#Love is stored in Modern Fairytale Adaptions about True Love the question of “good” and “evil” and queer subtext

[mondglocke]

i already AM a girly Lesbian in love with the idea of being some kind of fancy princess, secretly dating a lady knight ,going on royal balls etc...

....So i am actually SURPRISED watching Ever After High seems to make me even more girly and even MORE gay.

Where are my OC and my Cosplays and.... WHY DIDNT LITTLE ME WATCHED IT SOONER?!

it's so me coded 😭

[wingedwalls]

Rapid Fire Book Tag

I nicked this off Wordpress - not sure who originally came up with it, but thanks! 

Question 1 : E-Book or Physical Book?

Physical book for everything except academic papers.

Question 2 : Paperback or Hardback?

Paperback! Mostly because I have a tendency to drop books on my face when I read in bed and paperbacks are lighter. Also because they’re easier to lug around.

Question 3 : Online or In-Store Book Shopping?

In-store, always. I get such a kick from picking up new books in person.

Question 4 : Trilogies or Series?

Single stand-alones. 

Question 5 : Heroes or Villains?

Anti-heroes... But no, in actuality, whoever is best written. Some series write heroes better than villains (e.g. Harry Potter), others write villains very well (e.g. Neverwhere).

Question 6 : A book you want everyone to read?

The End of Mr Y, by Scarlett Thomas. I found it by accident and I can’t recommend it enough. I haven’t read such a fun, thought-provoking rollercoaster of a book in a long time.

Question 7 : Recommend an underrated book?

If you’re reading this I’m already dead, by Andrew Nicoll. People often dismiss it as ‘a silly but fun’ book, but it’s about as silly as Catch-22 really is.

Question 8 : The last book you finished?

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. I don’t know what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it. I’m very, very impressed. Excellent world-building and storytelling.

Question 9 :The Last Book(s) You Bought?

The Pillow Book by Sei Shounagon - an 11th century Japanese book by a Court gentlewoman who apparently really liked to make lists. I also like to make lists.

Question 10 : Weirdest Thing You’ve Used as a Bookmark?

Honestly? A full mink skin. I was on the steppe in Mongolia and came across one, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Question 11 : Used Books: Yes or No?

Yes, duh. They smell delicious, and everyone knows smell is the most important thing in a book.

Question 12 : Top Three Favourite Genres?

Fantasy, Travel, Detective stories.

Question 13 : Borrow or Buy?

Buy if I can afford it. I tend to lend out books I liked though and rarely get them back.

Question 14 : Characters or Plot?

Hmmmmmm maybe plot? What I really look for in a book, at the end of the day, is a good story. And to me good storytelling has three components:

* Characters (and this includes dialogue, how characters relate to each other and to the reader, etc. Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter Chronicles is a good example of a series prioritising characters - you feel like you know them all personally, they ring true and feel like real people you return to for regular visits.)

* Plot (do you want to turn the pages and keep reading? Do you keep asking yourself, ‘what happens next??’ Do plot twists make you gasp or bounce in excitement rather than think I knew it all along...? A book that does this really well is The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar.)

* World-building (Can you picture yourself walking around and living in that world? Does it stay with you, like a coloured lens, tinting your vision of the world around you for days or weeks after you’ve finished reading? Make you want to eat different foods, wear different clothes, speak in a different manner? Then it’s a world-building success. The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch, does a spectacular job of this.)

I think a book tells a good story if it has two of these. It is an excellent story if it has three.

A story with only one of these will probably keep me reading, but ultimately leave me with a general feeling of ‘meh’ - I’ll remember it as an average book with some redeeming elements that spoke to me. One such example is Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha series. The world-building is excellent: despite being a little shaky in the first book, Shadow and Bone, the ‘Grishaverse’ truly comes to life in the later books, and had me listening to Russian music, wearing military fashions and seasoning my food with cream and dill for days. Unfortunately, most characters are two-dimensional and the plot is predictable and full of holes. So, would I re-read them? No. Would I read other stories set in that world? Yes.

An example of a book that has two of these components down is A Darker Shade of Magic, by VE Schwab. I absolutely loved that story - it really spoke to me. This is because a) the characters are particularly likeable. They have very distinct personalities, the dialogue is both witty and believable, and they interact with each other in a way that feels like a natural progression rather than stunted or forced. And b) The world-building is like a storyteller ate all of your childhood stories and dreams, pirate ships and fairytales and Studio Ghibli and one day I’ll be able to fight!, and vomited them back up into a format your adult self never knew you wanted.  The plot? Well, the plot was... predictable. But the other elements of the story held my attention and captivated me so much that it made for a bloody good story, and had anyone been reading it aloud to me they would’ve collapsed before I’d let them take a break.

A book that has all three? It seems like a cop-out to reuse an example, but The Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch) has it. And the result is truly phenomenal. I went through all five stages of grief when some of the characters died. I missed Tube stops and walked into people on the streets because I couldn’t put the book down. I was late for work. It made both me and my boyfriend dream so much we’re planning a holiday to flipping Venice, even though I’m completely broke. And you know what? I’m not even sorry. 

Question 15 : Long or Short Books?

I like alternating between the two. Long books are great for falling into a new world, short books are great for traveling and insta!satisfaction.

Question 16 : Long or Short Chapters?

I think long? I don’t feel particularly strongly either way, but the constant staggering of short chapters sometimes annoys me.

Question 17 : Name The First Three Books You Think Of…

Anna Karenina - Tolstoy, Throne of Glass - Sarah J Maas, Today I Wrote Nothing - Daniil Kharms

Question 18 : Books That Makes You Laugh or Cry?

Laugh - I like books that make me bark out my appreciation in loud and uncontrolled laughs, it keeps me entertained when I’m reading in public places. 

That said, some of the books that have affected me the most and stayed with me the longest have made me cry like a madeleine (this is a genuine French idiom and I’ve never questioned it before, but I now realise I have no idea where it came from). Again, usually in public spaces. My 14-year-old self read Balzac’s Le Pere Goriot on the Eurostar and was massively embarrassed when I found I couldn’t stop sniffling after having complained about how ‘boring’ it was for days. Naturally, my family called me out on it. I finished the Amber Spyglass (Philipp Pullman) in a bookshop and came out in tears, to the utter puzzlement of the staff.

Question 19 : Our World or Fictional Worlds?

When both collide. I suppose for modern fiction this mostly amounts to Urban Fantasy.

Question 20 : Audiobooks: Yes or No?

I couldn’t say - I’ve only ever listened to one audiobook, The Lies of Locke Lamora. Some things about it bugged me, but overall I think I liked it, so I will try again.

Question 21 : Do You Ever Judge a Book by its Cover?

All the time, but in many ways that is because I have nothing else to rely on.  I went into a bookshop once that had a recommendations table, where staff had not only picked out their favourites but left a little note in each of them marking out a page or scene that best illustrated the essence of the book. It was great. I think all bookshops should do that. In fact, I think publishers should do that, and put it on the cover. “Open up to page 138 to read about the Floating Market!” Now I always try to do that when recommending books to people.

Question 22 : Book to Movie or Book to TV Adaptations?

I love that this is a question. Book to TV, definitely! I spend so much time with the characters and worlds of a book that I feel movies can never do them justice, and I end up frustrated more than anything. With a TV adaptation, they can add in detail and build up a story that is familiar, yet a little different.

Question 23 : A Movie or TV-Show You Preferred to its Book?

True Blood! I read the first couple of books of the Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Mysteries series by Charlaine Harris, and couldn’t get into it. The first few seasons of the show, by comparison, were very good - they figured out what had worked in the original content and built on it.

Question 24 : Series or Standalones?

Standalones - mostly because I don’t have the patience for series anymore. To me some of the best series are those that feel like one book cut into episodes.