#River reviews

[braidedriver24]

i think nimona (2023) is one of the best animated films of the last years. there are new and creative ideas, a lot of worldbuilding and depth, great humor, it tackles complicated topics and portrays a queer relationship beautifully

and most importantly it's METAL!!

[theriu]

River Reads Midnight Sun

Chapter 2: Open Book

In which Edward faces his fears and spends an agonizing amount of time hyperfixating on Bella.

<-Chapter 1

So we jump into chapter two AND next week, as it has been six days since Edward (shockingly) succeeded in leaving town forever (citation needed)! He is chilling (ha) in a snowbank, staring up at the stars, which are truly magnificent. Or he knows they would be, except he can't quite see anything except Bella's face. Yes, the girl has haunted him straight to (checks location on a map) oh he's in ALASKA, okay! I wasn't sure where Denali was, but I was PRETTY sure even Edward couldn't drive a car to Russia. (You'll see why I considered Russia in a minute.)

Anyway, the "unremarkable" face of this girl he's literally never spoken to directly has been haunting him for six days, which is indeed troubling. While he is brooding on this, the thoughts of a new character come leaping towards him. This is where we meet Tanya, a vampire with silver skin, blonde-but-almost-pink curly hair, amber eyes, and full lips. Mary Sue Tanya is stunning and exquisite, at least from Ed's memory, since he still can't see past the face permanently branded on his eyeballs.

So anyway, Mary Sue Tanya does a cannonball into Ed's snowbank, burying him alive with snow but not burying the image of Bella. It becomes clear that she has been crushing on Ed and is sad he will be leaving soon and doesn't return her affections, although he is very polite and gentlemanly about it.

(Honestly, I liked her well enough until we got to the "I'm not used to rejection" line, and then she starts sifting through the memories of all her human male conquests next to the actual mind reader who she is attracted to, to which I say WOMAN REALLY??? I don't think making the guy you like EVEN MORE UNCOMFORTABLE than he's already admitted you kinda make him is an effective way to gain his affections?!)

ANYWAY, thankfully they get off THAT subject quickly and have a really quite nice conversation, wherein Ed apologizes for getting her hopes up by coming to her home territory and Tanya tries to be a good friend. We see a mention of her "long-lost Russian accent," thus my uncertainty about location, and she tells him she knows he won't keep running from his mystery problem because he's the type who faces things head-on. Mary Sue TANYA then runs away across the snow, so light and fast she doesn't even leave footprints, suggesting a connection between vampires and wood elves.

Encouraged by this pep talk, Gary Stu Edward also gets up and runs footprintless across the snow, determined to be brave and go back and face those "bewildered chocolate-brown eyes," and hopefully not eat the girl attached to them.

SCENE CHANGE!

Edward's back in town, and his three vampire siblings/classmates are huddled around him as they head into the lunchroom, being quite adorably protective, honestly. Alice is trying to foresee any problematic eventualities, Jasper thinks it's funny that EDWARD is the one everyone's fretting over instead of him, Emmett is acting like a bodyguard, and Ed is just exasperated with all of them.

To his surprise, nobody at school is thinking about them, suggesting that Bella didn’t blab about his black murderstare from last chapter. After all, a normal human would have asked around about it, because humans and especially teens all like to feel NORMAL and FIT IN and be a "featureless flock of sheep" and WOW, should I be more annoyed at Ed or the author for this intense bias against high schoolers?! But of course Bella isn't like those OTHER kids, she doesn't do things like talk to people when something weird happens!

About this time, Bella walks in and Alice is all, "Act human!" To which Emmett responds by taking out the snowball he compressed into an ice chunk with his superstrength and chucking it at Alice, who casually deflects it across the room at superspeed, where it cracks a brick. This does, ironically, draw attention away from them. Everyone is annoyed at Emmett, which is fair, but also, ALICE COULDN'T YOU HAVE JUST CAUGHT IT INSTEAD OF POTENTIALLY SHOOTING SOMEONE?

Ahem. So Bella's in the lunch line, and Mike Newton, Regular High School Guy And Insignificant Human Rival, is worried about her. Ed starts also worrying about if she might be sickly, what with her translucent skin. (Are we 100% sure BELLA is human?!) The vampires do a slightly better job of acting natural, and Edward decides to refer to Bella as “Bella” and not just "the girl,” "as if she were the only girl in the world," which is HILARIOUS considering where we all know this is going!

After eavesdropping on Bella and Jessica whispering about him looking at her (Bella thinks he's mad at her, after the whole murderstare incident), Bella hunkers under her hair and avoids eye contact, although Ed thinks she keeps twitching like she WANTS to look at him. Then, at long last, lunch ends and everyone starts going to class. There is another internal struggle while Ed reviews what all of his vampire family members have advised about this situation. (Emmett sounding the least helpful, as he has apparently encountered two such delicious-smelling-people incidents that... uh... sound like they did NOT go well?) But Ed is determined to prove to himself that he has the self-control to sit through biology without murdering Bella, so off he goes.

(By the way, Rosalie complains she doesn't want to have to move because they're almost finally out of high school. Again, why are you pretending to be high school students?! It's not like you'll age whether you're there or not?! HOW DOES THIS HELP YOUR COVER??)

Edward gets to Biology to find Bella at their table, doodling randomly. He decides to introduce himself. He gets briefly lost in gratuitously detailed descriptions of her eyeballs and how they are simultaneously like chocolate and strong tea, and how could anyone so frail be deserving of his unwarranted hatred last week? He's also holding his breath, but has enough air in his longs for a reasonably lengthy conversation AND a short laugh, during which Bella is... surprised/startled that he called her Bella? Because her dad introduced her to everyone as Isabella? But she's apparently told multiple people since she got here that she prefers Bella? So he probably could have learned that even without his super vampire eavesdropping powers? WHY is this weird enough to be suspicious, and HOW does it indicate she is intuitive?

Well, the book and Ed believe she is insightful and intuitive, so I guess we should just go with it. Ed does eventually needs to breath so he can talk, and even though just breathing through his mouth is like tasting the FIERY COALS of her deliciousness, and their brief moment of making skin contact is like an ELECTRIC SHOCK, he manages to continue acting normal.

By the way, along with being unconventionally if lopsidedly pretty and smelling delicious, Bella was also in advanced-placement biology at her previous school and Knows Science! Edward realizes this must mean she is ESPECIALLY intelligent for a human, which of course makes perfect sense. After all, she was the first student in two years to look him in the eye long enough to notice they'd changed from the Murderstare Incident's I'm-going-to-eat-you black to today's calmer I'm-probably-not-going-to-eat-you-except-by-accident amber/gold! My friends, may I remind you this man previously admitted he has two medical degrees, a thing that probably required some amount of physically attending college. I really wonder if Ed's standards would be more realistic if he ever once SOCIALIZED WITH HIS HUMAN CLASSMATES.

In an effort to maintain normalcy, they talk about the weather. Bella does not like the cold and wet of Forks. She clearly does not like being in Forks at all. She is vague and grumpy about why she came here, and Edward is so obsessed curious that he may implode (this is the actual word used). We learn (agonizingly slowly) that her mom remarried—and no, Edward, Bella DOES like the guy, he's nice and a minor-league baseball player; and no, Edward, her mom DIDN'T send her here, SHE sent HERSELF here so her mom could happily travel with her step-dad rather than unhappily stay home with her! Ed is certain by now that Bella "isn't like other humans" because he keeps guessing her story arcs wrong and she's just so CONFUSING and UNPREDICTABLE, and this can't possibly be because he's about 100 years out of practice having a normal conversation without a cheat code into the other person's brain.

(Okay, to be fair, there are at LEAST two moments of self-awareness where Ed wonders if he'd be this bad at reading everybody without his mindreading powers. We should give him points for that.)

But despite his difficulties, he DOES figure out that Bella is unhappy, mostly by her sending out signals that a rhino could decipher. When he confronts her with this observation, her response is, "So?" And after meditating on this for an unusually brief paragraph, Ed realizes THE ANSWER:

"She was selfless."

I'm sorry, guys, I need to break for a second, that's the first part that made me laugh out loud. Can someone lend me a combine to harvest all this corn.

(Side Note: As previously stated, I have not read the books or watched the movies, so I could be biased by the negative side of the fanbase. But my general impression of Bella has not lent itself to "selflessness." BUT, it is only chapter two and I am only going off of general hearsay! The amount of poorly concealed disgruntlement is not impressing me, though.)

Anyway, Ed guesses that she doesn't really like her situation but doesn't want people to KNOW she doesn't like it. He continues to marvel at how positively he feels towards this girl, how discerning she is, how *cough* selfless she is, not like an "average martyr" who would actually tell someone she's not 100% happy with her SACRIFICE. Bella gets annoyed, which Ed finds amusing, so there's another adjective for the list. But then she says she's annoyed because she's so easy to read, and Edward can't believe this, because he's never had to work so hard to read someone before! Again, this couldn't possibly be because she's the first person in 100+ years whose mind he can't read!

By the way, Bella also seems to be oblivious immune to the usual red flags normal humans feel around vampires! Ed tries smiling dangerously at her, but the teacher breaks up their conversation with actual classtime, so he gets to angst for a few paragraphs about why he shouldn't find this girl interesting and how dangerous this is for her and yet how MUCH he wants to know more about her. And also trying not to kill her when her thick, black hair flips in his direction and drives his vampire nose bananas.

He books it as soon as the bell rings, having survived the encounter without murdering anyone but with so many new questions about this unremarkable, shy, frail, unmindreadable-yet-highly-face-readable, delicious-smelling, selfless, quietly disgruntled human girl.

(Side Note: I have learned a new word!

"Attar—a fragrant essential oil, typically made from rose petals."

Ex: "Again, I gasped at the clean, wet air outside as though it was a healing attar."

*loud sighing noises*)

So after that brief break, he goes to class with Emmett. Emmett, IMMENSELY HELPFUL EMMETT, asks how it went, questions if it wouldn't be easier to just get it over with, reassures Ed that everyone would understand if he messed up (GIVING IN IS NOT THE SAME AS "MESSING UP," EMMETT), and then vividly visualizes a time he experienced a really good-smelling woman and ate her. Between his earlier blasé-ness about not "wallowing in guilt" over past mistakes and this section's lack of anything indicating regret about that incident, I take back any nice things I might have said about this guy. Emmett, YOU. ARE. THE WORST.

It's so bad that Ed has to bolt out of class AGAIN, although it doesn't help that Emmett follows him and continues to suggest maybe Ed should just get it over with if it's so bad, can Alice or somebody please come punch him. Ed finally gets him to leave and hides in his car. Then, "like an addict" (his own words), he searches the whole school for thoughts about Bella. From his car. My GUY, just how UNREASONABLY powerful ARE your mind radar skills???

He finally locates Bella in gym class, because Mike, who is mad about Ed talking to her, is thinking in logical, complete sentences (as one does) about how satisfied he is that Bella doesn't seem interested in Edward. He also conveniently remembers her asking "what was with" Edward last Monday (after the Deathstare Incident). So apparently Bella isn't QUITE abnormal unique enough to stay totally silent when she encounters a weird thing (not that Edward notices). Ed's response to his annoyance over Mike's satisfaction is to blast "violent music," which seems the opposite of helpful to me.

We end the chapter with Bella coming out of school and heading to her rusty old truck while Ed watches her creepily from his car. She almost hits another student's car when she locks eyes with him, and Ed has to laugh at her sudden increased driving vigilance, as if she might be DANGEROUS! Because of course it's RIDICULOUS to think that BELLA could be dangerous to ANYONE in ANY vehicle, as if the driver's physical frailty has any bearing on the damage a truck can do when crashing into cars or non-vampires at speed.

AND SCENE!

I'm gonna be honest, guys, that one was a couple degrees more agonizing than the first chapter. I dread how much more I'm going to hear about Ed's conflicting desires to eat Bella and be attracted to her simultaneously average yet fascinating allure. She's just so unusually unique and smart and intuitive and selfless and shy and frail and inspires protective instincts, you see, and she's not like ANY OTHER human he's ever encountered, even though we have evidence now that sometimes certain vampires just find certain humans irresistibly delicious, and we can probably extrapolate that those humans were somehow immune to vampire powers, too.

I also highly question Bella's above-average "martyrdom," considering she dropped her guard pretty fast around the cute stranger and basically broadcasted how unhappy she is with her decision, which makes it feel a bit like she did what she did so she could feel good about herself rather than because it was the best thing to do? Being selfless doesn't mean COMPLETELY ignoring your own needs, or justify using your good deed as an excuse to have a poor attitude. Of course, considering that half her traits that Ed notices and marvels over are actually fairly normal, I don't think any of us feel a strong need to trust his assessments of her character.

Next up is CHAPTER THREE: RISK. I'm sure it will feature Edward being very level-headed and undramatic. I think I need to build my endurance back up for this one. (And thanks for the likes and comments so far, they really help keep me motivated! =D)

Chapter 3->

[emynarnen]

Harrenhal on Airbnb (and its most recent review)

[artbyfuji]

raven branwen cringe posting -_-

[thollandnewsbra]

“Therefore love moderately; long love doth so; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.” ― William Shakespeare.

Congratulations to Tom Holland, Francesca Rivers and the entire cast & crew of 'ROMEO & JULIET' for their highly acclaimed sold-out run on the West-End.

[bigbigtruck]

The Songs that Got Me Through 2023

Jedi512, "Big Texas" (summer 2023)

Use my craft to get some singles, everybody get a slice This was the tune that carried me on gentle hands through a blazing, endless summer.

Peter Gabriel, "The Road To Joy" (from i/o, 2023)

Heard this on release and liked it; saw him perform it live in October and loved it. Hope and defiance and pulsing life at a time I needed it most.

Yard Act, "100% Endurance" (from The Overload, 2022)

Rang in the only cool day of summer with this; bid farewell to 2023 and hello to 2024 with this. Hearing this song is hearing my buddy Jamie knocking some perspective into me when I'm spiraling.

Sbassbear, "Forklift Simulator" (2023)

This is fucking stupid as hell but god help me it's a bop and I love it. How to obliterate a bad mood in 3 minutes 13 seconds.

This has been sitting in my drafts since January, oops. Here's the post for 2022.

[kredensstuff]

Nie był w stanie mnie ujarzmić. Im bardziej próbował, tym bardziej przegrywał.

„Shallow River", H.D Cartlon

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #61 – Those Across The River by Christopher Buehlman

Months and months ago, I asked for recommendations on books that actually tried to make werewolves horrifying instead of just some variety of urban fantasy or romance archetype. Those Across The River was one of the few real recommendations I got, and then spent most of the year languishing on my To-read shelf until I had entirely forgotten why it was there. It does very much fit the requirements asked of it, and in concept is really quite a juicy idea. Unfortunately, it’s rather let down b execution here – both in terms of prose and of content.

Frank Nichols is a historian – or was one, anyway. After an affair with a college's wife named Eudora becomes public and he responds by running away with her, his career prospects take something of a swan dive. And in the midst of the Great Depression, there are far more wannabe academics than there are jobs for them. So, after living for a time with his brother in Chicago, the two of them move down south to take up residence in the small southern town his mother fled as soon as she was able, where Dora might at least draw a salary as a school teacher. And, more importantly, where Frank can research his great-grandfather, a confederate planter killed by his own slaves in the last days of the Civil War whose ruined plantation lies somewhere nearby, to write the biography that will restart his career.

Times are tough there too, and soon after the pair of them move in there is a town meeting where it’s agreed to end the monthly tradition of driving a pair of hogs across the river to thank God for their good fortune. While God doesn’t seem to mind much one way or the other, the creatures living in the woods who had made feasts of those pigs certainly do, and on the next full moon raid the outskirts of the town to make their displeasure known. From there, things just about only get worse.

So as mentioned, this is the vanishingly rare sort of story made in the last couple of decades that take ssomething recognizable as werewolves and actually tries to play them straight as something awful, threatening, and horrifying. I think this mostly works – there’s only a scene or two I’d really call horrifying, but then with books that’s an incredibly high bar for me. It manages the tone and atmosphere of a proper horror story throughout, and never lets the werewolves stop being strange an dangerous.

A large part of this is, I’m sure, just the fact that no one in the story is even the tiniest bit genre-savvy or awae of what a ‘werewolf’ is, as a cultural figure. Beyond providing the isolation and lack of outside forces that might help, the period setting does an incredible amount of work in just making it plausible that no one in the story was aware of what kind of story they were in. This is actually probably the first straightforward monster horror story I’ve read or seen in a while that wasn’t in some way trying to comment or make cute references to the wider genre.

The period setting is, werewolves aside, easily the most engaging thing about the book. Less so for the particulars of the world than the character of Frank. The entire book is spent in his head, marinating in his internal monologue, and it’s a wonderfully strange and uncanny place – the story makes a liberal college professors from New England in the 1930s seem more genuinely alien (and often repulsive) than most genre fiction manages to make feudal aristocrats or cybernetic oligarchs.

The prose is interesting. Often good, but just as often reading like someone’s very self-conscious pastiche of mid-20th century ‘Great American Novel’ writing. Which I think is intentional, but does begin to wear on you – there’s only so many times you can read a guy say ‘how like a sphinx!’ when describing his fiancee before it grates. The exception here is Frank’s traumatic nightmares of his time fighting WW1 in France, which I reliably found quite evocative and striking.

The book’s politics are, well, bad, but in an absolutely fascinating sort of way. Better to say that the book is torn between the themes and politics it wants to have, and the mixture of genre requirements and I guess an author and editor who didn’t care much about subtext that leave it sending too drastically different messages. It’s probably one of the most interesting things about the book.

On the explicit, textual level, the book is very conscious of all the petty cruelty and flagrant brutality that went into maintaining the Jim Crow South, and views e.g. the way Frank calls it ‘the States War’ with jaundiced irony. There are passages talking explicitly about the injustice of sharecropping, and the vulgar racism of all the townspeople is presented as one more reason to view most of them with contempt. And of course the supernatural evil driving the whole story is the bloody legacy left behind by a confederate slaveowner who hunted and consumed human flesh wearing the skin of a beast, whose shadow looms large over the entire story. The book is generally very clear that ‘racism = bad’.

And yet-

This is also a story where functionally every black character is an inhuman, man-sexually predatory, man-eating beast in human skin (there is exactly one ‘good’ werewolf, he’s a yankee), where the indigent drifters walking through town begging for work really were sinister malefactors mapping things out to return with their friends latter, where the protagonist’s fiancee having dubiously consensual sex with a black man is very much presented as part of her own transformation into an insatiable, uncontrollable, literally babe-eating werewolf herself.

Horror has a reputation for being a reactionary genre by default, which this book feels like a decent argument towards. More, it was published in 2010, and I might owe that whole decade of pop-media critique being elevated to spectator sport that it’s genuinely hard to find stuff quite this unselfaware getting published these days.

A very fitting Halloween read I suppose, in the same way watching an ‘80s slasher is.

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

TECH RADAR REVIEW OF 'HOUSE OF THE DRAGON' S2. HIS OPINION BASED ON THE FIRST 4 EPISODES THAT HE WATCHED OF S2.

SPOILERS! FOR S2:

ABOUT TOM GLYNN-CARNEY'S PERFORMANCE AS KING AEGON II TARGARYEN:

"Aegon II, Westeros' new royal, is the biggest beneficiary of more extensive screen time, with Glynn-Carney bringing some much needed levity – plus youthful impatience, reckless naivety – to bear in episode 1 and in later entries, deep humanization to a character, who we're supposed to despise, in the only way that a GoT series can."

"HOUSE OF THE DRAGON'S SUPPORTING CAST, SPECIALLY IT'S YOUNGER MEMBERS, GETS MORE TO DO THIS SEASON."

ABOUT PHIA SABAN AS QUEEN HELAENA TARGARYEN IN SEASON TWO:

"Helaena's (Phia Saban) roles are also pleasingly expanded; the eccentric and cryptic Helaena becomes central to key storylines leading up to this season's jaw-dropping fourth episode."

"SEASON 2 ZOOMS OUT TO EXPLORE THE INTENSIFYING INTERFAMILIAL CONFLICT'S IMPACT ON THE WHOLE OF WESTEROS."

"Opening with a nostalgia-fuelled return trip to Winterfell a fleeting visit that reminds us of the ever-looming threat beyond The Wall in its very first scene, season 2 slowly lays bare the wider effects of the increasingly bitter Targaryen-Hightower feud on Thrones."

"Indeed, it inadvertently acts as the catalyst for smaller scale battles to erupt between long-warring families, such as Houses Blackwood and Bracken."

"After all, season 2 marks the official start of the devastating, years-long civil war known as The Dance of the Dragons, so I certainly hoped for more action. Nonetheless, observing the blood-curdling, silent horror-imbued aftermath of the Blackwood-Bracken battle made my imagination run wild about how this barbaric struggle played out."

"THE WALL WON'T BE THE ONLY LOCATION IN S2 THAT GOT FANS WILL RECOGNIZE. HARRENHAL WILL ALSO PLAY A PROMINENT ROLE THIS SEASON."

RYAN CONDAL ABOUT HARRENHAL IN S2:

"Harrenhal definitely is its own character in the show. It had its own character in the original books [and] in the original series when Arya was playing cup bearer for Tywin there."

"Other than the Red Keep, it's probably the most talked-about, storied castle in Westeros, and we really wanted to pay service to it. Whether it's real or rumored, it does have this supernatural aura around it that does put people off. We were excited to play that out as storytellers."

ABOUT GAYLE RANKIN AS ALYS RIVERS IN S2:

(whose mysterious arrival was teased in s2's final trailer)

"The enigmatic Alys Rivers was particularly fascinating to me, not least due to her involvement in Daemon's Harrenhal-situated season 2 arc; a personal subplot with the unsettling, almost Macbethian atmosphere and twisty-turny narrative of a psychological horror movie."

[destinyc1020]

Review of R&J from a theater-goer 😃😁👏🏾

(May contain light spoilers)

[braidedriver24]

Gladiator II is definitely one of Scott’s weaker works..

but on the other hand: name another Ridley Scott film starring sweaty Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal in leather skirts - I’ll wait

[biwitchenergyz]

My Top Three Issues with House of The Dragon (pt.1)

Issue #1. The Poor Use of Dragon Dreams and The Prophecy of Ice and Fire. 

In the first season, we are introduced to the idea of Aegon the Conqueror's dream when Viserys passes on this knowledge to Rhaenyra. This dream predicting the coming of white walkers is a good connection between House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, but by the second season, I wished it was never mentioned. Seemingly out of nowhere, Rhaenyra begins to back away from war on the premise that it will destroy the realm. She discusses the prophecy with Jacaerys as a way of explaining her reluctance to fight.

In season one, Rhaenyra did not have the same feelings. She seemed to revel in the knowledge that Viserys shared this information with her alone, but it never affected her decision to gather allies and retake her throne. Too much focus on the prophecy messes with the overall plot because it forces Rhaenyra to seem more of a sage thinking of the distant future than a character actively at war for her throne.

The prophecy explains her hesitance for battle, but it should never have been so prominent in the first place because it takes away from the problem and focuses on something that does not matter at this moment. Not only is it too concerned with the future, but it also doesn't make sense for Rhaenyra’s character established in Season One.

Rhaenyra, in season one, is willful, ambitious, and spoiled to an expected amount because she is the heir. She does not show any care for the common folk, instead insisting multiple times that they will simply have to accept her and that their opinions are irrelevant. She is haughty and is shown mocking Lady Redwyne and enjoying the violence of the tourneys. As an adult, she is glad when her father declares that the tongue of anyone who speaks against her and her children will be removed. She does not care about her little brother's injuries, and she challenges everyone with real velaryon blood so that she can seat her son on the driftwood throne.

This shows her ambition, cunning, strategy, and ability to use force when necessary. She is motivated by her claim to the throne and her children's claims to anything they want. This makes her so powerful in the first season; this makes us want her to get the throne. But we also know that with her spoiled nature, the smallfolk are not the reason she wants to rule, so why should she care about a prophecy that seems so distant. She needs to sit on the throne to make any change, not sulk. If the prophecy is why she hesitates, it does more harm than good.

Similarly, Alys Rivers and Helaena also create the problem of present vs future moments. Alys and Helaena are incredible characters, but by the second season, Helaena’s prophecies go from cryptic to ridiculously blunt. Her final speech to Aemond, though powerful and loved by many viewers, falls flat for me. Where is the girl who whispered, “he will have to close an eye” or “There is a beast beneath the board?”

Not only has her right to emotions been completely stripped from her character by destroying the blood and cheese scene and then forcing her to move on by the next episode, but now even her Cassandra-like nature is removed and replaced with someone who sees the future, not just in strange dreams, but in vivid detail. Aemond does not need to know that Aegon will rule again; he does not need to know that he dies in God's eye because it would make no sense for him to continue fighting if he knew the outcome of everything.

Similarly, Alys revealing the ENTIRE future to Daemon was pointless. Daemon seeing Danerys should mean nothing to him at this point. From his perspective, she is just another Targaryen with a dragon; the unique thing is that three dragons are with her, but at this point, there are multiple Dragons in Westeros; her bringing dragons back to life does not hold significance for Daemon because Dragons have not died. If anything, knowing the future and the ruin of House Targaryen would have made him withdraw from battle or fight to put himself on the throne instead of running to Rhaenyra, who, in his vision, sits on the throne and leads to the fall of House Targaryen.

The show is trying too hard to connect with Game of Thrones when these things are unnecessary. House of The Dragon is set in Westeros with many Targaryens; they do not need to know all the future events, the long night, or anything established in a Game of Thrones. Not everyone needs to see the future. Helaena and Alys are unique because they know things that others do not. The extent of what they know is questionable, but Alys can see far into the future, and Helaena experiences dreams or visions that may not always be specific. If everyone knows what the future holds, then Alys and Helaena are just two more characters with no desire for war or to sway in either direction. 

In the books, and even in Season One, nobody knew what the future held besides perhaps Helaena. That is why they knew that crowning different people would be an act of war, so why do we suddenly not want to finish what has begun? Both sides have lost children, and where they should haunt the narrative, they are hardly mentioned again. Suppose the loss of these children is not enough to motivate the factions to war, then knowing that the future is destined for ruin probably won't help. The Dance of the Dragons is meant to be a series of unfortunate and horrible events that lead to the ruin of a once-powerful house. This has nothing to do with the white walkers, the mother of dragons, or even the Lannister/Baratheon on the throne because none of that is in the near future, and none of it changes the present moment.

Perhaps Alys has seen all of this, and that is what makes her such an eccentric figure, quite different from the gothic shadow I was expecting; maybe instead of showing Daemon all these things that don't change his fate, she could simply continue taunting him and reminding him of his own demons rather than the demons of the future.

Perhaps Helaena sees the future in prophetic visions and strange dreams. Maybe she is doomed to know things and never be believed, but if she knows too much and shares too much, then what significance does she have besides telling everyone how things will end despite them never being able to change it? Helaena should continue to be the prophetess who can still be taken by surprise and is still helpless to stop what is out of her control. This is what should push her to the brink of insanity, existing in so many worlds and yet never knowing what is happening in your own.

The future of House Targaryen does not matter if they do not go to war. If they stall, nobody will sit on the throne; if they fight, there is a chance that one of them will become the realm's protector. The building blocks for war have been set, and dwelling over prophecy and prophetic dreams that have nothing to do with their current situation will not make a difference. Blood has been shed, and nobody should know what to expect, but everyone knows something must be done. The prophecy and the dreams are great, to a point, that point being that only two people in the world know what the future holds, and while one wishes to stop it and the other merely observes, everything will continue to the peril of the Targaryens.

[thecomicsnexus]

Turtles vs. The East River Three: The Pearl Heist - Tales of the TMNT

Join me as we dive into the tale of the East River Three and their quest for the Pearl! In this video, we explore how different views of 'home' can lead to unexpected betrayals, all set against the backdrop of a stormy New York.

[armandyke]

January 2025 Reading Wrap Up

Read some absolute bangers this month lads (plus one book that resulted in me sending several voicenotes to my friends because I had to rant about it)

1) A Darker Shade Curated by Joyce Carol Oates (4⭐)

A collection of body horror short stories written by women, do I even need to say more? Overall the quality of stories in this collection was higher than most short story collections I’ve read. I don’t think there were any I could describe as bad or even mid. They were all good. 

I will say that although this is described as a collection of body horror stories, I would say a lot of them were what I would class as gore rather than body horror, but that didn’t stop them from being enjoyable nonetheless. 

My personal favourites in this collection: 

Gross Anatomy by Aimee LaBrie: At what point does it become acceptable to say that I’m a huge fan of necrophilia in stories. Well, it’s out there now. This is one of those stories where you absolutely know what’s going on, but you still cringe and go oh no when it is inevitably revealed. 

Muzzle by Cassandra Khaw: I love Cassandra Khaw's writing so much. This is a very short story but managed to cram so much beautifully written gorey body horror inside. Loved it. 

The Seventh Bride by Elisabeth Hand: This was one of the stories that I wouldn’t really class as body horror, but was still great nonetheless. About a woman who enacts delightful revenge on her rapist. Hell yeah. 

2) The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (5⭐)

I don’t have a lot to say about this one because it’s a classic and most people are familiar with the story. I’ve been wanting to read this for a while and I’m so glad I finally did because it was great, and I actually enjoyed it even more than I expected. There’s a lot of humour in the writing style that I didn’t expect, but it still succeeded in feeling tense and creepy despite me knowing the story already. Definitely worth the read. 

3) The Nesting by C.J Cooper (5⭐)

This is my third C.J Cooper book so I was already expecting good things, but this was easily my favourite of the three I’ve read so far. Trigger warning right of the bat for very heavy discussions of suicide in this book right from page one, but as I think I’ve said before, Cooper has a real talent for handling these heavy and upsetting topics in her books without it ever feeling gratuitous. The main character attempts suicide at the beginning of the book and that’s something that is very present for the entire story, but it adds to the plot rather than overwhelming it. 

After her suicide attempt, the main character Lexi, through several serendipitous events, finds herself taking on a job as a nanny and caring for two little girls who recently lost their mother to suicide. It’s a completely fresh start for her, being flown out to Norway where the girls’ architect father is determined to build their new family home. Once she’s there, however, she begins to suspect that the death of the girls’ mother might not have been quite what it seemed. 

As with the other C.J Cooper books I’ve read, we go back and forth in time throughout the story, switching between Lexi’s pov in the present, and the pov’s of Aurelie, the girls’ mother, in the time leading up to her death. It’s a fun combination of murder mystery combined with supernatural elements. It made me cry several times, surprised me with the twists, and was overall just a really great read. 

4) Shiver by Junji Ito (3.5⭐)

I’ve been wanting to get into manga, especially Junji Ito’s work for a while, and this was the one I ended up picking. It’s a collection of shorter stories and gets my standard rating, with an extra half star because I really enjoyed the art style and body horror. 

The stories in here weren’t quite what I was expecting. But once I’d read a couple and gotten an idea of what the writing would be, I was able to enjoy them a lot more. Very creepy, really unique. These stories are basically just the author saying “hey, if this thing happened, would that be fucked up or what?” and you know what? It would be fucked up. It absolutely would. My favourite of the stories was Long Dream because I love the concept of eternity in horror. It reminded me a lot of Stephen King’s short story The Jaunt, which was equally existentially horrifying. 

5) Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente (5⭐)

This is a difficult book to describe without getting into spoiler territory so I’m gonna keep it as simple as I can. It’s about a woman living in a beautiful, utopian community who begins to notice certain things around her house that don’t belong. 

If you’ve read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, this has similar vibes to that. It’s weird and at first you won’t really understand anything that’s happening, but the beautiful writing draws you in and slowly things start to fall into place. It’s really cleverly written, and once you start to realise what’s going on, you will want to read the whole thing again to appreciate it even more (I read it twice and loved it both times). 

6) Thirsty Animals by Rachelle Atalla (2⭐)

This was… a very strange book. My rating changed several times throughout reading it, going from 3 stars to 1 star to 4 stars and then finally settling here on 2. I may post an additional spoilery review for this one because a lot of my issues were with the attempted plot twists near the end of the book, but for now let’s stick to the spoiler free stuff. 

The book is set in Scotland, during a global drought that has led to major water shortages. Our main character Aida has moved back home to the family farm with her mother, uncle, and his partner. They are managing okay until a family, a mother, her adult son, and pregnant daughter, arrive on the farm asking for help. The book then follows this group throughout three seasons on the farm as the water restrictions increase. 

The main crime of this book is that for the most part I found it pretty boring. I think the intention was to build tension, but this mostly just amounted to not a lot happening for the majority of the book. It wasn’t until around 60% of the way through the book that we caught up to the synopsis written on the back, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. There were some twists, and they were good, but ultimately they fell flat. It sort of felt like the author came up with these really shocking twists, but then wasn’t really sure what to do with them. They were revealed, and then events just continued to move forward, ultimately unaffected. Overall I think the concept was good, but the execution could have been a lot better. 

7) Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero (5⭐)

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you took Scooby Doo, made it dark as hell, and added a butch lesbian for good measure? This book has the answer. 

This book follows the eventful reunion of the now adult Blyton Summer Detective Club, consisting of Andy, a butch on the run, Kerri, biologist and former kid genius, Nate, horror nerd who mostly resides in mental health institutions, and Tim, descendent of the teams faithful canine companion. Sadly the fifth member, the stoic jock leader Peter, killed himself several years prior, but that doesn’t stop Nate from hallucinating him from time to time. The team are back together to reopen their final case, because despite unmasking the supposed culprit at the time, they can’t help but feel like this mystery was a little bigger than just a man in a mask. 

I cannot emphasise enough how much fun this book was. The writing style is very unique and might not be for everyone, switching between regular prose and script-style writing complete with stage and camera directions. It really added to the entire experience of this story. It feels like reading a book and watching a movie at the same time. 

The characters are so well written, especially the banter between them (especially the banter between Nate and ghost-Peter). The chemistry between Andy and Kerri had me giggling and kicking my feet, and the development of that throughout the story was really well done. Everything felt real and natural. It’s funny, but also sad and heartfelt in places, and incredibly dark and gruesome in others. The twists were so good I had to put the book down and pace around the room a few times. Five stars, no notes. 

8) My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen (5⭐)

Two things about me: 1) I love gothic horror, 2) I love sapphic horror, and when I get gothic, sapphic horror, I go a little bit crazy. This was one of those books that I knew from the first few sentences was going to be at least a four star read for me. It literally opened with a quote from Turn of the Screw, I mean, come on. 

The main character Roos is a young woman raised by an abusive mother, who has the ability to see spirits. In particular, her spirit companion Ruth, who has been bonded to her since childhood and will do anything to stay with her and keep her safe. During one of the regular seances held by her mother, Roos is introduced to Agnes Knoop, the widow of a wealthy man who senses something unique in Roos and ultimately decides to take her away from her mother and bring her home to live as her companion. 

The story goes back and forth in time, switching between Roos’ telling of the events as they happen, and interviews between her and a psychiatrist attempting to unravel the tragic events that ultimately took place in Agnes’ home. It’s an approach to storytelling that I always enjoy (see my reviews of C.J Cooper’s books) and this was no exception. I think it takes a lot of skill to be able to reveal some of the main climax in your story early on, and still keep readers engaged as you work your way towards it, and this author absolutely succeeded.

The absolute highlight of this book is the relationship between Roos and Ruth. Their love for one another, Ruth’s fierce protectiveness, and Roos’ codependency and reliance on the spirit who was her only friend and confidant in all the years she spent living with her mother is so heartbreaking and beautiful. And the way Ruth is presented, both in the prose and in the way she speaks to Roos is so haunting. I adored this. 

9) Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder (3.5⭐)

Another one of those books that’s kinda hard to explain (common for me because I just like weird books). This is a sort of cosmic, Lovecraftian horror with lesbian sex, body horror, and biblically accurate angels, sort of. Let me try and sum it up. 

The gist of the story is that a brand new spicy pandemic has been sweeping the globe, killing people or permanently altering them. Those who have been infected begin to crave human blood or brains, and as the story progresses, become less and less recognisable as human. 

The book is split into three parts, told from the perspectives of three different women. Erin, who becomes infected and develops a taste for brains, Savannah, a BDSM sex worker who begins receiving kill hits from the Gods, and Mareva, who after suffering chronic benign tumors all her life suddenly finds herself at the center of this cosmic horror show. I think I enjoyed this book, but it was a lot. I guess it felt similar to reading Lovecraft in that afterwards you’re kind of left not really knowing what the fuck you just read, but knowing you had something of a good time throughout? I think my main hangup with the story was that the way Savannah was written, particularly her dialogue, felt really campy and goofy and kept taking me out of the story completely. If the author had just cut her out of the book completely I think I would have enjoyed it more, because now that I think about it, she really didn’t add much of anything to the story as a whole. Overall though, sapphics + horror (especially body horror) will always go down well with me.

[thollandnewsbra]

STAGE TO PAGE has given 'Romeo & Juliet' a 5 star-review!

Jamie Lloyd has taken the greatest love story of all time and made it into the most gritty, visceral piece of theatre I've ever seen. 

Tom Holland and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers share some of the best onstage chemistry I've ever seen in live theatre. Holland is a quietly charismatic Romeo against Amewudah-Rivers' fiery and bold portrayal of Juliet. The intimacy co-ordination from Ingrid Mackinnon must be applauded here as she's created what appears to be the perfect atmosphere for the pair to thrive and bounce off of each other.

Watching Holland's descent into madness and animalistic rage, and his acting in the end of act one is as raw and exposed as you'll see. Amewudah-Rivers domineers the stage and demands you to take notice of her sensational take on one of literature's most loved female characters. Jamie Lloyd has once again created an absolutely ground-breaking production. Whether good or bad, this adaptation will certainly have people talking and is a true reflection of the subjectiveness of theatre.

[cressthebest]

Crimson Rivers thoughts pt. 2

chapter 3:

1. loving how immediately the chapter begins with sirius warning reg to stay away from the knives

2. omg i forgot that james is gonna have a dagger kink in this. lmao like how ahb james definitely had a gun kink

3. 😭😭😭 james immediately saying he’s good with his hands. i’m losing my mind he’s so flirty

4. james and sirius both know that james will 100% sacrifice himself for regulus. but regulus doesn’t know that. that HURTS

5. “"Are you—flirting with my brother?" Sirius asks, baffled, and then he reaches out and swats James over the head. "Stop that. Don't do that."” FUCK YEAH! the flirting has begun

6. the death eaters ☹️

7. holy shit. finding out that sirius killed twelve people was a jaw dropping moment

8. james is good with a hatchet. istg that this will probably come back to haunt me. he’s probably gonna brutally murder someone with that

9. MARLENEEEEE

10. dorlene mayhaps?

11. sirius being seen as the hollow’s sex symbol is so devastating

12. peter pettigrew mention 😔 he’s probably gonna die

13. EVAN ROSIER MENTION!! god i hope he doesn’t die. but alas, he probably will. i’m not getting my hopes up for this fic. as of know, i only think wolfstar and jegulus are guaranteed to survive.

14. god, i love remus’s characterization in this fic

15. awwww wolfstar is already flirting. sirius is gonna be company for remus when he’s in the kitchen!

16. REMUS POV!! HES 100% NOT GONNA DIE

17. reading the authors note and i realize that everyone was worried about remus. not just me

chapter 4:

1. “Sirius never said it. He has never said it, and Regulus thinks he will die before he ever admits it, but Regulus is sure that Sirius regrets taking his place.”

No! i don’t think you understand regulus!! sirius has absolutely zero regrets in taking your place

2. “Regulus feels like a child stepping into a sweet shop, except it's just him and a variety of pointy weapons. He would like one of each, please.” i should be scared. but like, that’s so funny. i-

3. “"Oh, sorry, I thought the question was if I could still put a dagger in the side of your fucking skull."” CACKLING

4. 😭😭😭😭😭 this is the moment james discovers he has a knife kink. pleaseeeeee

5. not everyone flirting with james 😭😭 plsss

6. dorcas my beloved 😌🩷✨

7. aww peter and james freindship <333 i wish peter wasn’t doomed to die

8. james has such a knife kink omg 😭😭

9. their sparring is so homoerotic. they can’t even train without flirting 😭😭😭