#because she says things like love and darling and stuff bc she’s British and it’s an engrained part of me

[gimme-a-hand-scaevola]

A review of the book The Rook by Daniel O’Malley that nobody ever asked for...

Ok so @chemcat92 recommended me this book and I listened to it on audiobook and I just... have a lot of thoughts. I haven’t read the sequel and I’m torn if I will. Having watched some AMVs of the show, it’s a hard pass. My review is going to be in three parts:

1. The plot

2. Wasted Potential - In General

3. Wasted Potential - Gestalt the Most Wasted Character Potential I’ve Read since Drizzt Do’Urden 

Obviously spoilers under the cut. 

Part 1: The Plot - i.e. I think Daniel discovered books four days before he started writing 

Ok so... The plot of this book. It starts off STRONG I will give it that. Myfanwy Thomas wakes up in a rainy part surrounded by bodies wearing latex gloves and no memories. She soon discovers her previous self lost her memories but because she was organized and knew it was coming, she has eased new Myfanwy’s transition. She gets to choose to stay in her life through letters and then we get an easy way to give flashbacks. Anyway this part RULES. 

Honestly, the book starts strong as hell. Myfanwy discovers she has supernatural powers over people’s nervous systems and is a trained bureaucrat for a supernatural wing of the government. This all runs sort of like a combination of Heroes and Harry Potter in the best way possible. And here is where we find the strongest part of the book: the superpowers. 

We don’t have to look that far to find Heroes type shows or books where everyone has a special ability, so if you’re going to go that route, you’ve gotta bring it. And honestly, Daniel brings it. They powers are cool as hell, they’re inventive, they’re well bounded. I felt like I understood what people’s powers and limitations were. We were in a land with magic, but it never felt cheap. This is going to dovetail into my absolute RANT about Gestalt but give me a sec to get there. 

Ok. So honestly I don’t even have any complaints until the third act. Act one gives us the set up, act two introduced the big bad the Grafters and so far so good. We’ve got good but elitist supernatural guys vs. bad but more egalitarian supernatural guys. We also know that it was someone in the supernatural org (it has a name but the name is so stupid I can’t spell it) that betrayed our protag and stole her memories and they’re still around and teamed up with the evil Grafters. Intrigue?? Don’t know who to trust???? Love it. 

For some reason everyone is either old, or hot, or so inhuman it’s viscerally horrifying. Love this touch. Eleanor from the Good Place taught us that it’s totally free to imagine everyone in a story as super hot. And it is. So they’re all super hot. Love it. Good commitment, Daniel. 

But then we get to Act three. So, this was a big swing on ol Danny’s part because a lot of the effect of this had to do with carrying out mystery. We’d built a lot of tension on the suspense  Who Betrayed Myfanwy. So obviously it’s really important for me to be surprised or at least satisfied with who this is. (As an aside, I would have been ok with guessing correctly, I definitely don’t subscribe to surprise trumping cohesive plot). Ok. With that on paper... like... holy shit. What a stupid “reveal.” 

So in part 1, like the first scene we get of old Myfanwy’s letters giving us context, she says that her apartment at work was inherited from a dude Conrad something that got promoted. And then she says it’s super badly decorated, and later we see it and this shit is straight out of Austin Powers, mirror over a round bed, The Whole Shebang. But she also says that this guy who otherwise is supposed to be very smooth and charismatic like... asks her about the decor.... every time they interact. Every Time They Interact. The second this was mentioned (WHICH IS AFTER WE KNOW SHE WAS BETRAYED) I'm like “oh ok so this guy bugged her room he’s the villain” and I only wasn’t sure because it was WAY too obvious. 

But no. He’s the villain. He has a big reveal where he’s like “AND I BUGGED YOUR ROOM” and I'm like... well... yeah. Of course you did. But here’s the thing tho... Myfanwy’s like... WHOLE ASS JOB is planning covert ops. So... is she good at her job??? IS SHE???? 

But we also don’t actually show how characters are based on their actions, we are just told how they are. But we will circle back to that in the Gestalt part. That’s honestly the sum of my rant about the plot. It was nothing. It put all its eggs in the basket of the worst most boring reveal of all time. Daniel, I think you might just be boring. 

Part 2: Wasted Potential - Everything but Gestalt who gets a special part to themselves.

The big sin of this book might just be too many good ideas. There’s a lot of characters, they all do cool stuff, but we have like 200 pages, so there wasn’t enough time to do anything with all these guys. I got lost about who was who like 80 times because they’re basically all sneaky hot magic guys. One of them smokes and is a soldier and he seems chill. 

There’s a vampire and he gets a scene and a long intro that reads more like a wiki page. Like it was interesting but you would have lost NOTHING cutting him as a character except that he was cool. You never ever believe that he was the bad guy because it’s super well established in the Certified Back Story that he could give two shits about the politics of the humans. He’s there bc he’s an adorably young vampire who is very curious so his dad set him up as a powerful government agent as though it was enrolling him in a prep school. Love it, but again, we don’t.... need him around. 

There’s a lady who can walk through dreams and I thought she was going to be important based on the fanfare of her introduction but then we forget about her basically entirely. 

There’s a whole American wing that we also only see anything interesting about in side story. Basically the world building is really good. Like pretty superb to be honest. But it’s bracketing a story that is nothing so it makes even good characters seems really random. And that bring us to:

Part 3: My Darling, Gestalt. My Type. My Weakness. What a Sad Little Thing You Are (Also misogyny)

Alright... if the rest of this review wasn’t salty enough for you... let the salt begin. Gestalt. So named because of the word meaning larger than the sum of its parts. And so they were destined to be. And so they were most definitely not. So Gestalt’s whole thing is that they are one consciousness with four bodies. They can either control one body at a time and sort of shut the others down or they can control them all at once but that becomes harder if one of them requires more attention than another, like if one is in a fight. 

Two twins (men), one fraternal brother, and a sister. If anyone is thinking “uhoh, only one girl, hmm can Daniel handle that? Seems like maybe some Smurfette style misogyny-lite is coming,” you would be wrong. Super wrong. Because it is not misogyny-lite. It’s aggressive Fight-Me-In-A-Perkins-Parking-Lot misogyny. So go fuck yourself, Dan. 

Alright, so to number Gestalt’s sins. 

1. Scrape off some of that intro mustard.

They’re introduced in the LONGEST fucking passage I’ve ever read telling me that this dude is hard to talk to and weird. Like, I’m in an urban fantasy book already, I'm all set. Also... bitch SHOW ME they’re weird. Like can I see some interactions that give me second hand embarrassment??? No. It is actually never uncomfortable to talk to Gestalt. I only know that because people are super fucking rude about them. But it is never earned. So I don’t feel sympathy when people are like “Oh noooo you have to spend a car ride with Gestalt? Ewwwww sorry.” I’m just like, “What’s your fucking problem? They seem fine.” 

2. They’re supposed to be Bad At Planning but when?? 

Alright so there ARE times they’re bad at planning and we will GET TO THAT. But it’s only post-reveal like... what we are told during a monologue that they were dumb as shit. And that wasn’t even like not being good w/ details like it’s implied they are, it’s literally like doing dumb ass stuff. And it felt more like my bud Dan didn’t have a good handle on why stuff was dumb as rain than Gestalt being silly. 

Also.... this is a stupid use of this sort of character. They’re dumb and bad at planning??? THEY’RE A JOINT CONSCIOUSNESS why would you waste that making them “Good at kicking ass.” ugh. Fine. 

3. They get sidelined IMMEDIATELY 

So a guy named Pumice Stone or Kettle or Lil boy Bad At This or something outs that Gestalt is working with the Grafters because he like.... wasn’t paying attention. It was boring. But anyway so they capture two of the bodies and then stop addressing Gestalt until the end. They have one weird scene where the protagonist like.... freaks them out but ok. Fine. Why is Gestalt so Yelly. Why are so many villains in this book yelly. Ew. 

4. The REVEAL MONOLOGUE. 

I know this is a long ass review already. But my Feelings Must be Heard. So in the end when Conrad surprises no one but “smart” Myfanwy that he was the bad guy, we also get a reveal from the surviving Gestalt bodies that:

a. There’s an incest baby

b. They’re afraid of death

c. They’re so phenomenally stupid I have lost all interest in them

So... this is where the misogyny comes in. I’ll note here that the only time we interact w/ Eliza, the special girl body, is when she takes a carried to Hogwarts the super secret magic school with Myfanwy and she doesn’t do anything except we get the internal note that she’s like... gained weight. This is the misogyny-lite we expect. (And no, Dan, you don't get any points bc a female character is the only pleased she got pudgy bc YOU wrote the female character so we’re all set there.)

And then we discover that the weird blonde (lol oh yeah they’re all hot blondes) baby that Conrad “Evil Austin Powers” British-Last-Name has with his weird wife is actually a Gestalt body that Eliza had after she boned down with her other body who is genetically a brother and consciously herself. 

K. Ok. I have. Ok. Alright. Daniel. Ok. 

SUBPART A: My Feelings about Gestalt: Oh Eliza, my darling, my dear, would that I could bring you Justice

So after Eliza is shot dead one of the interchangeable boy bodies of Gestalt yells at Myfanwy about how terrible that is bc it was the only body who could bear children so now THE HORROR they’ll die. 

For god’s fucking sake Daniel O’Malley. What the fuck is your goddamn problem. You LITERALLY wrote a Smurfette Syndrome character who is only important because she can have babies. She is literally just there to be a baby-box. What the fuck. Get fucking wrecked. Thank GOD Starz cut your program and fuck the Aurealis Awards for giving you an award for this fucking book. But they’re a sci-fi award so this is probably super progressive for them. I was pleasantly annoyed by the basic nature of this book until this part. Now I am just done with your content. This was more overtly sexist that Supernatural. So... real swing and a miss. 

ANYWAY FORTUNATELY this opens a whole new can of worms that I get to ruthlessly mock certified Basic Bitch Daniel O’Malley for. 

SubPart 2: Gestalt Raises Interesting Philosophical Questions Daniel Isn’t Smart Enough to Address

So, remember, I would have cut this dude more slack if he didn’t do that to Eliza. Gestalt, to be honest, this whole review is dedicated to what you Could Have Been. 

Interesting Questions or Comments We Could Have Asked:

Does having a baby being one of five of your bodies affect your consciousness? That thing doesn’t have object permanence? Is there like an intellectual cost to having another baby body? No, we don’t care. I think we just had there be a baby bc “Weird sister-sex” was as interesting as Daniel could get. Side Note: The obvious question of “lol haha lol is it incest or mAsTurBation is not going to be addressed here bc it is literally too boring to consider)

Does having a body who textually is said to have post-partum depression affect your joint consciousness? If not, why bring it up?? Bc she has “weird lady disease” is that why???

Are they....afraid of death????? Why didn’t you ever bring this up? Why have they showed only excitement at the prospect of very dangerous fights up to this point? Why are all four bodies in the field. 

WHY ARE ALL FOUR BODIES IN THE FIELD. Ok so here is one of those points that is definitely stupid but stupid in a dumb as dirt way. If you were afraid to lose your baby-box body, why would you send her into battle? 

Why didn’t they freeze a bunch of her eggs? In fact, why did she bear it at all? Why put your one female body that you only want for babies through that sort of danger? Canonically they all get paid an absurd amount and Gestalt is paid for each body, they can afford a surrogate.  

Why let a weird dude who is at best contemptuous of you raise your baby body? Why wouldn’t you want to do that? Doesn’t that give him a huge amount of leverage over you? 

Is the quality fo Gestalt’s form destined to decline if genetically they can only make more bodies by full genetic sibling offspring? Does that scare them? Again... does their physical brain affect their consciousness? 

If so... maybe that would be a good reason for them to want to join up with the Grafters who are way ahead in genetic research and engineering. 

ANYWAY Gestalt is sexist as shit and boring as hell and had SO MUCH WEIRD POTENTIAL. 

In summary: It was definitely fun but Fuck you, Daniel O’Malley 

[patricianandclerk]

re: requests i receive for nanny crowley

okay re: nanny prompts i’m. okay. it isn’t that i have a problem with nanny ashtoreth being attractive, or that i have a specific problem writing smut about nanny ashtoreth. i’ve defo joked about it, and normally if i’m okay writing humour about something, i’m okay writing smut, and vice versa

however.

there’s a prevalent trope in british comedy that is kind of based around the Nanny, which is obviously a very big like, cultural thing - the nanny in upper middle class and up households who looks after the kids. usually, she’s like, a matronly and maternal woman with a stern side, but also like a twinkle in her eye, yeah? and sometimes she’s a little bit younger, esp if they’re pairing her off w a widower, or she’s a little bit magical. mary poppins, nurse matilda (/nanny mcphee), even chars like maria von trapp

right. and then there’s comedic subversion of the typical nanny - for example, in peter pan, the darlings couldn’t afford a nanny, so they had nana instead, who was a saint bernard, but took excellent care of the kids anyway. 

then, you have the Naughty Nanny. the naughty nanny, as nanny ashtoreth is described in the book, is the nanny who really isn’t for kids - she’s intended for D/s-themed advertisements in the back of magazines, she has a sultry voice and thin lips and a certain way of looking at you, she wears all black and moves deliberately, and if you say a word out of line she’ll probably give you a spanking, no matter how old you are. i could go on about the cultural fetish for the naughty nanny in british pop culture, which kind of goes hand-in-hand with the thing about matrons, and is kind of??? not the same as, but i guess parallel to like, both the MILF and sexy babysitter archetypes in american comedies. naughty nanny is usually a mature woman, and there’s a lot of things that are specifically about discovering one’s sexuality bc of a sexy nanny, e.g. freddy mercury’s naughty nanny stuff in Fat Bottomed Girls

now.

a lot of the time, with the Naughty Nanny archetype, there’s a kind of common joke which is like. when Naughty Nanny has accidentally been hired to look after the kids, and to a lesser extent (i’m pretty sure i’ve seen it once or twice?), there’s when you accidentally hire a Nanny Nanny for the d/s services. a brightly smiling, rosy cheeked woman with a cheerful manner who tells you to eat your greens giving you a spanking is, okay, comedic

but the thing about the Naughty Nanny + kids punchline is that the butt of the joke isn’t just the subverted expectations, but this thing about like. the joke is often that we, the audience, and the men in the piece of media, see how sexy Nanny is being - her sultry voice, the emphasis she uses, the way she moves or talks, apparent innuendos in the things she says - but the kids don’t. the joke is that these men (and us, the audience, assumed to be straight and male) are titillated by the nanny, but that the kids (and perhaps their mother) have no idea what’s going on over their heads.

innuendo and double meaning and implication are all huge in the british comedy tradition, as is this kind of trope, and i didn’t actually realize until i was talking about it last night, how... absent it is from the american one, bc american comedy is usually a great deal more overt, and this one is wrapped up in like, 102 implications. it’s not subtle, just that... you don’t see it unless you’re used to seeing it, i guess

and that was where part of my discomfort came from in going back over the book lines to write the Nanny Knows Best fic, because a lot of her dialogue with warlock sounds completely innocent, but because she’s introduced as a sexualised, bdsm figure who advertises strangely explicit services, her lines are then overladen with an expected innuendo and she’s constantly being sexualised

so with that in mind i. don’t like some of the nanny sex prompts, and am a little leery of filling some of them, because:

i’m uncomfortable with the idea of nanny being sexualised on the job, especially when she’s doing perfectly innocent with warlock

i’m deeply uncomfortable with the idea of nanny crowley making sexual come-ons over warlock’s head, bc he doesn’t understand them, haha

i’m really not... at all comfortable with the way that the BDSM archetype from the book has combined with the transmisogyny thing intended in the script, which is “crowley is the nanny but he’s a man and she’s a woman, hahaha”, especially because trans women are sexualised and fetished so rampantly

i am personally leery of the fact that basically every sexy nanny trope i have seen as been either “nanny is a dom and is dominating everyone in sight, possibly aggressively” or “nanny is usually a dom but the partner is Putting Her In Her Place”

re: both the BDSM thing being applied to a childcare professional combined with the transmisogynistic elements, the fact that all the sex is so aggressive is something i’m not really comfortable with.

i’ve not seen a single prompt for “nanny and francis have sweet, loving sex” for example

i don’t think it’s bad to be attracted to nanny, and tbh like. as i said, this is a huge trope in the british comedy tradition, so i’m really like... idk, not judgy that people are used to it? but it personally, because of this combo of factors, makes me quite uncomfortable, and so i can’t promise i’ll fill like, the vast majority of nanny ashtoreth prompts when they’re of a sexual bent. 

[fiddler-unroofed]

3, 4, 5, and 14!!!

3. name three artists (musical or art) that have inspired you or impacted you.4. who are your favourite people in the world 5. talk about your crush or someone you love.14. what is your favourite childhood memory?

*hands over secondborn child*I feel like some maternal code’s being broken by me handing my child to an anon

But hey, I get asks

1) Considering I don’t draw or do anything with music, no musical artist/artist really influenced me per se :/Bo Burnham maybe?

2) My favorite people in the world,,, hm

-Me-My friends (aka the ~4 people that tolerate me)-My boyfriend-My online friends ( @your-obedient-poet and @sapphicscribble esp 💚💕. Poet was my first friend and we have WAY TOO MUCH IN COMMON while Mimi is great to bounce hcs with and I LOVE her art so much wtf)

3) Talk about my crush…

I actually, uh, don’t have a crush anymoreI have a boyfriend 😳

And he is the BIGGEST sweetheart oml

-He’s generally pretty quiet and good at listening– which is good cause I never shut up lol

-When he does talk, he’s guaranteed to make me bust a gut laughing

-He’s bad at taking compliments, but not like me– He doesn’t try to deny it, he just turns red and starts stuttering and damn it’s cute

-He is such a dork. I cannot stress this enough. He hates sports, he reads Game of Thrones, he draws, he’s in the same fandoms I am (Hamilton, Be More Chill, Night in the Woods, Dear Evan Hansen, Homestuck, Harry Potter etc), he plays D&D, he has a collection of little owl statues….adorkable

-He has a LOT of hair. A headful of curly-ass locks down to the shoulder. It’s gorgeous

-HE !! HAS !! FRECKLES !!

-He has an American accent but is found saying the most British things, ie, ‘piss off mate’

-He got into half of those aforementioned fandoms because I asked him to check them out

-He’s very logical, which gets on my nerves sometimes, but is probably a good thing bc I am Way Too Emotional™

-He calls me darling wHICH IS HECKIN?? SWEET????? /in return i call him a filthy furry bc i am Bad With Affection/

-He’s not afraid to cry at sad stuff

-He’s understanding of the fact that I don’t want kissing and stuff… we had a talk about boundaries that ended with me crying bc he was so sweet and understanding and asdfgjklI haven’t come out to him yet, not fully, but this gives me hope

-He’s just genuinely the nicest, best person I know and I’m so lucky to have him and just,,, hdkggrkwg

Sorry for the rant, I just really heckin love that guy haha

4) Favorite childhood memory…. umm…

When I was younger, mom and I went out to get icecream and I was stuck between two flavors (cookies or strawberry)I asked her about it, obviously conflicted, and she laughed and said ‘Love, I hope all your choices are like this’

idkI just really liked that I guess

I probably have better memories but that one really stuck with me soo,,, yeah

Thanks for asking, nonny Please take care of my child

[werepeach--archive-blog]

tbh i was inspired by a post kappy made to make this and if i still had that posti’d link it bc it’s wonderful but,

my muse’s typing styles? a guide?? ?

aster - doesn’t appear to but does indeed have a very deliberate typing style. usually quite eloquent and has a steady vocabulary but sometimes mssieppells words for humor’s sake, or randomly Capitalizes them. plenty of irish/british slang, mate. cannot physically lie so finds ways to stretch the truth as much as they possibly can without being technically dishonest

dmitry- no capitals. no exclamation points. no emotes. we die like emotionally repressed men. well, sometimes capitals, exclamation points, and emotes. (BUT ONLY WHEN WE’RE REALLY EXCITED OR TAKEN BACK! :D) uses “like”.... like, a stereotypical teenage girl would, like, you know? ends at least 25% of his sentences with “idk” so his apathetic mask keeps up. the sarcasm train.

thomas/emmanuel - typing style very similar to dmitry’s. but much more assured and absolute. never uses emotes (except to make fun), and exclamation points are a rarity. excellent grammar and syntax. 

alex- just.... kind of types like this. you know, dude. you know? calls everyone “dude, man, bro”. very relaxed, sometimes uses emotes but usually? nah. says “nah” instead of “no” btw and “ain’t”s and “y’all”s make appearances sometimes because of the american influence around him, especially mcbuffstrong. WHEN EXCITED SWITCHES TO ALL CAPS AND LOVES TO BOLD AND HIGHLIGHT EVERYTHING!!!!!

sophia - nvr left 2009 txt speak bhind. doesnt bother w any sort of formulaic typing style bc she just cant be bothered. doesnt end a lot of her words w the g they need (gettin/fighting/sayin). n if that aint all she uses “n” instead of “and”, n “b” instead of “be”

marcellus -  typing style isn’t very consistent, thanks to brain weird stuff. has a habit of repeating words and phrases as a habit, also thx to brain weird stuff. sometimes uses txt speak, but not usually. everyone is collectively a “y’all” and the word “because” doesn’t exist in any form, it’s bc/cuz/coz

jo - spspelling ? ? hahaha ... .. that’s for immaturee baby lose..s..rs..... lots of missppelled words because of shakaky hands that she cant’t be bothered to fixed, so jsut constantlyl cry typing. all her emotes looosk like this :+( on rare blue moons, you can catch her exercising her lexicon to it’s full potential, but for the majority of the time... thsi isn’ttthe case

evelyn - fairly posh. rarely capitalizes, but always uses correct punctuation. has a habit of beginning replies with “well” and “ah”. quite a fan of adverbs, and uses “lol.” and “lmao.” completely unironically. very fond of terms of endearment, darling.

teddy - gosh!! :D just always excited about everything!! tends to squish words together, with lotsa love! never a darn swear (except for maybe sometimes, ssshhh), you is “ya” and little is “lil”.

cheese - Proper grammar, capitalization, and punctuation are all musts. He has the most simple and predictable typing style. Refers to younger people that he’s affectionate towards as “kid, son, mijo,” ect. 

young cheese - no fucking grammar, no fucking capitalization, and no punctuation except to make it seem like he’s yelling or to put a break between sentences!!!! but even then run on sentences happen just way too fucking much yknow? would be prone to using spanish on his blog if i knew more of it

kaede - Wow! Another pretty easy typing style to keep up with. Barely touches emotes, but loves putting exclamation points at the end of things for that little bit of emphasis!

jean - a lot of exclamation points!!!! and emotes like this --> ^____^ also fond of repetition and ellipses.... for dramatic effect. not very well developed yet, needs time. U_U 

izzy - good punctuation and grammar, loves to ironically end sentences with “lol” or “lmao”! slings “haha”s in there, but he’s never really laughing. curses for fucking emphasis, and likes to use silly sounding words to lessen the effects of any rootin’ tootin’ points he’s making. haha!