#all of the character interactions are very…not necessarily tropey

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

Last Violent Call

two novellas set before FHH

adding some extra detail between both duologies, follows TVD characters helping some young people running away from being experimented on, and investigating a murder on a week-long train trip

Foul Heart Huntsman

finale to the series

Rosalind has been outed as a spy and is being toured around the country while trying to find a way to save Orion, and stop the dangerous experiments from getting in the wrong hands with the impending foreign invasion

[sometipsygnostalgic]

honestly I would say She-ra has significantly less overt romance than The Owl House. For Owl House, it’s a strength yes but it can also be a weakness because a lot of people just don’t give a shit about the act of dating, they want intense relationships that don’t necessarily have to be romantic. it has the romance but it lacks intense relationships (at least between lumity, i would say raine and eda have an interesting dynamic). 

I think with She-ra, the main story, it deals a lot with the characters not yet understanding how they feel about each other. It doesn’t do a Hooty where someone is shipping characters together. I’d say there’s only one character over the show who is overtly looking to date someone else, and she finds herself pretty disappointed, and also it’s constantly censored for her to be wanting to be “friends” with the other person, which is hysterical both because it’s obvious censorship and because it’s oddly in character for her to not realise she’s trying to be someone’s girlfriend. 

*buys flowers, asks to go on a date* boy im going to be a GREAT friend!!! 

and theres even more relationships like that where it can clearly be interpreted as crushing but they never admit that. there’s not tropey cartoon dating scenes, even for m/f dynamics. 

basically the executives went “we cant have you writing gay relationships so dont write any relationships at all”.. nate went “okay” and crossed his fingers behind his back with the intention of having everything come together at the very end. 

if you hate themes of love and connection (which, i dont think anyone does, i dont think you can endure Owl House without caring how the characters interact with each other), well She-ra is written heavily around this. it isn’t necessarily romantic love. a lot of it is interpreted as such, but it isn’t a necessary reading at all.  if you can at least really feel for the characters and their stories then you will love the show. otherwise i’m not sure what to recommend because most other shows do contain more overt romance and it being strictly m/f at that. 

Fans of She-ra, I have a question. How much time does the romantic subplots take up? Like on on a ratio of let's say 60/40.

I've been eyeing the show since finishing The Owl House and it looks amazing! The animation is pretty, the story and worldbuilding looks fun, and the diversity is great. The one part I'm worried about is the romantic aspect, especially because all I see people talking about is Catradora and little else.

I hate it in any medium where it promises high fantasy and mystery and 90% is dedicated to romance (looking at you YA genre). I can't count the number of books I've read that fell into this trope. I'm not a fan of romantic subplots to begin with, so having the story sacrificed for a ship infuriates me. And that's what I'm worried about with She-ra.

I have no problem with the shipping existing and even having full episodes dedicated to it. I just don't want it to derail and/or take attention away from the main story. That's why I like Lumity so much. The subplot intertwined well with the main one and Luz and Amity had good chemistry.

I hope this made sense.

[aotopmha]

So, I breezed through 18 episodes of Fruits Basket today.

I'm now at season 2 episode 17.

It just has extremely solid character writing and I'm invested enough to immediately want to know what happens next.

It is tropey and still has some of those tired and awkward elements that keep popping up, but when it is well done, it is well done.

Especially the main big players.

Kyo and Tohru are 100% the highlights for me so far and Akito is probably the perfect villain for this story.

Yuki has been good all the way through the story.

Ayame, Momiji and Kagura have come a long way on my likability scale in particular.

They were really one-dimensional and frustrating at first (and not necessarily in a good way).

I think the elements the story explores I like the most are abuse, self-love and the idea of changing a bad, stagnant system.

The Zodiac members have all been confined to a closed community with no other perspectives to be exposed to.

Akito is so powerful because of their perception of him and the perception of his perspective being the absolute truth.

And even if they do build outside relationships, Akito is so prominent in their lives that those relationships get hidden behind his, basically, indoctration of how they should view themselves.

This is some cult bullshit.

They are so affected by him because they have been stewing in his one lone perspective their whole lives.

Akito's type of abuse is especially effective against children because people don't develop complete perception of people existing outside of themselves until at least somewhere in their teens (this is where all of that insecurity for teenagers pops in – they grow to understand there are people surrounding them), so the only one they will likely blame is themselves.

They are selfish. They are at fault. They are the villain. They are the ones who are wrong.

Watching basically an entire lengthy scene of Akito doing this to Kyo was excellent character exploration, but also fucked up.

I like how, even when Kyo and Yuki resolve themselves to fight, you can still see how Akito's words affect them, sometimes in pretty subtle ways.

And the same goes for Tohru, too.

As said, it's very true to how abuse works. If you are surrounded by a perspective for a long time, it is likely you will eventually grow to believe it.

Equally, what loving yourself looks like and how trauma works is depicted incredibly well through Tohru.

She keeps escaping her emotional turmoil by keeping herself busy, keeping up her smile and pushing herself to go against Akito because facing it would be incredibly painful.

Similarly, caring about only others might seem noble on the surface, but can be extremely unhealthy if taken to the extreme.

So there is kind of two aspects to Tohru's growth.

If Tohru doesn't care about herself at all, she'll just end up working herself to the point of hurting herself.

If she keeps pushing the lid shut instead of digesting what is behind it, it'll eventually explode off and destroy her emotionally.

Additionally, you can see her start lying in small ways and be insecure about what she wants to do after her encounter with Akito, but also as people around her question her about what she believes in.

Her trauma grew to define her so much that at one point the question of whether she had her own beliefs at all came up.

Tohru found an answer, but the narrative immediately found a counterpoint to her answer, too: it's nice to talk about doing good, but can you actually back it up with action?

It essentially addressed the idea of what taking action within a bad system to change it might entail.

Tohru wasn't scared when interacting with the Somas at first because she didn't know their situation.

Now that she is fully in the know and has been affected by it herself, the context affects her, too.

But being in the know also paves a way for her to potentially help, too.

All of this is great stuff.

Once again, some of the more simple material makes you wait for the juicy stuff, but now that we're in the darker material, I think that simple stuff might help space out the more heavy stuff.

[clonehub]

ok so obviously the way u make ur ocs changes as you grow up (like traits u like to give them, looks, relationships, etc. if u get what i mean) but in what ways do u think kiki and some of your older ocs have changed as u grew older? like would you say there’s a big big difference in the way you wrote/imagined them initially and how you write/imagine them now?

+ ALSO, do u have tips for oc building? creativity is hard

WHEW anon they've all changed so much, and it's due to a combination of factors: inspiration from non-star wars works, inspiration from other OCs, projection, and simply learning how to write.

For instance, Kiki is a princess and a Jedi--but I made her a princess because I thought it was cool and I wanted as many "special" things about her as possible. Now that I know how politics works (combo of paying attention more in Star Wars and irl) and I have a solid understand of her internal conflicts as a Jedi, her high-status birth is a point of massive conflict whenever she's meant to deal with Verocia, her home planet.

And that internal conflict? Projection. At the time Kiki started hating being a Jedi was when I started hating being Christian akjshdflkajsfdlk. Roughly the same thing for Ridge; I share the most personality traits with the two.

Projection isn't inherently bad! This doesn't necessarily mean they're self-insert OCs. It's more like some crucial parts of my life influenced how their personalities and arcs develop--but they've got enough things about them that they're not actually me.

All of Crusade Squad started out with corny ass tropey ass melodramatic ass backstories and personalities. I even got anon hate over it kjsdflsakj idk what that person was thinking yelling at a teenager they didn't know on the internet.

To actually answer your first question--they've all matured a lot. They all have defined interactions and personalities, clear motivations and goals and internal conflicts, and fears and hopes. I didn't necessarily write out a list of the Things they needed to be well-rounded characters, but I did toy around with different events and arcs until everything clicked.

OC building is something that's become very natural to me, anon. Hm....normally when I have OCs, I always start with a scene that I imagine. Like currently, for what I can tell will be a new project in the future, I have a scene between a very tall Eastern Asian guy and an Eastern Asian trans girl (not sw) that's been running over and over in my head for like a week now.

My OC building starts with scenes like these and moves into a wider plot. Names are the absolute LAST thing I can ever think of kajhsdfkaj. But I have the scene, and I'm like "well what are these personalities? Do these people like each other?" Worldbuilding and OC building run concurrently for me, so as I flesh out the world, I can make internal and external character conflicts that fit naturally with the OC.

This...moved into more original narrative writing akjshdfla sorry. But even the 68th is worldbuilding! Verocia is worldbuilding! What type of environment is your OC going to be in? How do they react to it? That will change depending on their rank/class, i.e. Kiki goes to bars to socialize, not to get drunk, Ridge goes to bars to do both, and Bliz goes to bars because of his alcohol dependency.

Sometimes I even think of a couple of colors I like. kiki has blue skin, black hair, and purple eyes with pink lips. her sister has the same scheme, but with green eyes.

This is SUPER long and a bit disorganized, but I'm hoping there was something in here that helped, anon!

[springsaladgaming]

i love the demo up to now but im getting very mind blind vibes from this (mysterious traumatizing childhood event which tore your family apart, determinable relationship with your brother, unapprochable older RO (ansel and ambrose), cold edgy RO where you have to be kinda rude to get their attention (teagan vs k), and just like, general vibes) and like this isn't a bad thing but i think it's important to keep in mind and make sure your story has its own remarkable distinguishing features

This story is loosely based off of a short story that I wrote when I was in University about a decade ago. The two stories don’t have anything in common in terms of plot anymore (especially since the short story was Postmodern realistic fiction and HEAVILY influenced by Chuck Palahniuk), but the entire family dynamic was based on the main character, then called Jamie, who was struggling with depression and suicidal ideation, and his family, who seem to be oblivious to what’s going on with him. Sun is a pretty close equivalent to the brother in that story, whose name was Graham. Graham was the successful older brother, the one who, in Jamie’s eyes, was everything his parents ever wanted out of a kid. He was also the only one in the family who seemed to notice what was going on with Jamie. The parents in Ninelives are also very similar to the parents in that story, only the family dynamic had to do with the mom giving the dad placebos for an imagined medical issue and lying about it for years. Jamie inadvertently discovers this and has to decide between exposing this or keeping it secret. (The two stories actually start in the same place; the bathroom. Only, in the original story, Jamie was in the bathroom after a failed suicide attempt, trying to OD on the very meds that his father took, which is how he discovered the placebo thing.) I was eventually planning on turning that short story into a novella with the main theme really touching on visibility of mental illness, but between all the writing I was doing for school and some personal issues in my own life, that short story got dusty in a digital folder on a USB drive I have somewhere. Can you believe those used to be a thing? But I digress.

I have read Mind Blind, and I’m not going to pretend that it (as well as other IFs I have read) didn’t influence me to start this project. So you aren’t totally incorrect. There are similarities, but the similarities don’t come from me basing my content off of Mind Blind. Rather, prior to deciding to try my hand at writing IFs, Mind Blind reminded me so much of this short story from college that I finally decided to revisit it, albeit reshape it into something new. And, hey, that’s Structuralism, baby.

So I can definitely understand feeling these similarities at first glance. That being said, it’s also quite early in the story still, and there is a lot the MC doesn’t know, even about their own brother.

So I guess what I ultimately want to say is, give it time. I don’t personally find the characters that similar, but I also have the advantage of knowing what’s going to happen in the story. It’s definitely my goal for this story to be its own unique beast, and I hope to live up to peoples’ expectations of that. The last thing I want is to rip off of someone else’s content. >.< It’s something I always try to keep in mind when I feel inspired by other works.

I want to touch on this subject more, and I love talking about my characters, but I don’t want to ruin anything for people who want to go in blind, so I’ll talk about the rest under this cut. No spoilers, just more background information.

Ansel is actually one of the most approachable characters in the story. If you’re referring to a specific scene that occurs with a specific choice, there is a reason that he is unapproachable in that situation, and it’s something you will get to talk about with him should you trip that flag. The thing about Ansel is, there’s enough going on with him already, even after a single day, that a player might choose to be suspicious of him. And for good reason. I want to say more on that, but honestly it’s hard to talk about what’s going on with him without touching on major spoilers, so I’ll just say that Ansel is probably the easiest character to get close to (besides maybe Rene), provided you don’t let your suspicion stop you.

Sun is in a similar boat as far as the “hard to talk about without spoilers” thing. There’s something more to his overprotectiveness besides just being a loving sibling. Ulterior movies is definitely a somewhat large focus of some of this plot, and this could become a conflict with more than one character, depending on what the player chooses to pursue. Can’t say more on Sun without heading into spoiler territory either, but your relationship with him could end up really terrible for completely justified reasons later, or you can keep it pretty great, or it can be a mix of the two. I wanted that to be determinable as well as fluctuating with him because sibling relationships are rarely ever one or the other, and I didn’t want to impose that choice on players, especially not since I was already imposing a bad relationship with the parents. I hate taking away player agency when creating their character, but there are some things I just have to do to railroad the plot in the right direction. I didn’t want Sun to be one of those things.

Teagan ultimately appears a little bit tropey. I would go so far as to say there is one of him in a LOT of interactive fictions out there. Tropes aren’t necessarily a bad thing - this is how we, as a society, have formed recognizable archetypes. But that’s something I want to work on with him. My goal is to give him his own flair. Once we start seeing Teagan interact with characters like Alex, Lucia, or Rene, he should start to show his true colors a lot more. One of my major goals with this story is giving the ROs significant opportunities for personal growth, and Teagan is one of the people who needs this the most. 

As an addendum to Teagan, he actually doesn’t respond well to people being rude to him, even though sometimes it might seem that way. 🤣 Poor guy is pretty socially inept and doesn’t have a very high emotional intelligence. Ansel also doesn’t challenge him to be better, which doesn’t help. If he smiles or smirks in response to a comment or a dialogue choice, it would be safer to err on the side of caution and make zero assumptions on what it means. There are a couple of smile/smirk scenes in there that are actually considered negatives for him. I’ve been having a little fun with this, because the choices that might seem like the “right” ones to increase relationship when we’re talking about other IFs or visual novels, for example, are often not the right ones with Teagan.

The good news here is that getting to know the characters and getting close to them in Ninelives is more about just spending time with them and learning about them than it is about making “wrong” choices. I play a lot of visual novels, and one of the things I’ve always disliked about them is how often a single wrong dialogue choice (one that usually seems arbitrary at the time) locks you out of certain routes or brings you to a game-over screen. I’ve really never like that. Between that and the fact that fully-released CSGs don’t have a save feature, one of the things I decided early on was to remove anything that resembled a game-over mechanic or a complete failure to achieve something. When applying that to character relationships, that means players are going to get ample opportunities to get to know the characters without locking themselves out of friendships or romances. This doesn’t mean there are no consequences to being an asshole to the characters all the time, but consistently failing to pick the "best” reactions with characters isn’t necessarily going to ruin your chances with them either.

[the-dust-jacket]

"This is not the story you think it is," says the blurb, which is but also is not true.

To be perfectly candid, I almost didn't make it past chapter three.  I have checked off the plot points of A Study In Scarlet in enough Holmes re-imaginings to suck most of the charm from the requisite introductions and clever nods to characters. 

I kept coming back to The Angel of the Crows, though, first rather grudgingly and then with the sort of  compulsiveness that leads to rushing through your morning routine or brushing off coworkers so you can read in peace on the train. It turned out to be just what I needed in a high-stress and exhausting week: escapist, action-packed but soothing, with enjoyable characters and a strong voice. It was just what I needed; I'm still trying to figure out if it's good. In Addison's alternate British Empire, one of angels and airships, werewolves and vampires, and the arcane rules that govern interactions between them, Dr. Doyle of Her Majesty's army reluctantly returns to London with wounds physical, psychological, and supernatural. Doyle falls in with Crow, self-proclaimed Angel of London and compulsive follower of London crime.  Both characters have secrets, foreshadowed early enough that I wouldn't call them plot twists, exactly, but I will avoid specifics and preserve the joy of discovery. Both characters have an insatiable curiosity sure to lead them into adventure. After starting off slowly with the Study in Scarlet story line, the book picks up with a rapid tour not only of the Holmes canon but also through various historical mysteries. Most prominent of these is Jack the Ripper, nearly as saturated in pop culture as Sherlock Holmes and not a choice I was thrilled with, but Addison does bring a few interesting grace notes to the arc. The Holmes mysteries appear as everything from faithful re-tellings to fantasy re-imaginings to mere jumping off points. The episodes overlap and intertwine enough to give the whole volume an organic and cohesive feel, rather than feelings like short stories strung together. Some characters, like Inspector Lestrade, arrive more or less unaltered by their strange new circumstances. Others, like Moriarty, appear in an entirely new light. All of this brings us to the inevitable questions of any Sherlockian pastiche: why? What does the author want to accomplish with this cross-century dialogue? What does the reader gain from it? A brief author's note in the back of the book explains that The Angel of the Crows originally began as Sherlock wingfic, which the Internet-savvy will have spotted pretty quickly.  (We interrupt this program for an important message: Dear Katherine Addison, please tell me your AO3 handle, I WANT TO READ YOUR FIC.) The Sherlock influences are largely vestigial, and I don't want to prejudice anyone with a Benedict Cumberbatch aversion against the book.  The more interesting question is, when any Sherlock Holmes story is fan fiction by the loosest definition, when does a fic become a novel? And which one is this? The Angel of the Crows has the fan fic quality of rushing through familiar plot points to get to the more interesting points of divergence. Very little emphasis is placed on the quintessential Sherlock Holmes unraveling of clues, to the point that I would categorize the book more as adventure than mystery. None of this is necessarily a bad thing, since there's not a lot of of fun in watching characters toil over a whodunit when you already know the answer (or there can be, but this isn't that sort of book). But it certainly detracts from the book's ability to stand on its own as original fiction. The world is a very fun one to explore, but then foggy alternate London, unsettling angels, oaths and names, family curses, and rival vampire hunts existing in an uneasy truce with their human counterparts all sit neatly in a box labelled "My Favorite Things," so I was always going to fall for this one. We don't see much of its mechanics at work, but it has the lived-in feeling of a good fantasy world. The book's strongest point, in my opinion, should come as no surprise to either fans of Addison's complex, deeply immersive The Goblin Emperor, or avid readers of high quality fan fic. Doyle's narrative voice, brusque, embittered, but ironically funny, and thoroughly Victorian in this not-quite-our-Victorian way, is what pulled me through those first three chapters and beyond. It's intimate and inviting, and fills in the cracks sometimes left by plot and world-building. Doyle is almost Watson, but is not, and Crow is neither Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes or Gatiss and Moffat's, but a creature with a different voice entirely. A bit under-baked, compared to Doyle, but intriguing. I enjoyed spending time with them. I would do it again. Which is, really, one of the fundamental draws of fan fiction: we want to spend time with characters we love, or characters who deserved better than they got at the merciless hands of their creators. As a fan fic, The Angel of the Crows is very good. It's creative, clever, and erudite, thoroughly researched, and a nice mix of original and tropey. As a novel, it has real flaws, but it’s a fun and compelling read for someone with a Holmes hankering or who really needs a world they can sink into and a story with the right combination of strangeness and familiarity. I respect the Conan Doyle homage, but the book does not have much to say about its own antecedents. It introduces a world I would love to see expand beyond the limitations of the Sherlock Holmes canon. It was just what I needed for a rough week, which, looking back, might have been a good book or might have been a really great fan fic. As they say in fandom, Your Mileage May Vary.

[diverse-writing]

Hey, I was thinking about who is going to be in my main cast in my story, and I realized that the main character is the only white person. I was wondering if this would come off as bad, if the main focus is a white dude surrounded by characters of color as his friends. I'm pretty sure it is offensive, but I thought I would double check so I know what needs to change and I can get ideas on how to change it.

I’m gonna be pretty blunt with you here but, unless you’re willing to get super subversive and analytical about implicit power dynamics and the flow of narrative focus in a multiracial group dynamic, I personally am tired of POC only ever being the sideshow to the (often dramatically less interesting) white dude. It’s tropey, it’s stereotypical, it’s overdone, it’s boring. We’re always the side acts and never the show, always the sidekicks and never the hero. I’m over it and I’d hazard a guess to say most other readers of color are too.

Here are some changes to consider going forward (warning: all of them are big and would require significant work on your part, but IMO anything less would be disingenuous and would maintain the racist and tropey initial structure):

Remove the central focus from your white dude and shift it to another character. Do some exercises, do some backstory enhancement, do some character development, and really do your best to shift your narrative perspective into that new character’s head, abandoning how your old main character would act or think in any given situation. Give that new main character more narrative agency than they had in your original draft, give them the same decisions your original MC had, and see where the story goes from there. While you can still keep the keystone plot points the same, your new focus won’t and shouldn’t have the exact same reactions as your old MC and that’s good. You shouldn’t just take your old MC, slap a new skin tone on them, and say that your book focuses on a person of color. Retroactively applying diversity like that is disingenuous and disrespectful, not to mention gross if you’re presuming your new POC would act, think, and move through the world in the same way a white character would.

If you’re committed to keeping the same character as your MC but want to turn him into a person of color (which is...sketchy, but let’s talk about it anyway), you need to review his character from the ground up. Figure out who he’s going to be, what race(s) he is, what culture(s) he’s from, what religion he follows, how his (new) appearance changes his interactions with the world, etc. Once you’ve figured out those foundationals, review every character decision you made for the original version of the character. Where he lives, why, where his parents came from, what his hobbies are, who his friends are, what he dreams about, what he fears, what he wants but won’t tell anyone--all of it. Go over it with a fine-toothed comb and figure out where you need to make alterations based on his new background.

Decentralize your narrative and turn your story into an ensemble piece, with POV narrating chapters from multiple other members of your white character’s friend group. The white character would remain a narrator, but would be balanced and counteracted by the new prevalence of the voices of the characters of color as they share their own interpretation of the events unfolding. Leigh Bardugo does this really well in her Six of Crows duology, as does Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle to my understanding though I haven’t read it. You would need to weave in multiple narrative threads, which can get tricky, but you would shine a spotlight on other members of your ensemble cast alongside your white character.

Finally, and I say this with a lot of hesitation, you could leave it be but use the characters and relationships you already have in place as a societal critique. Honestly, I think very few writers have the skill to pull that off and it would be incredibly difficult but I wanted to throw it out there as an option. Use what you have to deconstruct the flow of power within the group: who defers to who, who the group turns to first, who talks the most, who’s ideas are followed, who’s supported the most, who needs the most support, etc. I’m not saying make your white male character the unpopular one of the group, but really truly analyze how his race and gender put him at a power advantage over the rest of the group whether he wants it or not. I don’t think you necessarily have to have that discussion in-narrative--and in fact, I think it would be more subversive if you didn’t and left it up to the reader to untangle shifting power dynamics--but it at least has to be a hard conversation you have with yourself and incorporate into the foundations of your story moving forward.

[triangulumlights]

Digimon Adventure 2020 episode 1

YO THAT WAS HYPE AF

Spoilers below the cut!

So I admit I was not super impressed a few minutes in; the new theme is okay but not Butterfly (not that I expected Butterfly, since this is a new series and deserves its own theme, but it’s still hard not to make comparisons) and I wasn’t huge on the super Taichi focus (I love Taichi but he’s not the only person on the team.)

HOWEVER, by the time Koushirou showed up I was sold. Taichi and Koushirou’s friendship was one of my very favorite things about Adventure, and it’s already off to a strong start here; there were so many aspects of their interactions that I loved, but especially that they immediately formed the same dynamic, effective team they always did in Adventure. Their interactions make it feel, at least to me, that the people in charge of this series are very familiar with the original and really know what they’re doing when it comes to the characters.

The Digital World (or well, this version of it) was obviously incredibly different, but incredibly cool; it was very Our War Game, but more on that later. I love the new imagining of the Digivices and that they can be used as communicators, and that the crests are in play immediately. Linking the Digimon disturbances to the real world follows in the original anime’s theme, along with several of the others that came later, as well as Our War Game and Tri. Generally it’s a strengthening of an already established theme, and I’m excited to see how it’s explored.

The intro of Yamato at the end (and the heavy focus on him for the credits) was fascinating, and explains why he wasn’t in the short montage of all the other kids during the episode. I wondered if maybe he’s living abroad somewhere (like maybe America), but I don’t think that’s the case. I’m definitely fascinated by how they’re going to expand his character in this way; he feels like he’s being set up as a the brooding but misunderstood anime rival, which I suppose is the role he played in Adventure to an extent, but it feels more tropey this time (not in a bad way necessarily, but different.)

Sad we didn’t see the others kids much at all yet, but it is just the first episode and this was a more tightly contained story. We’ll see what happens next episode, which APPEARS TO BE STRAIGHT UP OUR WAR GAME. I’m so hype y’all I will take any form of Our War Game I am ready for this give me it!!!

And now, for minor observations:

• Taichi’s personality was done perfectly; he’s his courageous, impulsive, confident self who’s also protective, kind, and encouraging.

• Koushirou seemed very shy at first, even more than usual, but maybe I’ve just gotten used to him after his character growth in the original series. He certainly warmed up to Taichi quickly (who wouldn’t lbr) but oh no, that little comment about ‘I think I can be useful’ or whatever he said to Taichi, I feel like it’s definitely going to be the same self-confidence arc for him in this series. My poor nerdy child.

• Taichi and the googles with the vault over the turnstile omg.

• That Koushirou followed Taichi after he jumped the turnstile is so in character for him and his habit of chasing Taichi into dangerous situations.

• Speaking of Koushirou (again, I’m sorry, I may have a favorite), did he already know about all this Digimon/other world stuff (which would be weird), did he figure it out on the fly (which would not be a shock), or is he intuiting it through his crest connection thing (which would be very cool)? I don’t know but I appreciate that his weird sixth sense for the Digital World (which he and Hikari both seem to have, just a little differently) kind of appears to be hinted at (when he said that something bigger was happening); I appreciated how blatantly it was pointed out in Tri and I think that’s a neat character ability to play with.

• And related to character abilities, did Taichi’s crest protect him and Greymon? That lines up with some of the crest powers we’ve seen tiny pieces of in the original Adventure and 02, so I would love to see the crests explored as more powerful sources of abilities for the kids.

• Miko was around!!! I missed her in Tri.

• Taichi’s mom is an icon as ever.

• Kou’s little tablet computer was so cute omg, and I think I noticed it had a logo that said ‘Tachikawa’ on it? Do Mimi’s parents own a tech company?

I’m sure I’ve missed things I want to comment on but aaaaaah I have so many feelings time to get read everyone else’s analysis too.

We’re all in this new ride together again, everyone!

[ctl-yuejie]

My thoughts on the conflict between TangYi and ShaoFei, the tone of HIStory3:Trapped  and how conflict and reveals get presented

Disclaimer: I love this show, I think the acting is great and I am very excited that the production team challenged itself with a more complex story than past HIStory seasons, upped the production quality and overall seemed to pour all the heart and hard work into this. Never forget that I love this show even though this might come off as very critical. Me nitpicking at a piece of media however doesn’t mean that I don’t like it (I seldom waste my breath on bad-mouthing something I didn’t enjoy unless it personally offended me), it only means that I enjoyed it so much that I spent hours thinking about the plot and the characters and generally had a lot of feelings.

        - spoilers up until episode 16 -

Now that the show has only 4 episodes left to air I wanted to take some time to sort my thoughts and feelings.

Overall, I really do enjoy this show, especially the acting, the chemistry between Chris and Jake is stellar (not to leave out Andy and Kenny, I just don’t think I’ve seen enough of their story to comment too much on them yet) and the  brilliantly written romance of TangYi and ShaoFei.

In the beginning the premise sounded tropey and fun and I didn’t expect them to seriously tackle the issue of a cop falling in love with a criminal because the trailer, while being action-packed, looked too light-hearted.

The show however took a surprising twist.

Sure, much of what happens is not realistic: the crime rate in Taiwan is famously low (we had one too many shootings and violent deaths on the show to match with the statistics) and I am pretty sure ShaoFei drawing his gun at TangYi every chance he gets in the beginning and not facing any backlash doesn’t comply with police protocol at all.

However, when they introduced the whole background story of TangYi I started to take the set-up more seriously. Prior to this I thought that I just had to suspend belief in order to enjoy the cop/gangster romance aspect of the show and to be able to ignore any ethical issues that might arise with such a dynamic.  But introducing him as this young adult who’d grown up into a life of crime and no choosing of his own, who tried to cut ties with the criminal world because of a promise he gave to his foster father made me rethink the tone of the show and I started to believe that they would honestly tackle the ethical issues of the relationship between ShaoFei and TangYi.

Trying to live an honest and upright life doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to stop committing crimes on your way to achieve that goal (and I am pretty sure that HongYe setting up that business is textbook money laundering) but I liked to believe that revealing TangYi’s motivation would mean exactly that. Because this promised a challenge, suspense and a struggle worth watching.

Refraining from committing crimes and dismantling his organization while upholding his front as a stone-hearted mob boss would result in much more difficulties when interacting with gang members and trying to not get overpowered by enemies. TangYi would be too powerful otherwise. Most of the problems he has encountered on this show were connected to him trying to protect people that are dear to him, a task that is much more complicated to accomplish when you cannot resort to violence. 

Additionally, I don’t think I could root for TangYi and ShaoFei as a couple if TangYi doesn’t try his best to not hurt other people. Not only because ShaoFei is a policeman, there are enough corrupt or misguided policemen around, but because ShaoFei is introduced to us as someone with strong convictions and an even stronger sense of justice and upholding the law. And to me it didn’t seem like his character arc was set-up for him to delve into a moral grey-area or even to switch sides with TangYi. I thought that his journey would be to fall for TangYi and accept that not everyone is necessarily entirely good or evil and having to grapple with his senior being not the person he thought she was. This does fit in with the latest revelations that the police chief with whom he has a kind of father-son relationship is indeed not the good person we thought he was.

I have no idea how ShaoFei could deal with the idea of TangYi being capable of hurting people when it isn’t done in self-defense and if there are other, albeit more difficult, ways in which he could’ve taken action.

Especially because in the reality this show creates the problems a cop/gangster relationship entails don’t get entirely glossed over. Yu Qi reminds ShaoFei in the hospital that him and TangYi cannot be together, not because they’re both men, but because of their professions. (To be honest the only real beef I might have with this show so far was the weird “love is love” analogy that they freely applied to a gangster/cop relationship. I don’t think it was in any way intentional but reversing that thought might lead the viewer to the conclusion that you are either born into a certain profession or you can choose your sexuality...which is definitely not what the show wants us to think, I hope.) Even earlier on ShaoFei denies that he could have developed feelings for TangYi on the basis that they’re playing on opposite teams. So we have to assume that the show acknowledges the ethical problems of this romance in general but somehow conveniently forgets about this conflict when it should have an impact on the characters behavior. This is especially bizarre because the only function of those scenes then is to act as a tool to not make as forget how cold and ruthless TangYi can be. Because he is a gangster boss.

After revealing TangYi’s backstory on the mountain top I got more excited about the show because I thought I’d understood in which direction they wanted to take the main romantic plot and what kind of tone they wanted to set. The show would be slightly more serious and solemn than I anticipated but I welcomed that approach because it would make for an interesting show while not excluding any possible humour.

However, immediately in the next episode I had to start and rethink my assumptions. By now the low respect for rules on the police’s site and dilettante approach to their job started to stand out, however I was willing to not head those details that much attention because most tv series, even mainstream crime shows, mess up the actual technicalities of the jobs they’re trying to portray. ShaoFei’s fever dream on the mountain however took the disconnect with the previous episode a little bit further. The scene overall did fit in with the humour of the show but the way it was acted out and shot didn’t make it look like an organic part of the rest of the series. However, the scene just left me with a small nagging feeling and wasn’t anything that really bugged me.

My feelings for the show however got tested a bit when TangYi beat up that henchman. I was so convinced that the main conflict of the show would be TangYi trying to maintain is image as a gangster so his gang wouldn’t find out that he is trying to dissolve the organization while having to abstain from using any violence. Something that is made even more difficult by the police getting involved and the mystery from 4 years ago looming over him.

I truly believed that TangYi being left alone in that room would turn out to be a ruse to shake up Ah De (whom, as we later find out, he was already suspicious of). It also made me hope that Wang Kun Chen might have not actually died but that his death was faked in order to go after both the criminals and any corrupt policemen (I will come back to his death later on). But afterwards in a talk with Jack it gets confirmed that TangYi indeed beat up the henchman. This course of action didn’t surprise me that much but to be honest I was just disappointed with how straight-forward and unexcitingly TangYi dealt with Ah De and possibly some other close people going behind his back.

The intention of the set-up with Old Tang’s wish was only based on my assumptions so I can’t really feel that let down by it, but TangYi beating up that henchman threw me because I thought we were supposed to read more into Old Tang’s request and conclude that TangYi would have to live through a constant internal struggle.

In general, I don’t mind when unrealistic things happen in a series, however there has to be an internal set of rules that gets followed and scenes and characters have to make sense within the reality the showrunners created.

To me it is curious that TangYi doesn’t think that he has to adjust how he acts in order to disentangle himself from a life of crime in some scenes but in other scenes suddenly cannot take action in a certain way because of the same reason (mostly when it becomes urgent to eliminate direct threats). It is always up to ShaoFei to actively stop him from committing crimes and we never see an internal struggle. Sure, the task got imposed on him by Old Tang and TangYi doesn’t seem to be propelled by intrinsic motives but due to his emotional connection to Old Tang I’d have thought that he would really have to constantly struggle mentally and physically to refrain himself from using violence.

That does, in no way, mean that I wanted this show to be less dark. I think there’s still a lot of room for even more cruelty and angst even if the main character tries his best not to use violence. The whole set-up is very sad, the element of corruption could also lead to emotional distress at how hopeless ShaoFei’s investigation is, drug trafficking in particular comes with many victims, the betrayal inside the gang and every parental figure in this show either not living up to expectations or being outright abusive are also heavy subjects they could lean into even more. Heck, ShaoFei’s whole investigation and the police’s involvement raise the stakes because there is the possibility of capital punishment for drug offenses in Taiwan. We also have to deal with the fact that TangYi most definitely committed heinous acts in the past, the same might go for Jack. All in all, there are still many options left to make this show even more grim and bleak.

In the end it is up to the writers how they want to spin TangFei’s romance but to me it seemed like they were laying the ground for a different approach to the story then what actually played out. While I am not mad at this show (as I said before this is me nitpicking at a series that I highly enjoy) at this point I don’t know whether I can trust the hints I pick up because I don’t know if it was the intention of the writers to built-up a storyline or if what they did was totally arbitrary, or if they indeed simply forgot what they established in earlier scenes (this is where I had my problems with Hong Ye’s attack on ShaoFei and Ah De’s assault of TangYi. HongYe was introduced as more intelligent than that planned attack was and Ah De’s premeditated assault didn’t fit with his goals and the way he crossed the line earlier on).

This back and forth on characterizations, storylines and tone does confuse me quite a bit and is the only thing so far that made the show fall slightly short of what they could’ve accomplished with more consistent writing.

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Which leads me to how the show is dealing with its reveals. So far, we have the mystery from 4 years ago that still needs solving, TangYi’s real parents’ identity which got revealed in episode 16, Ah De not only being in love with TangYi but selling drugs behind his back, Jack’s identity and real motivation, who really killed Wang Kun Chen, Ah Zi being up to no good and finally the police chief being dirty.

I enjoyed/am enjoying all of these plot-twists, some were more obvious than others but again, the writing of how these things unravel or got revealed is very inconsistent.

I will start with our mystery men. The reveal I enjoyed the most was the police chief being a dirty cop. It pretty much came out of nowhere but now a lot of his actions do make much more sense, especially how he didn’t give much support to ShaoFei and how he was mocking about with his work which I initially wrote off as missing motivation instead of passive sabotage. It also gives us enough room to guess his motivations and to whatever conclusion we might come to, it fits perfectly into the story so far. He might have needed money, or averting his eyes might have led to bigger consequences than he expected, now he is scared to lose his job because his daughter is marrying, or he worked too long in the force so he decided to side with what he felt was the most harmless kind of corruption to be able to focus on the big fish. What is important is that regardless of his motivation his past behavior fits with the reveal and added excitement to the show (to behonest at the moment I kind of lost interest in what happened 4 years ago because it is both obvious and confusing at the same time). Ah Zi was an okay reveal and the general topic of corruption in the work force and presumably good characters turning out grey or bad is pretty interesting but how his identity got revealed with those taunting shots of a man in a jacket were somewhat lackluster. They only spanned over two episodes before the reveal and were pretty on the nose. I would have loved it if they’d built-up his betrayal over more episodes with secretive shots of money and drugs exchanging hands where we couldn’t be sure if we were just shown the inner workings of TangYi’s gang or outsiders trying to get their hands on some extra cash.

Again, two similar reveals came about very differently and with a different kind of depth and detail to attention as well as being tied into the show organically and not so much.

This change in style doesn’t do much good in my opinion. Jack remains much of a mystery even though we need at least some hints in order to root for him and ZhaoZi. Instead their scenes are sweet but not that telling and they never just appear in the background to tie in their romance at all times. There were missed opportunities and many scenes that they could’ve been in finished without them and we went two whole episodes without them. Hong Ye and DaoYi had the big advantage to be present in many of the main couples’ scenes so their romance felt very well written and satisfying. I wish they’d spend even more time and attention to detail on Jack and ZhaoZi because with the added mystery element to Jack’s persona I really need more to get emotionally involved.

Again, I am confused as to how deep the show wants us to analyze its characters’ actions and how tricky the story really is. Ah De selling drugs behind TangYi’s back was mentioned only in a throw-away line and we are to believe that TangYi wouldn’t act more guarded or cautious around Ah De? Are we supposed to question that Jack killed Wang Kun Chen? If so, why was TangYi supposed to get fraimed for his death when it was a set-up by possibly the police? If it was as straight-forward as it’s presented I have my problems with rooting for TangYi/ShaoFei and ZhaoZi/Jack because it would be the first kill since the start of the show and setting up TangYi and Jack as unredeemable in ZhaoZI’s and ShaoFei’s eyes (see my huge paragraph about violence above). If we are supposed to scrutinize the show on the same intricate level as the police chief’s betrayal, some of the other reveals fall flat and are just not on the same engaging level.

The same goes for the messaging: are we to believe that Ah De’s actions were despicable? Wouldn’t we have to apply the same rules to Jack kissing ZhaoZi?

Overall I wish this series was written more tight-knitted, intricate and consistent in tone and message. Because I believe that this otherwise very entertaining story could’ve only benefitted from that.

[literaryillusions]

Muffin Top (Hartigans #2) by Avery Flynn

Normally, that kind of guy—the player—always left her feeling icky. Really, who wants to be with someone who had more notches on his bedpost than Santa had names on his naughty list? There was just something gross about it.

Hero: Hot temper and a hot bodied firefighter who takes chances with anything but emotions. 

Heroine: Curvey heroine who doesn’t take shit or chances. 

To continue my exploration of contemporary romances I took a suggestion from @itsmariemccurdy to try out some Avery Flynn - I even started in the middle of a series! This was a super fun read - not terribly profound, Earth shattering or emotional but one of those fun day reads where it is sunny and you don’t want to have to think too hard. 

This book includes oldie but goodie tropes including fake dating; high school reunion (complete with That Bitch Who Tortured Me); hero who needs to learn to not fight everyone’s battles; and last but not least - badasses all around who don’t like emotions. It didn’t feel overly formulaic which saved it from being too tropey. 

There is a rather serious underlying theme that comes to a serious catalyst in the end that deals with the very human mistake of bringing your baggage to a relationship and measuring someone else against it. It is real and raw and I genuinely enjoyed the reflection that both characters ended up needing to do - which added a weight that I felt the book needed.  

This book can definitely be read alone so if you aren’t looking for a series this is definitely a good one to pick up. (I am curious if there will be more in this series? I had quite a nice time with it.) I would say there are some triggers within this more lighthearted story that includes heavy swearing and there are some serious scenes with fat shaming present. This is a very sex-positive book in how it talks about sex toys and how the characters have their own sexual interactions - which at times are graphic (like PG-13 to R but not necessarily M). 

[mautadite]

july book round up

19 books this month, while means that i’ve finally pulled ahead and am 3 books ahead of schedule! YAY ME. i finally finished that training course for work and i’ve been making it up to myself big time. late in the month i took a subscription to audible escape :3 so expect a LOT of schmoopy romance on the horizon.

jane doe - victoria helen stone ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ good! i’m always up for a tale of a woman and revenge. this did do that whole ‘oooooh~ psychopathy is scary and sexy ooooh’ thing but not to a degree where it became unbearable. for me at least! your mileage may vary. triggery as hell and difficult to read at times, for all its lack of subtlety. i still enjoyed it.

the way of a man with a maid - rose lerner ⭐️⭐️⭐️ i realised i hadn’t read this story set in the universe of one of my favourite rose lerner books. it was enjoyable! a good illustration of how people often didn’t know each other (or ANYTHING) when they got married but that doesn’t always spell (permanent) disaster.

temeraire 1: his majesty’s dragon - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ i’ve been threatening to reread this series for years and ingrid finally gave me the impetus and i’m so happy. I LOVE THE BABY DRAGON AND HIS AWKWARD STUFFY SOUL MATE OF A HUMAN. the first book of the series is probably my favourite; nothing beats watching these nerds fall in aromantic love.

go tell it on the mountain - james baldwin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ BEAUTIFUL PROSE, so good it made me want to tear out my hair. i listened to the audiobook as read by adam lazarre-white, who is jacob taylor’s VA, so, you know. i was flipping out the whole time.

temeraire 2: throne of jade - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ or, baby dragon turns into social justice dragon. loved it.

no strings attached - harper bliss ⭐️⭐️⭐️ this was a cute, late-in-life coming out lesbian romance. i can’t say i’ve ever read a book with this EXACT plot but it was very simple. no alarms, no surprises.

kidnapped by the pirate - keira andrews ⭐️⭐️ i thought this would be good, tropey and fun, but it was only one of those three things. and hey, i like tropey. but nothing stood out about this, and i didn’t get the sense that the author went through the trouble to deeply research her setting. god save me from white people writing about the caribbean.

skybound series - fae sutherland ⭐️⭐️⭐️ the result of what happens when world-building is overlooked in favour of character interaction, and then the resultant character interaction isn’t very good. each of these three books held its own certain charm, (the romance in book 2 was really sweet) but they also all disappointed me in some way too. especially the third one. i can’t think of anything less satisfying than a character assuming an identity to escape one they don’t like/want, only to backpedal because another character thinks its cowardly or w/e.

temeraire 3: black powder war - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ four stars, but it technically deserves 5, since this is the book that introduces tharkay, and he is my boyfriend. kind of a damper sometimes tho.

london calling - clare lydon ⭐️ lesbian romance that meandered hopelessly, had an irritating writing style, and a ‘nothing happens’ plot. (which i usually don’t mind!) DNF; the protag uses a transphobic slur unchallenged, and i absconded.

temeraire 4: empire of ivory - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️ this is where people start saying that the series feels like a travelogue, but fuck it, i like travelogues. fuck riley tho. though i didn’t enjoy this one as much as the first two, the world-building around the tswana dragons and the slave trade is some of my very favourite.

blood is another word for hunger - rivers solomon ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ really intriguing and fantastically written short story about a recently freed-by-her-own-hand slave who births a human being for every one she kills. i’ve mentioned that i love women taking revenge; i also love slaves taking revenge. great mix of history and magical realism. 

the fall - robin alexander ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ favourite book of the month!!!! (barring the temeraire series.) really sweet lesbian meet cute romance, with family drama and hijinks, REALLY cute characters. one of the few books that sells itself as a ‘romantic comedy’ and really is; it was actually genuinely funny at times. listened to the audiobook which had a fantastic narrator, which made it all the better.

temeraire 5: victory of eagles - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️ god this book made me sad lol. :( necessarily so, because it had to deal with the fall out of the previous book, but agh. it was so much at times. definitely enjoyed it more on the reread tho. loved the dragon stuff, didn’t care about the war stuff.

the man on the third floor - anne bernays ⭐️⭐️⭐️ a historical m/m romance that was heavy on the history and light on the romance. which i don’t mind per se, because it was interesting to get into publishing house drama and post wwii society in the eyes of a jewish protagonist. but the character interaction was so terribly sparse. i don’t think we started getting to know barry as a person until the very last chapter.

temeraire 6: tongues of serpents - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️ KULINGILE. ALL IS WELL. 😭😭😭 (tharkay is in this book too so yay.)

temeraire 7: crucible of gold - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ one of my very favourite books since the first read!!!!! and tharkay’s not even in it!!!! i loved the incan dragons; i don’t know, they’s something very charming about people hoarding. i keep thinking back to the first one they met, and how jealous she got when she saw all the sailors temeraire had in his netting like ‘THOSE ARE ALL YOURS???’ and how she tried to hide her own humans from him like ‘YOU CAN’T HAVE ANY OF MINE...’ plus fun hijinks and my faves coming out and getting more screen time and riley fuckin dying at last... great book.

for august, i look forward to finishing my temeraire reread, finally reading the ninth book, and perhaps starting an HDM reread. and more sappy romance lol. currently rereading blood of tyrants, the 8th temeraire book, and listening to a cute lesbian romance: just jorie.