#but I feel weird when I’m reading a sapphic romance and the narrative might as well be screaming from the void

[bronzewool]

Not sure how I feel about “enby people are included in sapphic romance books because ‘sapphic’ just means no men”

Like, I appreciate the inclusion, but I personally feel sapphic romance should be for wlw. Otherwise it feels like it peculates stereotypes that enby people are just non-gender conforming women and enby assigned male at birth don’t exist.

We’re not under this “not male” umbrella. We have our own separate umbrella that sometimes overlaps with yours but it’s still ours.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

since it's pride month, i want to highlight my favorite underrated/underappreciated queer characters and ships! (part 1/???)

(feel free to add more!)

Lake - Infinity Train (non-canon)

it's not canon but you cannot tell me that Lake isn't an allegory for trans/nb people. her arc is so beautiful and her character resonates with me so much!

i have to admit, i actually kinda hated her in the beginning because of how aggressive and rude she was, but she actually gets good character development and you can also understand why she was the way she was, being a good representation of a minority who is constantly suffering because of the social norms she’s forced into. also i don’t ship her with jesse but i do like the idea of them in a qpr or just being platonic besties.

(i use she/her pronouns for Lake because that's what they use in the series, but also because not all non-binary people use they/them, and it's kinda weird to see people insist on using they/them for Lake just because she's nb-coded. she has never shown an aversion to bring referred to with she/her pronouns.)

Le Chevre x El Topo - Carmen Sandiego (canon)

they are side characters who don't play a huge role in the narrative but they are a really cute couple and have been confirmed to be canon! even without the confirmation, it’s clear that they were written to be a romantic couple.

mild spoiler: after the series ends, they stop being antagonists and instead put up a food truck together! it’s the cutest thing, i swear

Ryan x Min-gi - Infinity Train (non-canon)

my OTP through and through! i say non-canon but the romance is so heavily implied, you cannot ignore it.

they're a good example of childhood friends who had a complicated relationship where both individuals did something wrong, but in the end, they grow as people and manage to mend their relationship together.

Moomin x Snufkin - Moominvalley (canon)

i have only read one of the books and watched a few clips of these two characters but from that alone, it's clear that they were written as lovers (and the author is queer too!)

they are a beautiful portrayal of long-distance relationship where both individuals have different needs in life, but still want to be with each other regardless.

Terrestrius / Terry - The Dragon Prince (canon)

Terry is canonically transmasc and they actually manage to explain this in the series, without making it sound too forced or expository. he's such a sweetheart too, and his relationship with Claudia is actually really sweet, despite the fact that she's one of the villains.

Carmen x Julia - Carmen Sandiego (non-canon)

again, i say non-canon but it is heavily implied that they have feelings for each other, especially in the extra interactive episode, where Carmen leaves a bouquet of red roses for Julia, and Julia is shown to blush when receiving them.

Amaya x Janai - The Dragon Prince (canon)

what’s that? it’s actually possible to write an enemies to lovers romance that is healthy and not extremely abusive?

Amaya and Janai have such a good relationship in S5 (and Amaya is also a great disabled representation!) Janai actually learns sign language to communicate with Amaya, and there are no unnecessary miscommunication plots or drama, they’re just a really loving wlw couple.

Benson x Troy - Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (canon)

when i say we need more mlm ships in animated media!! i’m so glad us sapphics are getting a lot of representation but it’s time cartoons started including more queer men.

benson and troy are just a really sweet couple with a good relationship that doesn’t have a ton of pining or unnecessary angst. while i love complex and tragic queer relationships, i also think that it’s good to show teenagers just being teenagers sometimes.

this opinion seems to be scarce in the queer community, which really annoys me tbh.

Raine x Eda - The Owl House (canon)

i cannot believe that given the popularity of TOH, Raeda is still such an overlooked ship. this might be an unpopular opinion but Raeda is better written and has more chemistry than Lumity and Huntlow.

just within the span of Raine's introductory episode, they managed to establish a clearly romantic past between these two characters, and also an interesting dynamic. and even though they didn't have much screentime, they still turned out to be the best ship in the series. (again, just my opinion, don't come at me)

i think it's so important to show older queer people in media, just as it is important to show younger queer characters. it helps establish the fact that queerness has always existed and isn't some newfound trend that social media invented. not to mention, raeda is one of the very few canon ships that include a non-binary character.

[karnsteinreview]

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera

The Tiger’s Daughter on Goodreads

Release Year: 2017

Format I Read: audiobook

Length: 14h 57m (507 pages)

Genres: High fantasy (east Asian inspired)

LGBT Rep: Lesbian main characters, queer side characters including wlw and at least one trans woman

Spoiler-Free Review: 

If you go into this book, you should definitely go into it expecting a romance rather than a fantasy story with a romance in it. The romance is the focus, the climax, the overall point of the story, and that seems to have taken some of the other people I saw reviewing it by surprise.

The plot and framing device weren’t my favorite and were both somewhat confusing at times, but I didn’t think it bad or uninteresting. Overall, I liked the book, queer representation or otherwise. The fact that the focus was a lesbian relationship definitely elevated it for me in a way that it might not have if it were a heterosexual romance. I probably would have been bored if this wasn’t about lesbians.

Also, I’ve noticed that there is a lot of discussion on goodreads specifically about how the author portrayed East Asian cultures, or rather how she made up cultures heavily based on East Asian cultures. Namely, that she didn’t do a good job of it. I’m white, I can’t really say how the Asian representation is handled and I honestly didn’t notice anything until I saw people pointing it out, so I would suggest reading some of the goodreads reviews from East Asian reviewers. There are a few on the first page of reviews so they shouldn’t be hard to find.

Synopsis: The story is about two women, Shefali and Shizuka. Shefali is from a nomadic horse archer-like society, while Shizuka is the heir to an East Asian inspired empire. The two of them where basically destined to be together since they were born and who the hell are they to defy destiny or whatever you want to call it? The framing device is that they are currently separated for some reason that isn’t initially clear, and Shefali wrote what is essentially a book for Shizuka detailing their entire lives together, starting from when they were kids and up until the present.

Age is something I actually want to note here, because it does start off with them being kids, then teens, then barely adults. There are also stretches of time when they are raised together, but they’re never made out to be “Like Sisters” or described in a familial way by themselves or others, so it didn’t feel weird to me that their relationship eventually became romantic. I also want to note that when their relationship turns sexual, they’re both 16. Just, be aware of that. It’s kind of weird reading that as an adult.

There’s a fair amount of angst throughout the book, and while their relationship never really seems in trouble of falling apart (especially given the framing narrative basically spoiling that they’re both ok and alive in the end) it does have quite a few bumps. Most of them involve actual physical danger to one or both of them. There’s also demons and some soft magic, which is really the only way the fantasy element factors in, other than the fact that it’s a secondary world.

Because the book focuses so heavily on Shefali and Shizuka, the other queer characters don’t get much attention, but there are a handful of others, including a woman who appears to be trans. I thought that all of them were handled well.  

I should also note that this is the first book in a series (I believe a trilogy). The second book is out but the third isn’t yet.

The Good: The relationship never had any kind of internalized homophobia that I could remember. Any outward homophobia was sparse and always came from the Bad Guys. The book never made it feel wrong in any way, and though it felt like there would be some homophobic moralizing from other characters, there really wasn’t. How the book ended was also pretty cute to me, and I can’t really say more than that without spoilers.

What Might Hinder You from Reading It: Though it isn’t the threat of homophobia, there is pretty much constant danger from their relationship. I’d need to spoil the book to explain more, but there’s points where one of them is constantly in fear of physically harming the other, and there’s lot’s a threats and close calls throughout. I can see people not liking that about the relationship, and also that the characters’ flaws aren’t really hidden.  

Would I Recommend It?: Probably… If you specifically asked for a sapphic relationship, I’d probably put this among my recommendations, but if someone just asked for queer fantasy book recommendations, this wouldn’t be one of the first that I mentioned. That’s mostly to do with the plot though, and not because of the queer representation. Also I probably would recommend reading it rather than listening to the audiobook, as I think I might have enjoyed it more that way.

Now for the Spoilers: 

I’m going to talk about the main spoiler that I like and that’s the ending. So there is an honest to god, real actual recognized gay wedding, which I super loved. I should clarify that is WAS a secret wedding, but was then almost immediately revealed in a very public way, so it didn’t remain secret for long. I thought it was adorable, to be honest.

Now the other major spoiler I want to discuss: about halfway through the book Shefali becomes a demon and that’s…a thing. All of the danger that I mentioned before comes from that, and the fact that first they think she’s going to die from demon sickness, then they think she’s going to just start killing everyone, then there are a few points where she does seem to lose control and pose a threat and she’s real angsty about being afraid to hurt Shizuka. I can see a lot of people not liking that.

Also, once Shefali and Shizuka recognize that they’re in love and want to be together, they immediately decide that they have to hide it, that it won’t be acceptable. So you get the impression that there’s going to be a whole lot of homophobia when it gets exposed, but when their marriage gets revealed at the end of the book, the only one that doesn’t accept it is the Bad Guy. I’m not complaining that there isn’t more homophobia, it just felt weird that they felt the need to hide it, but were then immediately accepted by literally everyone. If the plot required their relationship be secret for most of the book, they could have come up with a different reason other than “they’re both girls” if that wasn’t actually an issue. Unnecessary angst over homophobia is unnecessary.

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam Italia episode 10 reaction

so nice of Alice to ask Eva on a date!

Episode 10

Clip 1 - Eva coming for Martino

I feel it’s so fitting for this marshmallow sweetheart Eva to start off leaving comparatively non-confrontational messages for Martino that only escalate when he doesn’t answer, instead of jumping straight to “ISAK PICK UP YOUR DAMN PHONE NOW” (RUN BOY RUN)

So Eva and Gio seem to be pretty relaxed and comfortable during this conversation about Martino considering their precarious relationship status - like they actually go somewhere else together and sit down, and there’s not a ton of space between them. His body language is pointed toward her. That’s nice that it’s not awkward, but I don’t know how I feel about it narratively, considering there probably should be some tension?

It makes some sense in that Gio seemed like he still wanted to be with Eva when talking to her at the skate park - he put it more on her shoulders, did she still want to be with him? With Jonas there was that “come find me when you find out” but overall it felt more frayed on his end even if he loved her.

But I loved that awkward goodbye kiss! That little customary gesture that’s suddenly got a lot more weight to it as they’re navigating this in-between stage. They’re kinda still dating but they’re kinda not, you know?

Clip 2 - Silvia and Eva in the bathroom

Note that this clip takes place later than the original version, which was paired with the period blood letter and took place right after the Jonas conversation where he asks who Eva is - Vilde asks her the same thing (theeeeme) and Eva bursts out in frustration at the question later talking to Isak. It was overall a more fraught time for Eva, since it was before her reconciliation with Ingrid and smoothing things over with Iben, was thinking she might have to switch schools and had some tension with her new friends after Vilde turned her past into a group presentation. This scene here happens after almost all of those problems have been smoothed over except for her relationship with Gio (which is less awkward than Eva’s with Jonas) and with Silvia (who apologizes during this clip). With that in mind, it’s more comfortable and less fragile.

It also takes the place of the scene where Vilde puts on a fake happy face in the cafeteria and lies to the girls about being with Pepsi Max.

Awww, it’s really nice that Silvia apologized to Eva. And the comment about how she gets used to people hating her is spot-on. it’s worth noting that this is the second time in a short period that Silvia has botched things with a group of girls, and who knows how many times before that.

But again, where does this leave us in terms of a firm arc for Eva? Once more they’ve cut out the thread/theme of who-is-Eva by not having Silvia ask it. Which I don’t inherently mind but I would like there to be a solid line of her character going from point A to point B, like I want there to be, for lack of a better term, a thesis statement about what this season was really about, since that was a strong point of the original S1. But I feel like we won’t know for sure until that final scene with Giovanni.

The original scene lands the point about Eva’s identity, this scene is more about setting up the group reconciliation with Silvia. 

Clip 3-  Awkwaaaaard

Similar to the first clip of the episode, Eva and Gio’s relationship here feels much less awkward than Eva and Jonas at this stage

Gio intentionally approaches her and makes conversation instead of literally bumping into her as Jonas did to Eva. It’s neutral small talk for the most party, and slight inquiries about Martino, it’s not digging deeper, but it still feels like they’re pretty chill. 

That made the fight seem more out of nowhere, though? Like with Eva and Jonas (and other versions) they were walking this fragile ground where they were being polite, and there was that rush of seeing each other and being like, oh, you make me so happy, but you could also sense how fragile and delicate it was through their body language and expressions and pauses, and so when P-Chris comes around, it’s easy for it to break. With this scene, they feel so comfortable that Gio suddenly shoving Fede didn’t feel right, they were on more stable ground. Like I would’ve bought his appearance suddenly creating the awkwardness between Gio and Eva, and Gio having to excuse himself, but not the 0 to 100 in two seconds here.

It doesn’t help that we didn’t see Gio react until he shoved Fede, like the way it was shot was a little weird. At first I couldn’t tell when Gio saw Fede coming down the hall and if Fede made the comment within earshot of them, since we didn’t get a good reaction shot of Gio to Fede’s presence. Plus having Jonas notice P-Chris and get tense was what prompted the “awkward” comment in the first place. Fede just seems like a shit-stirrer, lol.

Lmao, Edoardo did nothing to break up this fight. He redirected Fede with one hand to keep walking, that was it. On the one hand William gradually descending the stairs to halfheartedly remove Chris from Jonas was the best thing he ever did, but on the other hand, Edoardo not giving a shit at all is funny in itself.

Clip 4 - Not a Meet Cute ... a Start-Over Cute?

Good job, Alice! Federico is not worth the private transportation.

The way they shot this makes it look like the beginning of an Eva/Alice hate-to-love romance, more than any other version of this scene. Right now they have moved past “hate” and are in “tentative friendship” mode.

Lol, so I guess people had some beef with the comment about feminism? I get it, obviously feminism is not about man-hating, probably not the best message to send. But I also thought Alice was clearly making a joke and not being serious about it, so unless there’s some nuance in the wording that doesn’t come through in translation, it didn’t really bother me.

Also, not to go on a personal tangent, but I’m at the point of my life/feminist journey/whatever-you-want-to-call-it where IDGAF about defending feminism against accusations of man-hating, because misogynists will think feminists hate men no matter what you say. You can preface every feminist discussion with 10 paragraphs of clarifying that you don’t hate men and they still won’t care and you’ll just have wasted time and energy coddling anti-feminists that could have been spent on the important issues. For real, don’t bother.

Eva suggesting that the party sounds like a Sapphic shindig and Alice being like “Who said that isn’t the solution?” just ramped up the flirtiness, wowza. Although the line about “sounds like [lesbian night]” was translated a few different ways, using language that was, uhhh, not as neutral as lesbian. I can’t speak to whether it was as offensive in Italian, though.

I forgot, did they say that Alice wrote the message in the bathroom stall? It’s not super important since any gossipy person at school could have written it, but since it substituted for the period blood letter, I’m just curious.

Clip 5 - Party in the streets, puking in the sheets

Is this party taking place on the street? Like are they pre-gaming before they go somewhere? Pre-caking? Street parties seem like a good time.

Lol, Sana is pretty warm and receptive toward inviting Silvia, while Eleonora is like eh, whatever. I feel like Eleonora is the one with the pricklier attitude toward Silvia, which could be interesting to see play out next season since S2 definitely has a focus on that relationship.

“She read it but she didn’t reply” I mean you literally just sent the text five seconds ago, give her a minute.

Making the video for Silvia and asking her to come over is the sweetest thing, damn. Like if I were Silvia, my heart would get so warm. You know, if I wasn’t wasted and two steps from passing out.

So Martino wasn’t invited to this party, he just randomly happened to be in the street hanging out with some pals?

Time for the much-awaited snake roasting scene!

“Did your tits get bigger?” You aren’t fooling anyone, Martino.

Martino’s disappointment at thinking Eva and Gio are back together is super obvious, like he can barely manage to conjure up any fake enthusiasm.

Oh geez. So in the original, Isak lets Eva guess why he ratted her out. There has been a lot of meta and discussion as to whether he wanted Eva to guess the truth, take it off his hands, get it all out. It’s when she guesses that he likes her that he runs with the lie. Here, Martino is the one to say he has feelings for her. He creates the lie. There’s no ambiguity as to whether he wants the truth to come out.

I mean, honestly? I could believe that they changed to the plot to be about Martino having feelings for Eva. I don’t think they will, but I could buy it. Because Martino doesn’t seem like he’s lying, it’s like he’s getting things off his chest. With Isak, he wasn’t being too obvious that he was making stuff up, but on a rewatch you can tell that he’s fabricating this story, especially due to the nuance of Tarjei’s acting. Isak is a liar but he’s not necessarily good at it. He’s human. What he gives is an imitation of swagger and Nice Guy-ism. I don’t get much self-doubt in Martino’s performance.

That’s not to say he’s a bad actor, actually I think he’s one of the better performers on this show, but I did think this conversation was underwhelming compared to the original. There’s such great subtext and especially vulnerability in that scene - they cut out some great moments, such as Eva asking how things were going with his mom before confronting him and us getting to see Isak faking his confidence that everything will work out with his parents. Or Isak saying Eva can’t tell Jonas. Or just the extended explanation of why he did it. 

Plus you can really see Isak squirm as Eva pretends she’s gotten back with Jonas, like she’s playing with her food, and this scene didn’t have that delicious build-up.

Was there a reason why Eleonora couldn’t host Silvia at her place? Like logically I know it’s because they wouldn’t introduce the collective yet, if they’re keeping that, but surely it would be OK to bring Silvia back to a residence with no parents, just two quirky university students? Is Eleonora’s living situation going to be the same?

Sana had a very clear game plan on how to handle the situation, good for her.

Lol, I think this scene inherently loses something without the ironic Christmas music but it was funny to have “I wanna be a bottom feeder” right before Silvia barfs on Sana. Sana’s reactions were pretty good.

When the puking started, I wondered whether they would show Sana without her hijab, and then they did.

OK ... I’m not a Muslim so I don’t want to get too much into this, but:

Sana taking off her headscarf as a mark of her comfort around the girls is a sweet gesture, and from what I understand from reading Muslims’ thoughts, this is OK to do and it’s likely that she wouldn’t get in the bed and fall asleep in her hijab. So that’s fine.

But in a meta sense, I did think oh right ... we’re getting this moment because the actress is not Muslim, and this is a costume for her and she can take it off. Whereas with someone like Iman Meskini, it’s not (according to her personal religious beliefs). There was a few (just a few, not many) comments I saw that were like “Sana’s hair is so pretty, she shouldn’t cover it up” which made me go :/ :/ :/

Eleonora giving Silvia a little kiss on the forehead as they tuck her into bed = awwwww.

“I was just trying to kill Edoardo’s son” uhhhh is that an accurate translation? Because that’s kinda different from “I think I killed William’s baby,” there’s way more intent with the Italian one and it changes how I view Silvia’s opinion on the matter. Like I sort of thought a part of Vilde wanted that baby, for not so great reasons, and that’s why she was insistent with the nurse that she had all the pregnancy symptoms. But you know, maybe not! 

Also, “I tried to kill Edoardo’s son” and the scene ending abruptly with a BAM could be like, a cliffhanger for a crime show if we want to make Skam a much grittier and bleaker show.

General Comments:

I’m wondering about how they’ll handle S3. I think S2 has the potential to be better than the original, but so far the portrayal of Martino has been lacking a lot of that vulnerability that Isak had and the conversation with Eva in this episode reinforced that. Again, I’m not placing the fault on the actor, and obviously we’re just getting started with the character, I just hope they can dig deep into his self-doubt when they come to it.

I’m trying not to get into the debate about this since it’s not my culture, but because I keep seeing comments in the Sana casting debate about the potential lack of Muslim actors in Italy, for comparison:

Islam is the largest non-Christian religion in Norway with about 2.9% of the population officially (about 153,000 people in 2016) and has increased by 26.6% since 2012 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Norway#Islam)

According to the latest Italian official statistics, there are 1.400.000 Muslims in Italy (2.3% of the Italian population), almost one third of Italy's foreign population (250.000 have acquired italian citizenship). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Italy#Present_day)

Wikipedia, I know, but here’s the Pew Research Center, a very reliable source, putting the 2016 estimate of Muslims in Italy at 4.8% of the population with 2,870,000 Muslims (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/29/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-in-europe/)

I haven’t mentioned this much but the Skam Italia social media team is doing a nice job, some of the texts have been really funny and cute. Shout-out to Martino telling Eva to move to California to work as a waitress in one of those restaurants “where they give you coffee nonstop” because, yeah, that is one good thing you can say about the US. We’re politically a mess but at least our diners will keep your cups overflowing.

I’m not Italian so if I missed some context, feel free to correct me.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

[sobdasha]

i got caught up with this not because i did better but because i’ve had no time/watched some tv

War for the Oaks, Emma Bull I began reading this book at the same time as The Innkeeper's Song, listed below. I started out dragging my feet on this one and racing through TIS. But one book got progressively more amazing while the other book got progressively less impressive and my better book is this one. This was the roomie's first brush with urban fantasy, and one of her friends got her a second-hand first edition paperback, and so she talked about it a lot until I finally picked it up and she said "Uh but also I haven't read it in forever so I uh. Don't know how it holds up." (She rightly fears me because as you will have noticed I am a Very Particular Reader.) Reasons I disliked this book at first: - fashion choices that scream "1980s" and fashion choices that scream "lesbian" are incredibly similar and guess which of the two I am not getting, seeing as this was published in 1987. - Eddie is breaking up with her garbage boyfriend which is good but she has an incredible amount of chemistry with Carla which is disheartening given that I know I won't get sapphics and Eddie will end up dating some other boy with whom there is no chemistry. - This is a book about rock-n-roll bands I don't know any of these songs (okay I might know these songs but I don't know artists or titles so I may as well not know any of these songs) it's kinda wasted on me. - oh boy I'm so excited to watch her and the phouka fight like Kagome and Inuyasha or any other pair with this dynamic yaaaaay /sarcasm Reasons this came to be a Good Read: - Everyone dresses so goddamn queer in this book that you know what, everyone except that jerkass Stuart is queer. He's garbage so he can be straight or whatever. It's my reading experience I do what I want. There's no way these people aren't bi. Also it's canon because everyone takes one look at the phouka and assumes he's gay. …………………………with slurs but still. - Good supporting cast. - I both failed to give the phouka a deep voice and also to sustain a Stereotypical Gay voice (which, the dialogue will totally 100% support), but I did accidentally voice him with Tatum's dub of Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss which was completely appropriate in the "vaguely gay vaguely British unambiguously prissy" department, and also entertaining because it reminded me of the dynamics in that anime but, y'know, better. - I almost gave up when the romance hit hardcore but it turned out later that was actually a fake-out that was meant to be garbage and set us up for the endgame much later, by which point Eddie and the phouka actually had the same level of chemistry as Eddie and Carla, so I could actively enjoy the ship. A win! Anyway it was fun. It may not have aged the best in the sense that it strove to be accurate to time and place (see: homophobic slurs), but the character dynamics held up pretty dang well. I would definitely read this again and enjoy myself; in fact I plan to.

The Innkeeper's Song, Peter S. Beagle I was very excited to read this because I was so blown away by The Last Unicorn but the more I read the more disappointed I got. Half the time I feel like that weeb who is like "hello I only like your fanfic you wrote when you were 13 and high on pixie stixs, all your stuff now sucks", and half the time I tell myself, "Maybe there is a reason I've only ever heard of The Last Unicorn and had no idea he'd actually written other books." As you have probably picked up by now, I have a knee-jerk dislike of first person PoV where it must prove itself worthy to me first, despite the fact that I like plenty of things written in first person. I also have a knee-jerk dislike of "I will change the narrator every chapter and announce loudly who it is instead of doing it subtly but unmistakably in the content of the text itself." This book had both. Despite all my harsh judgment, it would be incorrect of me to say that this writing choice is not valid. That this writing choice cannot be used to amazing effect. I do not believe that is what happened here. I did not feel it was adding much to the story to begin with (other than being the shortest and straightest path to advancing a narrative with many fronts), and I was definitely unimpressed when we got to the string of chapters, all of them less than a page and some no more than a paragraph, during the orgy scene where the 3 women have sex with 1 teen boy who's been thirsting after them, and they pay him a lot of worshipful attention in the orgy even though none of them actually like him, and also this is when we reveal one of the women is a man in disguise in the most confusing way possible so my cringe got even deeper as I waited for Beagle to fuck up a trans storyline. (It was literally just "I'm on the run so I'm magically dressing as a girl" but it took a really long time to clarify that after.) In addition to not liking the narrative structure, I just wasn't interested or invested in the actual plot. It didn't feel very urgent or important and at the end I was like "what even happened and also why did it happen." I was underwhelmed. I was definitely the wrong audience for this book. Oh also because I was not enjoying myself I started to get really irrationally annoyed by the way fantasy fauna and flora would have fantasy names and they would be italicized. In a first person PoV. Where the narrator is literally speaking the language that this word is native to. It half felt pretentious, and half highlighted what felt like a loose thread: everyone is literally narrating to someone (presumably collecting the story, after everyone has gone their separate ways) and this has all been woven together into a proper narrative, but our story collector is absent despite addresses to such a person. What purpose does this serve? Does it make it more ~authentic~ fantasy? Because I don't buy it. Now my suspension of disbelief is snapped; I'd have preferred it was either left out entirely, or made into a brilliant framing device like in The Name of the Wind.

Giant Bones, Peter S. Beagle This one was short stories "set in the same universe as The Innkeeper's Song", which basically meant some city names were reused, as well as all those italicized fantasy names and the "I am narrating my story to an audience in-story" frame. You know, all the things I didn't particularly care for. I pressed on to see if there was anything I might like, but since I can't remember, I assume there wasn't. Because this left me wanting, and the title was Giant Bones, I went to reread Conservation of Shadows by Lee instead, starting with "The Bones of Giants," which was greatly preferable, so much more my speed. That's when I did the write-up for the last round of books lol.

Nimona, Noelle Stevenson This has been on my list for Forever but I'm bad at reading new books. Anyway! Nimona was very good!! It felt, hm, very self-indulgent in the way that is amazing, where the creator gives themself whatever they want and the work turns out brilliantly because of it. I didn't think I was into friends to enemies to lovers but apparently I love it wen Stevenson handles it (see: She Ra reboot). Speaking of She Ra, I probably would have figured out where the end game was going if I'd read Nimona before looool. I know people referenced it when they talked ships but I just….didn't...pay enough attention. There was found family stuff I enjoyed, dad stuff, I'm finding that I am liking a lot of takes on monster girls, etc. Anyway it gave me a lot of feelings, it was funny, it was good, I need to get a copy.

The Dragon Pearl, Yoon Ha Lee The first time I talked about this book I mentioned something about the pacing and suspending disbelief or whatever, but I want to note that this time the pacing felt perfect and the plot didn't seem weird at all, it flowed very smoothly. I don't know if that's because it was a reread and I knew where it was going, or because I just read it awkwardly the first time. Anyway. Something that stood out to me this time is that, near the end, I realized this story is a bit animated Disney Mulan. There's even the "you broke this you broke that you impersonated a soldier but also you saved China so thanks" bit. Where The Dragon Pearl is wildly different from other Mulan-type stories that I like (see: Monstrous Regiment) is that it is entirely ungendered. (There are some mentions of gender in the book. These amount mostly to, "most foxes choose to be female because Tradition but one of my cousins decided to be male like my brother and no one mocks him for it" and "official name tags also include handy signifiers of which personal pronouns a person prefers.") What I'm trying to say is, a lot of other stuff when dealing with/trying to deconstruct gender stereotyping, ends up reinforcing it in a way. In order to illustrate why the stereotypes are wrong, they end up repeating the stereotypes a lot in order to argue against them. The Dragon Pearl, on the other hand, is genderless in a way that doesn't reinforce the gender binary. There are no gendered clothes. There are no gendered bathrooms. There are no gendered hairstyles or accessories. There are no gendered actions or emotions or stereotypes. There are no gendered bodies (the differences highlighted between Min and Jang-who-she's-shapeshifting-into are of build ie, height, center of gravity, not of private bits). No plot points revolve around the maleness of the person Min is impersonating; no plot points revolve around the femaleness of Min. And they/them? It's never explained why any person uses that pronoun. They just do so that's just how it is. I just think this is amazingly neat and I wanna applaud Lee for this finesse.

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, Mackenzi Lee I put this on my list because Queer and people were recommending it, but it was not well-advertized to me. I was expecting shallow teen romance, but dressed in historical clothes and unsubtly, unabashedly, unashamedly GAY. So I was expecting some gay. I was not expecting gay pining I actually enjoyed, I was not expecting call-outs for privilege of wealth and class and sex and color, I was not expecting the drama of the romance to not be stupidly fabricated misunderstandings but instead be driven by the need for character development and personal growth, I had forgotten I was expecting people of color, people with disabilities, badass women, I was not expecting a nuanced call-out of ableism ("I don't believe I need to be well to be happy", etc). I was not expecting a reversal of gender stereotypes that avoided saying "X gender is bad." Like, Monty is the team weakest link. Monty faints at the sight of blood. Monty is romantic and emotional and swoons at the slightest provocation. Monty uses his wiles to seduce people, that's the main skill he actually brings to the party. Monty cries. Aside from probably Monty's asshole dad who hates him for being gay, no one else nor the narrative calls these traits out as being Feminine (And Therefore Bad). Like, haha, We All Know These Are All Stereotypes Of Women At The Time, but no one says it. I find there's something really nice about no one saying it. Meanwhile, Percy and Felicity are competent and cool and I heart them. (What the hell, I heart Monty too. He really grows on you. He's so soft and in love and pathetic.) Anyway going back to the privilege thing, I love that Percy and Felicity and others constantly call Monty out on his privilege and refuse to coddle him over it. But they also care about him and they are very tender to him, not because of his privilege, but because he is a person who deserves basic person things, when he has his own issues. Your issues don't excuse your behavior, but yikes we deeply underestimated the sheer depth of your PTSD and we're gentler with you because of it. So try to stop being an ass. This book is just super wholesome and I can already tell this will be one of my new go-to's when I need a comfort book. Like Ancillary Justice etc.

The Gentleman's Guide to Getting Lucky, Mackenzi Lee This is not a fanfiction in the sense that is it written by the author and not a fan, but you need to understand, as part of me selling this to you as earnestly as I can, this is a fanfiction set after The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue which involves hijinks as Monty and Percy try and fail hilariously to have their first time having sex together, Felicity tries to wingman, there are miscommunications and nervous breakdowns and tender resolutions and it is absolutely a perfect indulgence. Because it was written by the actual author everyone is 100% in character and the narrative voice is spot-on. Kudos!

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, Mackenzi Lee Ace/aro Felicity???? ACE/ARO FELICITY!!! TBH I only vaguely remembered the descriptions for this one, ie "this time it's lesbians," and I was reading this going "there is a suspicious lack of lesbians but so much platonic vibes and also…..maybe…..maybe…????" and like I got both lesbians AND ace/aro Felicity????? Lee wrote this book? As a gift? For me???? I cannot believe I was blessed with "not like other girls"!Felicity as a vehicle for calling out the internalized misogyny inherent in the Not Like Other Girls mindset, and it is glorious. You can like pretty dresses and running around doing science, or you can hate dresses and only love science, or you can only like pretty dresses, or you can like whatever the heck you want in whatever combo, doesn't matter you're still a girl you're still valid and this shit isn't mutually exclusive. Much as I don't wear makeup (I've slowly learned to wear dresses again) in real life, gosh I love Johanna for being like "I love dresses and I love science and what if I was a badass adventurer but also got to be rescued a lot" because that was bitty me. Gimme a princess dress and a sword and a bow and arrows but also a tower to be rescued from and then various adventures. I want it both ways! And that's okay!! Also this is a critique I have apparently wanted since at least 3rd grade, see this proof from my daily journal prompts, I apologize for my lack of attention to spelling and forming letters: "Girls are what ever girls are. Girls like different things so I con't judge them all. Some girls like barbies. Just becaus you my not like barbies dosn't mean those girls aren't girls, it means they like more things that hove barbies. I like nintendo and I'm a girl." Apparently I was a Not Like Other Girls who thought Other Girls were still extremely valid. (that's kind of hilarious though because like, child, you had Barbies and didn't hate Barbies, you are just bad at playing with dolls and props. You're also bad at playing Nintendo.) Other stuff specifically, hm, it was refreshing to not have "I am skinny and perfect and clearly ugly" or even "I am legitimately ugly." Instead we have, "You do realize my torso is a solid rectangle, it laughs at this corset which I guess we are going to put on anyway, also my football player shoulders are going to literally pop the sleeves off that dress" and "I am built like a corgi dog, this is simply a fact of my proportions." Like, Felicity definitely has Issues with her traditional femininity and lack thereof, but I feel like it was never specifically tied to "my body shape is ugly." Also to go back to this book being written for me personally. You know they always say to write things that only you could write, that are self-indulgent, write what you want to see? It's really hard to do without a template to follow. Right before I picked up this book I realized that maybe The Thing Only I Would Write would be saying "a Skadi-and-Njord marriage is in fact a valid happy ending," but I've never seen that before and I don't know what it would look like even if I kind of understand the concept. All the media I consume, if not ending in romantic soulmates, is at least found family. If you are a loner, if you like being alone, your happy ending is to get a manic-pixie-dream-anything (girl, grandson, grandma, dog, whathaveyou) and integrate back into being social. There are no happy endings where a loner stays alone, where you get married but live separately and see each other very rarely because you love them but can't stand to live with them and you need to be alone to exist as you. And Mackenzi Lee just up and wrote it. It's valid to want to live in a house by yourself filled with bookshelves and have friends. It's valid for a girl to marry another girl who is a pirate and sails around most of the time and only comes to visit on occasion so you don't get sick of her and you keep loving her. This is an okay thing for an ace/aro to want, and it's valid to be happy with this. I can't even, y'all. I'm still marveling. I finally have seen a picture of the life I know would make me happy, and it's finally been acknowledged that I can be happy. (The amount of time I've spent, knowing I hate being social, and wondering--how many years down the line, when I'm living alone and content, will the switch suddenly flip? How many bridges will I have left behind when it turns out that I actually feel loneliness, and I'm miserable and unable to make friends and it turns out there are no manic pixie dream whatevers in real life and I fucked myself over forever because I was wrong and I should have been maintaining these social ties now and turning into someone I'm sure I'm not? What if people like me, who don't really get lonely without people, don't actually exist??) Anyway representation matters. Also Felicity being blindsided with Callum's proposal was, wow, okay I should have caught on to ace!Felicity then because that was so very accurate to my life experience minus people cutting fingers off. Look I was quoting stuff at the end to a friend and she was like "maybe that's why there's aces on the cover" and I am a very stupid ace okay. Felicity and Johanna's intense queerplatonic friendship that they keep trying to take up again in among the same sort of "you need character growth" drama that Monty needed re: Percy is also just, chef kiss, god I love this book. I need to buy this book. I haven't yet so what I did is I renewed all the books so I could immediately reread them after I finished them the first time.

[patheticphallacy]

This is a tag I always see making its rounds on YouTube and in the blogsphere, and while I don’t do many tags anymore (that aren’t related to music, you can pry the Playlist Book Tag from my cold, dead hands) I saw a few really great takes on the tag and looked at the questions and figured this is one for me!

A little about my reading history:

Since April of 2018, I’ve found myself enjoying reading more than I have since around 2013 when I first joined the book community. It’s become a lot more personal and just reading on a whim, not hesitating to DNF and leave things half-read until I’m interested in the book again. My memories of what I read is a lot stronger, even though I’m reading more.

At this point in the year I’ve read 170 things, mostly manga and comics, which I’m honestly really happy about as they make me happiest as I read them. That also means I have a lot to choose from in my answers.

Without further ado: the questions!

1) BEST BOOK YOU’VE READ SO FAR IN 2019?

Okay, so a lot of my top books happen to be horror, and I promise you that’s purely accidental.

The Elementals by Michael McDowell: 80’s horror where two families journey to their Summer houses after the death of one of the matriarchs and find themselves at the hands of not just the elements, but forces that reside in the land.

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell: A gothic told across three different points of view centred around a widow who travels to her late husbands estate and is tormented by strange wood carvings who seemingly move by themselves.

Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl: A year after the death of her boyfriend, a teenager journeys out to visit her estranged friends, only for them to end up stuck in a time loop repeating the same day until they can come to a unanimous decision on which one of them deserves to live.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson: Horror classic where four people travel to Hill House and experience strange hauntings that begin to send them mad. Also highly recommend the Netflix show!

Teen Dog by Jake Lawrence: The coming-of-age graphic novel with anthropomorphic animals you never knew you needed. Full of innocent existentialism and themes of growing up!

2) BEST SEQUEL YOU’VE READ SO FAR IN 2019?

They aren’t sequels, but these are my favourite volumes in longer series! It counts! They are all follow ups to previous volumes!

Fullmetal Alchemist Volume 9 by Hiromu Arakawa: If there was a Connie has to go more than 5 posts without mentioning FMA challenge, I would lose. Literally the best possible conclusion to this series, it broke my heart.

Haikyuu!! Volume 2 by Haruichi Furudate: My review for this on Goodreads was literally just ‘Oikawa AND Nishinoya?! In one volume?! I’m having a crisis!’ which sums up me reading this whole series.

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Volume 3 by Hideyuku Furuhashi: Volume 2 of this series was an absolute goddamn mess but this volume? Wow. My review if you want to read me lose my mind. Some spoilers for extra content and some characters, but it’s not really overly spoiling plot points.

No.6 Volume 5 by Atsuko Asano: I have gone on so many spiels to my best friend about how amazing this series is. It honestly deserves recognition for being a very thought provoking and character driven dystopian, the character development is truly a work of art and I wish I could write a world and dynamics as well as Atsuko Asano does.

3) NEW RELEASE YOU HAVEN’T READ YET, BUT WANT TO?

I can’t really give much information on these seeing as I haven’t read them, so sorry everyone!

Teen Titans: Raven by Kami Garcia: I confess, I am getting this because of Gabriel’s artwork. I’ve been a huge fan for a while now, so it just felt right to have this in my collection, especially considering I want to learn more about the Titans.

Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner: Very mixed reviews on this one, but oh well!

The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman: Everyone and their mother is talking about this book, honestly.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling: It’s like a space survival story but with these weird zombie creatures? I’ll be going for the audiobook with this one.

4) MOST ANTICIPATED RELEASE FOR THE SECOND HALF OF THE YEAR?

I made a whole post about this that I worked very hard on so please check it out, but I guess I’ll include the only three I’ve been able to pre-order.

Tunnel of Bones by Victoria Schwab: This is the sequel to City of Ghosts, a middle-grade horror story I really love, and I’m looking forward to this one even more as it’s set in the catacombs of Paris!

Who Put This Song On? by Morgan Parker: Several people have described this as having some of the best mental health rep in young adult fiction, so I’ll be reading this for my dissertation that I’m starting in January.

The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen: I reallllly love the podcast this is based on (The Bright Sessions, also created by Lauren) and Adam and Caleb are my absolute favourites, so this book is my JAM.

5) BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT?

BOY DO I HAVE A LOT OF THESE. one of the cons of reading so much is that I end up being disappointed by significantly more books than others do, which sucks, but I honestly don’t find myself hating the reading experience. Even if i hate the book, for me, tearing it apart can become fun!

Slam Volume 1 by Pamela Ribon: I love roller derby, but the characters and the lack of narrative in this volume really didn’t do it for me. Maybe if more time was spent making sense of plot at the start I’d have enjoyed it, but there were so many time jumps I stopped caring.

It Only Happens in the Movies by Holly Bourne: One day UKYA readers are gonna have to sit down and properly talk about how the first maybe 5 years of the decade were spent crowning titles and writers as the leads of UKYA despite the fact that their books aren’t really good. They contain thinly-veiled misogyny, really bad writing that uses chat speak in-text as if it’s normal, stereotyping of characters (they really love the bitchy mean girl trope) and what the kids would call racism that doesn’t explicitly state it’s racism, like, say, dropping slurs or having outwardly racist beliefs, but when a character says someone ‘might be Asian or Jewish’ and then laughs about it and never addresses it again, you kind of guess it’s some kind of internalised racism nobody feels comfortable addressing.

Trouble by Non Pratt: SEE ABOVE, only this one has the most terribly written step-incest subplot that never properly gets resolved or treated with the disgust it deserves!

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne: Weird possessive vibes, references to stalking, and shitty love triangles. This received the best rating of the bunch (3), but the general disappointment I feel is at the continued inclusion of uncomfortably possessive male love interests dehumanizing and treating women like they are better seen not heard in romance fiction. Tessa Dare doesn’t treat me like this!

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham: This one is less hate, more just disappointment. I was so bored reading this, honestly, it feels unbearably long, and the romance is so unneeded and dull.

  6) BIGGEST SURPRISE?

The Unsound by Cullen Bunn: I’ve learnt that my opinion on generally negatively rated comics and graphic novels is going to completely differ. This is very surreal, with a lot of graphic self harm and violence, and will definitely not be for everyone, but I very much enjoy it!

Sweet Blue Flowers Volume 1 by Takako Shimura: I literally heard about this, ordered the first volume day-of, and then read it as soon as it arrived and loved it. It’s predominantly a slice-of-life/romance following sapphic teenage girls!

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan: Everytime I think of this I feel soft. For a fantasy this is very easy to read, with snappy dialogue and a lot of wit from our main character. What surprised me most, however, was how deep and introspective it got exposing the fears of our main character, something not enough portal fantasies spend time doing, and I’m really grateful to have read this book!

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay: Can you really be surprised if you go into a book with no expectations? I knew vague details about plot, and a brief allusion to a dollhouse in a review I happened to scroll past, and I ended up loving this.

Lazaretto by Clay McLeod Chapman: This is an absolutely horrifying comic about a flesh eating virus that breaks out during the first few weeks of college and sends the campus into complete lockdown. It’s honestly tragic, and does not have a happy ending, but I love it? I usually hate endings that are bad for our main characters, but everything about this just really wrapped me in a blanket- horrified me, sure, yet it was weirdly comforting.

The Past and Other Things that Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson: Again, I saw one person praise this book and listened to the audiobook immediately after and really enjoyed it. It’s very moving with some main characters that will test your patience but you’ll end up loving.

7) FAVOURITE NEW AUTHOR?

Paul Tremblay and Michael McDowell!

8) NEWEST FICTIONAL CRUSH?

Kirie in Uzumaki by Junji Ito! Makoto in My Hero Academia: Vigilantes! Charlotte Holmes in A Study in Charlotte! I’m noticing these are all women, which is kind of on brand for me.

9) NEWEST FAVOURITE CHARACTER?

Seeing as all my crushes are on women, I’ll try and pick some other favourites here! I’ve really fallen in love with Tensei Iida in My Hero Academia and eternally love Thirteen, Teen Dog in Teen Dog, Shion in No.6 (the character development!!!!), and basically the whole cast of The Avant-Guards by Carly Usdin! Tom in the Memoirs of Lady Trent series has really grown on me after book one, too.

10) BOOK THAT MADE YOU CRY?

BOY. I cry a lot. I cried reading Winnie the Pooh, which I finally picked up all the stories of earlier this year; Neverworld Wake; the Save Me Webtoon, a great webcomic based off of the BTS music video continuity; I Want To Eat Your Pancreas by Yoru Sumino, which beat me over the head with a frying pan while I was distracted. Sheets by Brenna Thummler didn’t make me cry but it did make me incredibly sad.

11) BOOK THAT MADE YOU HAPPY?

A lot of what I read makes me happy! There’s Super Fun Sexy Times by Meredith McClaren, a small collection of 5 stories based on the sex lives of different superheroes/villains/etc.; My Love Story by Kazune Kawahara which makes me eternally happy and soft every time I pick up a volume; In Other Lands, which, while sad at times, is also very funny and has my exact brand of humour; and there’s the Haikyuu!! manga series, which I love and adore and all the characters are hilarious, even while being serious.

12) FAVOURITE BOOK TO MOVIE ADAPTATION?

I haven’t really seen any? Does Boys Over Flowers count if I haven’t read the manga OR finished the show yet? Either way, Boys Over Flowers is great and so melodramatic. If you push through the drama and very strange and problematic behaviour, it’s honestly got a cute romance between two tsundere people and enough stupid hair to giggle at.

13) FAVOURITE REVIEW YOU’VE WRITTEN?

LOOOADS! I’m very proud of my reviews this year, and it seems like a lot of them are horror!

my review of haunting of hill house by shirley jackson

my review of a head full of ghosts by paul tremblay

my review of the elementals by michael mcdowell

my review of meddling kids, where i discussed harmful stereotypes and tropes within horror fiction

three horror reviews: this is not a test, the silent companions, uzumaki

my review of poetry book shame is an ocean i swim across, where i discuss body image issues

14) MOST BEAUTIFUL BOOK YOU BOUGHT THIS YEAR?

  Other Words For Smoke by Sarah Maria Griffin! It’s really pretty and has beautiful pink sprayed edges, and I absolutely love the owl in the background. I think the mix of pink and gold on the cover is so striking, too, it really is a book that stands out.

      15) WHAT BOOKS DO YOU NEED TO READ BY 2020?

I actually have a Summer 2019 TBR if you want loads of information on everything I plan on reading.

However, other than all the books I kind of have to read for my first semester back at University, I really want to read Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz and When the Truth Unravels by RuthAnne Snow.

What would you pick for these questions? Please let me know in the comments if you made a post of this tag, I’d love to read them!

Thank you for reading!

If you liked this post, consider buying me a coffee? Ko-Fi. 

I also currently have a GoFundMe set up to help fund my third year of University, so any stray pound helps ❤

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Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag! This is a tag I always see making its rounds on YouTube and in the blogsphere, and while I don't do many tags anymore (