#Mystery novel critique

[esonetwork]

'The Scorpion's Tail' Book Review By Ron Fortier

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/the-scorpions-tail-book-review-by-ron-fortier/

'The Scorpion's Tail' Book Review By Ron Fortier

THE SCORPION’S TAIL By Preston & Child Grand Central Publishing 401 pgs

This is the second thriller in the Special Agent Pendergast spin-off series starring two of his best supporting characters. The first being Archeologist Nora Kelly who was around from the first Pendergast adventure teaming up with his young protégé, newly minted FBI Agent Corrie Swanson. Though why the publisher opts to label this the “Nora Kelly” series is beyond my logic. It really should be the “Kelly – Swanson” series. Oh well, the eccentricities of publishers.

Like the first, this one also focuses on historical mysteries with these set in the western state of New Mexico. A young, extremely likeable town Sheriff named Homer Watts encounters a would-be looter at work in a high mountain ghost town. When he confronts the fellow, the perp tries to shoot him. Much to his dismay as Watts is a fast draw crack shot and wounds the varmint. But that isn’t what sets alarms off. Rather it is the fact that the two-bit artifact thief was in process of uncovering a dead body; a dead body buried on government land. Enter the FBI and Agent Corrine Swanson.

Realizing the excavation of a body is beyond her considerable expertise, Corrie recruits Nora Kelly to assist her and pretty soon the trained archeologist finds herself pulled into the mystery. Not only is the corpse weirdly mummified, but in his possession is an ornate, bejeweled cross that dates back to the days of the Spanish conquistadores. Could the dead man have been hunting lost Spanish gold mines rumored to be hidden in those mountains? And what connection does the dead man have to the White Plains Desert Military base; home to the first atom bomb test?

Once again, Preston and Child weave an intricate, pretzel-twisty plot that mushrooms multiple new questions whenever one is answered. Enough to keep both Nora and Corrie hopping back and forth from one end of the state to the other looking to solve not one, but several historical puzzles all seemingly intertwined. Along the way, they encounter some truly colorful Western characters ala Sheriff Watts and a descendant of Geronimo. In the end, “The Scorpion’s Tale” is another grand Preston & Child outing and one we heartily recommend. Kelly and Swanson may not be Pendergast, but they sure are the next best thing

[lucaonthropy]

Holy shit

[rappaccini]

do we need to like. talk. about how grrm taking so long to complete asoiaf means the original subversion of daenerys targaryen's character has been basically lost.

because aside from the show massively fucking the ending up, you also have to consider the seismic shift of the perception of fantasy as a whole since asoiaf hit the mainstream and since more intersectional perspectives and deconstructions of white saviorism have risen in prominence.

like it's a good thing that we're collectively critiquing and sideeying dany's storyline for the questionable, orientalist and often outright racist elements, and that the girlboss dany idea is being challenged. but uh guys. take a look at grrm. do you really think he was setting out to write a paul atreides style deconstruction of white saviorism with dany. or is it not more likely that he put those things into his story by mistake and didn't realize those problematic elements were there until decades later-- especially since girlboss feminism didn't fucking exist when he started writing asoiaf. is it not more likely that he missed the points he was trying to make about dany being a foreigner interfering in eastern politics and the white savior vibe her story sometimes puts off is completely accidental.

people do not seem to realize what the climate of fantasy was when grrm was writing asoiaf in the 90s-00s. the moral grays and grimdark elements of modern fantasy were in part popularized by asoiaf. grrm wasn't subverting the idea of dany being a good ruler. dany being a good ruler was the subversion.

daenerys targaryen is a deconstruction and subversion of the almost comically evil sorceress-queen antagonist of a fantasy novel that would never be written today.

think through what dany looks like from the outside:

she's the daughter of the mad incestuous king who terrorized westeros only a generation ago, and she's back to get his throne for herself.

she's going to make her arrival by invading from the Savage East and killing the one true lost heir, the son of the prince everyone loves and wishes were king, who was raised among the people, who's a boy, who practices the faith of the seven and will marry a westerosi lady. and she's going to destroy the shining city that he's going to rule from.

she rides a black and red dragon that spits black and red fire. she has two other dragons with her and used blood magic to hatch them. she killed a house full of warlocks, has prophetic dreams, talks to mysterious sorcerers and witches and is linked with magic.

she comes from a family of incestuous, weird-looking, magic-using, dragon-riding conquerors who are the last survivors of an empire that conquered half the world and decimated and enslaved an entire continent by using dark magic, dragons and horrifying experiments. and her family in particular is infamous for having a tendency to go insane.

she's so beautiful men are throwing themselves at her. she dominated one husband and killed another. her dragon set poor sweet quentyn martell on fire when all he was doing was trying to honor a betrothal agreement. she has sex with both men and women where she's in control of the encounters. she had a sexual relationship with her brother*. she 'bewitched' the most powerful warlord in essos with her sexuality, convinced him to kill her brother for her, took over his following, and will come to westeros with control of the most deadly cavalry in the world who are already considered to be 'savages' -- and her association with them has already started rumors that she fucks horses because she's so insatiable.

she's infertile and sacrificed her one pregnancy (gasp, the Firstborn Son!) to hatch her dragons.

kinslayer allegations: her brother, her son, and her (fake) nephew. even her mother, to an extent.

she has very tanned skin, spooky silver hair (that's very short) and purple eyes, a tyroshi accent and wears revealing clothing that would scandalize westerosis.

she's the savior figure for a Foreign Religion that's spreading in westeros and competing with the faith of the seven.

she's either the savior figure for the 'barbarian' nomadic raiders, or the mother of their prophesized savior.

she's leading an army of foreign (brown) slave soldiers, sellswords and 'barbarians.' she's being advised by foreigners. her handmaids aren't Nice Noble Girls-- they're nomadic horsewomen who are stereotyped as unmannered and promiscuous.

and the westerosis in her camp are the ones westeros hates: pirates that just destroyed oldtown, westeros's beloved center of trade, faith and knowledge. specifically euron, who wants to marry her. the dwarf that killed king joffrey and escaped and is now back because he wants to burn down king's landing. an ugly westerosi lord from backwater bear isle who was banished for selling slaves. a westerosi knight who refused to accept the king's wishes for him to retire and ran off to serve the opposition... and probably marwyn, a controversial maester.

she destroyed the essosi economy, has sacked multiple cities, turned the ruling class out of their homes, crucified a bunch of nobles, and will probably burn the volantene tower full of nobles on her way west.

she's a woman, specifically a teenage girl, who has power in her own right, who wants to claim more of it. and who has no more powerful man to answer to.

(*edit: k this keeps coming up so i’ll clarify— yes, viserys was abusing dany. i’m not phrasing it as a ‘sexual relationship’ because i’m denying that. i’m phrasing it that way because of how it would be perceived to outsiders, the way all these other bulletpoints are being phrased. context, people.)

daenerys is the embodiment of everything westeros hates and fears to such an extent that even if she does everything right, or doesn't do anything at all, westeros will never accept her.

we spent five books following dany off on her own in essos because that plotline's all about giving you context before she arrives: here's the Evil Queen's backstory, so by the time she does what she does, the reader completely understands and empathizes with her, even if they disagree with her actions. and when all our heroes hate her, and she decides to strip them of their power like she did in essos with the slavers, we don't know what to do.

the subversion is: what if our view of this evil antagonist is xenophobic and sexist, and all the things we're scared of her for were taken out of context or twisted to villainize her. what if the foreign culture she's from isn't evil, and what if her slave army is actually freedmen who chose to follow her, and she opposes the legacy of slavery her family sources their power from. what if she's 'mad' because she's understandably angry and upset, and not ~craaazy~. what if the nobles she was killing deserved it, what if the system they depend on was evil and deserved to be destroyed. what if our system that we've been fighting to preserve isn't much better and needs to go too, even if People We Like are in charge of it. what if she's a teenager who doesn't always make the right decisions, especially when much older adults with their own motives are manipulating her.

the subversion is: what if the evil sorceress-queen who's going to invade our wonderful fantasy realm and bring all her big bad scary changes with it is a complex person with good intentions who actually has a completely legitimate reason to burn it all down.

so if dany genuinely does go evil when she gets to westeros... there's no subversion anymore because the trope is played straight. therefore, she won't. but it won't even matter. we'll know that dany isn't a monster, but nobody else will see her that way.

[idkdudethisisntpermanent]

Elixir

wednesday addams x female reader

part i | part ii

summary: What happens when your best friend's roommate who you're always at odds with, suddenly becomes uncharacteristically affectionate towards you? Just what was in that mysterious bottle that set everything into motion?

word count: 1.9k

a/n: I've made a taglist! If you want to join, refer to this post

————

Friday nights at Nevermore Academy held different meanings for different students.  Some gathered for the Vampire Book Club, an all exclusive group that spent their evenings immersed in gothic horror novels.  Others were part of the secret society, kicking off the weekend by leaving cryptic messages and riddles around the school in search of their next recruit.  And then there were those fortunate enough to be welcomed home by their parents for the weekend.

But for you, Friday nights meant something different. You had no interest in secret clubs or cryptic hunts. Instead, you chose to spend the weekend cozied up with Enid for a movie marathon.

With a grin, the werewolf-in-training held up two DVDs, one in each hand. "Okay, we've got 10 Things I Hate About You and When Harry Met Sally."

You point to the hand holding the first film and Enid squeals excited to begin your long awaited movie night. It's been difficult finding a time where you both could commit to a long task like watching a movie without Wednesday getting in the way.

It wasn't that Wednesday particularly got in the way of these activities, but you both did. You two would inevitably clash when put in the same room together and be at each others throats until you were separated by some brave soul (most of the time Enid).

"Are you sure we won't be interrupted?" You ask as Enid climbed into the bed.  "I don't want to get my hopes up, and believe that I can actually have a moment of peace in your room," you added, recalling all the times you've stormed out of this very room due to Wednesday.

Enid bumps into her drawer as she climbs into bed and almost knocks off a glass bottle with a bulbous base, fortunately you were able to grab ahold of the dresser leg in time and stabilize the furniture before the glass bottle filled with liquid could fall.

"I should probably put this somewhere safer," Enid says grabbing the glass and walking it over to Wednesday's side of the room and placing it on her desk. "And yes Y/n, I've quadrupled checked.  She should be in the car by now, heading home.  Her mom was really insistent on her visiting this weekend, so she had no choice." Once Enid and you cozy up together in her bed and turn all the lights off, you hit play and the movie begins.

"Wednesday will literally deep cleanse this room if she found out we're watching rom coms in it," you laugh as Heath Ledger makes his appearance on screen.

Enid giggles, "Sometimes I think she's a secret romance lover, recently I found out she knew the plot to Clueless."

"No way!  I wonder what critiques she has about that film," you muse sarcastically. "She definitely had to feel some type of way about that yellow outfit."

Enid hums and you notice that she's now engrossed in the film.  Taking the cue, you focused on the screen as well, ready to enjoy your peaceful night together.

Only thing was, you couldn't.

As the film continues, all you can think about was how relieved you are that Wednesday isn't here.  How you don't have to listen to the incessant click-clack of her stupid type writer.  How you don't have to endure her cold, calculating gaze that always seems to dissect your every word and action, and especially how you don't have to listen to her sharp and cutting remarks that always seem to find their mark.

At some point during the movie Enid notices that you were not present and paused the film.  "Okay what's on your mind?"

Absentmindedly not registering her question, you respond, "Wednesday." Your eyes go wide, "Wait! I meant-"

She smirks, "You know Y/n/n, for someone who hates her, you bring her up an awful lot.

You scramble at Enid's statement. What was that supposed to mean? "She's just frustrating you know? Get's under my skin, obviously I'm gonna bring her up."

Wednesday suddenly enters the room following your explanation, and sits at her desk without a word. Then after a minute she speaks, "It's gratifying to know that my efforts have left the desired impact."

You didn't care that Wednesday walked in on you complaining about her however you did care that Wednesday walked in.

You give Enid a look, "I thought she wasn't supposed to be here."  The blue-eyed girl holds her hands up in defense, "She wasn't! I swear she was supposed to be back Monday morning."

She then turns to her roommate and asks, "Wens, what are you doing here? I thought your mom wanted to see you?"

"Something came up," the unconventional girl replies short, not explaining any further.

Enid knew that was the only explanation her roommate would give, and there was no point questioning any further. You however did not care, and narrowed your eyes at Wednesday. "Something came up?" That's all you're going to say? You're just going to crash our night with no explanation?"

Wednesday raises an eyebrow, her voice cool and detached. "I wasn't aware I needed your permission to be in my own room."

"You know that's not what I'm saying," you snap back, frustration bubbling up. "You always do this—just show up and take over, like no one else matters. We had plans, Wednesday."

"And now you have new plans," she replies evenly, not a trace of guilt or concern in her voice. "Plans that include me."

You let out a groan. "But that's your problem, you can't just conform to our plans. You always give Enid and I shit for the things we want to do and we always end up catering to your needs. This is exactly why we can't get along. You never consider anyone else's feelings. It's always about you, your needs, your twisted games."

Wednesday's gaze narrows, and her tone turns icier. "If you can't handle a simple change in plans, that's your weakness, not mine. My presence shouldn't be so disruptive unless you're letting it be."

Letting it be?! You couldn't just let this dark kooky girl think that she has some sort of effect on you.

"Oh, don't flatter yourself, Wednesday," you retort, standing your ground. "Your presence isn't 'disruptive' because I'm weak, it's disruptive because you deliberately make it that way. You thrive on pushing people's buttons, and I'm not about to give you the satisfaction."

Wednesday's expression remains unchanged, but there's a flicker of something in her eyes—amusement? "Is that so? Then why are you so bothered by it?  If I truly had no effect on you, you wouldn't even be arguing with me right now."

You clench your fists, struggling to maintain your composure. "Maybe I'm bothered because I care about Enid, and you're always in the way. Maybe I'm just sick of you making everything about yourself!"

Wednesday's eyes narrow further, and her voice drops to a whisper.  "You care about Enid, yet you argue with me, knowing it will disturb her. Perhaps you should examine your true motivations, because from where I stand, it seems you're more interested in clashing with me than in protecting her peace."

You scoff, "I don't know what you're implying." Behind your cool nonchalant front you were panicking, worried that Wednesday will say something that you did not want to hear.

You glance over at Enid who is picking at her nails, calculating the perfect time to break you and Wednesday up without getting hit in the crossfire.

"I'm sorry Enid," you say genuinely. As much as you hate to admit it, Wednesday was right, you're a hypocrite. You know how much it bothers Enid when you and Wednesday fought, yet you always find yourself caught up in these verbal battles with her.

Giving Wednesday one last glare, you storm out of the dorm room not knowing where exactly you're headed. All you know is that you're done with the movie night—and done with Wednesday.

As you march down the hallway, footsteps echoing behind you catch your attention. You don't slow down, but you know exactly who it is before she even calls out to you.

"Y/n, wait!" Enid's voice rings out, filled with concern. You sigh, your pace slowing down automatically.

Enid catches up to you, and grabs onto your arm incase you decide to storm off again. "Please talk to me, I know you're upset."

You find your frustration start to crumble as you sense the concern in your friend's eyes. "I don't know Enid," you begin, your voice quiet. "It's like every time I'm around her, I get so worked up. And tonight, I just couldn't take it anymore. I'm so tired of feeling like this, I'm just constantly on edge around her."

Enid carefully listens, her expressions softening with empathy as you speak. "I get it Y/n. But you don't always have to fight her. Sometimes walking away is the best thing you can do for yourself and for her."

You nod, understanding where Enid was coming from. "You're right, I guess it's just hard when she knows exactly how to get under my skin. And tonight when she accused me of arguing with her for some other reason, like it was something I wanted. It just got to me." You finish in a whisper.

"She has a way of getting to everyone, but that doesn't mean you have to let it affect you so much. You've got to take care of yourself too." She smiles gently.

"Yeah, you're right." As you look at Enid, you can see the worry in her eyes, not just for you, but for Wednesday too. You get it. Wednesday is her friend as well, and even though she came running after you, she's probably also concerned about how Wednesday's handling things. Not that anything in this world could really faze her, but still, Enid cares.

You sigh dreading your next words, "Go." Enid quirks her head to the right like a puppy. "Let's go back to your dorm, I have to grab my bag anyways, and... you should check on her."

Enid smiles in relief and gives you a quick hug before you stroll on back to the dorm room of the polar opposite girls.

As you approach the door a sense of unease starts to creep in, but you push it aside. You probably just didn't want to face Wednesday after your heated exchange.

When you open the door, the sight that greets you is... off. Wednesday is sitting at her desk, but something about her looks strange— her normally sharp posture seems a bit more relaxed, and her gaze, usually piercing, is unfocused, almost dreamy.

Before you can fully process this, you hear a soft rolling sound, and your eyes dart down to see Thing, casually pushing the glass bottle that Enid almost knocked over from earlier. It stops right at your feet. You pick it up, turning it in your hands. It's empty.

A chill runs down your spine as realization dawns on you. Wednesday drank whatever was in this bottle.

Enid steps closer, noticing your frozen expression and the empty bottle in your hand. Her eyes widen in alarm, quickly shifting to Wednesday, who now seems to be gazing at you with an intensity that's entirely different from her usual cold demeanor.

"Wednesday?" Enid's voice is hesitant, as if she's afraid of what the answer might be.

Wednesday stands up slowly, her movements uncharacteristically casual. She steps toward you, her eyes locking onto yours, and for a moment, it feels like the air in the room has shifted.

"I'm glad you're back," Wednesday says softly, her voice carrying a warmth that catches you completely off guard.  "I was just thinking... how much better this night would be if you stayed."

Your heart skips a beat for reasons you do not know the answer to yourself. You exchange a bewildered glance with Enid, something is definitely not right.

The room falls silent, the tension thick as you both realize that Friday night just took an unexpected turn. Looks like your movie marathon will have to wait.

next chapter

[sarahreesbrennan]

I remember reading in one of your blog entries (years ago??) that in the new book you were writing, the main character's *sister* had cancer. Does that mean that Alice was originally the main character of Long Live Evil? Was she going to go into the book to save Rae, instead of Rae going in to save herself?

How extremely kind of you to remember!

No, that was actually a YA murder mystery that I wrote while ill, revised while recovering, and sent out into the world where it died on submission. (Which means we sent it out to about 12 editors and the editor either said no, or said yes and took it to acquisitions - a group of people at the publisher including sales and marketing - and acquisitions said no.)

One editor told me she really wanted and really tried to buy it. Another person who worked in publishing (and has since changed jobs, or I wouldn’t share this) said the response at her acquisitions was - if you like this writer, find the next her (implications about health and youth were made).

I was terrified my agent was going to ditch me too, but she said ‘We’ll sell that one day, for now let’s write the next thing.’

I remember another writer telling me she missed my work that wasn’t a tie-in, and I felt ashamed to tell her it wasn’t that I wasn’t writing other things - it was that I couldn’t publish them.

The tie-ins meanwhile were paying the bills (they still are tbh!) and I was and remain so grateful for them. But I also really loved writing them - especially my Sabrina tie-ins, you don’t forget the first, and it reminded me I want to write horror and poly one day - and how they got me to love and sympathise with so many fandoms.

I see the burnout of caregivers all around me, and I wanted to write the story of one. But maybe I also wanted to take a step back from cancer. I didn’t think I did, at the time. I had a whole lot of things I tried writing before Long Live Evil, and I think some of them were really good. One of my critique partners gave me a lipstick with the same name as someone in the murder mystery. There was a romance novel another critique partner said was her favourite thing I’d ever written. But none had someone with cancer at the heart of the story.

And even though Rae isn’t much like me, maybe I had to start there. You can’t make real magic using someone else’s liver. Maybe I had to wait to be brave enough to use my own liver.

I do get requests for advice on how to cope with rejection of your writing, and I always worried I didn’t have anything else to say, but I suppose my example says - if you can, (and I know it’s hard, you feel so terrible at writing and so useless) (and you love the work you’ve done so much and you don’t see a way forward to loving the next thing) (but still, if you possibly can) write the next thing.

Even if the first thing sells, you’ll want the next thing one day. Writing the next thing is more writing practise, so it’ll make you better. Write the next thing.

Ultimately I’m really glad Long Live Evil was my comeback book. I think it needed to be. It took the time it took.

But maybe it was a shade of that past book (where the heroine’s sister with cancer was six, so not much like any of the Time of Iron characters) that made me think of the YA version of this book, which I always had in my mind as something I was intentionally hewing away from - a more straightforward book, a book that might have sold better - in which shy reader Alice was the hero. She’s the one with the suggestive hero name - Alice through the looking glass - the heroine looks, and the more projectable-upon personality. She’d get called annoying less often (though still some, because she’s a girl), partly because she is (with love, Rae knows I’m right) a genuinely less annoying person. Much kinder, much sweeter, and much better at in-depth reading! Her sister being in trouble would’ve been a backstory, a catalyst point, and - you’re totally right - a great motivation for her to get the Flower. Saving a family member is a much more sympathetic and heroic motivation than saving yourself and one I do love (the Hunger Games, Labyrinth, Mahy’s the Changeover, and I write it a lot!). I think Snarky While Tragically Dying Rae would’ve been a pretty popular side character, too. I think it would’ve been a good book! Just not mine.

I love your question because I love thinking about POV, and all the decisions that are the building blocks of a story. To me, the Alice centric Time of Iron is a version that exists. As are several versions of the Lia centric Time of Iron. And versions centring other characters exist to me, too. (Eric, absolutely.)

Speaking of POV musing, I think Rahela the wicked stepsister featured more in the musical than the book. If the Time of Iron series ever became a TV show (and at this point in time I think I’d rather a movie because it wouldn’t… get cancelled…) and I got to write it (don’t know why I would…) I would start with the beginnings for three characters about to go on a journey to somewhere strange to them: Key in the Cauldron, Rae in the hospital, and Vasilisa in the icelands. There are so many possibilities! And I really wanted the sense that there were so many possibilities, too.

But I wanted the chronically ill one to be the centre of the story, and for it to be her villain origin story, and to ask a lot of questions (hence a lot of villains!) about who gets villainised and why. And I thought hers, to my mind, would be the most fun of all the possible stories.

So that’s the one I made. But Long Live Evil has a lot of origins. Thank you for remembering one of them! I don’t think I would’ve dared tell the story, if things hadn’t worked out for me (so far, fingers crossed).

And I also tell it to be clear my publisher was taking a RISK with me and Long Live Evil, and I really appreciate that, and I’m so happy it’s worked out for them (again so far, early days, fingers crossed, etc).

I hope some writers - whether in the process of submission, rejection or making the choices that are the building blocks of story - find this helpful, and some readers find it interesting.

Let this be one of the universes in which your story is told.

[horizon-verizon]

On this here day, GRRM wrote an entry clarifying several things about the dragon lore in his novels, and it vindicates so many Dany stans/Daenerys as the Azor Ahai:

Saying dragon "mysteries", in-world, will be revealed in the last two books AND Septon Barth got a lot right. I'm taking that to mean that dragons change sex (Viserion, here you come, baby!), like two particular Twitter mutes I have (danylanzhou and Branwynwitch). It also seems like he's confirming that dragons and the first 40 Valyrian families (which include the Targs, then and now) mixed dragon blood with their own in some long past ancient event AND that only these families, therefore, can bond with dragons to rides them safely or befriend them.

Which means Nettles is definitely of Valyrian/Targ-descent, which really should have been obvious. One of my mutuals also asserted that this makes the idea of Nettles-Sheepstealer/Rhaena-Morning being interchangeable for their supposed HotD merging GRRM-disapproved bc he makes a point to say that dragons don't tend to move far from their lairs that are usually very high up in mountains and volcanos. Sheepstealer can't be going to the Vale while having a lair in Dragonstone:

As for the thought of Sunfyre flying miles to get to Dragonstone...this is where he/they were born and where the real magic that sustains dragons is coalesced from hundred of years. It makes sense for him/them to fly to this castle even if Aegon weren't there after he had been bodied by Meleys/Meleys & Vhagar, looking for recovery. This is where the Targs get most of their eggs/dragons and it is near where most dragons in Westeros make their lairs.

Note that he says, in the very last paragraph, how:

Fantasy needs to be grounded.  It is not simply a license to do anything you like. Smaug and Toothless may both be dragons, but they should never be confused. Ignore canon, and the world you’ve created comes apart like tissue paper.

It appears he is VERY not happy about something to do with dragons in the show's second season, how they bond in the show, how a certain dragon is "explained" to have traveled a too-long distance for a certain pale-locked young girl who has been trying to hatch her own dragon for years...I see you GRRM, fighting for Nettles AND Rhaena I see.

Oh, and just bc he said he liked epi 2, doesn't mean that he cannot critique anything about HotD ever again...he is the writer and creator of this universe that they are capitalizing on. As long as a writer of any genre stays logically consistent and relatively undiscriminatory in their original writing, they definitely can tell any of us readers what is real and not real or possible in their own creations! That this is even up for debate is a travesty to logic.

Mind you, this is the same man who said the show and the book are two separate canons AND that adaptations "nowadays" tend to fail bc the adapters think they can make the story "better" and ignore critical lore details. And in his latest commentary on HotD's S2 first two episodes, he says, and I quote:

“Rhaenyra the Cruel” has been getting great reviews, for the most part.   A lot of the fans are proclaiming it the best episode of HotD, and some are even ranking it higher than the best episodes of GAME OF THRONES.   I can hardly be objective about these things, but I would certainly say it deserves to be in contention.   The only part of the show that is drawing criticism is the conclusion of the Blood and Cheese storyline.   Which ending was powerful, I thought… a gut punch, especially for viewers who had never read FIRE & BLOOD.   For those who had read the book, however… Well, there’s  a lot of be said about that, but this is not the place for me to say it.   The issues are too complicated.   Somewhere down the line, I will do a separate post about all the issues raised by Blood and Cheese… and Maelor the Missing.  There’s a lot to say.

Note that the latest post was about epi4 and this one I just linked is only abt epi 1 &2....so where are his thoughts for the hated/comedic epi3?! (we see each other, George). (BTW, I gave my thoughts on his thoughts about 1 & 2, HERE.)

I'll say it once again: though GRRM praised the portrayal of grief, defended Cheese being lost, and loved the dog (the last I don't fault anyone for, I also loved them) in the Blood & Cheese episode, he also expressly talks AROUND how Blood & Cheese and Helaena actually interacted and comments on the Maelor-lessness (therefore the lack of Sophie's Choice) that many people--inclu myself--have been saying was a huge problem.

Now we have two different sources that seem to support the ideas of:

GRRM both not being as "involved" with the actual writing of this show for a bit AND not approving of a lot of critical changes

HotD's writers cannot create anything truly "canon" or "real/true" for this universe, it only can make any sort of "sense" if it also retrieves information from the original tale, which is not really just F&B but THE ENTIRE SET OF AVAILABLE BOOKS!

[kanerallels]

I am in search of an artist to commission for my book cover! It's a middle grade-ish fantasy fairy tale retelling, and I've posted on here about it on and off. A semi comprehensive post about it can be found here, feel free to send an ask with any other questions! I shall put a summary under the cut just to make life easier, though

There are a few qualifiers for who I'd like to choose to design the cover:

I do not under any circumstances want a cover that's literally just a person standing there like every other YA novel out there. What I'm looking for is something artistic and unique (I'll post some of my favorite book covers under the cut as well!) and very colorful!

Whoever designs the cover should be willing to read the book first, and be open to the fact that there will probably be some Christian elements and themes

This is less a qualifier and more just a warning: I'm gonna be kinda picky about this, because it's something I really, really want to get right. So if I don't go with you as an artist, it's not because of you or your skill, but just because it's not a right fit, and if I have comments or critiques, we're gonna have to do our best to work together to find something we both like

I think that covers (pun intended hehehe) everything! Thanks for y'all's time, let me know if you have any questions about this!

Book summary:

Rebecca Wood has never known who her real family was. So when a boy named Liam finds her and tells her that he knows where her real family is, it seems like it could be too good to be true

Oddly enough, that's far from the strangest part. It turns out, Rebecca is from the land of fairy tales, though it's not exactly the same as the stories—Snow White and Cinderella are notorious assassins, and the land is ruled by the Evil Empress Goldilocks, who seems to have a special interest of her own in Rebecca.

None of this makes Rebecca's journey any less fascinating as she travels through a perilous and beautiful land full of magic and mystery, looking for the one thing she's always wanted

Book covers I like:

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Austin Grossman’s ‘Fight Me’

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

In Fight Me, the novelist and game developer Austin Grossman uses aging ex-teen superheroes to weigh the legacy of Generation X, in a work that enrobes its savage critique with sweet melancholia, all under a coating of delicious snark:

http://www.austingrossman.com/fight-me

It is, in other words, a very Gen X kinda novel. Prodigy (AKA Alex Beekman) is a washed-up superhero. As a nerdy high-schooler, he was given super powers by a mysterious wizard (posing as a mediocre teacher), who gave him an amulet and a duty. Whenever Alex touches the amulet and speaks the word of power, reaclun (which he insists is not "nuclear" backwards) he transforms into Prodigy, a nigh-invulnerable, outrageously handsome living god who is impervious to bullets, runs a one-minute mile, and fights like a champ. Prodigy, he is told, has a destiny: to fight the ultimate evil when it emerges and save the world.

Now, Alex is 40, and it's been a decade since he retired both Prodigy and his Alex identity, moving into a kind of witness protection program the federal government set up for him. He poses as a mediocre university professor, living a lonely and unexceptional life.

But then, Alex is summoned back to the superhero lair he shared with his old squad, "The Newcomers," a long-vacant building that is one quarter Eero Saarinen, three quarters Mussolini. There, he is reunited with his estranged fellow ex-Newcomers, and sent on a new quest: to solve the riddle of the murder of the mysterious wizard who gave him his powers, so long ago.

The Newcomers – an amped-up ninja warrior, a supergenius whose future self keeps sending him encouragement and technical schematics backwards through time, and an exiled magical princess turned preppie supermodel – have spent more than a decade scattered to the winds. While some have fared better than Alex/Prodigy, none of them have lived up to their potential or realized the dreams that seemed so inevitable when they were world famous supers with an entourage of fellow powered teens who worshipped them as the planet's greatest heroes.

As they set out to solve the mystery, they are reunited and must take stock of who they are and how they got there (cue Talking Heads' "Once In a Lifetime"). With flashbacks, flashforwards, and often hilarious asides, Prodigy brings us up to speed on how supers fail, and what it's like to live as a failed super.

The publisher's strapline for this book is "The Avengers Meets the Breakfast Club," which is clever, but extremely wrong. The real comp for this book isn't "The Breakfast Club," it's "The Big Chill."

When I realized this, I got briefly mad, because I've only had two good movie high concept pitches in my life and one of them was "Gen X Big Chill." Rather than veterans of the Summer of 68 confronting the Reagan years, you could have veterans of the Battle of Seattle living through the Trump years. One would be on PeEP, one would be an insufferable Andrew Tate-quoting bitcoiner, one would be a redpilled reactionary with a genderqueer teen, one would be a squishy lib, one a firebreathing leftist, etc. The soundtrack would just be top 40 tracks from artists who have songs on "Schoolhouse Rock Rocks":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoolhouse_Rock!_Rocks

Every generation has some way in which they seek to overthrow the status quo and build a new, allegedly better one, after all. "Big Chill"'s impact comes from its postmortem on a generation where it was easy to feel like you were riding destiny's rails to greatness thanks to the sheer size of the Boomer cohort and the postwar prosperity they lived through. A Gen X Big Chill would be a stocktaking of a generation that defined itself as a lost generation reared in the Boomers' shadows, armored against the looming corpo-climate apocalypse with the sword of irony and the shield of sincerity.

Which is basically what Grossman is doing here. What's more, doing this as a superhero story is a genius move – what could be a better metaphor for a teen's unrealistic certainty of destined greatness than a superhero? Superhero fantasies are irreducibly grandiose and unrealistic, but all the more beautiful and brave and compelling for it.

You know, like teens.

At 52, I'm a middle-aged Gen Xer. I've got two artificial hips and I just scheduled a double cataract surgery. My hairline is receding. I'm an alta kaker. But I wasn't always: I was a bright and promising kid, usually the youngest person in the room where we were planning big protests, ambitious digital art projects, or the future of science fiction. I had amazing friends: creative and funny and sweet, loyal and talented and just fun.

We're mostly doing okay (the ones that lived; fuck cancer and fuck heroin and fuck fentanyl). Some of us are doing pretty good. On a good day, I think I'm doing pretty good. I had a night in 2018 where I got to hang out, as a peer, with my favorite musician and my favorite novelist, both in the same evening. These were artists I'd all but worshipped as a teen. I remember looking at the two selfies I took than night and thinking, Man, if 15 year old me could see these, he'd say that it all worked out.

But you don't get to be 52 without having a long list of regrets and failures that your stupid brain is only too eager to show you a highlight reel from. No one gets to middle age without a haunting loss that is always trying to push its way to the fore in order to incinerate every triumph great and small and leave ashes behind.

That's why there's a "Big Chill" for every generation. Each one has its own specific character and meaning situated in history, but each one has to grapple with the double-edged sword of nostalgia. Not for nothing, John Hodgman (a bona fide Gen X icon) calls nostalgia "a toxic impulse."

Grossman really makes Fight Me work as a Gen X Big Chill. He's a great Gen X writer; his first novel, Soon I Will Be Invincible, was a knockout debut about superheroes and supervillains that had a very "The Boys" vibe, you know, that neat little move where you contend with the banal parts of a super's life and show how super powers don't make you a good person, or even a competent one.

His followup to Invincible came six years later. YOU is a coming-of-age story about the games industry with a second-person narrator (think "Zork"). Grossman is an accomplished game dev (Tomb Raider Legend, Deus X, Dishonored, etc), and he uses YOU to really plumb the depths of what games mean, what fun is, and how working on games isn't just work, it's often really shitty work, the opposite of fun:

https://memex.craphound.com/2013/04/16/austin-grossmans-you-brilliant-novel-plumbs-the-heroic-and-mystical-depths-of-gaming-and-simulation/

Grossman's last novel was Crooked, a very daffy alternate history in which Richard Nixon is a Cthulhoid sorcerer locked in a Lovecraftian battle of good and evil. This is a purely hilarious romp, wildly imaginative and deliciously certain to offend reactionary jerks:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/08/26/austin-grossmans-crooked-the-awful-cthulhoid-truth-about-richard-nixon/

All those chops are on display in Fight Me: a book that covers its brooding with wisecracks, that spits out ten great gags per page even as it drives a knife into your heart. It's a great novel.

Fight Me doesn't come out in the US and Canada until tomorrow (it's been out in the UK, Australia, NZ, etc for more than a month). Normally, I would hold off on reviewing this until the on-sale date, but this is my last day on the blog for two weeks – I'm leaving on a family vacation early tomorrow morning. I'll see you on July 14!

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/01/the-big-genx-chill/#im-super-thanks-for-asking

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

Sapphic vampire fiction mini reviews, ranked from least favorite to most:

House of Hunger: Bland characters, a story that barely scratches the surface of the implications of its premise, and a central relationship with nothing underpinning it make for an aimless story with a climax that hits like a limp noodle. If the dynamic between a vampire and her indentured maid appeals to you, try The Wicked and the Willing instead.

An Education in Malice: For a Carmilla retelling, the titular character really lacks bite. Laura at least has some interesting contradictions in her, and De Lafontaine could be quite compelling if we saw things through her eyes, but the central relationship isn't built on a lot, and Carmilla herself is really disappointingly bland. The prose comes off as overwrought and melodramatic in the first act, and the constant leaning on poetry feels gratuitous, but it picks up steam and becomes appropriately gripping by the one-third mark, and it carries the book enough that I had an enjoyable but rather shallow experience. I struggle to think of a reason to recommend this over In the Roses of Pieria, which plays with similar thematic and aesthetic elements much more adeptly. Also, it's a pet peeve of mine when a story makes a point to establish a specific historical era for its setting but has characters that feel utterly modern.

The Deathless Girls: This book does a much better job with its sense of time and place, and the characters and their motivations are quite strong. I only rate this one low on this list because the main characters don't actually deal with vampirism as a condition until the very end of the book. On its surface, the premise might seem quite similar to A Dowry of Blood, but there's actually very little thematic or narrative overlap.

Ex-Wives of Dracula: An excellent exploration of the queer teenage experience in conservative small town ~2015 USA along with some pretty novel twists on vampire and horror movie tropes. Strong, vibrant characters with a rich, messy, and compelling relationship carry a solid mystery plot and some pretty pointed critiques of its setting, but the actual climax and resolution don't quite hold up to the quality of the rest. Also I simply must warn anyone who didn't grow up in the time and place this book explores about the profound and casual bigotry and nastiness of that setting, which this book replicates to a T.

The Wicked and the Willing: A thrilling and compelling dark romantic drama centered on a British vampire in 1920s Singapore, her newly hired and desperate to escape poverty personal maid, and her majordomo who is struggling to keep her conscience under control after years of aiding and abetting her mistress's dark appetites. Extremely strong character writing pairs with deft exploration of themes of colonialism, entitlement, class divisions, sexism, and the ways in which certain types of status can and cannot afford one leeway to be nonconforming in other ways. Intermixes diagetic and non-diagetic BDSM very organically also, if that's your thing.

In the Roses of Pieria: Rich prose dripping with atmosphere follows an obscure academic as she digs into a series of ancient correspondences and discovers a millenia spanning love story between two vampires. The character writing is solid, if not quite as impressive as some other entries on this list, but the quality of the prose more than elevates it. The text makes elegant and powerful references to Sappho throughout, and the whole experience is heady and compelling in ways that I struggle to describe in greater detail. Funnily enough, the vampires are the least interesting part of the world building. This one has a sequel coming, and I can't wait.

A Dowry of Blood: A darkly enchanting epistolary novel that takes the form of letters written by the first of Dracula's wives to him as she attempts to make peace with killing him. She unpicks a delicious and horrifying knot of feeling and history as she revisits their millenia together, recounting and reckoning with the manipulations and abuses that defined the good times and the bad. The characters are evocative and rich, the narrative voice by turns sparse, longing, furious, contemplative, and mournful, and the story simply springs to life. It accomplishes an incredible amount in approximately 200 pages, and I absolutely cannot recommend this one enough.

[ouidamforeman]

R.e. discussions abt the new Good Omens season being polarizing on whether it’s good or bad writing, I think just saying it’s bad writing is weird and dismissive of what actual problems someone would have with it, and is just dismissing what it’s trying to do because it wasn’t to your taste. I think it more or less succeeded in doing what it wanted to do, which is an entirely different metric of judgment than whether or not you LIKED the effect of what it was doing. Regardless of what issues I personally have with it, I still think overall it effectively did what it set out to.

The thing is, it reads less like a traditional season of television and more like half of a novel. It’s weird. It’s directionless and meandering not because it’s poor storytelling but because I genuinely think it’s doing those things on purpose for other reasons. This is a single chunk of a larger story and I believe the overall purpose of season 2 isn’t to like, actually have a big plot or complete character arcs? If I look at it solely from where it is and what it’s presenting to me and let go of my preconceptions and expectations it appears that this season is just trying to put a few plot set pieces in place for the continuing story, and to nestle those plot pieces in a nonlinear narrative solely focused not on character Development but on character exploration and revelation. I feel like that’s why the actual moving plot this season was a very basic mystery, because it isn’t really the point? The actual story events are just backdrop for revelatory character vignettes, and I think that if this piece of storytelling was part of a novel that included whatever season 3/the actual story conclusion is going to be then people wouldn’t have nearly as many criticisms about the writing as they do when it’s presented as a season of tv. That’s also why it reads so fanfiction-y imo. My honest opinion is that s2’s biggest flaw that isn’t something incredibly subjective is that it’s let down by the fact that it got trapped in needing to present itself as a television season with all the baggage that medium has and not something more unconventional that would be kinder to its weird beginning-of-a-novel-ish meandering. Is this something a season of tv SHOULD do? I don’t know. Is this a fucking weird piece of television story wise? Yeah. Is it now officially a different story from the original novel? Absolutely. Does it have flaws, maybe even flaws that amplify the issues already present in season 1? Yeah. Does it accomplish what it sets out to do though? More or less yeah, I genuinely think so. Now if any of that translates into “badness” for you that’s fine. I think it was an immense risk to do this kind of thing for a tv season and it’s not going to click for everyone. But that’s fine. This is a bizarre and novel-y piece of tv media that’s just sort of doing its own thing, and whether you think that’s bad or not is secondary to how interesting that is I think. I just wish the criticism was more engaging with it instead of judging it, because I think what’s happening here is both much more simple and much more complex than most people are implying with their critiques. It’s much more interesting to meet it where it is imho, even though I do strongly wish it didn’t have to be released in this technically incomplete form.

TLDR I think ppl pointing at this season and calling it bad writing are partially not actually engaging with it on its level and partly confusing objective badness with personal taste. Regardless of whether you LIKED what it tried to do or not it was at least trying to do something, something that it mostly succeeded at, and that’s all i can really comfortably judge a piece of art on

[writingquestionsanswered]

How many words is too many? I have written over 80,000 words already and don't have a computer to edit properly. I've already decided to split the story among multiple books. But how many should each be? I am aiming for a basic novel to a little bit longer, but as a first-time author, I don't want to write something too long and not get anyone to read it.

Finding Your Story's Target Word Count

"How many words is too many" depends on what you're writing. Every type of story and every genre has a different word count range, and the specific ranges vary depending on who you ask. Here are some general ranges you can target...

Story Type:

Short Stories - 1,000 - 5,000 words Novellas - 20,000 to 50,000 words Novels - 50,000 - 110,000 words Epic Novel - 110,000 words and up (though these are rare)

Age Category:

Middle Grade novels - 25,000 - 40,000 words Young Adult novels - 45,000 - 80,000 words New Adult novels - 60,000 - 85,000 words Adult novels - 65,000 - 110,000

Genre:

Literary novels - 80,000 to 110,000 words Romance novels - 50,000 to 80,000 words Fantasy novels - 90,000 to 110,000 words Mystery novels - 70,000 to 90,000 words

It's important to remember that a book series isn't one long novel chopped up into smaller books. Each book in a series needs to have its own story arc. In other words, a beginning/inciting incident, middle/rising action, and end/climax and denouement. That said, you will need to look at the completed story and identify the natural story arcs that exist within it to figure out where each book should end and the next book should begin.

Something else to consider is your publishing goal. If you plan on pursuing traditional publishing, you might look into writing an in-depth summary of the entire story and working with a developmental editor or book coach to figure out how to best divvy up the story between books. That way, you'll ensure that book one is as strong as it can be, which will increase the likelihood of getting a book deal. After that, if your book sells well enough to warrant the publishing of the next book, you will have some guidance on where to go from there.

If you're planning to self-publish, you can still look into working with an editor or book coach, or even a critique partner, or you can just make the best decision you're able to about how to divide each book. Again, what matters is that each part of the story centers on its own individual story arc.

Something else to consider: if you have a really long story that you want to chop up into pieces rather than individual books, you might look into posting it as a serial on a site like Wattpad, Kindle Vella, Ream, or similar services. Serialization allows you to take a long story and chop it up into sizeable pieces, such as "episodes," and then you don't have to worry so much about dividing it up into books with their own individual story arcs.

One final consideration: Not having the ability to edit properly is not an excuse to publish an unedited work of fiction. No one wants to read an unedited story, even if it's chopped up into pieces. If you want to publish this story, whether online, traditionally, or self-published, you need to find a way to edit it properly and make sure you're putting a tight and polished version of the story out into the world.

Here are some additional links:

Self-Editing Tips Editing Tips Ten Ways to Cut Your Word Count

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[warrior-messiah]

“It’s coming. I see a holy war spreading across the universe like unquenchable fire. A warrior religion that waves the Atreides banner in my father’s name. Fanatical legions worshiping at the shrine of my father’s skull. A war in my name. Everyone is shouting my name.”

⤷ Paul Muad’Dib Atreides. Duke of Arrakis. Lisan al-Gaib.

Paul Atreides was born with two formidable birthrights: the noble lineage of his father, the Duke, and the occultist legacy of the Bene Gesserit, a fanatical religious sisterhood, through his mother. From his early childhood, he was groomed to wield power and was trained not just as a Mentat for his analytical intellect and intuition, but also in the mysterious ways of the Bene Gesserit, whose bloodline manipulation and intense training granted him extraordinary abilities. He not only possesses the art of prescience, which grants him glimpses into the future—a power that both empowers and burdens him—but also wields The Voice, the ability to persuade and command someone with an order.

Now, on the desert planet Arrakis, he seeks vengeance for the brutal massacre on his family and uses the Fremen, the planet’s indigenous people who believe him to be their prophesied messiah, to wage his war against the Imperium. As the prophet Lisan al-Gaib, he leads the Fremen with an iron fist and leaves the rest of the known universe in fear and terror of him and his millions of fundamentalist followers.

“He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, truthless, less than a god, more than a man.”

(OOC: Paul’s portrayal is primarily based on the two latest movie adaptations by Denis Villeneuve, but also on Frank Herbert’s novels Dune & Dune Messiah. // 21+, mdni, english preferred, muse =/= mun ‼️ I do not support or celebrate Paul as a white savior. Dune works as a critique toward western exploitation, colonialism and white saviorism, which will be reflected through my portrayal of Paul as well)

[marzipanandminutiae]

several people I now have summed up my issues with House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson as "she had post-nut clarity halfway through writing the book" and that's such a great way to describe it

like

it's okay the Hot Evil Vampire Lady can be Morally Gray with Big Pretty Eyes and a Sad Backstory That Doesn't Like EXCUSE Everything But You Still Feel BAD For Her. nobody's going to judge you if you don't make her Actually Super-Unsexy-REALLY-Evil All Along

you don't have to hard pivot into guilt-tripping everyone reading for getting involved in the twisted love story you wrote, in the last act of your novel

because that's really what the twist of the book felt like to me after the buildup that seemed to be genuinely suggesting affection between Marion and Lisavet- "oh, you were invested in this? you thought it was an actual dark romance? THINK AGAIN SHE NEVER LOVED HER OR ANYONE AND SHE DOES THIS ALL THE TIME TO LOTS OF WOMEN (WHO SHE ALSO DOES NOT LOVE) AND ACTUALLY SHE'S MEGABAD IN EVERY WAY. NO NUANCE NO SYMPATHY WHATSOEVER"

(it also didn't really function as a critique of the society she'd set up, IMO. because it's not an issue common to ALL the Northern houses- we see and hear about bloodmaids who did things normally, who served their- admittedly fucked-up but not lethal -terms and got pensioned off in the usual way. so this society that claims to be lifting young women out of poverty and richly compensating them for giving of their literal physical being to keep the ultra-rich young, is actually...doing that. with no apparent lasting downsides for former bloodmaids that we ever see. except this one Really Messed-Up Household)

(there wasn't even mention made of like...pensioned-off bloodmaids being particularly rare in comparison with the numbers of the ones who enter service. I literally don't recall any implication that mysterious bloodmaid deaths or vanishings were at all common outside the House of Hunger. I'm sure there are psychological effects that linger for the rest of these women's lives, and there could have been some cool Hunger Games-style commentary on that. but since that's not what the book focuses on, you're kind of left with the impression that this sucks for HoH bloodmaids and is generally a pretty sweet deal for all the others)

[izunias-meme-hole]

One Villainous Scene - Confession of The Golden Witch

Umineko No Saku Koro Ni is a visual novel and manga that I highly recommend on so many levels. Between starting strong with a horrific first episode, being a great yet wild deconstruction of both the mystery and fantasy genres, and balancing out so many different flavors of villainy and antagonism. Though it also happens to be a tiny critique of conservatism, a commentary on the problems women face, and carries some transgender/intersex allegories, which is surprising to see from a Visual Novel from 2007. So how are these points expressed? Through one single tragic villain of course.

"Beatrice" is the witch who haunts the entirety of Umineko, and when you first read the piece you rightfully assume that she's the main villain since she's responsible for the massacre of the Ushiromiya family. Then as the story goes on, we kinda see that's not the entire picture, especially when we slowly remove all the fantasy elements and piece together the truth until we finally learn about the real mass murderers, the history behind the original Beatrice alongside her daughter, and the person behind the witch with her name. A suicidal androgynous "trans" person named Sayo Yasuda.

Sayo didn't have the best life. Between having her privates becoming non-existent thanks to a life threatening injury she suffered as a baby, being looked down upon by others, living in a very conservative area, slowly having her heart shattered, and figuring out that something seemed "off" about herself, things weren't the best. However, she still carried hope. She found love with 2 different people, and it was the hope of at least some happy romantic ending that kept her going. Then, she decided to solve Kinzo Ushiromiya's Epitaph, the path to the Ushiromiya's mythical gold... and that sealed her fate.

Sayo processed the cold harsh truth that was she was being told, and denied it at first.

But it reached the point where she couldn't deny it... and she broke down.

With the knowledge from before about what little details we had about the IRL Rokkenjima incident, along with the entire family history and the drama within it, it's clear that Sayo Yasuda was a fckin' scapegoat. While she did set up the tools for the demise of the Ushiromiya family, and made Rokkenjima into one big catbox, she is ultimately a byproduct of Kinzo's greatest sin against his daughter and by extension, the first Beatrice. She's been doomed from the start thanks to a shitty old man, and when she learns that she breaks. It drove her to make up a million plans to kill herself, the Ushiromiya family, and the servants that basically "raised" her (Who funnily enough were willing to help her!). To think that this was who the Golden Witch was all along.

Happy Rokkenjima Massacre Day Eve everyone.

[bandaiddd]

I have seen many people critique how Donna Tartt ends novels, particularly The Secret History and The Goldfinch.

But the thing is, you’re being told snippets, moments and memories of a person’s life - it’s not a story that can end fully resolved or mysteriously. Tartt writes about someone who might exist, a character so realistic that it’s unbelievable how complex they are.

That isn’t a story you can end, not in any satisfying way, it only ends when there isn’t much left to say.

[animebw]

Short Reflection: Oshi no Ko Season 2

In case you're new around these parts, let me just pull a Kendrick Lamar and say that I'm Oshi no Ko's biggest hater. I staked my claim on this show being crap twenty minutes into the first episode and I've stuck by that assertion ever since. It's a shallow, insincere, cynical piece of crap masquerading as a Serious Examination of the entertainment industry, claiming to portray the true nature of working in this business while being just as plastic and pandering as the very attitudes it pretends to critique. No matter how many self-important speeches it puts into its characters' mouths, it can't hide the fact that at heart, it's a juvenile power fantasy about an self-insert edgelord who boringly broods and cringes his way through a half-baked murder mystery while amassing a harem of teenage girls, sister included. As I said in my season 1 review, if lies are the highest form of love, then Oshi no Ko must be the greatest lover of all.

So imagine how infuriating it was when I put on season 2 and realized it was actually really good.

Listen, I didn't want to believe it. How was this show getting me so invested? How was this show making me pump my fist and cheer with triumph? But the facts are the facts: for the first time this season, I saw Oshi no Ko rise to become the best possible version of itself. After all the garbage it put me through, I suddenly found myself watching a show that was propulsive, beautiful, earnest, and filled with genuine insight into what drives people to throw their lives into art against all better judgement. This is the kind of show Oshi no Ko was always promising to be but never lived up to before. This was a show at least a little worthy of the tsunami of hype it crested into the anime world on.

Unfortunately, it was also proof that this show is never going to be truly great.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. The first two thirds or so of season 2 are taken up by the Lala Lai arc, in which Aqua, Kana, Akane, and a smattering of new and old faces get together to put on a 2.5D stage play adaptation of a long-running shonen action manga. On concept alone, that's a pretty novel direction to take things; we don't really have 2.5D plays in the West, so seeing all the technical stagecraft necessary to translate manga into a theatrical performance was fascinating. Ditto the insight into the complicated process of adaptation, how communication can break down between parties and the conflict between keeping a work's original soul and adjusting to fit the demands of the new medium. I've long been an advocate of adaptations making big changes when it makes the work better, and watching those conflicts and conversations play out made me much more appreciative of how difficult that process can be. For the first time, it felt like all the industry info-dumping was actually enriching my understanding of how this business works, and how it informed the characters' place within it.

Speaking of those characters, what makes the Lala Lai arc really shine is in broadening the spotlight. This is no longer the Aqua and Ruby show; this is a full-on ensemble piece, where pretty much every member of the production has a moment to shine. It bobs and weaves between countless little stories playing out both during the rehearsal process and during the first performance of the play itself, flashing back and forth as it digs into the heart of each individual passion that drives these actors to shine so brightly. And watching those passions collide and cascade makes that performance absolutely riveting. Seriously, I can't count the number of times I just about leaped out of my seat and yelled "Fuck yes!" at someone reaching their full potential on stage and seizing the spotlight in a brilliant display of emotion (and animation; the swooping camera and surreal colorscapes that take over this part of the show are the best Oshi no Ko has ever looked). Natural genius, amateur, it doesn't matter; on the stage of Tokyo Blade, everyone is a star.

And no one's served better by this kaleidoscopic focus than Kana and Akane, who are probably the true protagonists of this arc. I'm still annoyed at how dumb and retconny Akane's backstory has been treated- I swear, season 1 gave us three different conflicting backstories for her- but her rivalry with Kana over the years is the best stuff in all of Oshi no Ko. They've admired each other from afar for so long, but resent each other for their incompatible acting styles. They're determined to outshine each other but never believe they can measure up. They can't stand each other, but they're entwined by fate so deeply they know they'll never be truly alive without each other. That push and pull of wanting to live up to someone while wanting to surpass them, hating and loving them at the same time, is the singularity that makes this entire arc resonate. It's gripping and heartbreaking and beautiful, and if Aka Akasaka has any self-respect, he'll end the manga with the two of them collectively realizing Aqua isn't worth their time and marrying each other instead.

But of course, that's not gonna happen. Because Aqua is the one albatross Oshi no Ko will never be able to untangle from around its neck.

And this is why for as excellent as the Lala Lai arc is, it can't save Oshi no No. It's why nothing can save Oshi no Ko. On a fundamental level, it will never be able to shake the fact that it's saddled itself with one of the worst protagonists in all of modern anime. Or at least, one of the worst not to come out of your average seasonal isekai slop, but I don't watch enough of those to know how hellishly low the bar truly is, and I intend to keep it that way, thank you very much.

The point is, Aqua sucks. He's always sucked, he always will suck, and his mere presence in this story makes even its best ideas turn sour and ugly by the end. Even if you took out the fact he's technically a grown man involved in romantic subplots with three underage girls, he's the worst kind of edgy self-insert Light Yagami wannabe, and he forces the whole story to bend around him and suck his dick at the expense of what it's supposedly trying to say. Gut-wrenching portrayal of online hate mobs driving a young talent to suicide? Nope, it's all so he can save the day and add Akane to his harem with no further repercussions. Showing the difficulties of new idol groups struggling for attention in the modern age? Nope, just another chance for him to show off at Kana's concert and save her emotional state for her. Hell, even Kana and Akane's rivalry is tainted by the knowledge that they're ultimately fighting over this reincarnated pedophile's dick as much as for each other's respect. No matter what ideas this show tries to explore or how earnestly it tries to grapple with the realities of the entertainment industry, it always ends up coming back to "Yeah, but isn't Aqua such an edgy chad badass saving the day and getting all the bitches? Damn, what a cool brooding dude!"

In other words, the real reason the Lala Lai arc works as well as it does isn't the focus on the stagecraft process, or the expanded cast, or Kana and Akane. It's because turning into an ensemble piece means Aqua gets at little screen time as humanly possible, so he's mostly not around to fuck everyone's great moments up for a change. And even then, every time he does show up in that arc feels like all the air being let out of a balloon. And he's probably at his best during the play! At least dealing with the lasting trauma of Ai's death gives him some actual internal conflict to play with! But even that's not enough to keep the protagonist of this fucking show from feeling like a sickening, blemish on his own supposed series. And once that arc's over and the focus returns to Aqua and Ruby in the season's final third? Hooooooo boy does it immediately go to shit again. All the masturbatory chauvinism I ripped into season 1 for is back like it never left, no lessons learned from how much better Lala Lai was charting an entirely different path. Hell, it's arguably even worse, because it ends up reminding us that Ruby's just as irredeemably broken a character as Aqua at this point. I know, the teenage girl trying to marry her adult doctor who is secretly her reincarnated brother also makes this show worse? I'm shocked, I say! Shocked!

Speaking of, can we acknowledge at this point that the whole reincarnation aspect of Oshi no Ko just should not have existed? There's nothing in this story that couldn't work just as well if Aqua was just a normal edgy teen who watched his mom die as a kid and developed PTSD/a desire for vengeance from that. It's only just become even somewhat plot relevant, it's barely present in any character interactions or relationships (even between Aqua and Ruby, they almost never talk about it!), none of its themes have any reliance on their past lives to get the point across... Really, its only contribution is making every potential romantic subplot with Aqua a five-alarm emergency siren while the show limply tries to pretend he totally counts as a normal teenage boy for dating purposes, honest! It's a ten ton weight dragging the entire story down for no goddamn reason and you'd barely have to edit the earliest chapters at all to get rid of it entirely. That wouldn't fix all its problems, but it would at least make it salvageable. Which currently, despite how shockingly good this season started, it is not.

So where do we go from here? Who fucking knows. I'd like to think Oshi no Ko could somehow learn from its successes with Lala Lai and continue shooting for greater heights, but everything I've heard from my friends who've read the manga suggests that was the high point and it's all downhill from here. All I know is that for better or worse, I'm on this train to the end. If only to continue rubbing in everyone's faces that I was right from the start about what a turd this would turn out to be. But I'll save that gloating for when it's truly deserved, and god knows, it will be deserved later on based on some of the spoilers I've picked up. For now, though, I'll have to settle with giving Oshi no Ko's season season a score of:

6/10

Sayonara for now. Let's see what the future brings.