kids started calling me by the word in school… I then connected this to Blyton’s pixie and to this day am morbidly entertained by this unfortunate memory. I’ll link the article here, in case of any further curiosity about Blyton.

In the Faraway Tree series review I linked earlier, the writer said of the books, ‘it’s an odd feeling, finding the classics of your childhood don’t really stack up’. In many ways, I feel the same. Is it all nostalgia, after all? Yes and no. Having such a balanced opinion on an old favourite is likely healthier than clinging to past memories, anyway. With all of these thoughts jumbling through my mind, it’s possible that my rating of these novels changes depending on my mood- and more importantly, which chapters I read. Perhaps the fact that my favourite chapters are all devoid of confrontation is something a therapist would suggest looking into, but you know what? It’s fiction. If I have to get my happy endings in books alone then so be it!

#book review #book rating #enid blyton #the faraway tree #the wishing chair #british books #children’s book #fiction #magic books #university project #nostalgia

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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In defense to the Dragon Prince, i think the scene you're talking about, though I can understand why people would be mad at it, is well crafted and allow to explore both involved character's personnality (I would need a longer post to explain it in details, to be honest)

Thanks for the context, you two! Yeah, as said, I haven’t seen it so I can’t speak to the scene itself, only the trend it appears to be a part of. That’s one of the downsides here: even if it’s well written, compelling, and makes sense for this particular story... there will always be at least some in the audience who are sick of seeing it, period.

I feel similarly in regards to Yang “dying” this volume. From a writing standpoint I can understand why either she or Blake “had” to go first, just based on how the rest of the plot is constructed. You want Ruby around for Neo to attack, for Cinder to taunt, and to keep some semblance of belief that the character might really have died (because if your title character goes first there’s just no way). You want Weiss to make it long enough for Winter to arrive and see her fall. So, ignoring the issues with how Yang went, I can understand the logic of either her or Blake falling first. They’re not Ruby and they’re not Weiss, both of which need to stick around for their own reasons (and they’re also not JNOR who are doing their own thing away from the battle). This is, arguably, a good decision for the story! ... except for the fact that they’re a part of a presumed, queer relationship and this ~shocking~ moment hinges on the belief that the writers may have actually buried another gay. No matter how well constructed the scene itself might be, or how good the choice was for this specific show, when you try to recreate trends that minority communities have spent years pushing back against, there’s bound to be some sort of pushback here too. You need to get media to a place where “fixing” disabled characters isn’t a norm, where killing queer characters isn’t a norm, to include either scenario without the risk of your audience being put off by it. Which, of course, doesn’t mean you can’t do it, nor does it mean that you can’t do it well. It certainly sounds like DP pulled off an interesting version of that. I’m just not surprised that some viewers, like that anon, are grappling with a familiar discomfort. I think the concepts of “This was well written/really worked for the story” and “This is part of a harmful trend” can and often do exist simultaneously.

#rwby #mymetas #dragon prince #elez38

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terramythos · 4 years ago

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TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 5 of 26

Title: Ninth House (Alex Stern #1) (2019)

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Mystery, Horror, Third-Person, Unreliable Narrator, Female Protagonist, LGBT Protagonist (?).

Rating: 9/10

Date Began: 1/31/2021

Date Finished: 2/06/2021

Alex Stern's had the ability to see ghosts for as long as she can remember-- and it's led her life in a terrible direction. At twenty, she is the sole survivor of a gruesome multiple murder case in Los Angeles. In the hospital, she's given a chance to turn her life around. She receives a full ride scholarship to Yale, but in return has to serve as an apprentice to Lethe House, an organization tasked with monitoring the shady magical dealings of the university's secret societies. Determined to leave her past behind, Alex accepts the offer.

But things start to go wrong partway into the school year. Her mentor Darlington disappears under mysterious circumstances. Months later, a young woman named Tara Hutchins turns up dead on a ritual night. Alex suspects the secret societies of Yale are involved in the murder, but no one seems willing to believe her. Going off a hunch, Alex decides to investigate on her own. But the past she's running from threatens to return and change everything.

“All you children playing with fire, looking surprised when the house burns down.”

Full review, minor spoilers, and content warnings under the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Graphic violence, gore, murder, death, etc. R*pe, p*dophilia, grooming, abuse, and associated trauma depicted/discussed. Drug use, including recreational drug use, underage drug use, addiction, overdoses, and drugging without consent. Mind control/altered mental states. Body horror. Depictions of racism, antisemitism, and misogyny.

Ninth House is not the book I expected it to be. It has a generic-sounding concept; urban fantasy murder mystery! Protag with mysterious powers! Secret societies! I really liked Bardugo's YA Six of Crows duology, so I went in knowing she's a good writer and hoping for the best. Ninth House exceeded expectations for sure. This is one of those stories that has a lot going on beneath the surface, full of interesting twists, turns, and all-too-real social issues.

While this might seem like a “dark academia” kind of story, Ninth House is actually critical of the whole concept. The story takes place around Yale, stars college students, and focuses on the real-but-fictionalized secret societies of the university. But these details often feel incidental. Alex’s (and to some extent, Darlington’s) past, the murder investigation, and her ability to see ghosts is more important to the story. The societies are groups of privileged rich kids using magic for stupid and selfish ends. For example, one society kidnaps a dude, performs involuntary surgery on him, and reads his intestines to predict stock futures. Magic is apparently dying, and the societies have built themselves on top of the few nexuses of magical power in New Haven. The fact that a bunch of asshole college kids have near-exclusive access to a limited and powerful resource sure is a big problem. They’re also ultra pretentious, using certain languages or appropriating certain mythologies just because they seem more magical.

That’s not to say true mythological symbolism is totally absent. Water is a notable part of Ninth House, along with its associated meanings -- change, death, rebirth, cleansing the past, and so on. Lethe, the titular ninth house, gets its name from the river in Greek mythology. Anyone who knows its role there will have a fun time with certain story developments. There’s also a lot of tarot imagery not directly addressed in the story. So history/mythology is significant, but it’s not spoon-fed to the reader.

There’s a lot of social commentary in the story told through a fantasy lens. Probably the most obvious one is r*pe culture and its horrific effects. Considering the numerous scandals centered around sexual violence, especially in colleges, it all feels very timely. There’s also a more general discussion of privilege and how it affects one’s access to a school like Yale. Alex is notably a victim of racism, misogyny, and poverty to some extent. Bardugo clearly did a lot of research about Yale and the social issues in the novel, and this comes through while reading. She even cites her many sources in the acknowledgements.

While Ninth House is written in third-person, I still consider it an unreliable narrative. At the beginning, we know two major things about the past. (1) Darlington (the deuteragonist) disappeared under mysterious circumstances a few months ago and might be dead. (2) Alex, the main protagonist, was the sole survivor of a multiple murder case, but was cleared as a suspect For Reasons. Other than that, the narrative reveals few specifics about either event until much later in the story. When this finally happens, it changes a lot of things. There is also an interesting, character-driven reason why this information is obscured for so long-- but it's a big spoiler.

Bardugo also takes advantage of perspective limitations when switching between the Alex and Darlington chapters. One character might assume something, only for another character to introduce new context about it much later. This might be a simple concept, but it’s great when executed well. In particular I remember Alex doing something in an early chapter that seems in character at the time. Then a much later Darlington chapter throws it into question with a one-off line. I really like this kind of stuff in stories! It's an interesting way to characterize and worldbuild that's just plain fun to read.

My LGBT Protagonist tag is a little vague because, while I'm reasonably sure Alex is bisexual, there's no direct confirmation in the story. Her relationship with Hellie does NOT come off as platonic, though. And while I'm pretty sure Darlington is meant to be the romantic interest character, Alex’s interactions with Dawes certainly give me Vibes. I have some suspicions where this might be going. Future volumes will probably address this more.

While I really liked the book, it's not quite a 10 because it's really dark, even for me. There are several (intentionally) disturbing and disgusting scenes that made me uncomfortable. Sexual violence is repugnant, and I appreciate that Bardugo depicts it in such a negative, traumatic light. But unlike Six of Crows (which explores this as well), Ninth House is pretty graphic, and I had a hard time getting through several scenes. It's a personal thing but did affect my overall enjoyment of the book. I can easily see other people having problems, too: it depends on your sensitivity to such content.

In addition, Ninth House’s pacing drags after the big mid-story reveals. There's two exciting twists in a row, then a good quarter of the book to go after that. It's nice to view the story with new context in mind, but it feels slower and less interesting than the reveals themselves. The story also takes on a predictable "we SOLVED the mystery! ... or did we?" story loop, which I feel I've seen a million times. Alex does some real dumb/out-of-character stuff near the end in order to keep this going. That being said, while I predicted some of the final ending, I think it all comes together in a satisfying way. There's lots of little hints that are fun to go back to; Ninth House is one of those books where looking stuff up as you go REALLY helps.

Ninth House lays the groundwork for an interesting series, and the ending is obvious sequel bait. I'm interested to see where the story could go based on some of the reveals and conclusions of the ending. There's also the impossible-to-ignore social commentary of the book; I have to wonder if that will continue in future plots, and what form that will take if so. Either way, whenever the next book comes out I’ll probably read it!

#9/10 #2021 reading challenge #taylor reads

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inkdemonapologist · 4 years ago

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Okay but I do actually want to know both the things you love and the things you could rant about from DCTL?

OH BOY UHHHHHH okay lets see, I'm gonna see if I can do the "add a readmore after you post it" thing and see if that'll keep it stable.......

But also, much like Sammy, I am incapable of shutting up unless you strike me in the head with a blunt object, so uh, forgive my wordiness:

THINGS I ENJOY:

- DCTL gave us Sammy's ink addiction and like, if you had asked me before all this "what would you most like to see in a franchise?" I would not have answered "one of the characters drinks ink accidentally and then discovers that he can't stop" but boy that sure is my favourite concept that I LOVE to see handled literally any other way than how the book handled it!!!

- I like what it added to Tom and Allison and Norman!! Like, it's not big twists on their characters or anything -- we already knew Tom felt he was doing the wrong thing, so getting to see his CRUSHING GUILT over creating the machine isn't New Information, but it's nice to see and understand more of him; for all of them I feel a lot more attached to them after getting to see more of them as people.

- Like 90% of the "I LOVE IT" category for me is how the book handled Joey, and Buddy's relationship with Joey. The way Joey isn't a Sinister Mastermind Who’s Just Screwing With Everyone but just manipulative in a more mundane way -- someone who thinks of himself as just the guy with the vision to call the shots; he wants what he wants and this is how he's learned to get it; he exploits people not through devious schemes, but just by offering them something that they want or need and asking too much in return, expecting their loyalty for his favours. And the way he interacts with Buddy, making Buddy complicit with him and keeping Buddy off-balance and insecure while making him a favourite and treating him as Special is just PERFECT -- gives a lot of content to kind of extrapolate off of when pondering what must've drawn the others in and convinced them to ignore the red flags. I was initially frustrated with the idea of Buddy not being an artist and jUST DECIDING TO LEARN TO ANIMATE ON THE SPOT ("I've never done this before but I'm sure I can just do an artist's job" is a weirdly common throwaway thing in media and as an artist iTS A PET PEEVE) but actually the way they use his plagiarism to make him trapped in a lie in ways Joey doesn't even realise ends up being a neat echo of other employees (coughTOMcough), who were involved in much graver sins but suddenly felt they couldn't object or they'd lose their one chance, just like Buddy. There's a lot here that I think is really great.

OKAY THATS THE GOOD STUFF, LET'S COMPLAIN ABOUT SAMMY:

- Uncomfortable Bigotry Vagueness that we all knew was gonna be in this list -- I dunno man, a guy committing a microaggression and getting startled and defensive when he's called out for it doesn't necessarily completely ruin his character I GUESS, but the way this was handled is just SO WEIRD AND VAGUE that it's uncomfortable and it doesn't seem to serve any real purpose. "Is Tom black?" is a question I actually have to ask because the text sort of implies he is while also dancing around it and apparently Word of God said he's not??? which makes Buddy's comment nonsensical???? And I mean, you could go that route, since Buddy wonders to himself if Sammy talks to everyone like this -- HE ACTUALLY DOES!! Even within the text of the novel, he uses "Joey" instead of Mr. Drew, which is consistent with his audiologs in the game -- but that makes the writing suggest "this character THINKS this guy might be racist but actually they're reading too much into it and it wasn't racially motivated at all, he's just a jerk!!" wHICH IS SOMEHOW EVEN MORE ICKY??? Anyway like yeah I guess it's not inconsistent with his character that while Sammy Lawrence may not have any specific grudge against minorities he has probably not checked his privilege or done the work to challenge his own internal biases, but “Your Fav Probably Contributes To Systemic Racism In Ways He Hasn’t Considered, As Do We All When Our Assumptions Go Unchecked” is still a wild thing to wade through in a fun story about demonic cartoons

- but yknow so is T H E H O L O C A U S T

- Sammy's voice is wrong. I'm actually okay with him being a weird awkward asshole, I already kind of assumed he was and that's part of why I like him!! but there's so many places he doesn't quite... talk like himself? And not just in terms of word choice, like -- so in his monologue at the end, he's described as talking so quickly that his words are "tumbling out faster than he can speak them," which initially seems fine; like yeah, that's a Standard Scene we're familiar with, the person who's been Driven Mad With Insight becoming more and more manic as they try to convey it -- until I tried to imagine it and realised that Sammy doesn't talk like this. That's a really consistent quality I always notice about his voice; whether he's almost giddily excited in prophet mode, or he’s his irritated and overworked human self, or he's violently angry and his voice has that echo effect -- he always speaks very deliberately. He enunciates carefully. There's some circumstances where I'd buy this as showing that he's Not Himself, but I feel like those would kind of need to be in the middle of his transformation, not at the end of it.

- In fact a lot of the scenes with Sammy kind of have this feeling -- that it's not necessarily an exploration of Sammy as a character, but that he is filling a trope or archetype role here. Once he's fully transformed he excitedly describes the process as more of a mental compulsion, which is in contrast to his weird yeerk-infected behaviour when trying to get ink from Miss Lambert. Both of those scenes don't seem wrong on their own because they fit tropes we know -- but they feel weird when you try to fit them together.

- I also just in general am not a fan of the ink acting like a weird yeerk. It can be a parasite I guess but when it starts overwriting and puppeting people and crawling around to enter their body that's just a completely DIFFERENT kind of supernatural story and it’s not what im here for!!!

- THE FREAKIN!!! HE WILL SET US FREE!!!! WHY????????? SAMUEL LAWRENCE WHAT IS HE SETTING YOU FREE FROM??????? Sammy has No Motive for any of what he's doing, other than just Ink Made Me Do It. The whole thing that was INTERESTING about Sammy as a character is the contrast between this frustrated, ornery musician with no specific love for the cartoons he works on, and the manically devoted cultist he becomes. What happened in the middle there? What made him desperate enough to shift his mindset so much? "Something supernatural made him do things that don't benefit him in any way" is a very boring answer to this question!!! Susie was a victim who implies that her transformation has forced her to do things she didn't want to do, but we can still see her motive -- she wanted to be Alice, so she took a sketchy offer to try to get what she wanted. Even now, her violence echoes that goal -- to be a more perfect Alice. What did Sammy want? WHO KNOWS. Even in his ink-addled state at the end, we don't understand what he hopes the Ink Demon will even do for him, and in fact he seems to be responsible for creating the very scenario he's begging Bendy to reverse in the game.

- [sighs loudly into my hands]

- Overall I'm left wondering if the author just..... didn't like Sammy Lawrence? And I don't mean that in the sense of him being a rude jerk -- like, Joey is not a good person, but the author seems to be interested in him and in what makes him tick. There doesn't seem to be that same interest in Sammy. Sammy's role in the story is that of a monster, transformed into something murderous, unable to prevent or choose it. He's not a victim of anyone but the ink, no one had to manipulate him or figure out how his brain worked or what he wanted or what he feared or give him any reason to do the things he does -- ink got in his mouth and overwrote his personality. And we don't even get to see that change, not really. He starts out angry and defensive and continues being angry and defensive up until his very last scene, denying his ink-stealing but not really much else. We see all his prophetic sketches but we never see hints of this in him, we never see him start to act more excited and hopeful, we never see him seek out the demon he desires to please. Why do we never see Sammy struggling between his dismissive angry front and a building religious fervour he can't quite suppress? We don't get to see any of the in-between. There's no interest at all in why or even what it looked like as Sammy became what he became, when, to be honest, I suspect interest in precisely that is one reason he's such a big fav.

- It's funny, in a "cries into my hands" kind of way, when Sammy is just knocked in the head while monologuing and immediately removed from the story without further mention, like...... that sure is the pattern with him, isn't it, he just tries very very hard and never actually gets to matter, but it also fits right in here, too, in this book that doesn't want to think about his motives -- he rambles nonsensically, explaining nothing, gets one trademark phrase, and then is hastily removed so the story doesn't have to think about him anymore.

...................I think that's most of it.

...

Y'all............ I'm not ready for Sent From Above.......... I'm just not.... I'm not emotionally ready...... like..... Sammy has to be in that right..... he’s Susie’s boss and she has that big crush on him..................................... I’m not ready

#i know you have questions you always do #we all write on the walls #hopefully I have not gotten completely confused on any of these points but LMAO ITS POSSIBLE

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malepresentingleg · 4 years ago

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is it 2013 again? cause i have a rant about teen wolf coming and i feel 16 y/o.

so due to dome heavy procrastination I've consumed a lot of teen wolf content, i skipped a bunch of episodes and a lot of scenes in the ones i haven't but i still have some Thoughts TM

it's good??? i had a Good Time watching, it was funny but intense and dark and i felt Feelings watching, some of the plotlines were meh (or maybe i just skipped them heh) but a lot were interesting and i loved the characters and their interaction

scott. my sweetheart. my baby. such a cutiepie, such a great protagonist 10/10 i love him and would die for him. he's so pure and cute and his little smile melts my heart. i love how he's fundamentally Human no matter how non human he is. he's a great character all around and i kinda wish they didn't do that shit to him at the end (imma get there) or treated him like he ISN'T the protagonist for such big parts of the shows

people KNOW. Stiles knows from day one, allison finds out soon, his mom finds out in season 2! the sheriff in 3, and they just become part of the gang and can help them with stuff bc they UNDERSTAND. shows like that get really tiring when the teens constantly lie to everyone around them and it was very refreshing. the running gag with the coach ruining things tho was funny and I'm ok with it.

Ok this is mellisa appreciation time. she's SUCH a great, complex and unusual mom-of-hero character. i absolutely love her and her attitude, i love how she's not simply being used as a tool to cause scott pain (just.. sometimes) and their relationship is parenting goals.

also isn't it fucking hilarious how she's a nurse but she just knows everything medical. she's also a surgeon and a mortician and a doctor. ik it's for plot reasons but it funny af.

in general women on the show.. had a lot of potential, i love them, but i hate how they were treated.

allison was all around great imo, her and scott's relationship was built very well and was two sided from the start (unlike... yeah), she has emotions, she's smart and brave, but also human and scared, she kicks ass and, again, exists outside of Scott's GF status (mostly). andddd they killed her. idk if the actress had to/wanted to leave or it was a pure writers decision bc they needed to keep just her father or something, but that would have been ok if not for all the other things

we have 3 main kickass ladies with powers- lydia, kira and malia. lydia spent close to FIVE whole seasons not knowing anything about her abilities/not knowing how to control them. cmon, it gets old. scott masters his powers after a season or two (and had control a lot sooner), parrish finds out what he is like half a season after it becomes relevant etc.

malia- do i need to explain? she was CONSTANTLY struggling controlling her abilities, no matter how badass she supposedly was. and kira oh boy, they did her dirty, didn't they?

kira was such a cute adorable character. i loved her and her little crush on scott and wanting to make friends and being freaked out about relationships, i love her discovering her past and heritage and learning to fight and gaining control and becoming a badass. but. what? they just undid all this? oh no the fox is taking over she has no control no agency of her own she needs to disappear for years now bye :( again, idk if the actress needed to leave but it was so unsatisfying and was insulting to the character. she wasn't even mentioned later a bunch like allison was, just they needed her mom for a plot tool and didn't even acknowledge it was her sword they were breaking. uhm rude?

LET WOMEN HAVE POWERS AND BE AWESOME WITH THEM. and not just minor/bad characters thanks.

i love the concept of a pack on the show and how you don't have to be a werewolf to be a part of it, how scott becomes a true alpha and how he cares about his friends. i kinda feel like in later seasons him being an alpha was more talk than show which like /: meh. like i said, he stopped BEING the main character, just talked about as if he was.

i love how friendship is valued, but i think it could be more.. i mean the scene in the motel, all season 3b, scott and lydia, all the girls with each other.. i love it. too many times tho it "wasn't enough" and only romantic love worked which SUCKS. in 6a i was so happy scott went in to try and remember stiles and the memories hit me right in the heart. then when it "wasn't enough" i was SO pissed and frustrated goddammit. i guess that leads me to the next point-

ships, should i talk about ships? i don't want hate in my asks but oh well it's been a few years maybe there's no fandom to care. I'll start with the end

malia and scott. what. the. fuck. when, out of fucking no where, they had like a lingering look or something i was just "nope. no thanks". and then every scene they had together i had to cover my eyes bc it felt so wrong and bad and awkward. jesus. no build up at ALL, they're like family, i just. ew. no. it felt way too much like "oh we gotta pair off the leftovers" or "the main character can't end up single" well guess what, he fucking can. it was. god. i can't even explain the disgust. when he needed to heal and all she had to do was kiss him ugh. it felt so fake and empty of meaning. i would 100% prefer for it to be stiles (I'll get there) or his mom who snapped him out of it.

melissa and chris, i could get aboard with that. def cute, def weird af since his dead daughter was dating her son but, well.

stiles and lydia is a ship i have conflicting feelings about. i absolutely hate the concept of "the nerd" is in love with the popular girl since freshman year and he's borderline being a creep ("oh but it's stiles! he's a dork and he's harmless" no.), completely obsessed with her and she ignores him but then they end up getting together.. i mean, it sends a bad msg to obsessed boys about how it's worth it in the end, and it makes the whole relationship feel unbalanced from the start, makes her reciprocation feel unatural. BUT, i have to admit the show did kinda make me warm up to this ship by the end, curse them. it was kinda cute. i wish there was more mutualness before it became such an important part in 6a tho.

just gonna put it out there: malia/kira and lydia/allison. i wish we saw more girl on girl interactions in general but the ones we had were very good, great dynamics.

i won't get too much into it but i.. i don't ship st*rek. i understand why they're the biggest ship (two white hot boys that interact with each other, i mean.), and i see the couple of fan service-y moments the show throws at us but just. they don't have my heart, i don't really care about them. not the characters, the characters i absolutely love! (tho this watch i skipped most of season 1 and 2 and 3a and i think that's where derek is the most asshole.. didn't he do really bad things? idr) idk if you want a bad character on the way to redemption with someone you should ship liam and theo who had way better shippy chemistry imo, even tho their ship probably wouldn't be healthy given their dynamic history, huh.

the ship that does owns my heart? scilies. I'm a softy when it comes to best friends to lovers, and their bond and relationship is just. so. pure. don't get me wrong, i love me a good platonic relationship, but there was just one to many homoerotic interactions between them for me not to ship it, hard. (not to be that person but my guess is that if Scott was white it would have been a way bigger ship, but who knows?) i love their love, i love they would do anything for each other, and i feel like there were a bunch of very missed opportunities for them in later seasons :(

so representation. this feels like a show that is trying to be Woke TM but it's not going so well. the main character is supposedly latino but it's never ever addressed. idc about "oh we want a world without prejudice" you can still fucking address it. i mean they went to Mexico a couple of times, stiles keeps saying "Mexican cousin" i mean. god. give us something. did i mention scott was told he'd make a great "nazi youth" ..

and you don't need to be a genius to see the most characters are very white or at least very white passing. and when you don't address their non whiteness they might as well be..

i already mentioned how poorly i feel kira was treated, but also mason, who is a wonderful character, gets no depth? we know nothing about him other than being gay and smart pretty much.

i also spoke about the women already but, they were really really great women characters, but not enough of them, not enough that lasted.

there's not much to talk about disability bc it just wasn't on the show. the only blind character was healed which. /: same with epilepsy and asthma..

i think the show is probably very proud (ha) with their LGBTQ+ rep bc they're like "oh let's make this insignificant couple gay bc hey nbg". examples are lydia's grandma, La Bete and marcel, i think nolan and jiang were exes and then nolan and gabe were a thing? idr if it was explicit. the couple of girls in the tent.. probably a couple more. it's nice, def better than all random couples being straight but that's not satisfying as rep.

Danny was great. i think he and ethan were.. cute? i think he was awesome, i loved danny so much and was very excited to learn he KNOWS at the end of season 3 and was waiting to see him join the pack. instead he fucking disappeared?! wtf. #WhereDidDannyGo

brett was cute rep, especially being bi but i feel like it could go into the insignificant pool which, again, is better than nothing.

mason and corey i just don't have strong feelings about. they were definitely cute and I'm glad they were together, i love mason A Lot. i think this relationship could be explored more, or at least the characters could be explored more to give this relationship more depth.

very interesting how there's no wlw canon couple, not even hinted. just fan servicey hot malia kira dance which /:

not to mention transgenderness. god can you imagine the interesting plotline of transitioning while being a werewolf 0:

i think the rep i was most happy about was ethan and Jackson. even tho i don't think there was build up or clues in the first couple of seasons, I'm happy for the actor who i know was struggling with coming out publicly, and it was very fun and refreshing for the ending. even if we got very few scenes with them the dynamic was 10/10

the biggest problem is obviously stiles. i just don't understand why, if they're so supposedly progressive, they went to that length to queerbait without following through. the whole gag of wanting to be attractive to danny and to gay guys, the whole "aww danny want to have sex with me that's so nice", the whole "do you like guys too?". it's a gag. his alleged bisexuality is the butt of a joke, and it pisses me the fuck off. they don't have to make it a big deal or have him get a bf for it to be official. it wasn't subtle subtext. it was a CHOICE. to put a spotlight on his sexuality but not deliver. -100/10 would not recommend.

also they could talk about his mental health more.

and about Scott's, please and thank you.

and everyone's.

i had some more feelings, like villains changing sides without getting a proper redemption and having no consequences, the wholesomeness of the sherriff and mellisa being each other's kids second parent eichen house (wtf??), and more, but i think i wrote enough for now.

tl;dr- good show with A Lot of problems, will always have a place in my heart bc I'm a nostalgic gal.

#teen wolf #scilies #scott mccall #stiles stilinski #allison argent #kira yukimura #malia hale #lydia martin #rant #fandom #werewolves #I'm sorry i couldn't add a read more thing on mobile but I'll edit it when i get the chance

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samrosemodblog · 4 years ago

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Time for Sam Ramblings! It's been a while since I rambled about something. Also whose ready for some Fandom Whiplash?

Cause I'm rambling about Homestuck.

Homestuck is strange to me cause I was in the PRIME position to absolutely adore it when it premiered, on account of being a huge fan of the series that came before it, Problem Sleuth.

God I loved Problem Sleuth. One of the rare series where from basically page 1 it had me busting my gut with the absurdities.

So I figured I'd love Homestuck too. And while I did dig it for a while, it was always kinda just "Okay" with me going along with the motions. And I DEFINITELY didn't understand the story telling pacing on account of all the time travel shenanigans going on, or the way Hussie decided to EXECUTE those time travel narratives.

I remember dropping out of reading the story around the time of Part 5 airing, you know, when the Trolls REALLY got involved in the story. Which is funny because apparently from what I've seen, this is everyone in the fandom's favorite part of the story.

And I'm rambling about this NOW, because I decided for the kicks to go back and listen to a Youtube Reading of Homestuck, just so I could actually say I'd seen all of Homestuck one day.

And those readings just got to the start of Act 5 now which means I'm all caught up from my past. So I wanted to put my thoughts to paper and then toss them into the void for anyone who cares.

The rest under a Read More!

To start my thoughts, a second read of Homestuck has done a lot for my understanding of Homestuck's story, even if I forgot a LOT of what happened near the end of act 4 on retrospective.

Having even some knowledge of the future meant that when those events occurred in the past, they made INFINITELY more sense than an initial linear timeline viewing of the story.

So in some senses I really was enjoying the story more this time around than I did the first time, though I think I can identify more of what the issue this time around is of why it just feels OKAY in comparison to Problem Sletuh.

Homestuck is basically a game within a game within a Webcomic, narratively speaking. All of that is LITERAL in terms of the story being told, even the 4th Wall is literally part of the story.

And part of the disconnected feeling is that the "Game" of Sburb, the game that starts the story off in Act 1, isn't really used to its full potential.

Like when Act 1 first started, I was FULLY into the idea of this double-layered story telling of kids playing a game and using the game mechanics while they were 'controlled' by a game on the outside.

Like I said, it's LITERALLY a game within a game story telling.

But the Game never really plays out to any meaningful effect. The 'Game' of Sburb is just a plot device that gives the kids, essentially, alchemy super powers.

Sure they can KIND of alter the area they spawn in, but that never really plays any kind of factor in the larger space of the story (at least as far as up to Act 5 is concerned, maybe I'm wrong here, but even if it DOES the feeling of disconnect is still there for all of Acts 1 through 4).

Like. I imagine Problem Sleuth, where the world FUNCTIONALLY is a dream world running on Dream Logic.

One of the first things that happens is the main character pulling a window off of the wall, but still being able to use it as a window to where the window exited out to, like a moving portal.

Imagine THOSE kind of shenanigans but with the game world. Being able to treat reality as if it existed in dream logic.

A story where Rose was able to take the windows on John's house and make duplicates of them around the world, giving John fast access back to his house.

If the new world they were exploring within Sburb was a hostile and dangerous world, and they made themselves safe havens that were essentially copy + pastes of their homes, with door portals that lead them between these havens, and allow them to 'fast travel' between locations.

The Game would be their world world, because the story would be dictated of them essentially living IN the game! And they ESSENTIALLY always have! They just never had direct access to that game until Sburb existed!

But of course this never really happens in the story.

Instead you get drawn into a confusing game within a game within a webcomic story, combined with so much time travel you can't even nervously shift in place without bumping into SOMETHING that was directly involved in time travel.

And that's not even getting into the whole absurdity of the 'Dream' world ALSO being the antagonist world that the kids are fighting against.

Essentially Homestuck gets bogged down REAL quick with all of these other story elements that, at least FEEL, completely separated from the game in the first place.

And sure, I get that part of the problem in the story is essentially that BECAUSE the kids prototyped the kernel sprite with Clowns, cats, pink, and birds that it caused the main villain to be infuriated over having to wear a stupid hat, but it's such a minor detail that it gets entirely lost in the shuffle!

It's not that any of this is necessarily bad, after all Homestuck's fandom was fucking HUGE when it came on the scene (especially with the trolls), but it definitely had always left me with a feeling of "It feels like a lot could be done with this concept, but instead of doing anything with it, we went with a strange time-travel and alien home-worlds warring narrative instead"

But I suppose this is all relative. It's not necessarily a BAD story, it's just one that leaves a lot up to the reader to figure things out and/or wait for them to be figured out on their own, and that can be kind of tough to deal with.

Also some of the language hasn't held up, at all. And I don't think it even held up even back then. 10 years is a long time in terms of cultural shifts, but even still oof.

But that's a minor part at the very least and doesn't come up very often, so I can at least shrug it off for now.

Anyways, that caps off my feelings of the first 4 acts as they exist right now. And I wanted to get them down because one of the most common reading advice for people new to Homestuck is "Skip to Act 3!" and it's like

That's such terrible advice and not a great way to kick off this huge adventure lol

But at least I think I figured out WHY Acts 1 through 4 gave me such a "This is okay" feeling, as said above.

But what kicked me out of reading the rest was Part 5 Act 1 (Seriously why isn't it just Act 5 and 6?? They're long enough to be separate acts, lord).

EVERYONE ELSE seemed to adore the trolls and loved exploring their world and getting to know them more.

They annoyed the Hell out of me originally.

Not only had I been thrown off/hated the whole fact that John made his own family and friends and himself RANDOMLY AND WITHOUT ANY THOUGHT (Like he literally just stumbles into a room and goes ahead and makes the paradoxes and just... Just does things??? UGH I STILL HATE IT), but then these assholes came along and just had COMPLETELY obnoxious personalities and text chats that were a pain in the ass to read and took over the ENTIRE STORY away from the characters I actually cared about.

ALSO PERSTERCHUM LOGS ARE WAY TOO LONG, EVEN FROM THE START OF THE STORY, EVERY TIME IT'S LIKE 10 MINUTES TO READ WHAT'S GOING ON, I SWEAR TO GOD-

So I just wanted to put my thoughts down on what Homestuck had been TO ME so far before I end up dragging myself through the rest of the story that I HAVEN'T seen until now.

I believe I got spoiled on how the story ends from a tumblr post but my memory of it is really vague and I don't remember HOW they get to that conclusion, but it felt very Problem-Sleuthy in how it ended so ya know.

Either way, it will be interesting to see if any of my feelings end up changing here. I doubt I'll ever be officially part of the 'Fandom' like other people were, but hey, if I get to the end of the story and like what I have so far I can at least partake in the fanart and fanfics and finally know what's going on lol

PS. I DO find it funny that "The Midnight Gang" was essentially a commissioned side-story in the Problem Sleuth universe, and one of the on-going 'Gag' commands was "Enter the Main story!", but of course they never did.

I guess Homestuck is what happens when they actually do lol

#Sam Ramblings #Homestuck

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