#either that or the witch narrative is finally getting me

[pochapal]

gonna be honest i hadn't even really thought about a master key until now. that's...hm.

[sepublic]

            I find it interesting that even in the epilogue, four years after Camila has had time to be more acquainted with the Boiling Isles under non-threatening circumstances, she’s still creeped out by it. And this is fine! The narrative isn’t condemning her for it. It’s not demanding that she enjoy these things like Luz does; It’s just asking for her to respect its existence, and to support Luz’s interest in it and love her too.

            In For the Future, we see Camila horrified by what she encounters in the Boiling Isles; But she also spends the whole episode pushing through it anyway for Luz’s sake, being there for her as much as she can. Because she knows these are just feelings and nothing more, and she’s choosing to be kind in spite of them.

            By contrast, in this same episode we find out Belos does feel empathy and guilt towards his brother and nephew, he wasn’t purely 100% only interested in what they could do for him; And yet, he’s still just as cruel and violent towards them. He’s still cruel and violent towards witches and demons, sometimes using the ‘tragedy’ of Caleb as a justification. Hell, he even resents the ghosts for making him feel guilty, telling them to “Shut up.”

            Isn’t that fascinating? Disgust is portrayed as a morally neutral thing. It’s not an indictator of morality, it doesn’t mean something is bad… But it doesn’t mean the person who feels it is bad, either, people don’t consider that enough. It’s just a gut reaction. Sometimes people have internalized biases they need to work through, but other times, it’s pretty harmless as long as they’re self-aware and don’t do anything bad over it; This even applies to the process of unlearning the aforementioned biases.

            Likewise, empathy and guilt don’t actually, necessarily make you a good person. The example with Belos shows how some people will actually be crueler because of empathy, because they resent people for being upset, and thus making them feel upset because they naturally empathize. Hence those who get angry at people in pain and need for “ruining their vibe,” because now they feel bad too.

            There’s a juxtaposition in how Camila seems genuinely more scared and creeped out by the isles on a visceral level than Belos, and yet Camila has the common sense to still respect and fight for its existence; Whereas Belos chooses to make a mountain out of a molehill because it’s not just hatred, it’s pride. It all boils down to his ego at the end of the day. In many ways, other characters struggle with dilemmas more difficult than Belos’, yet still do better than he ever has.

            This all plays into my thesis that TOH is arguing your feelings are secondary to your actions, and that the latter is what decides whether you’re a “good” person or not. In the end, someone who’s had a good life and was a dick for selfish reasons, only to choose to be better, is more sympathetic and morally superior than someone who suffered a million unfair grievances, and proceeded to dole out a million unfair grievances, with no sign of stopping; Especially from an IRL perspective, and I think our IRL feelings sometimes influence how we engage with media, and vice-versa.

            That’s why the finale –and the show as a whole– emphasizes choices, over inherent, instinctual feelings. A decent chunk of Camila’s arc could be summarized by the word Squick; In the sense that it’s meant to describe things that one feels personal disgust and discomfort towards, but otherwise has no moral condemnation or problem with; It’s just a Me thing, is the point of Squick. Camila is like that sex-repulsed ace who nevertheless supports kink at Pride.

            That gets me to how my ruminations were prompted by a similar observation; How some people lump sex-repulsed aces in with the oppressive Puritans who hate sex in anything, but that’s not true at all. Obviously there’s the rare Exception, but as a whole, sex-repulsed aces are on the side of other queers who ARE sexual and are demanding to let these things be normalized; It’s not for them, but they have no moral condemnation and will fight for it in solidarity anyway, especially since both are hated by the system regardless. Sound familiar?

[mintnoodles]

Spectre's new chapter was so interesting as an ending for the story the player and her weaved. Rambling and spoilers for Slay the Princess' arching narrative, Spectre's route and her new chapter under the cut. Tiny mention of Witch's unique Ch 3.

It is SO fun seeing how things are from the Princess' POV, both in general and for how you got to this third chapter!

'The Princess and the Dragon' (PatD) is the perfect title. It's so clever to have her come first. She's the protagonist, this time, of either a tragedy or a nice tale of redemption. Rather, if you leave together, you've played a route where she's the one who rizzes you.

To get to this point, you (or TLQ) have to be the Princess' villain. You're seen as cold and opportunistic to her. You come in and kill her with no hesitation. Then, after she dies she's wary but tries to reason with you to come to her POV, only for you to betray her and kill her. You've been antagonistic to her all the times you knew her (but not enough for her to give up on you!) A villainous dragon with potential to turn face.

Some players might not see their roleplay that way (understandably, this is a videogame and people try to pick options that seem right to them). I remember being suspicious of the Spectre the first time, because uh. She's a spooky ghost wanting to takeover your body. In a lot of routes she's highly antagonistic to you too! You might be open to hearing the Princess, but still tend towards mistrusting her words. PatD turns that reflexive distrust around and continues the Princess' attempts to have you see her perspective (just wanting to go home, not being happy with her killer) by literally making you see things from her perspective.

First of all, after the strife and violence of Ch II, this lovely track plays.

With the strings and wind instruments, it sounds peaceful, airy, a little playful, like a new beginning. It sets the stage for when you and the Princess wake up, alone together. It's one of the few times in the game you can just talk with each other, no Narrator to interrupt or filter the world. And it's fun seeing them get along. To TLQ, this is the Princess you've distrusted and killed twice, and now you've realised she's charming, and it feels right to be together.

And then your body traipses down the stairs, slowly coming into view. And the Princess describes it like it's routine: the sound of the blade, and the thump, thump, thump of a horror monster arriving. That's not a Hero, that's her Dragon. Opportunity gives you a freakish grin and dangles the blade. Surprise! You actually get to see yourself, after just little glimpses and shadows and mirrors that go away too quick.

The player/TLQ realises they're terrifying. You're at the behest of an inscrutable monster who decides what he'll do to you. You have to wait and hope for ages while the monster's voices talk back and forth and back and forth to come to a decision to kill you, with a knife twirled in his hands. That's what you've been for Spectre, and she still gave you a chance.

When you return to your body, you can choose to finally drop the knife. If you do, the writing cheekily points out that it's your big symbolic moment. For the story, that's Spectre finally winning you over. You reflected on what you've done and seen her perspective. To me, it really felt like you were playing a narrative 'obstacle' for Spectre to tackle. It's a counterpart to those routes where TLQ works to leave the cabin with the Princess. In a few of those, you offer your hand first. IIRC, here it's Spectre who holds her hand out to you. She's even got enough narrative agency to chuck the knife herself. It's a neat perspective to round things out. You're Spectre's Thorn route.

And I think it's a nice angle to look at relationships. This is one where you listen and take a hard look at yourself and the assumption you're right/the hero. If you don't, you hurt yourself too :]

[dear-kumari]

Okay, topical Malevolent ep 44 reaction. Based on the wiki, it looks like the characters' choices to not return to the windmill and to get the witch's body were made by voting patrons, which further convinces me that the votes don't improve or even significantly change the story most of the time. Whenever Jorthur (yes, Jorthur) make a Patreon decision they usually have to justify it in-universe with a little debate, and besides just being kinda tedious, the justification often doesn't line up with the story's action. The patrons understandably wanted to explore the hallways over the windmill, which was justified in-universe by saying Arthur was too weak and injured to climb back there. But then the only interesting loot on offer is a piece of the witch, and once they chose that there's suddenly a big pool in the way and the world's most stabbed man suddenly has incredible lung capacity (I checked, he's underwater for 3:20 minutes and is yelling as they're launched out) and can swim with a metal breastplate on and cut through limbs once he's down there. He even conveniently brought all his shit with him despite the potential for water damage, so they didn't lose their inventory by being unexpectedly spat out. (John doesn't even sound like he's all that worried about him drowning either lol, though that's a separate issue of him being a slow horror podcast narrator first and an active character second.)

I understand why you would gamify a story loosely based on a role-playing campaign, but as someone who already doesn't get the appeal of listening to other people play TTRPGs, I struggle to imagine what the patrons get out of this (besides financially supporting a show they like, obvi). It's not really like a role-playing game because you don't control everything the protagonists do or have the context you need to make the best decisions (in this case, the characters know they dumped the witch in a deep pool, but the patrons probably didn't), nor is it really like a choose-your-own-adventure story because you don't get to try the alternate paths and everything will lead back to the author's planned narrative anyway. It's good for the story but presumably not much fun for the players that the author has an outline and an ending set in stone iirc.

Since someone could see this and go "well here's when the voting really worked for me," I did want to be fair and find an instance where the voting mechanism (probably) led to a good story choice. I like that the seemingly innocuous choice to ring the doorbell in ep 33 leads Arthur to realize that he fucked up several episodes prior by leaving his name at the hotel. That was a nice reveal, and maybe the lack of context actually made the vote more fun. It would have been revealed either way by Daniel being shot at the door, but ig Arthur stopping him before he opened it saved his life or something, idk. It feels pointless to speculate on when we're never going to see what happens if he knocks. Ultimately the difference between that and ep 44 to me, a non-patron, is just that Arthur fucking up by trying to be smart and realizing it at the last second is a good story beat, one with a clear line between cause and effect. Jorthur faffing about in the halls when they apparently could've just left through the windmill and then diving with armor on to mutilate a woman's corpse because the author is on a birth imagery kick is not.

Uhh other thoughts, I guess I am pretty glad they're finally out of the weird yonic caverns, even if I can tell that Jorthur entering civilization will lead to more ~historical liberties~ that will cause me actual pain. The voice acting is great as always. I like Yorick. I don't like that we're getting more dad!Arthur moments because come on. Also personally I would not have named the cute owl sidekick after the heavily implied CSA victim with no voice or agency from Oscar's grimdark edgyboy backstory, but that's just me

[downtroddendeity]

@turnkeyassurance saw your tags and figured I'd take the opportunity to pause my descent into madness to give my more sober opinions on the Ni no Kuni franchise, lol. (Warning: I am a humongous JRPG nerd)

The NNK games are really odd ducks, quality-wise. You can call either one a good game or a bad game and call either one better than the other, and any combination of those opinions can be something I think is entirely justified. Both of them have things they do remarkably well and also serious, profound, deal-breaking flaws, and the really weird thing is that there's almost no overlap between those two lists for the two games. What clicks and doesn't about both of them is going to be deeply individual.

What Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch does, with resounding success, is Vibes. It sets out at every single step with the goal of being a playable Ghibli movie, and it sticks to that principle. It's all about beautiful, cel-shaded whimsy. It's a game for people who want to feel like they're wandering through the meadows in the movie version of Howl's Moving Castle. There are lots of puns, and you can befriend all the random encounter monsters and feed them ice cream.

But that's also its Achilles' heel: because it's dedicated entirely to imitation, it has trouble bringing things to the table that are really its own. It has the visual and narrative aesthetics of Hayao Miyazaki's films, but it doesn't have the raw emotion at the heart of them. And as a game, its mechanics combine the clunkiest features of menu-based combat and action RPGs, and while everything about the Pokemon-esque mechanics seems designed to encourage players to collect and experiment with them, the balancing turns attempting to do that into a miserable grindy nightmare.

The other problem is that it... isn't actually the first Ni no Kuni game. Wrath of the White Witch is, in fact, a remake of the Nintendo DS game Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn, which was never released outside Japan. The reason for this is pretty easy to explain, because DDD had another gimmick besides its aesthetics: it came with a real-life physical copy of the wizard spellbook, and the player had to look things up in it and draw sigils on the DS touchscreen to cast spells. So, we've got a high-effort remake that had to completely cut the central mechanic... and which also expanded the plot so that the original main villain was no longer the primary antagonist. This results in a game with what is very clearly a final dungeon and very clearly a final boss and very clearly a resolution to the story, which suddenly has a completely different plot dropped on it like a fucking anvil that it expects you to be just as invested in even though it hasn't had anything like the same level of buildup.

And ironically, this is almost the exact opposite of the biggest problem with Ni no Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom, a.k.a. the one with my new blorbo, the President of the United Union of Eagleland. 2 is an effort to try to cement an identity for the series that can be its own, rather than requiring them to depend indefinitely on borrowed Miyazaki nostalgia. It just has the teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy problem that at some point in development it had a budget shortfall so bad that you can finish the game without ever realizing that there is a continent-sized crashed interdimensional spaceship on the world map.

This game has had a machete taken to it. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely respect the work they did to make what they could with what they had, but you can see the signs of massive scope cuts to literally every aspect of the game. The back half of the game has almost exclusively recycled enemy and environment assets; voice acting has been trimmed down to canned voice clips; the catboy protagonist's ears and tail are barely animated; one minigame was so inadequately playtested that a level 16 mission is massively harder than level 50 ones; and while whatever restructuring they had to do to the main plot still left the final version with a more solid and coherent central arc than WWW in my opinion, it also left a lot of truly gaping plot holes, like oh, I don't know, why the President of the United States got turned into a 19-year-old.

Literally, they just. Entirely forgot to explain that. Half the DLC is just the writers scrambling to fix stuff like that and add a bunch of character development that should have been in the base game.

However, despite all this, I personally enjoyed NNK2 more than NNK1 unironically, not just for Rolandposting reasons. Compared to the first one, it plays much more smoothly as a straight action RPG, and while it can't provide the same knock-your-socks-off aesthetic cohesion, to me it seemed a lot more heartfelt- that is, like a game that was made because people had a story they wanted to tell.

But, well, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the non-unironic reasons, because the story they really, genuinely wanted to tell was about a magical catboy growing up and learning to become a leader, and somehow, miraculously, they really thought that was the story I was here for too when they opened the game with the President of the United States being isekaied by Nuke-kun.

Sorry, guys, I have a crippling addiction to dramatic irony and my day job is tech work in local politics, you could not have more laser-targeted this at making me specifically laugh my ass off if you tried.

[marta-diablo]

Any small child catching sight of Noel Fielding of The Mighty Boosh in his clown gear would vow never to go to the circus again. Fielding’s torso is encased in a green felt globe, his hands protruding helplessly from the bottom. From beneath lurid make-up, he flashes a deeply unsettling grin, as if auditioning for the role of a psychopathic killer in Test Card: The Movie. “I’m just popping out for some coffee,” he deadpans. “Does anybody want anything?”

His Booshmate Julian Barratt, who currently looks like the victim of back-alley gender reassignment surgery, brushes his new blond tresses away from his face and sighs. “What a job, eh?”

When the duo decided to pose as the pair from the 1970s TV test card, it didn’t take long to decide who should play which part. If you want make-up and a manic grin, Fielding’s your man. He arrives at the studio resembling a time-travelling glam-rock star: pointy boots, snug red trousers, tight T-shirt, pendant shaped like a Flying Vee guitar, alarming bone structure. In one episode of their TV series, Barratt tells Fielding, “Look at you - feather cut, the pointy features. Put you in the 1950s, you’d be imprisoned for being a witch. They’d lock you in a trunk!” He’s probably right.

Barratt carries himself like someone trying to elude capture. It’s this wary unease that defined his performance as misanthropic style journalist Dan Ashcroft in Nathan Barley, Chris Morris’s Channel 4 comedy series. Morris wanted Dan to be someone who “wasn’t really comfortable in his skin”. I ask Barratt if Dan is a version of his own personality and he looks mildly wounded. “Not really, no. There were elements of me - it’s sometimes painful to be around people who are annoying - but Dan was a bit of a tit. I didn’t really like him.”

The Mighty Boosh have already completed two successful BBC series and are currently working on a third. Fielding, 33, thinks comedy is about allowing people to feel young again. “When you’re really laughing, you feel like a little kid and nothing matters. Everyone’s trying to feel as free as they were when they were kids.” Barratt, 38, seems to regard comedy’s inner workings as an imponderable mystery. “You still don’t know why you’re funny, do you?” Fielding says. “Not really,” Barratt sighs.

After almost a decade of working together, the pair are obviously close. When the camera’s not pointed in their direction, they huddle on the studio sofa in earnest conference punctuated by giggles. There is much to discuss: “We’ve got so many things we want to do and we need a basket to put them all in,” explains Barrett. “A structural basket.”

Fielding has a different metaphor. “We know when we’ve got enough ideas. If we haven’t and we try to write, it’s a bit weird. It’s like loading a gun and not having enough bullets.”

They first met in 1996, when Fielding went to see Barratt doing stand-up in High Wycombe. There had been less auspicious nights. Barratt recalls, “I ran off stage at my first gig. Halfway through it, I forgot my lines and didn’t know what to do, so I just ran out of the building down towards a lake. I was going to throw myself in, but the compere came out and said, 'No, it’s going well, come back and finish the gig!’ ”

The two share enthusiasms (Captain Beefheart, Monty Python, Mr Benn) and Barratt launched their collaboration by asking Fielding if he wanted to write the new Goodies. “We wanted to be a gang rather than a sketch troupe,” he says. From the start, their combination of absurdist wit, far-fetched narratives and bizarre musical interludes was the stuff of cult success. Audiences either entered their world and found them the funniest thing around, or they didn’t get them at all. “We used to have to convince people we were funny,” Barratt says, “and it didn’t always work.”

It did, however, work well enough to earn them nominations or awards at three consecutive Edinburgh festivals. A radio series followed and they finally made it to the nation’s TV screens in 2004. Earlier this year, they returned to touring. They get offers all the time, but having got this far on their own idiosyncratic terms, they have no desire to work according to anyone else’s.

“If Tim Burton called up and said, 'I’m making a film about two white Americans who go and become Red Indians’, I’m sure we’d jump at the chance,” Fielding says. “But if it’s, 'Do you want to be in this sitcom that’s a bit like Coupling?’ I’d rather shoot myself.”

When did you first find something really funny?

Noel Fielding: My nan used to look after me in the summer holidays and she had a cat with one eye. It used to walk into walls and tables. I used to think it was hilarious. It was a slapstick cat.

Who are your comedy inspirations?

Julian Barrett: I loved the Goodies’ sense of adventure.

NF: The Young Ones was the first thing I really liked. I was so young I didn’t really know what students were. I just thought they were some men who lived in a house.

What’s not funny?

JB: Cancer?

NF: It can be, though, can’t it?

JB: Yeah, sometimes a tumour will make me laugh.

When did you last laugh?

NF: I laugh all the time. I’m slightly simple. I went to a festival in Cambridge last weekend and there were men standing on a wheelchair and getting their friends to push them down a muddy hill and really hurting themselves. One of them had a fur coat, a dress underneath, massive boots and a witch’s hat. It was so stupid that everyone was laughing at them. It was quite freeing, actually.

What’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to you?

NF: Once I got stuck in a suit of armour. I had to be a knight in Al Murray’s show for two minutes. I had a gig afterwards and there was no one there backstage, so I couldn’t get out of it. I had to run next door and do the gig in a suit of armour. Al thought it was the best thing ever. “You should do that every night! It’s brilliant!” he said.

What’s the secret of comedy?

JB: The secret of comedy is don’t grow up. That’s why some comedians are a nightmare, because they never grow up.

Tell us a joke

NF: You stop hearing proper jokes when you’re a comedian. I’m always slightly disappointed by real jokes. There’s a lot of pressure to understand them and laugh at them. Occasionally we come up with a proper joke by accident and we almost apologise.

· The Mighty Boosh debut live DVD is released on November 13.

x

[munchkinmarauder]

So I'm reading What If Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker were siblings and I find myself disappointed- this book is probably just not for me. Shame I really wanted to like it and I recognise the landmark significance of having a writer of Roma decent finally write Wanda. It's a wonderful thing and I hope it opens more doors for the writer and for Roma and other minority creators to write minority characters. However, reading this I have mixed feelings. I've got some thoughts under the cut (spoilers).

I'll give this book a 4/10 but it's treatment of Pietro and other non American characters has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm a massive Pietro fan and a fan of both twins so I may be biased. I hope others can get more out of this book than me. It definitely has it's good points that I can see winning it some fans.

Let's just say this is a YA book that reads very YA. I can definitely see the appeal for fans, especially of Spiderman. Wanda is the main character though little of her lore gets used and her relationships are destroyed. The author does make a genuine and really nice effort to respect and call focus to Wanda's heritage and the disconnect of being an American adoptee.and there are some nice mentions of Django but it all gets undercut by the author harping on about how wonderful Aunt May is for introducing Wanda to him.

I do encourage people to pick this book up and form their own opinions. If you are a fan of the MCU and Spiderman comics you'll probably walk away happy and have mixed feelings as a comic Wanda fan (Quicksilver fans and fans of the twins relationship just save yourself the trouble and not read this book trust me!). Maybe wait till it's cheaper though as it's a lot of money to spend on something you might not like - I'm planning on returning or donating my copy because I walked away feeling cheated.

The book however is very American and Wanda is emphasised to be American. The American characters are largely good and the foreigners with foreign accents largely bad. Other Romani characters are either cameos or evil. If your a fan of Pietro and the twins relationship just don't pick this up.

Basically as long as Wanda has a brother with a similar name to Pietro she'll be fine, her bond with her twin can just be superimposed onto other characters. It negates the importance of one of the most important sibling relationships in comics and reads like Magneto's letter to the twins in Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (except where the reader believes that Orlando meant for Magneto to be unironically right). It feels a little dirty and like it's there to serve Peter Parker and give him a win rather than Wanda. Anything meaningful that could have been said about the twins relationship is instead given to Peter.

Making Pietro a one dimensional evil twin was a very boaring and very overdone take. Writers love to make Pietro evil despite the characters history and it never has been done well (as has the evil twin trope in general) and has always been immediately walked back in the comics for a reason.

And while I definitely don't think the author intended it this way, having Wanda have zero interest (Pietro is treated terribly by his sister, the other characters and the narrative from the second he appears or is mentioned) and reject her "evil foreign" family in favour of her "wonderful white American" family has some unfortunate implications.

Wanda also rarely accomplishes anything for herself. The 616 Wanda learns magic on her own, immigrates to America with her brother, builds her own community and reclaims a racist name thrown at her. She works hard and everything she accomplished was her own. In this book everything she accomplishes is because of Peter, Ben and May - they find her a Romani community, she doesn't seem it out on her own, they take her to strange who is souly responsible for teaching her magic and tells her everything she needs to do. Wanda is super passive in this book.

No hate to the writer though. I do think their talented and they have acknowledged they know people will be unhappy with some of the takes in the book. I respect what they've created even if I don't personally like it.

https://x.com/MunchkinM17/status/1828490359682298342

[bestworstcase]

slowly points at tai. and glynda.

when glinda lays siege to the emerald city, she demands that mombi be delivered into her custody lest she take the city by force. mombi’s first trick is to cast a spell on herself and jellia jamb to switch their appearances, and jellia in the guise of mombi is handed over to glinda. the trick is soon discovered and glinda performs a counterspell, revealing jellia’s true appearance (and mombi’s as well, within the emerald city).

mombi’s second trick is to transform herself into a red rose, hiding in the palace gardens. jinjur invites glinda and her allies into the emerald city to search for mombi, under the condition that if they do not find her by nightfall, they must leave in peace. mombi is, in the end, discovered by accident: the tin woodsman plucks the rose on a whim and carries her out with him.

mombi is a bad sorceress from the northern country of gillikins, whose color is. purple. rwby’s ozian narrative doesn’t track the color-coding exactly (atlas, winkie country, is white) but it’s close enough for glynda being Conspicuously Purple to stand out—good witch of the north, and her name is both a nod to the conflation of these two characters in pop culture and a misdirection away from glinda. witch of the north. mombi.

the key players in vale right now are:

salem (glinda)

cinder (???)

summer (jinjur)

taiyang (jellia)

glynda (witch of the north)

with the twist of course being that this jinjur is working for glinda (and she might be doubling the role of woodsman for this final leg of the story, given that ironwood is dead and summer has an axe and the obvious connection to a certain red rose). and glinda isn’t looking for a witch, she’s looking for a crown. but the particulars are the same; we have a witch advancing on the fortress in pursuit of her goal and another witch standing in her way.

now. obviously

glynda isn’t an illusionist. and it remains to be seen whether this misdirection plays out narratively versus just being a more meta red herring. but. it does seem to me that the narrative choice to emphasize that we don’t know what “things” tai is “looking after” in vale while at the same time providing enough details about what glynda has been doing in vale to look like a completed picture, is priming the audience to jump to a certain conclusion (tai must be guarding the crown) that masks what’s really going on (glynda is the crown’s guardian and tai is up to summer rose related things).

i.e., the jellia <=> mombi swap.

with summer/jinjur being on salem’s side, if this red herring unfolds narratively, the obvious way to do it is for summer to believe that tai knows where the vault is hidden (and that raises the very juicy possibility that she might be, er, stringing him along in hope of cajoling the location out of him, which would be very ozmacore of her). meanwhile glynda is the one who removed it from beacon and buried it under that “ruined temple” after summer disappeared, and glynda wisely disappears herself after salem razes vale.

THEN… sooner or later salem wrings the truth out of tai that he doesn’t fucking know anything and by then glynda has reconvened with ruby rose et al in vacuo: you get glinda’s pursuit of mombi to the desert at the end of oz and the woodsman jinjur finding the red rose roles neatly into one plot point, and straight up not being able to find the vault gives team salem an incentive to try… or well, keep trying new things, because salem is already at a point where she found out the lamp wasn’t out of questions and immediately tried to pry the "password" out of oz/oscar.

like it does… all track quite well except for the rather thorny question of how cinder figures in all this. if summer isn’t doubling up on jinjur + the woodsman, then the intuitive character to step into that role is cinder—and that might be setting up either a cinder vs glynda rematch in vale (if the red rose is a plot beat) or a reckoning between cinder and ruby in vacuo (if the red rose is ruby learning, from glynda, where the vault is hidden). which is also interesting. but cinder’s also an odd fit for the woodsman across the board, whereas summer clicks neatly into the role.

it’s possible that cinder just Doesn’t Have a part in the ozian narrative, period—she’s tied very, very strongly to the maiden-in-tower narrative because that’s what the cinderella narrative is repeating, and for salem the ozian narrative is the tower. so it makes a certain narrative sense for cinder to not be in the tower, because she’s instrumental in getting salem out of it; she holds the key to the door.

(i do really seriously wonder if the choice spirit won’t be an old woman—like mombi, like the maiden’s mother-captor, and also because it would be hysterical for the contrast to jinn and ambrosius. choice as persinette’s fairy + part of mombi in particular is sort of compelling, given her inevitable connection to cinder and the probable importance of choice in liberating ozma from oscar)

but it’s also odd and leaves cinder with a lack of things to do in vale, which is another reason i think she might bounce and then return.

[klonnieshippersclub]

Hi Rikki. If Bonnie doesn't like vampires and Klaus doesn't like witches in canon, how do they make sense as a couple?

Long post warning: I think it's important to note that Bonnie doesn't hate vampires and never has. She hates the bloodshed and violation of humanity that comes with vampires. If anything, Bonnie does hate killers. When she meets Kai and finds out he murdered his family, she immediately has a problem with him.

Bonnie’s entire arc was not about hating vampires. Now why is this change ignored by the fandom? Well, who knows. Bonnie has never outright attacked any vampire simply for being one. Just those who were causing harm to her friends or have hurt her directly. Fans don’t try to acknowledge Bonnie and write her off as a vampire hater for 8 seasons. When Bonnie accepted vampirism from ALL her friends. She places their own emotional-needs and wellbeing before her own but that isn’t enough for fans. Bonnie’s emotions are defined as irritating and judgmental when the entire show is about humanizing vampires.

Bonnie doesn't have the luxury like Caroline and Elena to flirt with murderous vampires. Until the very end of the show in season 7 with Enzo at that time Bonnie she claims Damon is her bestfriend. That’s before Elena and Caroline. There’s issues there as well but I won’t get into that. Yet even with the hypothetical thought of Bamon there’s still this continuous negativity directed on Bonnie’s end. Julie insulted Elena just to prove a point. The Bamon Ban existed and it was real. It may have applied to Bamon but with the writer being so vocal about their dislike for Bonnie it meshed with all Bonnie ships.

Klaus hated what his mother did to him and his siblings. He hated his mother for binding his wolf side. The blame for those actions has been to his parents only. There was a never a moment in canon where Klaus blamed anyone else but his parents for what happened to him and his siblings. Bonnie is a witch just like Esther, but why would Klaus hold her accountable for something she did not do. Bonnie wasn’t even alive when Esther did that! It’s ridiculous take to think Klaus would blame Bonnie for his trauma and would not like her because she’s a witch like his mother. Bonnie is NOT Klaus mother and has never been in a maternal position to Klaus. Notice this claim and outright refusal doesn’t exist when people discuss Stefan and Klaus friendship. Stefan wanted revenge for what Klaus had done and they’re still well liked. Caroline can celebrate Klaus death in season 3 and fuck him in season 5 they’re one of the most popular ships. No questions on either of these but it’s Bonnie that people have such a huge issue getting over when it comes to Klonnie shipping. For a ship that is so small and limited in canon there’s always a fan commenting on how “disgusting” and “illogical” the ship is.

Klaus had allies in witches like Gloria, Greta, Genevieve and Maddox. He’s had sex with both Greta and Genevieve who are witches like his mother. Freya is a witch, Hope is a witch. Klaus did not wake up everyday blaming and hating these other women for the actions of his parents. So I must ask again, why would he turn to Bonnie and hate her simply for being a witch? Doesn’t make sense to me. In 2x17 Isobel and Katherine discuss Klaus and witches. Klaus was abandoned by Ansel he still slept with werewolves like Hayley or Lana.

The fandom places rules and regulations on Bonnie because the writers did. I’ve given enough evidence to prove that Klaus would be willing to date anyone despite his parental trauma, as would Bonnie if she is given the affection and chance too. The problem will forever rely in the writers and the fans who continue to push these narratives. A ship so little like Klonnie shouldn’t have many fans arguing about how disgusting and gross it is. Why is shipping Bonnie with Klaus (or any non-canon character) disgusting but none of the canon white centered relationships get this type of reaction. Finally, if the series kept up with Klaus taste in witches the only woman who matches the woman Klaus was intimate with at that time would be Bonnie.

[thefirstknife]

I'm very scared for Saint and Osiris. I don't want anything to happen to them but the talk of "finally have our time together" and the "I love you" lines are lighting up my death flag radar and I have never wanted to be getting the wrong vibes on a character death more.

Sometimes this can be true, but I don't think it's true for Destiny. It's just not the theme of the story, especially not for these two. There's really no purpose that either of their deaths would serve besides pointless angst which is not something that fits within the narrative or the theme or the vibe of the story so far.

There's a lot of tragedy happening in Destiny, sure, but it's never pointless tragedy without something to say or without a theme. We would really gain nothing story-wise if these characters died; not after they've been given essentially a conclusion and a place in the setting where they can settle down.

I would not worry about Saint and Osiris being in danger. Obviously anything is possible in the story and anything can be made to fit the story somehow, but I genuinely do not think this is something they would seriously plan for.

Osiris' arc in particular this year has been all about him overcoming grief and working through his loss and trauma, to realising that his past behaviour would've led him down the same path Maya Sundaresh went to. This realisation shocked him to the core and made him understand that he has to let go of his obsessions and not put himself and his loved ones into the same position Maya left Chioma in. So I don't think that he would do something reckless that would put him in danger. He seems to be very firmly set on helping and doing what he can, but not going too far in a way that would hurt him and Saint.

I felt for Eris in a similar way back in Witch when people were afraid that she'd die. And while obviously anything is possible within the story, I never felt like they would ever go down this route for her. Eris' story about overcoming trauma ending with her death would've been such a bad way to frame it and the writers clearly care deeply about her character and her character arc to do that. Generally speaking, professional good writing should not (and does not) include random deaths for shock value and pointless angst. This is definitely much more common in fandom spaces, primarily because you don't really have to deal with consequences in the wider story with a fanfic. You can just write an angst one-shot and move on.

The point is, I don't think there would be any value or anything to gain from killing either one or both of these characters. I saw the radio message as a conclusion, rather than a nefarious hint for future angst. It just makes zero sense to me that they would do that, given the story so far and the whole theme. Osiris and Saint have also been through a tremendous amount of tragedy already so I think their angst quota has been fulfilled. This was a very neat way to frame their story before the end of the main saga, as well as a neat way to frame the story in general: a story about hope.

[dee-the-red-witch]

This originally posted here a few days ago for members, but I wanted to also release here as audio- for one, it has some beautiful quotes and poetry in there, and for another, it's more where I'm really at- disconnected, discombobulated, spun around and trying to figure out which way to go next and what of the million things I need to be moving forward on, but hopeful and feeling better despite all of that. Text of the original post to follow:

Transition Notes Part Five: Final Girl? Monster?

This got started a few months ago as two different posts in my drafts. I'm including these bits here because they're relevant to a chunk of what I'll be talking about. Shame patreon doesn't give me dates from when I start a post, just the date I last looked at the edits, which for both was a few months ago. I'm just gonna label them "Earlier" for the one post, and "quotes" for the other, since the second post was largely me shoving quotes together for a later analysis. Also a "Now" tag for the current additions. Is it a jumbled mess? Yes. But that's also very much where my brain is at this point, so it makes a kind of sense. Plus, it unintentionally flows, so I'm going with it.

Earlier: My hair touches shoulders constantly now. I've never had hair this long in my life, and despite the curl, it is constantly in contact with my shoulders or my upper back depending on how I sit, and it's amazing. I'm also in crisis and have been for a few months. Getting regularly paralyzed by executive dysfunction while being trans (and having some of the concurrent Life Events that happen when you're trans) seems to have that effect. And so help me, though parts of this are going to sound like me complaining about my life, I'm not just jotting stuff down to vent or get sympathy, but hopefully more so other folks can learn from it.  Quotes: The monster is a liminal creature embodying the very boundaries humans have overreached. The identification of something as monstrous denotes its place outside and beyond social norms and values. Such extraordinary warnings or reminders proceed from divine power to humankind when they have transgressed, or are about to transgress, the limits of what humans are supposed or rather allowed to do. -Daniela Carpi, Monsters and Monstrosity

Now: I'm moved. I've been living in my own apartment for over a week now and settling in. It's... different. Better. Safer. I still end up breaking down in tears on a daily basis over feeling alone, or grieving what I left, or realizing and just starting to come to terms with some of the trauma I'd been living with and covering up, or just for making the choices I had to for my own survival. This is a better place. I feel safe here. I'm worried as hell about everything I sacrificed to get here and how I'm going to be able to keep it. Quotes:

"They made a monster of Medusa as well. Hated how loud her trauma was. Couldn’t believe she had the audacity not to take it lying down. They made a war-ground of her body so she made one of theirs." -Trista Mateer, Aphrodite Made me Do It

Now: I know I'm going to be called a monster for it by people at various points. I've already seen a few of the people my ex is still friends with come right up to it without actually saying it. People will choose the narrative they want, the people they stick or agree with, and just who to demonize in any given situation. I can't help any of that. All I could do was take actions that could easily get seen as being monstrous, while at the same time, being one of the only paths I could secure to staying alive. You're either the monster or the final girl, and sometimes the one looks like the other. But y'know, when I wrote this months and months ago on tumblr:

I didn't think I was writing it about myself at the time.

Earlier: I knew my odds when I came into this. Too many trans stories of heartbreak from friends as they cut people out of their lives, lost relationships and more. I knew how common it was. I wasn't expecting all of it myself, but it's where I'm at. Final Girl mode. The realization that you're very likely going to have to be walking out of the movie alone at the end right before the credits.  Now: I knew the odds going in. It had been one of the facts that haunted me and kept me from coming out before. A conservatively placed 70% of marriages where one partner comes out as a trans woman after the fact end in divorce. Often very badly, with the woman in question finding herself homeless, alone, and dying on the streets without resources or any kind of network to fall back on. I came out thinking I was safe from that after my oldest kid had had a fairly smooth go of it. Turns out, I was wrong, very wrong, like a lot of people are. I ended up with three very real choices- wait and try to make it work, and see the all too stereotypical story play out. Wait until my surgeries were done with, and likely end up with massive complications and health problems because I'd still be having to push myself like mad to take care of and support more people than just me. Or get out and get out as soon as I possibly could. Obviously, I went for the last option. So, why write this? Because I know at least half of you are cis or unfamiliar with the transfem side of the experience. Because people need to know that this stuff happens, still, even in today's somewhat more accepting climate. Because I needed to exorcise all this before I felt like I could move on to newer things. And the biggest, the number one thing that I want anyone to take from this? Because I wouldn't undo any of it. If I could somehow snap my fingers, re-boy myself and make no-one the wiser, slip the denial blinders back over my own eyes and all... I wouldn't do it in the slightest. This is what I'll be moving forward from, even if I am currently hurt and just scrambling forward, I'm still moving and surviving. And I will make it out through all of this in the end.

[pendleton-manor]

It just occurred to me that Chaos does not really affect the ending in Dishonored 2 the way it does Dishonored 1. Like, the final mission is still largely the same either way. In fact, you can play high chaos the entire time but choose to spare Delilah at the end. Which I find very weird. Like it should completely take away my agency at this point.

While the low chaos ending was flat, the final high chaos mission with the loyalists was so so good. The game was telling you “you’ve made your bed now lie in it.” From Samuel turning on you and alerting everyone with a gunshot to the fact that Pendleton dies with or without your interference to the fact that Martin shoots himself to the fact that Havelock will jump off the ledge with Emily, you have NO agency. These events will occur because of what you have already done, completely disregarding what you choose to do in the moment.

Dishonored 2 has more subtle changes based on high chaos. Aside from Emily and Corvo’s dialogue (which, in my opinion, is a classic example of telling instead of showing. Easy to forgive though) there are little hints sprinkled throughout the game that what you’re doing is negatively impacting the world. The clerk at Addermire who hangs herself and the men playing cards who get into a shootout come to mind. But this doesn’t culminate into anything other than a slideshow ending narrated by the Outsider. The player’s return to the tower is the same no matter what you do. The only difference (I think) is that Delilah is either painting or waiting in the throne room.

Why not have the low chaos ending be a bit different? Instead of the Overseers dying when they rushed the Tower, why not have them stationed outside, holding their own, protecting the few citizens left? Why not have the player save the High Overseer who has been captured, winning over the overseer forces? Then the high chaos ending can stay the same—they rushed the tower and failed and Emily finds them all dead.

The same can go for gang presence. You’re gonna tell me the Hatters and the Bottle Street gangs will just give up territory super easily? I know they’re scattered throughout the final level, but they attack on sight! If you’re low chaos, they ought to recognize you as the empress and decide that the only way to save their own skins is to help you kick witches out of their territory. High chaos, they blame you for all this mess and attack you on sight, same as always.

I don’t know.

I just think that the final high chaos level ought to make me confront my choices and force me to face the consequences. I shouldn’t have any control over what happens narratively.

[scarlet--wiccan]

How did you feel about the ending of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver and the reveal of Magneto's letter?

I'm going to start by saying that I still think that Orlando really struggles with endings. His final issues always feel disjointed and sloppy to me, and SW&Q #4 is no exception. My main takeaway from this issue is that everything made sense in theory-- each character's positions and responses felt coherent and I perfectly understood how Orlando was characterizing each relationship-- but not in practice, as the scenario itself was harder to follow and I don't think everyone's actions made sense.

My biggest problem is understanding why Magneto would write this letter in the first place, much less keep it under his floorboards, and why, after all of the growth he went through in Red and Resurrection, he would still say those things to the twins' faces. The Griever's scheme to use the letter is clever, in terms of emotional manipulation, but Orlando does little to disguise the fact that it is a heavy-handed plot contrivance that he's using to mine Magnet Family Drama™️ in a book that otherwise has little reason to concern itself with Magneto. By comparison, the Joseph storyline in Scarlet Witch was more well integrated into the main plot and was driven by a character who was strong enough to stand on his own feet, while simultaneously facilitating conversations about Wanda and Max's relationship. This simply does not measure up to me. It feels tacked on, and the twins' abrupt, stilted reunion with Magneto himself does nothing to assuage that feeling.

Generally speaking, though, this is exactly the type of toxicity I expect from Magneto, particularly post-HoM, and post-Children's Crusade. He is overprotective to a fault towards Wanda, and resentful and dismissive towards Pietro. This has been a pretty consistent setting for their "family" dynamic for at least a decade.

I've written about this several times, but that paternalism is something Wanda has a really hard time setting boundaries around. A lot of her loved ones, including Pietro himself, have been treating her this way for a very long time. It makes perfect sense to me that she would find Magneto's words destabilizing, especially given that she is starting the series in a place of unresolved grief. I also thought it was really smart that Wanda, who, for the first time in her life has the upper hand in almost all of her relationships, is mirroring those paternalistic behaviors towards Pietro. We saw it in Scarlet Witch (2023) #1, and we saw it here in SW&Q. These flaws are crucial to balancing out Wanda's character, now that she is so powerful and evolved, and I think they've been demonstrated very well.

Similarly, I think that the twins' explosive fight in #1 was perfectly in character. To me, this felt like a more well-realized and narratively justified version of the fight from Scarlet Witch (2015) #9. A lot of the same tensions are fears are coming to a boil, but here there is a more reasonable impetus, and again, reversing Wanda and Pietro's dynamic is a great way to dig up any flaws and simmering resentments in their relationship. As fans, we want them to have a healthy, loving relationship, and I think Orlando has shown, up to this point that they do, but when we look back at their history, we can see that they do have problems. I don't think either of them is a bad sibling, but this is an area where they can be challenged and still experience satisfying growth.

And I am satisfied, because ultimately, this challenge does not break them. Although he initially allows his temper and pettiness to get the best of him, Pietro finds the patience and empathy to put their fight to rest. He falters, but ultimately, he demonstrates the same growth and self-awareness that he achieved in Quicksilver: No Surrender. I thought it was a great moment for him, and again, I love that this is a reversal in the twins' usual dynamic-- Pietro is the one doing the bulk of the emotional labor.

Wanda, for her part, hesitates more than I would like, and I really do wish that she'd been quicker to come to Pietro's defense. Most of what they're talking about here is House of M, and for all of his faults, and for as horrible as the consequences may have been, Pietro is one of the only people who consistently acted in Wanda's best interest during that time. If this scene had been given more space to breathe, or if Orlando was just a little better at grounding his dialogue, perhaps Wanda would have been able to speak and acknowledge that fact.

I think that part Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver's goal was to settle Wanda and Pietro's past with Magneto-- the same way Darkhold settled Wanda's past with Chthon and ToM settled the Decimation-- and in doing so, strengthen and refresh their relationship in a way that reflects their current maturity and growth. In a lot of ways, it succeeds, and I do think that there is some real depth and great character work here, but those things are buried under choppy pacing and dialogue. The two competing storylines-- the family drama, and the introduction of the Griever -- feel disjointed, and the expansion of Wanda and Pietro's powers gets lost in the middle. It's a shame, because setting new benchmarks for their powers and setting new benchmarks for their relationship at the same time should feel really cohesive and exciting, but for me, it falls a little flat because almost every element is just slightly underdeveloped- every idea comes just short of being fully explored.

[redgoldsparks]

February Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross read by Alex Wingfield and Rebecca Norfolk

This book started a little slowly for me, as I waited for Roman to regain his memories and for Iris to get back to reporting at the front. Luckily, the magical typewriters once again play a major role in this story as they did in the first one; Roman and Iris's letters are the emotional heart of this series. I also love how it fore fronts the importance of journalists during wartime. Iris's bravery and constant willingness to move towards danger and the unknown in service of sharing the truth makes her a very compelling character. Unfortunately, the magical divine conflict behind the war just didn't compel me very strongly in this book. I think the gods were introduced too slowly into the narrative, and that a lack of a human motivation behind the war simplified the conflict in a way that sucked some of the tension from the text. If you are looking for a solid romance with a strong epistolary element and the aesthetic of wartime setting, this series delivers; if instead you want a complicated, devastating, deeply emotional story of young people surviving a real historical war, pick up Code Name Verity or Rose Under Fire.

Mamo by Sas Milledge

Jo has lived in her small seaside hometown her whole life, and loves it there. But then things start to go wrong- curses, bad luck, mysterious illnesses. She seeks out the town witch and finds a teen girl about her own age, named Orla, who Jo has never met before. It turns out Orla has just returned to town after the death of her grandmother, the previous witch. She wasn't buried properly and her bones are scattered around the town, stirring up bad energy, disturbing the local fae and trolls. Jo and Orla set out of lay the old witch properly to rest, but there's more going on than either of them realize. This is a fairly short but well told tale, queer and magical, and with a little bittersweet edge.

Look on the Bright Side by Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann 

This is a very charming follow up to Go With The Flow, taking place over the friend group's following high school year. Brit, who was diagnosed with endometriosis at the end of the previous book, had a surgery to remove it over the summer. When she goes back to school, she finds her affection caught between two different boys. Christine has finally admitted to herself that she likes Abby as more than a friend... but telling Abby that is another matter. Abby is still working on her campaign of menstrual justice on campus, while Sasha struggles to balance her homework, sports, and time with her boyfriend. The girls learn, grow, make mistakes, and support each other.

Gathering Moss written and read by Robin Wall Kimmerer

It took me a little longer to get into this one than Braiding Sweetgrass, mainly because I had much less personal knowledge of mosses than the larger types of plants which Kimmerer wrote about in Sweetgrass. It doesn't help that mosses do not have common names, so are referred to mainly by scientific names, and I was rarely able to picture them well in my head. However, by about a third of the way through I had fallen into the miniature world of mosses and the striking and insightful ways Kimmerer links them to all other organisms in their ecosystems. I loved learning how mosses, like tardigrades, with which they probably co-evolved, can survive desiccation and be revived by water even after all seeming signs of life have disappeared. I was intrigued by the story of a moss species which changes its gender over its lifespan, starting out producing only female reproductive stalks in its early days, shifting producing a mix of male and female stalks as it matures, and then producing solely male stalks as the patch reaches peak density. I was frustrated by stories of the illegal moss harvesting which is stripping Oregon rain forests bare. And I was once again completely charmed by the beauty and generosity of Kimmerer's writing and worldview. She's a bestseller for a reason; I highly recommend everyone pick up at least one of her books at some point.

The High Desert by James Spooner 

James' white mother and his black father divorced when he was in elementary school, and he moved around a lot. For high school, he moved with his mom to Apple Valley, a barren small town in the desert an hour inland from Los Angeles. Already a skater, James encountered punk music just went he needed it most: as an isolated and angry teen in a racist town with little to no underground scene or counterculture. The music, and later, the politics, of punk raised James in the semi-absence of parents and role models. This memoir, chronically roughly a year, is an unflinchingly honest look at the cruelty, creativity, friendship, and solidarity of teens. It has the density and scratchy texture of a 90s zine without ever sacrificing clarity. I was very impressed by how clearly and in what detail Spooner was able to recreate his high school angst and activist awaking in this coming of age tale. Punk wasn't the music that found me, but I still remember the high of finding a new favorite band or song that felt as if it spoke right to my teen soul. This book is a testament to the power of music to reach into the dark and pull someone out into the light.

Falling Back in Love With Being Human written and read by Kai Cheng Thom 

Short and sweet, this book is half confession, half spell book. Each chapter is written as a letter- to trans women, to activists, to sex workers, to johns, to those contemplating suicide, to TERFs, to children's book writers- each followed with a little action or ritual. I listened to it as an audiobook and loved hearing the letters in the author's voice, but I can also see how reading it in print and lingering over each letter one at a time would be wonderful too.

The Great Beyond by Lea Murawiec translated by Aleshia Jensen 

Manel Naher is an anti-social and idiosyncratic young woman living an endless city in which everyone advertises their own names on street signs, sandwich boards, at social events, on business cards, and by simply shouting them at strangers. This may not sound so different from our own world except that it's driven by an even more intense desperation: if one's name is not known, and one's presence fades fully from people's minds, and the forgotten person will literally die. Manel wants nothing more than to escape the city into the wilds beyond it, but her presence is so low she suffers a near fatal heart attack and is scared into a fearful scramble to gain enough fame to live. Her attempts to claw her way into people's memories is surprisingly successful, and in the process of becoming one of the 1% she leaves behind everything and everyone she loved. Never before have I read a comic that felt so much like literary spec-fic. The concepts are fascinating and the cartooning knocked me off my feet. A visual masterpiece I'll be thinking about for a long time to come.

The Spectred Isle by KJ Charles read by Ruairi Carter

Saul Lazenby is a disgraced archeologist who served time for a war crime during the recent WWI. Back in England, disowned by his family, he struggled to support himself. The only job he is able to secure is as a personal assistant to a batty old major who believes in fairy stories and keeps sending Saul off to various parts of London to investigate supposedly occult sites. Saul knows it's all fake but he keeps investigating anyway... and then a tree bursts in flames in front of him. And a mysterious gentleman keeps showing up at the same sites of sacred groves or ancient wells which Saul's been sent to look at. That gentleman is Richard Glide, who just happens to be the heir to one of the oldest arcane families in England. And he can't tell if Saul is causing the spiritual problems that keep occurring around him or if it's all an unlikely coincidence. This historical romance is a fun and quick read, shorter than most of the KJ Charles books I've read before. Be warned, the end sets up a sequel which has not, and may not, ever actually come out- but I still enjoyed this one on it's own.

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson 

A gorgeous, nonlinear novel about three generations of a Black family living in New York between roughly the early 1990s to the mid 2000s. The chapters rotate between multiple POVs, covering moments of change, tension, or reflection for the family. The opening scene is the evening of a debut party for sixteen year old Melody, who wears the dress her own mother was supposed to wear at her debut... except that she was already pregnant. From that moment, the narrative spins back time to how each character arrived there: Iris, a teen who refused to give up her baby but also refused to settle into motherhood; Aubrey, a young man in love with a girl who was already leaving him; Iris's mother Sabe, a daughter of a survivor of the Tulsa massacre, a women who stores her money in gold bars hidden around the house; Iris's father Po'boy, who as a young man ran races, and as an old man holds more love for his family that his body can carry. The character work here is so strong- I was immediately swept away into the cares, worries, secrets, and longings of the family. I read the whole book in one day, but I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

We Are The Land: A Native History of California by Damon B Akins and William J Bauer Jr 

It took me a long time to read this book, as it was challenging to read a history of genocide while also seeing genocide in my phone every single day. But I'm ultimately very glad that I finished it. This is a well researched, approachable, indigenous-authored history of the native people in the land now called California. I enjoyed how place specific this book is. I felt much more connected to the history recognizing nearly every place name, and once the book got passed around the year 1900 I started to also recognize names of organizations that still exist and activists who I'm familiar with. I have a much better understanding of the patchwork creation of and the broken promises of the reservations, land allotments, and rancherias. I was happy whenever the book mentioned Pomo master basket weavers Elsie Allen and Mable McKay, who my mom has been telling me about for years, or Greg Sarris, Santa Rosa based chairman of the Graton Rancheria and author. I have a better understanding of this land where I have lived and worked all my life after reading this book.

Zodiac: A Graphic Novel by Ai Weiwei, Elettra Stamboulis and Gianluca Costantini

I've been following Ai Weiwei's work since about 2010, and was absolutely delighted to learn he was releasing a comic memoir. I managed to snag a signed copy though the Comix Experience Graphic Novel of the Month Club and I will treasure it. This book is organized into 12 chapters, each themed around one animal from the zodiac. It weaves together slice of life moments from Ai Weiwei's day to day life, stories of his father (the revolutionary poet Ai Qing), memories of Ai's time as an art student in New York, his incarceration, time spent with his mother, his partner, and his son, conversations with artist friends and some of his international exhibitions. It is not a tight narrative; it wanders, it indulges in myths and fairy tales, it is open ended and I enjoyed it so much. It was written along with Elettra Stamboulis, and draw in a delicate lose line art style by Gianluca Costantini. A few of the lines from the end of the book haven't left my head since I read them: "Freedom of speech and human rights are not given to anybody for free. They always come through fighting and struggle" (101); "Any artist who isn't an activist is a dead artist" (165) and "... the purpose of art, which is to fight for freedom."(166)

Witchy Vol 2 by Ariel Salmat Ries 

This volume was just as beautifully drawn as book 1; the cartooning is masterful, but I don't have a very good sense of where the larger plot is going. This book was mostly a long side quest in which Nyneve learned how to make a broom under an exiled gay broom making master. I enjoyed this! However it didn't particularly seem to move the story forward. I will keep reading, but the sense of drama and urgency from the beginning of the first book is slightly missing here.

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull read by Dion Graham  

What a ride! I went into this book knowing almost nothing, and I think that was the right way to go so I shall not summarize the plot. This is the first book of a series; it's ambitious, it's weird, it's got a very large and extremely diverse cast; it is such a fresh and original take on a contemporary sci-fi in which the world realizes that monsters, gods, and magic have existed all along. I worried a little in the first third that the book maybe had too many POV characters, most of whom seemed very unconnected from each other except by geographical proximity to either Cambridge, Mass, or the island of St Thomas. However by the end almost all of the characters had been at least tenuously linked by plot events in a way that really worked for me. The book also has trans, nonbinary, asexual, queer, and poly characters whose identities are only revealed slowly, and usually after you've known the character for a while. I am very impressed by the scope of this story and definitely plan to continue with the series.

Arrive In My Hands by Trinidad Escobar 

Sensual, at times tender, at times haunting, this beautiful little book is a collection of lesbian erotic comics from a poet artist at the top of her field. I am definitely biased, having been friends with the author for years, but I also deeply admire this work. The women, witches, and creatures in these stories yearn for pleasure and for freedom; they chase both through oceans, forests, broken suburban towns, and through dreams. The book is perfectly sized to hold close to your heart.

Bird by Bird by Annie Lamott read by Susan Bennett

I've been hearing about this book for years as a writing guide, but it is almost equally a memoir or collection of anecdotes about the writing life. Parts of it worked for me and other parts didn't. The author has a very different type of brain than I have, and the chapters on working through the anxiety, neurosis, and depression she suffered from when trying to write didn't really speak to me at all. I also did not enjoy the handful of flippant jokes about killing yourself when the writing isn't going well. However. There are also some genuinely really moving pieces about writing books as gifts to loved ones, especially loved ones who are soon to leave us. I thought a lot of the advice in the middle about focusing on details, on recording memories, on research, and on character development was really solid, and I want to keep some of it in mind when I start developing my next book. There was also a set of lines in the introduction, about how writers are able to participate in public life while also working from home and without leaving the house which hit the nail on the head of why I entered this career!

Recitatif by Toni Morrison read by Bahni Turpin with an intro written and read by Zadie Smith

I've been wanting to try another Toni Morrison, since the only one I had previously read in high school went completely over my head at age 15. Recitatif is Morrison's only short story, and this audiobook version is read by the wonderful Bahni Turpin (who you might recognize from Angie Thomas or Akwaeke Emezi's audiobooks). Also included in an excellent essay written and read by Zadie Smith. This comes first in the audio, but if you are new to the story as I was, skip the essay and listen to the story first! Then go back and listen to the essay afterwards. This way the cleverness and impact of the story can hit you fully. It is so smart, so well crafted, and such a master class in writing that both reveals and conceals so much about the complicated relationship of two damaged women.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 1 by Ryoko Kui 

I can immediately see why so many people are charmed by this world and these characters! This is the start of a really fun D&D infused adventure story, with a small group of down on their luck adventures deciding to cut their adventuring costs by eating the monsters they kill in the dungeon. The man behind this idea, Laos, is also searching for a missing sister who may or may not have already been eaten by a dragon. I already have books 2 and 3 on hold; I haven't been so captured by a manga series since starting Witch Hat Atelier.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 2 by Ryoko Kui

I devoured this book as quickly as book one. Our adventure party gets a bit deeper into the dungeon and begin to have more meaningful interactions with the beings who dwell there, including an Orc family just trying to get by, golems which grow vegetables on their backs, and living paintings which might reveal more of the buried castle's history.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 3 by Ryoko Kui

A flashback reveals more of the school friendship of Marcelle and Falin; a deep underground lake leads to many encounters with watery monsters of various types. I continue to have a very fun time with this series!

Bunt by Ngozi Ukazu and Mad Rupert

Molly grew up in Peachtree, Georgia, in her lesbian moms' hardware store, in the shadow of the town's prestigious and expensive art college, PICA. Every since she can remember, she's wanted to attend PICA- despite the fact that her best friend dropped out last year and says the school chews people up and spits them out. But Molly got a full ride scholarship, so her first semester should be a breeze, right? No! Because when she shows up to orientation, no one can find her scholarship or even her registration. It turns Molly will have to pay for her first year after all; she takes out some dodgy loans and scours the financial aid booklets for any other scholarship she can apply for. It turns out, if she can scrape up a full team of softball players... and they compete against other college teams in the same division... and they win at least one game over the course of the semester... the whole team gets a free tuition! Is it possible to win one game with a bunch of big-ego, burned-out, athletically-challenged artists? I loved the energy of this story, with many well-informed digs at art school culture and hypocrisy. The team has great chemistry and the art style is full of action, physical humor, and delightfully expressive cartooning.

[lightofraye]

Portrait Of A Woman

Yes, another version of this. Deal. 😆

I'm always changing and growing, revising my life and what I'm blogging about. I joke that I'm a gossip columnist (because I do refer to other celebrities besides Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles), but it's only to share my other interests.

So what are my interests? The purpose behind this blog?

Many things. I title it Ramblings Of A Writer for a reason. I write and boy, do I ramble!

I’ll also be redoing my masterlists to make it easier for folks to find certain posts. I won’t be redoing posts—no need to do that, but perhaps reposting information being redone. Like “Version 2 with new stuff” or better organized information and having those on the masterlists instead.

Let's begin with me:

Who am I?

My online nickname: Raye

Pronouns: She/her

Astrology: (Western) Pisces, (Eastern) Metal Monkey

Country: United States

I am anti (and I make no apologies):

Anti Danneel/Anti Elta

Anti Misha

Anti AAs

Anti Destiel

Anti Hellers

Anti Cockles

Anti Abuse

My ‘custom’ tags:

#Jensen Supportive (I believe I'm the originator)

#Music Choices by lightofraye

#lightofraye on abuse

I also frequently use #Jensen Concern, though I am not the originator (like I thought I was!).

What I’m reading:

Fictional: The Dresden Files, currently Battle Ground and Peace Talks

Non-fiction: The Body Keeps The Score

Where am I at with my writing:

BA Script: Judging by the math… 1/2 of the way through. Loving it! First draft!

Pre-plotting my horror/thriller

Vikings? VIKINGS!

So many more planned. Someone knock out my muse. 😅

What am I watching?

Burn Notice (finally getting the last season!)

Daredevil (again!)

Once Upon A Time

Supernatural (forever and ever, ahem)

The Good Place

A Discovery of Witches

About this blog:

I really, honest to gods, did not start this blog to be an anti. I know my anons would disagree with me and claim I always “hated” Danneel, but that just isn’t the truth. I came to Tumblr to find a new kind of social media as I was feeling soured by Facebook, disliked how Twitter had changed, escaped Livejournal years ago, not a fan of Reddit, and the “newer” social media sites weren’t my thing. Plus I’ve kept seeing hilarious screenshots from Tumblr on Facebook and decided to check it out!

I initially started by following pages about Supernatural, Sam and Dean Winchester, the actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. I did not go seeking anti-Danneel posts; they more or less fell into my lap. When I started reading a few posts, something clicked in my mind, explained why I was struggling with how I felt about her. I kept analyzing her behavior for a long while, what she said, and thought maybe something was being seen by fans that wasn’t being seen by me.

The explanations made sense. I felt I could breathe again. That’s when I remembered the least recognized method of abuse: emotional and mental. That fit Danneel to a T. Especially the more I looked into what she’s said and wrote over the years and saw how Jensen behaved around her in videos and photos. Even when they were supposedly trying to push the “happy couple” narrative, it just did not look true. Especially given Jensen’s talent as an actor! If he couldn’t even fake being happy or in love with her….

So I’m an Anti-Danneel. I’m also Anti-Misha for his behavior over the years, towards Jared, towards Jensen, the lies he’s peddled and keeps peddling. (For instance, no, Castiel would not have ‘fucked’ Dean upon pulling him out of Hell. No, CW was not being homophobic.)

I am absolutely very pro-Jared and pro-Jensen. I know, I know…. “But Raye, you’ve written posts criticizing Jensen! How can you be pro-Jensen??”

My answer is a variation of this: “Because I care! I am not blind to the flaws of either men! I am wildly concerned about Jensen, about what seems—to me—as excessive drinking, ‘empty’ eyes, unhappy and stressed smiles.”

For the vast majority of the AAs, it seems I’m not pro-Jensen if I don’t see him as flawless, a god upon the perfect pedestal, the Ken doll That breaks my heart. He is flawed. He is imperfect. I see more than just the pretty mask. I want to see and know the man. He isn’t just a beautiful trophy for us to ogle.

He’s caught in a rock and a hard place and I acknowledge that hard. It’s just only the negativity is seen and not the love and support. 😕

What can I tell you about me?

I could say so much. I’m the third child of a family of four kids, and the only daughter. (So that was fun.) I’m a gamer, read comics (still read a few, such as ElfQuest), got into reading fantasy books (Dragonlance’s War of the Lance was my first!), have a massive interest in psychology, in wanting to understand the human mind. I’m fluent in two languages—English and American Sign Language.

Ah, that last one might surprise some folks. No, I am not deaf—but my parents, two of my three brothers, and everyone on my mother’s side of the family are. I half-joke that my first language is ASL, not speaking with a voice. It’s not a joke though; it’s more or less accurate.

I’m a writer. I’m working on several screenplays, have plans for novels, dabble in poetry. I’m an amateur artist—have sketched with pencil and Photoshop. I haven’t done so in a while, but I love art. I do a lot under the creative umbrella, and most of it is as an amateur—photography, wishing to learn pottery, and so forth.

I’m a mother. I’m divorced (happily so, trust me). I have born children of my body and I have children of my heart. I have suffered loss deeply profound that I wish people would talk more about so we all realize we aren’t as alone as we fear.

I’m an advocate for better, stronger laws against abuse, of the protection and services for survivors. Largely because I’m a survivor, but also because I give a damn about people. I’ve experienced it all, starting from childhood to my (thankfully) now-ex-husband. I am hoping to start a series of reels explaining the red flags of abuse, how to recognize them, how to get out if you are in an abusive situation, and what organizations exist to contact for help (if any do exist). Keep an eye out for those when I start posting them!

A link to the ever-in-progress masterlist.

First masterlist, largely anti Danneel posts. (My first true anti Danneel post, highly recommend reading it. I am reworking it.) Second masterlist, more anti Danneel. Third masterlist, assorted posts. The links will be defunct due to changing my Tumblr name. So just switch out rrahuntersblog to lightofraye and it'll work. I'm reworking those too! Bear with me! My first About Me. My second About Me Redux.

[numericalbridge]

One headcanon that i just can't agree with is the idea that Darius would/should just stay at home post canon and care only about Hunter and Eber, at best other close friends and whoever he is shipped with, but not about anyone or anything else.

Like, yeah, obviously there are people who are the closest to him, and i definitely think he would need to take a break and revaluate his position as the former Coven Head and take a real vacation for once, but Darius is just so flanderized in the fandom into one direction or another, and i just don't vibe with it. And yes, i understand that sometimes it's simply the result of what people want to focus on in fanworks, but i've also seen it spelled out as headcanons in general, like 'oh, Darius hates all the kids for real and only Hunter is the exception', or 'Darius actually can't stand other people other than his loved ones' (and not in the sense that he is easily annoyed, or it is difficult for him to interact with others, but fully, for real).

First, I am pretty sure Dana herself had said in one interview that Darius wants to care about his loved ones but also to help others in general. And you can see it in the show too - Raine says specifically that he was 'protecting' them even though they were not close at the time of ER, Darius laments how 'we' (the rebels) were too late during the DoU, hinting that he always wanted to save the whole Isles ("but he gave up for Eber" you might say, well, my first meta was about what i think of 'Darius easily chose Eber over the Isles' interpretations - Post). So in one way or another he probably would want to help others post canon as well.

Second, he clearly has several interests and, of course, his passion for abominations that he would likely want to continue to persue. He also seems to be quite happy to conduct Raine's ceremony, so he might also enjoy the role of a public figure in general.

And third and probably the most important thing for me, it just fits the narrative of the show better if Darius opens up to other people who are not the closest to him. Yes, found family is great, but it is not the only thing that matters. There are many instances in the series where it is shown how important community is or how its absense is damaging - and not only to the kids but to adult characters too - and i think it is a very deliberate choice, and one of the good things about toh. (And by that i don't mean - and i don't think the show means either - that every character should become an extrovert and completely change personality, or that every character should like and interact with everyone, it can mean different things).

The biggest example is Eda - she starts the show isolated, and while it's not her fault, in season 1 she is, as Luz had put it, individualistic. But through getting to know Luz, Eda not only develops better relationships within her own found family, but she goes from only agreeing to help Bump in the school because it will help Luz and being distantly playfull at best towards other kids, to trying to reach out to Hunter and to mentor Edric in season 2, and finally to opening her own school; she goes from not wanting to free the conformatorium prisoners to saving a wild witch in ER. Yes, the paternalistic conformity of the EC is shown to be bad, but personal isolation and individualism are also not good. And the same happens with others too. The Bat Queen not only opens up to the palisman adoption program but praises the good qualities of the kids when they tell their wishes. Alador improves his relationship with his children, but he also works on using his inventions for the good of the Isles in the epilogue. It is at least implied that if Camila and Luz had bigger support from the adults around them, and Camila had more friends other than her husband to help her, their life after his death would've been easier. Not as noticable with Raine because of how their arc is written (/negative), but it is at least hinted in the ER that their rebellion wasn't very sucessful because of how small it was. This is more headcanon-y, but i can easily see how Lilith's single-minded focus on finding the cure for her sister caused her to ignore the harm done by the EC. And then, of course there are villains like Belos and Odalia whose focus on the family is twisted.

So, i really don't know why Darius's development should go in a different direction and be focused on isolating rather than opening up to more people - in one way or another, it can take different forms, and doesn't mean that he can't be a private person. It doesn't even mean that he must be a public figure (although i think he might be happy in a position like that), he might just sit and write more text books. But I think getting to mentor someone like Willow (not in abominations but in general sense) or Jerbo would be good for him too.

(And tbh with the way Darius's grief over his mentor was twisted into bitterness, and how he seemed to be very much not over his broken friendship with Alador and possibly Odalia (maybe even Raine) for so long, i can see an interpretation where it would be healing for him to learn to expand his circle and through that to learn how to easier let go of his grievances and adjust to change.)