#awful terrible no good very bad worldbuilding

[poondragoon]

There's some nasty shit below this cut so be aware

Alright so 99% of slime girl media is just people bangin' 'em or wanting to bang 'em, but...they're slime. Stick your finger in a jar of jelly. Feel that? It's completely yielding and homogenous. I don't care what polarity of equipment you're bringing to the party, a good sex substrate (or, fuckstrate) has got some resistance and friction to it. Something you can grind on, nomesayin'? Otherwise the experience would feel like a dispassionate night in with a bowl of soft-set Jell-O.

So what your slime girl needs is the ability to condense or extrude a denser, more rigid material to more closely approximate the kind of texture and resistance human nerve endings are accustomed to nutting with. Essentially, a vaginal callus. Unfortunately, like a callus, the callussy is dead material, and would probably be shed soon after use.

Basically, you don't fuck a slime girl, you fuck the booger she makes for you.

Slime girls are a cute concept but they should be more than just jelly shaped like a girl, put a nucleus and organelles in there!! or some eyeballs but not where a person's would be.

[lakesbian]

it's the moment like 4 of you have been waiting for:

i finally rotated pact creature design in my brain enough to post about it. to all the people who sent me asks wanting to hear my thoughts explaining Why Pact Creatures Are So Good this ones for you.

the core of pact's monster design boils down to one very good fact about pact's worldbuilding: in the world of pact, the universe canonically loves a good story. magic literally runs on themes and ideas. subsequently, strong themes aren't the end result of pact's monster design so much as they are the most fundamental aspect of it--meaningful themes and narratives are such a textually important part of how pact monsters work that one bogeyman outright tries to start a conversation with blake by, upon noticing the birdhouse in his soul (tm), asking if birds are important to him.

what really seals the deal on this being fascinating is that pact monsters aren't invented wholesale--a lot of the book hinges on offering its own explanations for preexisting folklore or urban legend. pact takes a variety of common threads in the way cultural myths & monsters are presented, picks out the conceptions with compelling implications, and distills them into one design so thematically coherent and clarifying that it makes you go "ohhh, why aren't All ghosts/dragons/fae like this? this is Exactly What They're Supposed To Be."

like, we all know that ghosts are dead people, and oftentimes the appearance and/or behavior they're written as having is either implicitly or explicitly based on reenactments of their past life/how they died, and sometimes they're depicted as lucid but more often than not they're depicted more like broken or warped remnants of a person, and sometimes they make things colder/give off Bad Emotional Vibes/etc. those are generally true assertions about how ghosts are often culturally presented.

pact takes that and explicitly declares that ghosts are what happens when something so bad happens that an imprint of the resultant misery is left on the fabric of the universe. some ghosts appear horrifying because their appearance is warped and exaggerated beyond what's realistically possible to match how awful whatever happened to them felt. some ghosts are more lucid because their imprint is more recent, or has been strengthened and fed by human attention instead of left to decay. some ghosts are less lucid because they were forgotten. when ghosts make the atmosphere feel awful to be in, that's because the ghost isn't just the imprint of the person, it's an imprint of the awful thing itself. incredibly interesting! it feels so very much like the absolute heart of what ghost stories are about--about the grief and horror of being impacted by the ever-present echo of something terrible, about something so viscerally wretched happening that reality itself cannot forget it, about the emotionally powerful interactions between someone still-living and the memory of someone already long gone.

(pact also gives an aside that, in very rare scenarios, neutral or arguably even positive occasions which leave a sufficiently strong enough impression can also become ghosts. genuinely fascinating expansion.)

& the thing here is that pact does this for creatures like ghosts that are already richly thematic and iconic, but it Also does it for creatures with less obvious theming. how do dragons work? what's pact's underlying explanation for their position as immortal, powerful, regal, fire-breathing* fantasy monsters?

*&, depending on the media, sometimes ice-breathing or poisonous or whatever else

well, you see, dragons are recursive loops. "dragons are recursive loops" is perhaps one of the Top All Time sentences in the entire book, and the delightful thing is that, in addition to sounding excellent, it makes sense.

that's how they generate and spit out so much of whatever their element is. they're snarls. they're ouroboroses. they're something feeding into itself, self-sustaining for thousands of years, drowning anything which threatens it in torrents of whatever the self-feeding element is--fire, sometimes, but it could be poison, or ice, or whatever else, and that's why you've probably heard of ice dragons in addition to classic fire dragons. Dragons Are Recursive Loops. recursiveness is, after all, a form of immortality.

or, like, fae? we all know that faeries are incomprehensibly old/outright immortal Tricky Little Bitches who like to manipulate people while posing in an inhumanly/horrifically beautiful fashion and going "teehee." pact takes that to a fantastically surreal level of extreme artifice, one that's almost grotesque in its dreamlike nature--they have all lived for so very long that, to them, boredom is worse than death, and so they have complicated social games spanning centuries, and speak in the most practiced of misleading wordplay, and perfectly curate their forests so that even the smallest pebble is an intentionally-chosen setpiece for their play. they graduated from handjobs a couple dozens of millennia ago--now they're more into erotic-poetic descriptions of full-body degloving. you will not notice when a faerie steals and replaces your child, because you are very young and stupid compared to them, and playing-pretend at being your child is only the briefest of trifles in their unfathomably long lifespan.

the other good bit is that pact explicitly acknowledges that faeries run on what is colloquially deemed Bullshit--the universe likes a good story, and faeries have gotten very good at telling it a moving story. if a faerie tells a good enough story about having a sword that breaks the laws of physics, then that is what their sword will do. and so the way to combat faeries is not to out-bullshit them--because no one is out-bullshitting a being with thousands of years of bullshitting practice--but to say "no, that's fucking stupid and made up" until their implausibly long sword acts like a sword of that size actually should and shatters on the spot.

& all of these writing decisions feel so naturally truthful to what these creatures are Supposed to be--they're really not wholly new takes, they're a presentation of preexisting ideas in a way that gets why those ideas appeal to people and goes full-throttle on all the most thematically rich or otherwise narratively interesting parts. It's Good Writing. I Like It. you could spend an entire essay breaking down the presentation of literally any single one of pact's creatures, it's that compelling in its reflection and organization of Ideas About Creatures.

[auriza-side-tomb]

It’s been a strange experience getting into Warhammer 40K lore recently.

Like until a few days ago all I knew about it was that it was a tabletop boardgame involving expensive painted mini figures, it coined the term Grimdark and a lot of the fans were infamous for being bigoted assholes.

Then I actually started watching videos about the lore and I quickly realised that the story is actually really good?!?

Like, this is the series that created the term Grimdark to describe a setting that is dark and violent just for the sake of shock value.

But… the lore of Warhammer 40K kind of isn’t that. The violence and darkness (mostly) seems to have a purpose. The narrative exaggerates the awfulness of the universe to such an extreme that I can’t see it as anything other than satire.

For example; humanity in the 41st millennium is a fascis, xenophobic cult that worships the slowly-rotting corpse of their God-Emporor (who btw never wanted to be worshipped). Thay literally sacrifice 1000 souls to the Emporor every day just to keep him semi-alive, some of the highest ranked people are Inquisitors (above even the genetically engineered super soldiers) who have the authority to destroy planets and many of the officer uniforms are inspired by Soviet and Nazi military uniforms.

Humanity in Wh40K is so evil that it’s almost comedic, and the story is very explicit about how bad everything is as a result of this. It also gives a very detailed explanation as to how and why humanity reached this point, and shows that most of this horror just resulted from bad luck and humans being human. And this level of care and narrative subtly is given to almost every intellegent faction in the game (excluding the orcs who are there for comic relief).

This series is similar to Fight Club or Wolf of Wall Street in that it is a genuine satirical criticism of several societal issues. And yet somehow, some bigots are stupid enough to look at it and genuinely buy into the worldviews of the characters, despite the narrative’s entire point being that said beliefs are terrible.

All of that combined with some great characters, excellent worldbuilding and a topping of eldritch horror makes for one of the most genuinely investing stories I’ve ever seen.

So TLDR, Warhammer 40K’s story is way better than I expected it to be and I may have found a new hyperfixation.

[queen-erika-the-songful]

My personal ranking on the Barbie mermaid movies

(These are only a few thoughts I have about each of these so feel free to ask questions if you want)

6. Barbie: Mermaid Power - I mean come on I'm sure even the ones that love the DA-verse can agree with me that this one absolutely sucks. Terrible worldbuilding and lore that contradicts the movie it's supposed to be a sequel to. Songs that are super hollow and generic. Garish animation. The story had WAY too much going on to fit into the runtime. The only thing positive I have to say is that I liked the little girl mermaid being disabled and having a prosthetic fin. Too bad she's wasted in this!!! Awful awful awful no contest the worst one. Literally don't bother watching.

5. Barbie Fairytopia: Mermaidia - Sorry but I find this so weak as a mermaid movie. For starters, we only see 3 mermaid characters (Nori, Nalu, and the fake Delphine) and then a bunch of random sea creatures. Then there's Elina, who becomes a mermaid, but it's out of desperation and she's miserable literally the whole time until she gets her wings back. Then Delphine.....god just read this post to see why I hate her as a character and as a plot point. She brings down everything. Also if you think about it too hard (like I do) this is really only "half" a mermaid movie since Elina is still a FAIRY and still spends about half the runtime as such. The most this one has going for it is the VERY pretty animation and Eric Colvin's irresistible music. I'm honestly thinking about just making one of those "ambience" videos for myself where I just have the prettiest scenes and music all montaged together. Definitely not my favorite of the Fairytopia trilogy, nor my favorite of the mermaid films.

4. Barbie: Dolphin Magic - Even though I'm sick of the DA universe, this is a fun short romp. The whole "befriending a magic friend" thing reminds me a little of Aquamarine, just not as good. I think the runtime really harms this one, especially with pacing, but I guess this isn't really a "movie" so much as a 1-hour special, which is what all the DA movies really are. Anyway, I like Isla but I wish we got to know her more. She has a cute design. I also like the scenes where she teaches Barbie how to swim like a mermaid. It makes me want to hop in the pool and do the same. A cute but just "okay" mermaid film.

3. Barbie: The Pearl Princess - I think this one has the prettiest and most "underwater" animation of them all. I adore the soft colors and the lighting and all the little bubbles and things floating around. I wasn't too keen on Lumina at first, but then thanks to this confession from back in 2018 I've headcanoned her as autistic for several years now so that's neat. The other characters are also quite charming, especially the friends she makes in the salon. They all make up for the somewhat "meh/average" story. It's very enjoyable!

2. Barbie in A Mermaid Tale 2 - This was such a great sequel to an already great movie. it expanded the lore of the original in a way that raises the stakes and makes sense (well, mostly, but that's a post for another day). Merliah and Kylie's development both as a team and as individuals are done very well. Same goes for Merliah and Calissa learning to see each other's point of view. The ending and lesson are good too. Merliah giving up her shot because she's already fulfilled by doing her duty was a great choice. Awesome movie!

1.Barbie in A Mermaid Tale - How could it not be this one?! The lesson is amazing, the blending of classic fairytale tropes with a modern setting work excellently, the animation and colors absolutely pop, and the main character's journey is awesome. I love that Merliah initially wants nothing to do with all the magic mermaid stuff and goes on her journey out of selfishness but develops a sense of responsibility and justice, helping her blossom into a princess. And no character is wasted here - everyone does their part to do something. That's not always the case in a Barbie movie (like the random Kelly girls in Princess and the Pauper) so it's good to see here. The soundtrack is full of fun songs as well! I like putting them on when I'm in a summer mood. This one is just a delight to put on each and every time. My pick for the best of them all!!

[tossawary]

Live action svsss? Lmao

Oh, that is genuinely funny to me as an idea. Full-on blue-screened me for a second.

See, I'm not AGAINST the concept of live-action feature film adaptations or live-action television adaptations of other forms of media, especially not books. I personally adore the translation work and studying the translation work involved when transforming a story from one medium to another. Basically as soon as we had film, people started filming plays and adapting novels! There have been many, many TERRIBLE screen adaptations of other media, but there have also been many wonderful screen adaptations, which have sometimes been closely faithful and sometimes only used the original story as an inspirational springboard. (I personally see both Ghibli's "Howl's Moving Castle" and DreamWorks' "How to Train Your Dragon" as more of examples of the latter.)

MXTX's works have gotten live-action adaptations before. "The Untamed" is generally held to be a pretty good and relatively faithful adaptation of MDZS. And TGCF is also getting a live-action drama under the name "Eternal Faith". If it was announced that SVSSS was getting a similar drama, I would be a little baffled but fine with it, and also genuinely interested to see how they intended on expanding SVSSS into 50 episodes or something (definitely possible), and also how they intended to cover certain parts of the story without making it explicitly gay. I wouldn't even care if it was bad; I still have the original books to enjoy. Show me your live-action drama Moshang. I'm ready for some awful wigs.

(The main nightmare scenario is getting a bad or good but unfaithful adaptation that you hate but gets super popular, overrunning your book fandom with alternate characterization and pairings and worldbuilding that you can't stand. I'm sure there are book MDZS fans who absolutely loathe "The Untamed".)

The main issue with a USAmerican studio making a "Naruto" movie in my eyes (I don't even care about "Naruto" that much, I never finished it) is that 1) Hollywood is always extremely weird about anime and also Japan in general, so there's a high chance that the people at the top try to make story-breaking changes, and also try to cast white people. They do not have a good record. If this was a Japanese studio making this film, I would not blink at it. 2) "Naruto" is a very long story that doesn't lend itself easily to a stand-alone film. Either they only tackle a fraction of the story or squish way too much together. And either way, on the off-chance that the film is successful, we will be cursed to have sequels until they become unprofitable. I personally liked the live-action "One Piece" show fine, but it was a 7-hour show, not a 2-3-hour film.

I'm not even against the concept of modern remakes, personally, or even completely against the concept of live-action versions of animated films. I would give the Disney remakes something of a pass if they did interesting new stuff that took advantage of their medium or actually indicated they cared about creative quality, instead of rehashing the cartoons almost exactly but worse. The saddest part about things like "The Lion King" (2019) is that even if you kept the story exactly the same, beat for beat, shot for shot, it could have potentially been a vibrant celebration of the advancements in realistic VFX and the skill of the animators and artists involved (and there are some INCREDIBLY talented people being unfairly crunched and underpaid in these industries), but they instead chose to make everything about it visually as dull as dishwater. And I personally expect that the "How to Train Your Dragon" remake, instead of incorporating anything new or interesting, or really showing off some spectacular, well-crafted visuals, will be the same.

Anyway, this ask gave me the idea of a USAmerican studio making a live-action SVSSS film, which is what blue-screened my brain. I cannot fathom how any USAmerican studio would agree to that (it's foreign, it's gay, it's historical fantasy, it's fucking weird, it's everything that scares boring execs who crave maximum profits) and I'm sure they would fuck it up magnificently, such that I almost kind of want them to do it.

[pinkpinkmermayyy]

I finally watched Wish. And I gotta say, it's not as bad as people say it is. Don't get me wrong, it's not good by any means. But it's still not so awful I felt frustrated and sick to my stomach after watching it. But it's also not so bad it's good to the point where it becomes a guilty pleasure for me like the live-action Bratz movie. It's just...bad. But not horrible. It had potential. It COULD'VE been good if the writers actually gave a single damn, and knew what they were doing. Or, alternatively, if they simply spent a few more hours on the damn movie. But alas, they did not, and since we're in the bad timeline, this is what we got. The music is what really weighs it down, with just about every song being meaningless, badly-written, and having terrible grammar/confusing metaphors that don't hold up under a microscope or even make any sense at all, really. The only thing stopping them from being completely insufferable is the fact that the actors are legitimately good singers, making it a crying shame that none of them weren't given better material to work with.

The characters themselves, though, are unfortunately very boring, one-dimensional, and contradictory/confusing in their writing. The setting, plot, and worldbuilding are all very bland and haphazard as well, to the point where I actually laughed out loud during the climactic scene at the end where the king brutalizes Asha with his evil magic. It was that ridiculous! The side characters, both human, animal, and star, were all boring and pointless(except for the Star ig) and I really have a bone to pick with Gabo especially. He goes from thinking that Asha killed her family(for no reason, mind you) to shaming Simon for being a bad friend and betraying Asha to the king, both in the SAME SCENE!!! It's like...all of the characters are this inconsistent honestly.

And I don't buy that people would be happy to "forget without regret" when it comes to their wishes. It just makes no sense to me. The writers should've come up with a better excuse for why the people of Rosas put their faith in the wishing system rather than "they forget what they wanted in the first place but are totally all right with that!" especially when Asha acts like this is a new revelation. Like come on, guys, you work at Disney! Give us something! But they gave us nothing. Because they are lazy. A shame.

Also the costumes in this movie were boring and bland af, and everything was really monochrome and lifeless. It definitely fails in comparison to the costume designs in Encanto, The Princess and the Frog, and even Tangled. Everything just feels so dull, cheap, lazy, and uninspired. Though I do like Asha's design aside from her outfit, she is very pretty and it's sad what this movie does to her. This movie in short didn't feel like a Disney 100 Anniversary. In fact, it didn't even feel like a Disney movie at all. It felt like a student film that was inspired by Disney, or like those direct to video films made for really little kids that have a low budget and even lower-quality CGI. Just a massive disappointment. I'm afraid that Disney is no longer the gold standard of animation that it used to be. Oh well. 😔

this is what really ticks me off about wish. I would be fine if it was just terrible if it ended up not being amazing or even good, but it’s mediocre. And that drives me INSANE because I see so much potential in the story and characters and the villains but they just let it bite the dust and left us with this infuriatingly mediocre movie that was supposed to be the 100 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL FOR DISNEY! That’s supposed to be something fantastical and amazing and have that wow factor but it’s just so bland and it makes me angry. Also the fact that it was originally supposed to be traditionally animated but they changed that also makes my blood boil.

[ooksaidthelibrarian]

Babylon 5 Rewatch S1E14: Grail

Ooooh yeah another one I have been waiting for

every time they sit down to eat, it looks fucking delicious 

that a lot of grapes there on Sinclair's plate but honestly, good for him. I eat grapes in those amounts when they're in season, all season long.

that episode has some damn good guest stars

LOL that alien abduction court scene, I love it so much

I will never not laugh at the corn circle joke

I always enjoy David Warner in anything he's in

Garibaldi, careful where you roll your eyes at, Lennier might just karate chop you

ok but Garibaldi IS able to see a pickpocket through a solid wall, nicely done

even the ombudsman drags Jinxo for being a bad pickpocket

I absolutely love that staff they gave David Warner

Londo's reaction really sells the whole na'ka'leen feeder thing

the talk Aldus has with Delenn and Lennier about the two casts of Minbari and how terrible it is when they agree on something is such a good piece of worldbuilding

there's my very favourite pillow in Londo's quarters again! 

aw Vir, ever helpful

'Being efficient, Sir' LOL

I uglylaughed at those thugs getting their asses handed to them by Aldus

ah it's the shit got real armour again

I like the feeder's design (its remains look weird but the CGI? That's actually fine)

WITNESS (sorry)

Thomas wears those clothes and the staff well

idk that I would have picked the Mary Celeste for my trip home though

No boom today.

[monsterblogging]

Pacific Rim: Ascension is pretty good, actually

So yeah, Pacific Rim: Ascension is a prequel novel to Pacific Rim: Uprising, and based on that you might think it wouldn't be that great. But IMO, it's very much worth reading for a number of reasons.

The author was clearly very familiarized with the lore developed for PR1, and actually integrates a lot of it into the story in a way that gives it a sense of depth, reality, and drama that Uprising and The Black lack. Characters are also generally written well (and Hermann is written so wonderfully well), and Vik and Jinhai's backstories are, in my opinion, extremely engaging. And if you're one of the people disappointed that the Kaidonovskys and Cherno Alpha didn't get more screentime, you are absolutely in for a treat.

For the lore-oriented fans, the author's clear attention to detail means this book is actually a fairly reliable source on what was originally developed for PR1, including Jaeger details and character histories. It does include at least one piece of outdated data (Romeo Blue having three legs), and the story claims that drift compatibility is something you either have or don't have (something we know isn't true from Beacham's posts), but there's no reason to dispute, say, Vulcan Specter having a drill weapon or Shaolin Rogue having an extra-aquatic design.

The book also gives us lots of wonderfully bizarre kaiju. The somewhat frequent mentions of tentacles (forbidden by del Toro) suggests that these are based on very concepts, or were invented by the author himself. Either way, they are absolutely great monster designs. If anything, some of the things these monsters have going on make the movie's kaiju look a little boring.

That said, it's not perfect. Hermann's cane is never mentioned at all, and - well, the rest of the issues are spoilers, so I'll put them under a cut.

We learn that some people have apparently been using Pons technology to implant programming into people's minds - a detail which ultimately has no relevance on the plot, and feels weirdly edgy for Pacific Rim. And I know it's a common trope in sci-fi, but its proximity to right wing conspiracy theory bullshit makes it... not exactly my favorite trope. I don't know whether its presence in sci-fi is really super problematic, but in real life belief in this kind of thing has been used to basically justify witch hunting. Like, I understand the dramatic value here, but at the same time, people still living today were put on trial and even sent to jail based on belief that this was a real thing. Like I'm not going to tell you that this is an Objectively Bad Trope, but it's definitely a trope with a lot of terrible baggage.

The story also gives an explanation for how it was worked out that kaiju blood explodes when exposed to rare earth minerals, and it's pretty ridiculous. Supposedly a kaiju's blood rained down on a microchip factory, and the factory exploded. Accepting this detail means accepting that nobody's phones, laptop computers, or other electronic devices never came into contact with kaiju blood splatter or mist, and that kaiju blood never splattered into a damaged conn-pod. This is the kind of thing that should have been observed fairly early in the kaiju war, not several years in.

Also the PPDC in this book apparently just classifies information for No Real Reason, like the fact that a particularly violent kaiju cult tried to destroy the world. Like you'd think that this would be the kind of thing they'd want to broadcast, for reasons of "hey look how awful our political enemies are."

Also lol the fact that PPDC records pilots' drift memories and just peek into them is creepy. Like it doesn't exactly make Mako Mori look good when we learn she's been invading cadets' privacy like this, ya know?

But yeah like, I think it's definitely worth a read. The book shows a lot of imagination and makes good use of Pacific Rim's worldbuilding. Even if you don't like Uprising, you'll probably still find something to enjoy about it.

[wufflesvetinari]

Lash is so wonderful that she is tempting me to choose cleric for my first official campaign! But playing BG3 does kinda make me feel like all the gods are just terrible, and the path of religious trauma feels all but inevitable. Are any of them not so? Is there a way to portray a more positive relationship?

ayyy thanks nonnie!! as established i really love clerics so allow me to pile some peer pressure on top of your decision pile!! go be a cleric!! (if the playstyle appeals to you etc)

it sounds like you're talking about pen-and-paper dnd, yeah? (you might be my earlier anon??) disclaimer that i'm not a 5e lore expert, but one difference ime from the bg3 experience is that bg3 is coming to you as a pre-written narrative with its own themes (such as humanoid choice in the face of manipulation, which extends to gods).

5e lore, on the other hand, is written as a bunch of open-ended hooks you/your dm can choose to engage with or not. also most gods in 5e don't have a ton of complex canon lore about being secretly evil or selfish--it's kind of bluntly "good god" "evil god" "neutral god" etc to leave you room to play and worldbuild. (other than uhhh i guess being complicit in the wall of the faithless 😬 which is dubiously canonical now anyway.) like, a god like eilistraee is going to be very easy to imagine a positive relationship with for a good-aligned cleric if that's what you're looking for. and even a god like mystra who comes off pretty bad in bg3, is like...relatively fine in canon 5e lore. i think of bg3 almost like someone's fleshed-out tabletop game where the dm has made characterization and world decisions to flesh out the lore

plus the gods do have personalities, greek god-style, which means that your cleric might, idk, overarchingly agree with their own god's goals but find bits of their dogma annoying or wrong, or otherwise relate to them with a bit of conflict (for spice!) without necessarily feeling used/betrayed. this lends itself to storytelling where a cleric might find themselves challenged by what they find on the road: the gods aren't perfect, just like, idk, your friend the wizard in your party isn't perfect

(ALSO like. if you're not married to the idea of playing an unambiguously good-aligned cleric, there's nothing stopping you from playing a character who unabashedly loves their awful god lmao. or like, a lawful neutral god like kelemvor--you could create a cleric who is so so into that very specific, harsh-but-fair moral code)

you might find the "deities by alignment" page a good way to find the overall vibe you're looking for! like i said, the lore is built out of hooks for you, so there's plenty of room to create a relationship that feels fun to play. (or, like, a non-relationship! lash has strong feelings about Being A Cleric but ilmater has never manifested for her personally)

[milekael]

I want to know more about Nour, she's so miserable (affectionate) ❤️ 💔🍓🚨

OH HELL YEA LETS GO MY WET SAD KICKED ANGRY CAT LOL She IS miserable!! And terrible and I love her <3

❤️ - Who is the most important person to your character? To what lengths would they go to protect this person?

Nour is weird in this aspect because the people she cared about left her, letting her relationships wither as she became more and more resentful, to the point really all that she has left is her job.

Now there, she is very protective of those under her command- I mean, it is HER job! And she knows her captain is too self-centered in her little close-knit group she made for herself to the point of not caring for other officers, so FINE! She'll do it herself then. She is very close to Sergio for this reason, as being the youngest and most inexperienced one, normally gets on trouble. She also has a soft-spot for Lydia, but can do very little to help her as she is under Finn's command.

I will say that during the story however, she and Tania do become really close, so at least there is that!

💔 - Who has your character hurt most? Physically or emotionally? How did it feel? Do they regret it?

OUGH the thing about Nour is that she was the perfect girl for a long time. She peaked in highschool which included bullying the "weird" kids, then, without a lot of prospects of what to do apart from marriage, became a cop because the position of power over others just Fit Her LOL So one can get an idea she has hurt a lot of people through her life and she hasn't really done any work to unpack that- Instead she is in a role that encourages this attitude.

However and what I think is important to note that Nour has been hurt A LOT. This has led her also to think any pain she inflicts on others is justified. She is still terrible but she has basically has sunk down to the spiral of "I am awful towards others, which makes them awful to me, which means I have to respond the same way". It is still a position she put herself into and it doesn't take away her flaws but... well, circumstances define people, there is some complexity in why she acts this way that is based a lot on what has been expected of her.

🍓 - Does your oc believe in anything? Are they superstitious? Religious? Atheistic? Has anything in their past made them this way?

OH YEA! She is highly devout to the main religion of this place (Which- A little behind the curtain, I still need to worldbuild a bit LOL) and tries to live her life based on the perception of what the "Norm" should be. This is why she is deeeeeep in the closet LOL why she tried to get married fresh out of high school and why it didn't work out. Basically she had her whole life the idea of what an idea woman should be, chased it and failed and now she is here. She is still devout to her religion and in a way she hopes one day karma or god will reward her for all this hardship- But also, deep down, she does feel a sense of resentment, hasn't she suffered enough already?!

🚨 - What’s your character’s relationship with the law? Have they ever been arrested? What for? What are their opinions on law enforcement?

She is a cop! And one that has no particular hard feelings over her role- If anything, she enjoys it! She choose this instead of taking the time to become a nurse of something so lol She is the kind of person to believe that "Actually maybe people need MORE policing!". This mindset is the reason why Belen has pushed her away from her group and neglected her, and Nour doesn't understand why because??? She is doing her job???? U know, not to be that guy but to be in a place full of hypocrites who think themselves to be better than her for Well at least I see the problems which make me GOOD, having someone who is just very honest with believing in the bad system is kind of jarring lol.

Anyways. She likes her role and takes pride in her job as a police officer, and mostly is just mad at her boss for being a lying liar who neglects her and others in favor of her special little boy who acts like he isn't getting some special treatment.

[keytoyourhearts]

Review of Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare (2023), 1st book of the Sword Catcher series

SYNOPSIS:

At 10 years old, Kellian (Kel) becomes the Sword Catcher (a body double) of the Crown Prince of Castellane, Conor Aurelian.  Eleven years later, Kel’s loyalty is then tested when he finds himself in the middle of a game of political intrigue and corruption where the entire Aurelian throne is threatened, and he worries that he is not able to protect his Prince while in bed with the renowned head of the criminal underground, the Ragpicker King.  Linnet (Lin) is a skilled Ashkari physician and the granddaughter of the Ashkari court advisor.  Her friend, Mariam, is terminally ill, and Lin would give anything to be able to save her.  When Kel is seriously injured in Conor’s place, Lin’s grandfather calls upon her to save him, pulling her into their world of secrets and playing with power.

See my full review and rating below the cut!

MY RATING: 2/5 STARS

MY THOUGHTS:

The Sword Catcher feels like a young adult fantasy novel parading as an adult fantasy, weighed down by very heavy exposition and only containing slightly dark and sexual themes to earn its “adult” tag.  I found the characters and their relationships to be well-written for the most part, and the dialogue was quite clever.  Overall, this was not a terrible Cassandra Clare book or first entry to a series, but it was not a great one.  I may or may not pick up the next one.

TAGS: fantasy, political/court intrigue, magic, history & world-building

CW: graphic depiction of injury & death, violence, drug-use, alcohol-use, discrimination, misogyny, sexual content (mild), questionable power-dynamic relationship, descriptions of medical processes, mentions of SA

RECOMMENDATION: I would recommend this book to readers familiar with Clare’s writing who are looking for a slightly more advanced young adult fantasy book that deals in court politics and a magic system that does not completely take over the story (thus far).

THE GOOD:

The magic system was unique and took a supplementary role to the rest of the story, and I hope it stays this way.  I enjoyed the fact that the characters had to navigate their problems without (for the most part…) convenient, magical, or lore solutions that run rampant in Clare’s other series.

Between the slog of exposition, small gems of dialogue can be found.  I will admit, the constant bickering and sarcasm made me laugh at times, especially when the joke was not explicitly explained afterward.  I always enjoy when an author does not hold my hand with every little thing.

I also found the platonic relationship between the main characters, Kel and Conor, to be refreshing.  Their casual reliance and trust was well-founded in their backstory, and the examination of their codependence and Kel’s indoctrination in his role is something that I hope is explored more in subsequent books.

THE BAD:

This book starts out very slow and does not speed up until the very end, making it a little hard to get into.  A lot of things seem to happen but never anything of real consequence.  In between anything even slightly interesting is a TON of worldbuilding, description, and exposition.  It killed any feeling the scene was supposed to create and only slowed the book further.  We were often travelling and changing locations every other page, if only to give MORE exposition.  There was a lot of travelling, despite us never leaving the city.

Unfortunately, the only romance to happen in this book was awful and cringy, and I am not even sure I would consider it a relationship.  The power dynamic, strange thoughts, and weird decisions between both characters was just…uncomfortable.

As I mentioned before, I do not feel as if this book should fall under the Adult Fantasy label.  Though vocabulary was slightly more advanced (being a little pretentious and out of place at times), it still had a juvenile feel to it, for lack of a better description.  The NSFW scenes were never particularly explicit and, for the most part, felt a little unnecessary.  The story was never so intense or convoluted that younger readers would be lost, though some scenes get a little graphic.

Despite praising the dialogue before, one character literally said, “Fuck around and find out,” and I have never rolled my eyes harder.  See what I mean by a juvenile feeling?

As for the ending…I do understand the concept of a cliffhanger.  However, something should have been resolved in this book for it to at least pretend to be standalone.  Without all the exposition, I bet we could cut the entire series down into a single, incredible fantasy novel, but then how could we market one book for the cost of the whole series?

[karkkidoeswriting]

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday, Karkki!

Today’s question is: Are there any sayings or phrases in your setting that would be confusing if someone used them in real life? This can be anything from swearing by a deity, to idioms referring to a setting-specific plant or animal.

Happy WBW!!! Thank you for the question! :) This is very fun one! I have come up with a lot of phrases and sayings as I've written, but I haven't gathered them anywhere, so this ended up being very helpful! I was surprised how much there was and yeah it got pretty long :D

Angusian Empire

There's couple of common swears involving deities in Angusian Empire. The official religion is Arkhonism, which worships two gods, Ylía, the god of sun, and Scadi, the god of earth, and a lot of swears appeal to them. These gods are always at odds with each other and Ylía is usually depicted as the more helpful and gentle one (though his anger is vindictive), while Scadi is portrayed as the scary one (though she's just as necessary), and it reflects in the swears.

A side note: Ylía is often referred to as masculine and Scadi as feminine, though in different context they are portrayed as different genders and just different forms from human, as they aren't believed to have fixed genders or forms.

Ylía is often appealed to for help, for example when something bad, frustrating or scary happens people often say:

"Light guide us!"/"Light!"/"Dear Light!"

Scadi is often appealed to when cursing someone:

"May Scadi's demons take you!" "May Darkness devour you!" "Rot in dirt!"

The last one implies that they shouldn't get a cremation, which is believed to be necessary for a soul to reincarnate, so it's basically the opposite of rest in peace. It doesn't directly invoke Scadi, but indirectly, as one of Scadi's jobs is to punish souls that won't reincarnate.

Ylía is sometimes appealed to in curses too. It usually has a more condemning or judgemental implication:

"May Flames of Judgement curse you!" "Sun will burn you desolate!"

There's also blessings, basically good luck wish, where Ylía and Scadi are invoked:

“May the Sun bless you with light, and the Earth give you strength to stand.” "Light will show you the way."

Dragons are/were (they are very rare nowadays) terrifying forces of nature, sort of demigods. Ylía and Scadi are both often portrayed as dragons and dragons are believed to be their avatars, executioners of their will on earth, usually in a form of punishment or destruction. Which is why they are often used in curses:

"Dragon's curse upon you!" "Dragon will bring you judgement!" "May you be purified in dragon flames!"

Dragons are also common comparisons. They are associated with power, strength, destruction, awe and massive size. Some examples how it's used:

Something is massive: "It's larger than dragon." Something is completely destroyed/wiped out: "It's like a dragon was here." Expressing awe of something they saw: "It was like seeing a dragon."

There's also a really specific curse related to Plains of Moiros in desert in Horegtos (a province in the Angusian Empire). The place is believed to be super haunted, because there was an ancient bloody battle. Like the most haunted place in the Empire. So Moiros has become a bit of a curse word that can be used on it's own or in a variety of ways, like to curse someone:

"Go to Moiros!"/"To Moiros with you!"

Or to express something is terrible/scary:

"It was like Moiros in there."

Cabalusia

Cabalusia is part of Angusian Empire, but they have local sayings in addition to the more universal ones.

"Covered in mourning stars" is an euphemism for death. Mourning start is a very small white flower, which is the first flower to bloom in spring and grows in moors too, covering them in white. There's attached symbolism about death and rebirth as it grows from the earth that's "dead" after the winter and signals the beginning of rebirth of the earth. Which is why it's used in funerals to cover the burial mounds (they cremate the body first and then bury the ashes and bones, though burial mounds are not a common practice in the Empire outside Cabalusia).

The phrase can be used to talk about death in a gentle tone:

"They are covered in mourning stars now."

But it can be also used as threat.

"You'll be soon covered in mourning stars!"

Dir'ahin

Ahinians have a very different culture from the Angusian Empire and they don't follow Arkhonism, but rather worship the Moon Goddess, and so they have very different sayings. Moon related sayings are naturally very common. The Moon Goddess is very gentle and benevolent figure, so there's not curses that invoke her.

To wish for good luck, usually when someone is leaving for a journey or about to do something challenging:

"Moon's blessing."

Ways to console someone:

"The night is gentle." "The night shines brightest."

They have a little bit different connotations, but the point is the same, the moon looks brightest and the Moon Goddess is most powerful during the night. In the first one the implication is that during darkest times the Moon Goddess and more concretely people around you will give the most solace and not leave you alone with it, a phrase often said to someone grieving. In the second one the implication is that in the darkest times the hope is brightest, and it's more of an encouragement to have hope and keep going.

Names are very important for magic and since magic is very present in Ahinian culture, there's a lot of phrases related to names. Knowing someone's True Name (name in the spirit language) gives power over them. This applies to spirits and humans alike. Powerful spells require the name of the spirit used. Names and souls are intertwined so losing your soul makes you lose your name too. So these concepts are invoked in curses:

"You shall be nameless!" "I know the name of pain/fever/frost!"

The second one is sort of a threat, basically saying they could call upon some sort of misfortune to the person they're talking to, but usually it's an empty threat and the other knows it, so really it's understood more sort of wishing ill will. If a sage would say something like that, it would be taken totally differently as there's actually a change they do know the name of the misfortune they are talking about, and it would be like actual threat, which might even put them in legal trouble. Also frost is commonly invoked, because it's the biggest threat to crops in Dir'ahin, so invoking it is wishing bad yield.

[x-i-l-verify]

Omg Fan Joy July stuff already, omg. 👀 I would be happy to rec you some things! Hopefully you enjoy!

A Failure to the Gods by somerknights - Sky and Time have an awful day, but thank goodness for Warriors and Wind.

A Little Bit of Minish Magic by glowingjellyfishtreelights - My favorite "Four meets Chain" fic, I dearly wish there was more. The world feels so cozy and lived-in, and Four clearly has so much affection for it.

and still, the cradle blossoms by solistrix - Equal parts heartwarming and heartwrenching in all the very best of ways, will stay with you long after you've finished it, 10/10, would let this fic stomp all over my heart again. 👍Pls make sure you read to the end, though, all the gutpunches are in the last third of the fic.

And The World Ends Again by Ort - Mad Max-inspired post apocalypse AUs ftw!!! Love the worldbuilding so much, hopefully there will someday be more!

Faerule and the No Good Very Bad Road Trip by ImperialKatwala, PolynomialPandemic - Great "Hyrule Meets the Chain" fic, everyone is characterized well, and the payoff is worth it.

And, if I may self rec a couple things real quick:

Exchange the Experience - Due to an unforeseen combination of circumstances, a branch of the Cult of Ganon in Hyrule’s era mistakes the Hero of Warriors for the Hero of Hyrule. Terrible times are had by all. 👉😎👉

The Simulacrum Spirits AU - An AU I'm writing with my coauthor @kuraiarcoiris where after the First Link falls in battle against Demise, his widow, Hylia, creates 3 Links from his lingering essence to be her heroes and defend her kingdom, while Cia steals away First and Hylia's young son (Sky) and uses him as a template to create 5 other Links to be her husbands (which is as awful as it sounds). Fun things will happen when the two groups of Links finally meet, lol.

FAN JOY JULY 2025

Hello dear friends, I humbly request that you send me your favorite fics!

I'll be taking suggestions for fics from January 1 -31

Please see last year's rules for more info! Please submit requests by commenting or reblogging this post - NO asks please

(tags for this year: "#fan Joy July 2025", "#fanjoyjuly2025", and "#FJJ25")

I'm getting a VERY early start because I already know 2025 will be crazy for me so here I am!

Suggest any fic you'd like, but don't be hurt if I don't pick it! I'm going solely off of my own personal tastes in LU Fanfiction❤️

Self rec, rec a friend, rec a stranger who's fic you loved!

More to come as the year progresses, but I wanted to get ahead of it now❤️

HAPPY NEW YEAR🎉🎉🎉

[youarentreadingthis]

13 and 17 for the book ask game?

13. What were your least favorite books of the year?

LEAST? EZZZZ

One of the WORST books I read last year was The Last Daughter. Utterly enticing cover, but god it was TERRIBLE. It was so bad I needed to finish it (instead of DNF'ing it) just to leave a review on how bad it is. My review, for your entertainment, is pasted below!

This book is one of the worst books I've ever read. It has minute typos all over the book, which doesn't make it unreadable but they are noticeable enough. Literally everything is told, not shown, and almost always through giant chunks of dialogue. The relationship is practically insta-love, but almost nonsensically because (SPOILERS) [Vali (male love interest) killed Ailsa's (MC) entire family] and she falls in love with him like a day later. Any romantic development happens almost instantly.

Moreover, Ailsa's wolf, Ivor, only exists because she's relevant to the plot and nothing else. We don't see any connection between Ivor and Ailsa, and the former shows up 14% into the book. All she does is create useless conflict with Ailsa and Vali, and then she reveals a plot point later on (again, through giant chunks of dialogue). This is a book about romance, not plot. I would've DNF'd this at 20% if I didn't want people to know how awful this book is. The only redeeming thing about this book is the worldbuilding from Norse mythology, but it's executed so terribly and weakly that I don't even like that. 0.5 stars.

Okay, not as scathing as I remember but GOD I HATED THIS BOOK. Why anyone would keep reading out of enjoyment is beyond me. Sorry to anyone who liked it...

I also hated What Lies Beyond the Veil and This Deceit of Ours... but I usually end up DNFing books I don't like, soooo...

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

Hmmm... I certainly didn't expect to love The Haidren Legacy series as much as I did! INCREDIBLY fun and well-written slow burn enemies to lovers, loved the world building, all the characters– everything! I don't really think there was anything I didn't like! It's not a very well known series, either, so I wasn't expecting much of it, but GOD it was so fun to read!! Book 3 came out in December so I really need to read that...

[zorilleerrant]

really weird to think of what makes a good adaptation from page to screen. what are the criteria?

because like. The Magicians is a terrible book series, simply awful, if you value your eyeballs or your feminism you should not read it. (one time it literally said a woman was hanging out naked in her own bedroom because she had forgotten how to be human.) whereas the show is absolutely fantastic, no notes. (a few notes but they're from early on and they go away after season 1.)

and like... it changes a lot. a lot. because the worldbuilding of the books was inconsistent (and stupid) and not very interesting to look at. and the character development was almost nonexistent and what little there was seemed to boil down to 'girl nerds made fun of me but I'm cool actually'. and the structure of the novels - both the plot and the actual form of the story, because the author couldn't seem to distinguish the two - didn't remotely do what it needed to in order to tell the story, and had way more stuff than was at all interesting to include in there. (plus the failure to actually libel CS Lewis, but that wasn't strictly the author's fault.)

but the thing is. all the kernels of stuff that were in the book. are in the show. every interesting thought, every interesting scene, every cool character tic or relationship fuckery, that's all there. little throwaway bits about the world and the rules of magic. all included. the show is what the book wishes it were, what it would've been if it figured out what it was doing, or had done any of it well. and it all comes together on the screen, makes more of it than what it would have been, even if it was. (which it wasn't. because the books were bad. I cannot stress that enough.)

so is that a good adaptation?

because usually I judge adaptation on, well, if the movie/show wasn't good, and the book was, then obviously it's a bad adaptation. but if they're both good, then it has to be, was the cool stuff from the book included? did it have the same sort of preoccupations, the same sort of attitudes and intertextuality? did it feel like book? did it miss the point, or did it convey it? did moving it to the screen add anything to the story, or just create a movie cover?

and the thing is. the show absolutely did include all the cool stuff and all the stuff that I would've been like, have this too, it's already there. it dug down and picked out all the philosophy, all the messages, really brought to the forefront - through explicit referencing, often - all the influences on fantasy as a genre and on the books/show specifically, made the context of them much more clear and much more pointed. it certainly felt like the books, minus the bad parts of course, but when you're enjoying it you're enjoying it the same way. it teased a whole meaning out of something where I think the books either never had a point or lost it along the way. and oh boy did they add something, making it a show.

but it's a little bit ship of theseus. it's a little bit - is it even an adaptation, at that point? or just a rewrite?

[mistwraiths]

3 stars

Sadly, I didn't love this as much as I loved A.M. Strickland's In The Ravenous Dark.

I think this is mostly a fine book however I felt it really average at best and didn't really give me any depth that I would have liked on the multiple different things it had. It had a interesting concept like training novices in vampire abilities and slowly, slowly turning them to be more vampire and gaining approval to become a vampire by the vampire courts. It was like a vampire school which was a cool backdrop.

We don't really get any good worldbuilding here. There's a few mentions of how this is set in our world here with a sentence here or there talking about these are Nordic lands, we were fighters once, which okay but it felt odd to throw in there a couple hundred pages later and not have it mean much of anything??? Where did the vampires come from?? How did they take over? There's other areas where the Courts have influence in different ways other than Fin's experience living in the Red Court's land. Like science and governing. How's that work? Once we're very near the end, we suddenly get more new information on Founders and suddenly, this Nameless Queen in the last 30 pages or so. Why would you introduce a huge plot thing in the last handful of pages? We're also thrown a new term that hasn't ever showed up in the entire book in the last 10 pages? There's also some mentions of actual children being groomed to become vampires that's never explored.

Fin was a frustrating character for me because she thinks she's so clever and instead she gets one thought and clamps down on it and refuses to actually think or listen or use reason. She just bounces around suspects and during one moment when she confronts said suspect it becomes so embarrassing. I don't really understand her either. I understand she hates vampires but like... why?? Is the practice of enthrallment awful? Yes. Taking a handful 17-19 year old every year terrible? Sure. But it DOES give people who don't have opportunities in life to HAVE new opportunities. She was treated HORRIBLY by humans especially and she's like I don't hate them. But vampires actually treat her sometimes better and she's like I'M GONNA KILL THEM.

The romance was there but personally I didn't quite feel like it was done well. Gavron was kind of bland mostly, and naturally even though he's being enthralled to do things, it's still his hand. There should be some weight there, not of blame but just hurt. Especially since it seems it's fully Gavron's idea to place Fin as a thrall, which is the biggest fear of hers AND keep her with his blood so no one touches her. Which was hard to follow, another concept completely brought up once. And then they were equals or something. There's no talk really of the power dynamic between Gavron and Fin either.

I will say I loved the acceptance of queerness and non-binary. I think some of the powers are cool, and the side characters were interesting although we don't get much. The complicated relationship between Fin and her mother could have been interesting but it wasnt really focused on. To be honest, there's really not much character growth to the characters at all? The end is a giant clusterfuck of new characters, new enemy, and like... what's going to happen later. I really didn't follow much of the ending about the Council, blood they drank, alliances of Courts, and what's to be done for the Black Court. We do get this half-hearted "we'll look out for humans and police the vampires" vibe at the end, but there's nothing concrete or set in stone. It's just "Oh things will be better" with no evidence.

If you want a YA vampire fantasy, I personally wouldn't recommend but I realize it wasn't bad just not my jam.