#how can you objectively say you know it well enough to write a review?

[camelspit]

hey. maybe you shouldn't write a book review if you haven't even finished the fucking book. btw.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

You seem like an incredibly well read person, plus someone with a lot of insight into intimacy because of your work. So, in light of your romance book reviews, which are an absolute highlight on your patreon, do you have any insight into what is needed/suggested for a good romance novel?

g o d this is so fucking hard and also really fun to chew on. I want to preface this by saying this is ENTIRELY subjective and based completely on what I *PERSONALLY* find that I enjoy in a romance. this isn't, like, an objective guide on how to write a romance that doesn't suck. that doesn't exist because people like different things, and I'm speaking from one perspective.

also I should say that my preferred flavor of romance novel is solidly contemporary. I haven't read many historicals, certainly not enough to opine well on them, I don't do those mafia dark romances or whatever the fuck, and I've barely dabbled at all in any kind of fantasy romance, whether they're full high fantasy or witchy urban fantasy stories. (although I'm about to do one of the latter next month, you can vote for a book on my patreon rn!)

having gotten all of those caveats out of the way, here's some shit I like and dislike:

there are exceptions to this but broadly, I prefer a POV for everyone involved in the relationship. to me a romance where we're only seeing events from the POV of one member of the relationship automatically makes it seem like one person matters more in a dynamic where everyone should be of equal importance. also, god, if the plot's really going to hinge on not knowing what's going on in one partner's head suggests that miscommunication is going to be a pretty critical part of the plot, and I hate that shit. TALK TO EACH OTHER. I'LL KILL YOU.

on that note, there needs to be an actual compelling reason why the characters can't be together, okay? the #1 driving tension of every romance is "why the fuck can't they be together yet" and you BETTER have a good answer. whether it's interpersonal or external forces, if there's a very easy solution to what's keeping them apart then your characters look dumb and I'm bored. one of the most frustrating romances I've ever read involved two characters who were mutually attracted to each from the JUMP, who refused to act on it because they were coworkers (neither of them in any position of authority of the other, nothing unprofessional or inappropriate about it) and they were "only" living in the same state for A YEAR. A FULL YEAR !!! shut up. get a grip and kiss each other.

now, having said that: whatever your bullshit reason is for these two characters to be interacting with each other, you need to COMMIT to that shit so hard that I, the reader, will feel silly for even questioning the logic. the worst offender I've ever seen on this front is D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding, which pulls its protagonists together via a reality TV competition and then just... promptly loses any interest in really dealing with the actual realities of being filmed 24/7? it's insanely distracting how little the book engages with its central hook, and was a huge point deduction for me. whereas you have, like, The Bride Test, a book with a premise that skirts dangerously close to a little bit of human trafficking but embraces the whole premise so wholeheartedly that you completely forget about the potentially horrific elements in there. who cares that Esme was bribed here with the promise of a green card if she seduces a man she's never met? there's whimsy happening! we've moved on! it's literally fine and she's in no danger except the danger of a BROKEN HEART.

this one is going to seem SO obvious but like. I need them to be actually like each other. I'm not saying they can't be mutually bitchy while they grow to like each other or anything, they don't have to always be NICE to each other, but there are so many M/F romances where the dude is just flat out fucking MEAN and condescending to the girl until he decides he wants to fuck her. and sometimes even after that! stop it! after a certain point I don't want her to fuck him I want her to run him over a car!!!! there's suuuuch a line between "guy I butt heads and exchange banter with but could fuck if we just got to know each other" and "man who hates me and is for real fucking bullying me."

"kisses only," "doors closed," whatever term they use for a romance novel without any sex scenes on page, I don't like it. listen: I know that they're not everybody's cup of tea, and I FULLY recognize that a lot of romance novel sex scenes are unfathomably cringe. and yet, I need them. partly because they're funny, but also because if this book wants me to be invested in the developing relationship between two adults who are supposed to be WILDLY sexually attracted to each other, then I want to see the damn sex. no matter how many bad similes or unfortunate adjectives it entails. and if you're not going to show me the sex, don't you dare have the characters gushing about how great it is. I'll be the judge of that, thank you very much. (I'm looking at you, Sorry, Bro.)

related: there's this thing that I call "Horny Wolf Syndrome," which is derived from this tweet:

initially I used it to refer to when previously sweet-tempered male romance protags inexplicably started talking like horny wovles during sex scenes - "LET ME SEE YOUR PRETTY CUNT ON MY COCK" and the like - but now I more generally use it to refer to scenarios in which characters of any gender completely dispense with their established personality while they fuck in order to fulfill a more broadly appealing, one-size-fits-all sexual fantasy. I hate that shit; if your characters act like completely unrecognizable people during sex, you didn't write very strong characters. one of my favorite things about writing sex scenes is that it's so SO interesting to see how their the characters' personal quirks translate into a setting that's very different from most other contexts, and it's deeply disappointing when authors take the easy route in favor of some pornhub dialogue.

one of the things that actually won my most recent read, Raiders of the Lost Heart, a HUGE amount of points with me was how frank the female lead was about initiating sex for the first time. it was completely in character for her and felt really different than any other book I've read, and honestly? it was a breath of fresh air.

[brucebocchi]

Ranking 2024 anime, Pt. 5: #10-1

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i do this for free and am currently between jobs. you can find part 1 of the list here, part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here. all of my seasonal reviews are on my ko-fi and under my anime reviews tag, mixed in with my occasional musings. thanks!

And we are in the home stretch! I didn't want to split up my top 10 like last year, so it took a couple days to get it all together. Thanks for your patience.

​As you may have noticed, some of these reviews are longer than others. I've reviewed most of these shows before, so I didn't want to be too redundant while talking about shows I've already reviewed. You can, of course, go back and read my initial reviews in my previous seasonal roundups.

Also, I just wanted to quickly shout out a few shows that I haven't watched much or any of, but would likely have placed well in these rankings, namely Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction, YATAGARASU, the Spice and Wolf remake, Orb: On the Movements of Earth, Sound! Euphonium's third season, and the late Akira Toriyama's SAND LAND and Dragon Ball DAIMA. I only have so much time in a day, week, month, and year, but those series have been on my radar and I do intend to pick them up sooner or later.

But for now, let's focus on what I did watch. Off we go:

10. Blue Box

This is a slightly biased placement on my end because I picked up the manga this year and quickly fell in love with it, and I’m just happy that it got a faithful, well-made anime adaptation. If you have an issue with that, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: This whole list is biased. It’s MY list, after all.

After an uneven summer output between My Dear Friend Nokotan and Suicide Squad Isekai, WIT Studio is in full form adapting Kouji Miura’s gorgeous high school sports romance. Rising first-year badminton player Taiki has a huge crush on his basketball star senpai Chinatsu, who practices in the same high school gym he does. He’s happy enough to keep a friendly distance as they improve at their respective sports, but that distance is closed significantly when her parents go abroad for work and she ends up moving in under the same roof as him. The spirit of competition is in the air, and is that a whiff of romance I smell as well?

The reason I felt the need to call out my own bias at the start is because Blue Box’s debut cour is, on balance, probably just “pretty good,” but I was just so overjoyed that this anime even exists that I was willing to overlook the early story’s growing pains. Taiki, of course, is the POV character for most of the first cour, and most of the romantic tension we see so far is entirely from his end as he swoons and huffs and goes into cardiac arrest over any and every gesture Chinatsu throws his way. You know, teenage boy stuff. There have been criticisms that Chinatsu doesn’t get much interiority for a bit and that she’s a bit of an enigma in terms of her role in the central “romance,” such that it is so far, which is a valid criticism of a lot of shonen romance stories. I’m generally of the mind that these things are more potent when the object of the protagonist’s affection is treated as more than a puzzle for him to solve, but I think Blue Box does a fine job of establishing what Chinatsu means to Taiki before we do indeed begin to get a feel for how she operates and what she might think of him. If you found that part a little maddening early on, trust me when I say it’s worth sticking it out.

Regardless, the character writing is what made Blue Box such a hit in Weekly Shonen Jump. Taiki is a flat-out good kid, if a little naive, and his boundless determination to achieve and exceed his goals in both badminton and romance makes him easy to root for. Chinatsu is fairly taciturn, as mentioned, but that’s by design; she’s a notoriously difficult person to read, as even her friends and teammates note that they can rarely decipher what she’s thinking. She’s still an effortlessly charming character, and it’s not hard to figure out why Taiki’s got it so bad for her. The real highlight of the series, though, is Taiki’s classmate and longtime friend, Hina, a rhythmic gymnast and an absolute troll. She is an absolute delight in every scene she’s in, whether she’s knocking Taiki’s knees out from under him, focusing on rehearsing her next routine, or prying into Taiki’s love life and realizing that, oops, she really cares about him too. Hina is wonderful and I just want the best for her.

Characters this likable will need the voices to match, and I am over the moon about this show’s casting. Shouya Chiba is tremendous as Taiki, in a far cry from his Epic Based Stoic Chad role as Ayanokoji in Classroom of the Elite. Every line read for Taiki sounds exactly as gung-ho about sports and devastatingly down bad for his crush as you’d expect of a hormonal 15 year old. Reina Ueda is terrific as the soft-spoken Chinatsu, but I’m looking forward to hearing the always-delightful Xanthe Huynh (Haru in Persona 5, Marianne in Fire Emblem Three Houses) take on the role in the dub just as much. Akari Kitou channels much of the same gremlin energy she did for KamiKatsu to portray Hina’s mischief, and I look forward to hearing her nail Hina’s excellent upcoming character moments. And although it’s a secondary role, the casting I was most excited to hear was Chiaki Kobayashi (Mash in Mashle, Stark in Frieren) as Taiki’s teammate Kyo. Kobayashi’s languid tsukkomi affect was exactly what I had in mind whenever Kyo would put Taiki’s lovelorn antics into stark relief in the manga. It’s like he was born for the part.

This show looks tremendous, perfectly adapting both the angular, doe-eyed character designs from the manga as well as the lower-detail gags. The pastel color palette and gorgeous lighting effects are exactly what I was hoping for while reading the manga.  If I have any complaint, though, it’s mostly that I want to see more of the sports action. The granular details of the badminton matches and basketball games are hardly the focus of the story, but the action panels are usually the best part of Miura’s art in the manga. Shot-for-shot, it certainly does hew close to the manga presentation, but it’s mostly a racquet swing or close-up jump shot followed by an onlooker’s reaction. I’d have liked a bit more follow through. The CGI used for background competitors can get a little distracting after a while, too, but it’s easy to forget about.

Blue Box is continuing into 2025, and I’m waiting for every new episode with bated breath. If you liked the first cour enough but still have doubts, trust me when I say it just keeps getting better. I look forward to coming back to the second half of this season in another year for my victory lap.

9. Girls Band Cry

This is one of the most inventive girls-band anime out there, certainly the most so since that one from 2022 that I swore I wouldn’t bring up by name. Gorgeous 3D-CG animation, stirring original music, and a compelling cast of characters combine to make Girls Band Cry even more than the sum of its parts.

More than anything, I think what makes Girls Band Cry a terrific showbiz series is that it depicts the uncomfortable reality that a lot of artists are just flat-out unpleasant people and often don’t mesh well with one another. Protagonist Nina is messy, stubborn, and angry at the world and her parents and will not hesitate to make it your problem. She butts heads with her friends and bandmates at any provocation, but stubbornness is a major driving factor in the plot: Each of the five members of Togenashi Togeari has something they’re trying to move on from with their music, and while they each have an opinion on how to get there, they do come to realize, after a lot of silly yelling matches, that they want to do so together.

As a vehicle to push Girls Band Cry and Togenashi Togeari as a real-world multimedia experience, this show is a success. It’s a terrific-looking show in ways we rarely see outside of Studio Orange productions (and allegedly Love Live! Sunshine!!, which director Kazuo Sakai also had a hand in); the 3D computer-generated character models and animations are terrifically expressive and lively, and creative visual effects add a compelling sense of synaesthesia to Nina's emotional highs and lows. The voice cast, all pseudonymous contest winners, are also the real-life band members, and they fully nail both elements of their roles. TogeToge’s music in the show is terrific, and as an already-existing Gorillaz-esque virtual band, I’m excited to dig into their back catalog.

Girls Band Cry finally got an official English translation, so there’s no longer any excuse to sleep on this one. It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, and above all else, it fucking rocks. Don’t let this one fade away just because you might’ve missed it when it aired.

8. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, second cour

When I ranked the first cour of Frieren as the best anime of 2023, I wrote:

The debut season of Frieren will continue into 2024, and if the quality remains a constant, it could very well be one of the best anime of next year too. It has remained as MyAnimeList’s top-rated anime ever for its entire run, warding off the legion of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood fans. Frieren deserves it.

A year later, it is still MAL’s top-rated anime, and by a healthy margin. Another 12 episodes aired to kick off 2024, and it was indeed one of the best anime of this year as well. I stand firm in my convictions that not only is it one of the best anime of the decade so far, it’s one of the best anime I’ve ever seen.

I really shot my wad by praising Frieren so profusely midway through its run, to the point where I still don’t really feel the need to add much more here. The second cour mostly focuses on the First Class Mage exam arc, allowing us to learn more about the present state of magic in the modern day and adding some much-needed depth to the cast. It continues to strike a lovely balance between the quieter moments and bonkers action sequences, as well as the more serious moments with laugh-out-loud goofiness. It may be a lesser arc in this story, but it would be a standout in so many others.

If I haven’t been clear enough, I remain over the moon about Frieren. The second cour looks and sounds just as incredible as the first, and this show’s success should serve as a reminder to the industry that investment in quality pays off. Madhouse knows they have a banger on their hands, and if the next season can maintain this level of production value for the major arc that is still to come, Frieren may very well earn GOAT status. Even if another season somehow never materializes, I’ll still be talking about this season in five years when it comes time to talk about the best of the decade. Watch this goddamn show.

7. A Sign of Affection

For all the romance anime and manga I consume, I’ve shamefully been lacking on the shoujo/josei front. I really gotta fix that. If reading more shoujo was what spurred Yukinobu Tatsu to make DanDaDan, then who knows what it might do for me? A Sign of Affection isn’t my first shoujo, strictly speaking, but it does feel like one of the first I’ve seen of the good old-fashioned flowery romance type.

What a gorgeous show. A Sign of Affection looks terrific, sounds terrific, and above all feels terrific. This is just a lovely, fluffy romance with low stakes and easy payoff; just two pretty people getting to know each other and learning to overcome their differences. It’s low on gimmicks and plot contrivances, and for as much as I like romcoms and romance stories with a unique bent, I love a good straightforward romance just as much sometimes. Everyone looks beautiful and likes each other and Jesus Christ look at the lips on these boys. There’s even a double-date to Costco, and what better depiction of marital bliss could there be?

I’m still pleasantly surprised at how this show handles the main character’s disability. Protagonist Yuki’s congenital deafness isn’t a single-note character quirk or a plot device to make her seem helpless; it simply is. It’s a part of her life that serves as the lens through which all of the people in her life see and treat her, and it leads to the only thing that resembles a major conflict in the show. Itsuomi, the main romantic interest, doesn’t baby her or walk all over her; he instead gently tests her boundaries while learning to accommodate her in a way to ensure her comfort. Her childhood friend Oushi, on the other hand, is very jealous of this development because he seems to feel entitled to her just because he did the bare minimum to accommodate her. The circumstances aren’t common, of course, but it’s a good lesson for a shoujo to have: Don’t settle.

My praise for A Sign of Affection mostly boils down to “it’s just really nice,” but it does “just really nice” so goddamn well. It’s fluffy, it’s comfy, it’s cozy, all of those adjectives that would set off my fight-or-flight response if I heard them from someone else, but I was enthralled by this show week in and week out. I can’t believe I neglected to start reading the manga, and I’m gonna have to get on that ASAP because I can’t wait for another season.

6. The Apothecary Diaries, second cour

I found myself more intrigued at The Apothecary Diaries at the end of 2023 than most other shows I’d watched that year. I grew more and more invested in the idiosyncratic Maomao as she investigated mysterious ailments and navigated imperial palace politics, all the while being a lovable little shit. 

Before I’d realized it, though, the 2024 half of its run knew it had its hooks in me and took me for a ride. What looked at first like a series of one-off puzzles quickly began entangling into a much larger mystery, rapidly gaining momentum until exploding into a massive emotional payoff. So many of the small details in what you assume are episodic mystery-of-the-week mini-stories become relevant in unexpected ways and draw you in ever further. I adore this kind of lowkey long-term storytelling, and for it to be part of such an appealing package is basically catnip for me.

For as gorgeous as The Apothecary Diaries can be visually, sonically, and sometimes even emotionally, it’s worth mentioning that this show is also hilarious a lot of the time. Maomao is on permanent goblin mode whenever she isn’t carrying out official business, and any time the palace officials have to rein her in is a delight. The push-and-pull between her and Jinshi is endlessly entertaining to the point where I can wait forever for that payoff if I have to.

I neglected to read the Apothecary Diaries manga after the first season went off the air (though I nearly bought all of it sight unseen), and with the second about to drop, I guess I’m holding off for another six months. Can’t say I mind, though. I’m along for the ride and I want this show to keep surprising me for as long as it can. This is easily one of the best anime of the 2020s so far and I’m gonna be there front row center for every new episode.

5. Bang Brave Bang Bravern

People say “peak fiction” too goddamn often these days. Not that it was a meaningful term to begin with, but it’s been memed to hell and back and is mostly just thrown out ironically to mock garbage writing. To be honest, I’m not above it myself, but I prefer to ascribe it, even jokingly, to stuff that can only truly come from a brilliant and/or deranged mind. Preferably both. Peak fiction, to me, is the intersection where talent meets insanity, no matter the degree of either.

Bang Brave Bang Bravern is peak fiction.

I gushed about this show after the winter season, and I almost don’t want to say anything further about it, mostly for two reasons: Firstly, because I don’t really want to give the game away any more than I already did back in April, and secondly, because I think it may have permanently burrowed into a specific part of my brain and then melted it. All I’m left with is “this show fucking rocks, dudes rock, you need to see it, it’s peak, don't ask questions, just watch it.”

Indeed, Bravern is the Dudes Rock anime of the year, and an essential piece of Dudes Rock media. It’s Top Gun with aliens and a giant talking robot. And the robot wants to fuck his pilot. This show is loud, horny, stupid, and self-aware, combined just so into a cocktail of legitimate brilliance that is, for better or worse, unlike anything I’ve seen before or since. Nearly every single episode had me clawing at my hair and shrieking “WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING,” and that is the highest praise I can give just about anything.

I might be overselling it just a touch, but Bravern is just as earnest as it is utterly wild. It’s an intentionally hilarious show, but it means everything it does and says. It’s a love letter to mecha anime and tokusatsu, and with its top staff sporting Gundam and Macross bona fides, that love oozes into every aspect. The mechs, both manmade and alien, all look tremendous, the music is a throwback to the goofy bombast you’d find in series like this as far back as the Showa era, and the ensemble cast outside of our silly leads are just as gung-ho and serious about Saving The World as you’d find in just about any other mech show. Anything that can be this goofy with a completely straight face is going to hook me in.

All in all, Bang Brave Bang Bravern is hypercompetent lunacy with heart. Call it weaponized genre awareness if you must, but it knows exactly what it’s about, grabs you by the collar, and takes you for a ride, all while doing badass tokusatsu poses and calling out special moves with silly names. This is legitimately what fiction is all about. 

Also, if you don’t like Lulu just because she screeches a lot, you’re a weakling. Gaga-pi, motherfucker.

4. The Dangers in My Heart, season 2

This was a series whose first season was conspicuously absent from my 2023 rankings, but I caught up shortly after finishing that list in order to catch up to the second season. I’d watched a glut of slice-of-life romances in 2023 and figured I could afford to miss this one. I’m overjoyed at how wrong I was.

To paraphrase the second season’s exceptional OP, The Dangers in My Heart is indescribably beautiful. As I said with A Sign of Affection, I love me a straightforward anime romance, and this middle school slice-of-life is just that: Underdeveloped edgelord boy ends up making unlikely friends with, and falling for, the cheery popular girl in his class. This is easy wish-fulfillment on paper, but that’s hiding the trick: Kyotaro isn’t gonna get anything he wants by keeping his quills out for anyone who comes near, and he has some growing up to do if he’s ever gonna get what he wants.

Season 2 picks up right where the first left off, with Kyotaro’s arm still broken from his family trip and Anna feeling guilty because she thinks her distraction was what led to the injury. Right out of the gate, we see the care these two have developed for one another: Anna wants to help while he can’t do his own schoolwork, while Kyo is quick to try to cheer her up when she no longer feels like she’s able to. Already we’re seeing Kyotaro’s character development coming to light: The Dangers in My Heart isn’t a story about a Nice Guy getting the girl just by being there; it’s a story of self-improvement, of trying to become the type of person whom your crush would want to fall in love with. For a story about and ostensibly marketed to early teenagers, that’s a good lesson to have, and I absolutely devour stories like that.

As can be the case with plenty of adolescents, most of the conflict here is internal. Kyotaro spent the early part of his middle school education keeping a safe distance from everyone in order to avoid getting hurt, and as you can imagine, that did a number on his self esteem. Though he’s mostly kicked the chuunibyo mindset, Kyo still prefers to keep his distance, less because he doesn’t want to get hurt, but now because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. Specifically Anna. So much of this story is about him learning to be okay with letting people in and not just falling in love, but making friends and becoming somebody whom people just want to be around. It’s a chuuni rehabilitation story. You love to see it.

With all due respect to mangaka Norio Sakurai, the biggest surprise that came from reading the manga was how much better the anime looks than its source material. The anime looks tremendous in its own right, but compared to Sakurai’s doodly, occasionally messy style, the love put into the show stands in stark relief. Characters, backgrounds, and lighting are all soft, squishy, and warm, almost like the entire thing was run through the filter through which only a 13-year-old in love can see the world, even as a little edgelord. Little flourishes in the environment and music highlight the minute but consequential motes of progression in Kyo and Anna’s relationship. The OP ended up shaking out as my favorite of the year, even with 2024 being bookended by Creepy Nuts bangers. It’s that special to me.

And just like that, The Dangers in My Heart went from “eh probably not for me” to “yeah this is one of the best anime of the decade so far.” It’s a simple slice-of-life romance on paper, almost literally so in the manga, but this is a transformative adaptation. There’s much more of the story to tell, and I wouldn’t complain about more, but as it stands after two seasons, The Dangers in My Heart is damn near perfect as it is.

3. Oshi no Ko, season 2

Another year, another season, another top-four finish for one of the best manga adaptations I’ve ever seen. 

The anime adaptation of Aka Akasaka and Mengo Yokoyari’s showbiz-revenge manga made shockwaves last year following its thunderous feature-length premiere, and its source material made even more waves due to some questionable plot developments that fortunately went nowhere. Doga Kobo was undeterred by any negative attention brought to the brand, though, and pressed forward into the next arc with a level of swagger you rarely see brought into an anime’s sequel season.

The 2.5D stage play arc in Oshi no Ko’s manga wasn’t my favorite, but it was one that you could tell just from reading it would translate well to the screen. Even then, I wasn’t prepared for just how hard Doga Kobo would go in adapting it. Character animation is sumptuously fluid, color used to amazing effect, and personal expression bursts forth into impressionistic abstraction to such a degree that it made manga artist Yokoyari cry. Everyone looks and sounds incredible beyond any way I could’ve imagined from reading the manga, which, at the risk of sounding defensive, is still very good as a whole.

This being a story largely about the music industry, the music remains as on-point as ever. It’s too soon to tell if the second season’s OP/ED pairing tops the instantly-iconic “Idol” and “Mephisto” from the first, but these are no slouches. This season’s OP, “Fatale,” is a whiplash-inducing banger by Tatsuya Kitani and idol Kento Nakajima, performing under the collaborative name of GEMN (itself a relevant name to the show; twins without the i/Ai, DO YOU GET IT???) with visuals that might actually top those of "Idol." The new ED, “Burning,” is Hitsujibungaku at their fuzzy, 90s-style alt-rock best, and it takes on a brand new meaning by the end of the season. Of course, there’s also the story-relevant music; while the bulk of the season focuses on the stage play, the last few episodes give us a glimpse into the pop music process, with the season capping off with an in-universe music video that, while not sonically my exact cup of tea, features 90 seconds of some of the best-looking dance animation I’ve ever seen in my life. That’s a flex if I’ve ever seen one.

And just like the first season, the second capped off with an announcement that Oshi no Ko will indeed be returning for another season. At this rate, and with the anime’s success, they will adapt the entire work, which will raise some eyebrows. I’m not going to litigate the manga’s later controversial developments nor its widely-panned ending, but if Doga Koba was able to handle everything that came before those things with such aplomb, I have faith that it will at least be done well.

2. DanDaDan

I want to preface this by saying that I agonized over whether this or the final entry is my anime of the year. I’m comfortable with what I chose, but if I’m being realistic, DanDaDan is basically 1b. This is a masterpiece already.

Although the source material was a bit of a cult hit until this year, DanDaDan came with a considerable amount of hype. If you were even peripherally familiar, it wasn’t hard to see why: Yukinobu Tatsu’s art is absurdly detailed in almost every panel, character designs are easily recognizable (one of the leads dressing similarly to a Persona 3 character was fortuitous for the anime to drop in the same year as Reload), and so many bizarre things happen in the plot that relaying them to anybody who wasn’t already familiar would make their brain briefly touch the void. Above all, though, Science SARU was tabbed to animate it, and any project by them is immediately worth your attention.

Sure enough, DanDaDan made an instantaneous splash, its first episode adapting the manga’s bombastic, twisty 63-page opening chapter nearly beat for beat. I’m not gonna “don’t look it up, just go in blind” this one, but almost too much happens for me to properly detail it all without just writing a complete synopsis. It boils down to “lonely nerd boy believes in aliens, angry kogal believes in yokai, it turns out both are real and now they have to deal with it.” It’s silly, it’s wild, it’s action packed, and if you can stomach the sexually-compromising alien abduction of the girl, you’re along for the ride.

I’m not gonna harp too much on that last point. It does stink that the female lead, Momo, is stripped to her underwear for the sake of alien sexual “research,” but said aliens get their comeuppance before anything happens to her. It’s still not great, and it’s not the last time female characters are portrayed in their underwear, but I do promise it’s for story reasons, it takes a backseat to the onscreen action and is pretty clearly not done for the sake of fanservice. I know such things can be beyond the pale for some people, but if you think you can compartmentalize that, I recommend you watch the first episode with that caveat in mind and decide from there. You may be pleasantly surprised.

DanDaDan is effectively two stories at once; on one side, we have Momo and the boy, Okarun (a nickname Momo devised for him to preserve her own sanity), gaining wacky supernatural powers in order to fight back these occult threats and regain what was stolen from Okarun from his first encounter with the unexpected (IYKYK). Because these threats can come out of nowhere, their daily high school lives can completely pop off without warning. On the other side, we have quieter slice-of-life tension as Momo and Okarun get to know (and frequently misunderstand) each other and realize they are completely and hopelessly head-over-heels for one another.

Surprise, motherfucker: DanDaDan is a romcom.

Yukinobu Tatsu, formerly an assistant on the first saga of Chainsaw Man, long struggled to get his own work serialized. At his editor’s urging, he read something like a hundred manga for inspiration, including several shoujo romance series. That research shows through in DanDaDan; although the bonkers action sequences and off-the-wall monster designs are what draw in readers and viewers alike, what’s kept this many people along for the ride is the beating heart just barely under the surface in the form of the romantic tension between Momo and Okarun. It’s easy to write this off as some “lonely nerd gets the cute gyaru just by being a Nice Guy” wish fulfillment, but that’s not really the case here; Okarun was a weird little twerp right from the jump. Similarly to Kyotaro in the aforementioned Dangers in My Heart, Okarun believes early on that he’s nowhere near Momo’s league, completely unaware that she quickly grows to actually like having him around, so he puts in the effort to become a more well-rounded person so that he can be confident enough to be seen next to her. He also just wants Momo to think he’s cool, and she thinks that’s adorable. And she’s right! These two are cute as fuck together.

So you come for the wild action and stay for the tremendous character dynamics. It should go without saying that Science SARU nailed all of the above, but I’m gonna say it anyway. Reading the Manga+ comments on each chapter as I read through the manga, readers were begging a top-flight battle shonen studio like MAPPA or WIT to pick up the series, and I think these fans got more than they bargained for. Masaaki Yuasa hasn’t been in charge of a series at the studio since Eizouken, or anything they’ve put out since Inu-Oh, but his influence is all over their recent works, including last year’s fellow top-three series, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. It’s beyond impressive how, much like Scott Pilgrim, this series manages to maintain the source material’s art style while still looking very much like a Science SARU anime. Everyone is bouncy and malleable as their moods dictate, line weights are wildly varied, and action animation is kinetic and unpredictable. Each fight with an alien or cryptid is awash in eye-searing color or eerie greyscale. The music is a boatload of fun as well; even putting aside the Creepy Nuts OP (banger after banger after banger from those dudes) and Zutomayo ED, regular proceedings are punctuated by a wildly varied score, from funk to folk to an insane chase scene set to an electronic mashup of the “William Tell Overture” and the can-can. Everything about DanDaDan keeps you guessing.

I was looking forward to DanDaDan enough that I went to the theatrical premiere of the first three episodes and was sufficiently blown away. If you’ve seen the show, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that it looks and sounds incredible in a cinema setting. I left the theater positively buzzing, telling anyone who’d listen that they had no idea what was coming, but even knowing the entire story, I wasn’t prepared for more of what was to come. The literal next episode after what I’d already seen in the theater had one of the most bonkers action setpieces I’ve seen since Gurren Lagann, and just three episodes later an unbelievable emotional gut punch, prior knowledge of the manga be damned. Every single aspect of DanDaDan as an anime was given the same level of love and care that Tatsu put into his own work. It’s one thing for an anime adaptation to be faithful to its source material, and another entirely for it to elevate and transform it. DanDaDan somehow does both.

If there’s anything that held this back from being the anime of the year, it’s that this season kind of just… ends. With the 12-episode runtime that was given to the debut season, DanDaDan ends its first run right after the beginning of the manga’s next arc, which feels bizarre. There’s no resolution, but there’s no real cliffhanger here either. Which I kind of get, the story is driven by a constant forward momentum, but a little warning that the season was ending would’ve been nice. It’s only a six month break until the show comes back, but judged on its own, the way this season ended left me feeling a bit cold and the season itself feeling incomplete. Even shows that have year-long breaks between cours rather than seasons tend to put some kind of cap on each individual run, but DanDaDan just kinda left the toilet unflushed, and next to it a Post-It note promising to come back later. For something this lovingly crafted, that seems like a bizarre oversight.

That was hardly enough to temper my enjoyment though. Anything this well-made is deserving of the attention and success it’s attained, but to have this story, with these characters and this level of bonkers action made this well, is just an embarrassment of riches. And God help me, I’m shamelessly greedy. July can’t come fast enough. I need all of it.

1. Delicious in Dungeon

At the end of its run midway through the year, I declared Dungeon Meshi the best anime of the year up to that point and that I’d be impressed if anything would manage to overtake it. Though the other two entries in my top three made extremely strong cases, nothing else quite hit the spot and nourished the soul quite like Dungeon Meshi.

Barely a year removed from one of 2022’s best anime, Cyberpunk Edgerunners, Studio Trigger kicked off 2024 with another Netflix original, this time with its first proper manga adaptation since the studio split from Gainax a decade prior. It seemed an odd fit at first to have a studio known for wacky, hyperkinetic action productions like Kill la Kill and Promare to adapt this quirky fantasy dungeon manga, but hey, they also did Little Witch Academia. It turned out to be an odd fit, but in the best way: Dungeon Meshi is pretty offbeat as it is, so for it to get picked up by one of the more oddball prestige studios ended up making a tasty stew.

I struggled to elaborate on what makes this show so good after each of its cours, and six months later I remain a little lost for words. It’s an exceptional story adapted exceptionally well. Between the characters, the story, the setting, the emotional stakes, the comedy, the highs and lows, they nailed it all. Trigger just gets it. Even when characters go off-model for the sake of an intentional animation quirk, it still has that inimitable Trigger charm to it. It sounds just as good as it looks, too: The orchestral score highlights the quieter, sillier moments just as well as the tenser action setpieces, the foley work behind the dungeon’s bizarre and varied flora and fauna is immaculate, and the cast is perfect in both Japanese and English (I rarely ever say so but seriously, shout out to the dub).

I’m just as sick of saying “this show speaks for itself” when I have trouble finding the words as you probably are of reading it, but I have little else to add here. I’ve written plenty already. Just go watch it. This is already one of my favorite manga ever, and by the time the series wraps up at the end of its second season, it will easily end up as one of my favorite anime ever.

[throneofsapphics]

old faces, part 11

Rowaelin x f!Reader

Summary: you and Rowan meet again after seven years, and deal with the fall-out of a secret. 

Warnings: mentions of violence

Word Count: 3159

A/N: I know it's been 6 months, but I'm just getting back to a place where I'm able to write this story! I'm sorry this took so long <3 thank you to @whisperingmidnights for your help with this part

series masterlist

“Your plan is to piss them off?” Fenrys looked at you like he prayed you were joking. 

“It’s not my whole plan.” 

“But it’s part of it?” 

“Figure out how desperate they are, and I can get a good gauge on how dangerous or useful the object is.” 

“Don’t underestimate their intelligence,” Fenrys cautioned. 

Rowan wanted to snarl at the male, he might as well have agreed this was the best plan. It was a good plan, he could admit that, there was only one pitfall - a very big one. It puts you in harm's way. No, it makes you even more of a target than you already are.

“What if it backfires?” Aelin asked, and Rowan both admired and was incensed by how calm she seemed. “What if others become suspicious, start asking around, and end up wanting the same thing they do?” 

“There’s always a risk,” you chewed on your bottom lip. He was about to open his mouth, to say ‘exactly’ or, ‘it’s too great of a risk,’ when you turned your gaze on Fenrys, then Aelin, then him. 

“From a strategic standpoint … if it weren’t me -” 

“It is you,” Aelin interrupted, but you continued as if she hadn’t said a word. 

“What would you say? What if the potential knowledge we’d gain is of great risk to Terrasen? Aren’t we better off knowing?” 

“It’s not much of a question if you put it like that,” Fenrys muttered. He didn’t look particularly happy about it, but Rowan knew he agreed. 

He turned to Aelin. ‘What do you think?’ his eyes asked.

“She’s right.”

Gods. He knew he would, if it wasn’t you, if it was nearly anyone else he’d task them with figuring it out. 

“We know a few Akkadian males are searching for some kind of artifact or weapon,” Fenrys started, ticking things off on his fingers, “and that it’s possible they are working independently, that they want to keep this secret. We know they have … dangerous knowledge of your past, and they’re connected with some kind of underworld.” 

There’s no real other way they’d know Andal - a male he’d like to kill one day, if only for the fear and pain in your eyes when his name was said. 

Aelin pinched the bridge of her nose. “We see if it draws some kind of reaction, see if anyone else is surprised, if he’s really acting personally or if he’s a scapegoat.” 

He prepared himself to protest, but your past words ‘don’t coddle me,’ echoed in his mind. With your characteristic stubborn tenacity, you’d already set your mind to this. At least you were letting him help, at least he could do something to help keep you safe. Rowan latched onto that mentally, onto the small consolation he got. 

“We need to ensure your safety,”  he emphasized, sending you a challenging look. Rowan knew this wouldn't be as desired if they didn’t all go in on it together. Sure, you could do something similar on your own, but he knew you well enough to tell when you didn’t quite want to. When you wanted help, even if your stubborn pride kept you from agreeing to or asking for it. “You won’t -,” Rowan paused and correctly himself, “don’t need to do this alone. Anymore.” 

You agreed, and the planning began. 

-

After two long hours of hashing out every detail, reviewing and reciting them until Rowan was satisfied, Fenrys and Aelin looked ready to explode. You found some comfort in it, but even you were tiring. 

When Rowan and Aelin locked in on one of their silent conversations, you turned to Fenrys, angled so they couldn’t see your face, and mouthed “leave.” 

He winked, and made a poor excuse for a departure, but they didn’t seem to care. 

There was an impending sense of doom, perhaps your mind playing tricks on you, but you couldn’t help feeling like something - maybe everything - would go wrong, no matter how much planning you put into it. 

The Queen and King stood as well, murmuring ‘goodnights,’ before you could say anything. Fuck. 

Your ill-thought out plan had not included that. 

Aelin stopped at the door, hand on the brass knob, Rowan a few steps outside, paused as well. Golden hair fell like a curtain over her shoulder, her head turning  as you slowly stood, teeth digging into your bottom lip. 

Time slowed, her eyes tracked the movement, darkening when they reached your mouth, teeth digging into soft flesh, perhaps imagining them digging in somewhere else. You certainly where. Step by step, you crossed the room towards her. Your footsteps sounded obnoxiously loud, thundering almost as loud as your heart. She turned fully to face you, hand letting go of the door. 

Less than a foot away, you stopped. Eyes glimmering, she tilted her head - daring you. 

This time, you didn’t back down. Hands reached, cupping her palms - still she waited. You could see how the patience cost her, a small curve of your lips and she nearly snarled, but you cut off the words forming, pushing forward to close the gap. 

Soft lips, slow movements, hands wandering, grazing over shoulder, down sides, settling on hips - moving all over as if you couldn’t wait to memorize. 

A low whistle from the hallway - who, you didn’t care, but heard Rowan’s snarl as a response. Aelin’s arm wound around your waist, drawing you closer, shifting your attention back to her. 

You felt Ceri’s magic, likely just down the hall, and stumbled back. 

Hurt flashed over Aelin’s face, through her eyes, mouth parting in dismay. 

“Ceri,” you hissed, “and company,” you added as an afterthought.

The hurt faded, replaced by a smile and a knowing nod as she stepped out of the doorway. 

“Tomorrow,” she said, the word a promise and a plea. You nodded, but couldn’t shake the sense that tomorrow might not come. You cursed yourself for thinking so negatively, for winding yourself up into a state of gloom. Things would work. They had too. There was too much at stake, and too much to lose. 

Four sets of shuffling footsteps - Ceri accompanied by the little … gang, to say the least. The three E’s, Edde, Edie and Elias.

Ceri burst through the door, her friends trailing more cautiously behind her. 

“They can spend the night, right?” 

“I don’t think that’s how you ask a question,” Rowan said dryly. 

You fixed her with a sharp look before she could roll her eyes. 

“We- we can go,” Elias said, voice barely carrying. He’d always been the most cautious of the three 

You opened your mouth, already ready to agree, seeing the sharp look Rowan fixed her with out of your peripheral, but Ceri cut in first - 

“Please, can we spend the night here?”

“Yes,” you laughed and waved them back towards their rooms, shooting a kind smile towards her three friends. In all honesty, you were surprised she asked, but figured she only did it because Rowan and Aelin were also present. 

-

“You might as well adopt the three of them,” Aelin commented. She’d meant it half as a joke, but saw how your eyes brightened. 

“Maybe when this is all over.” There was a distant look in your eyes, accompanied by the slightest upward tilt of your lips. Not the distant gaze of someone in pain, but someone thinking forward, thinking of the future. 

‘Maybe’ might as well be a yes, considering your expression - and if the three of them agreed, of course, but she couldn’t see them declining it.

Aelin didn’t know how anyone could turn you down, not with your pretty eyes or -

Rowan coughed next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. Not pleased with looking away from you, she managed to turn her attention to him. 

“Going to stare all night?” He asked silently. 

Aelin didn’t dignify that with a response, instead let her eyes flash briefly to your lips, before murmuring goodnight’s to all of the room’s occupants, noticing the flush on your cheeks as you tracked her gaze. 

Aelin was out the door as Rowan gave his own goodnight’s, and she already knew that once they were back in their rooms he’d gripe that she happened to be the one closer to you. 

Two fingers touched her lips, her back pressed against the stone, mind wandering - wondering when she’d get to kiss you again -

You appeared in the open doorway, eyes wide with panic, head snapping back and forth - had your magic told you something? 

Aelin realized she trusted you implicitly as you tugged her back inside, slamming the door behind her. 

“Aelin and Rowan decided to stay a little longer,” you yelled - a course of acknowledgements coming from further down the hall, already in one of the rooms. 

“He’s - they’re both down a hall or so,” you were blinking rapidly, your breaths obviously intentional. And you didn’t need to clarify who ‘he’ was. For your sake, Aelin forced a tight, tight lid on her anger - and saw Rowan do the same. 

She felt Rowan’s wind sweep past her - buffering against your shield, she felt it as a small crack opened for him - letting his wind slide into the hallway, likely clearing all traces of their scents, along with Ceri and her little gang’s away. When had she become so attuned to your magic?

She heard him as he crossed closer - pausing a few feet away from the door - before continuing on, making it to the end of the hall before he backtracked. 

“I redirected our scents, not erased them,” Rowan murmured quietly - although your magic would block any noise from escaping.

“So he knows where,” you said aloud, arms wrapping around yourself. 

Rowan moved quicker than she could, his arms laid gently over your shoulders, almost hesitantly. When you didn’t flinch, when you leaned into him instead, he tugged you closer, brought your chest to rest against his, other arm wrapping around, fingers running through your hair. 

Aelin saw when you let your beautiful mind stop running, your face tilting, cheek pressed against him, arms coming around his waist. The moment when you relaxed, and let Rowan give you comfort like a lover would. 

-

Another familiar, but friendly scent tricked through the door. Fenrys. He was both grateful and annoyed with his timing. 

“You can let him in,” you sighed. Rowan tightened his arms around you, afraid the moment might leave before he truly got the chance to enjoy it. “And you can let me go,” you whispered. Aelin was by the door now, her hand perched right above the knob. 

“I’d rather not,” he muttered, but stepped back anyway. 

Maybe the day had been too long, and likely he was reading into things but he saw a flash of disappointment on your face. 

Regardless, he’d stepped back just in time - the door swung open, revealing Fenrys - looking unusually grave. 

“I didn’t interact,” his tone indicated he would’ve liked to, very much so, and the words proved Rowan’s inkling from earlier - the wolf hadn’t gone far at all, and having known the male for decades, he wouldn’t for the rest of the night. 

-

Laying back in bed, staring at a ceiling he’d memorized hours ago, Rowan rifled through his memories. 

Maeve had a vague interest in acquiring the types of objects made by your family, but the makers were, as far as she knew, always in Antica. Unattainable. To Maeve, the individual objects wouldn’t have been worth hunting down, not when she could acquire a source. He wondered if one day, if Aelin hadn’t come in and drastically changed his - all of their lives, he or one of the others would’ve received an order to find you or a member of your family. 

Somehow, thankfully, she had no idea your mother made her way into Wendlyn. He figured yours or her magic must’ve kept you hidden, that made him wonder how they’d found you.

It was obvious, he realized with the barest tinge of guilt. Your position in Aelin’s court would undeniably bring attention to you. Expose your abilities and bloodline in a way you’d avoided for so long. That brought the question of why you had accepted, considering it’s you, you knew the risks - hence why he felt the barest tinge of guilt. Maybe, after so long, you were sick of hiding. It wasn’t any use debating, rash decisions were uncommon for you, and rarely did you tell him exactly why you made the choices you did. A bit like Aelin, but not in a good way, but unlike Aelin if he asked you he’d usually get a straight answer. Usually. 

Nothing from his past campaigns with the Akkadians, past experience with the two Fae currently stirring too much trouble, gave guidance on how tomorrow could play out. 

The plan. One he’d made them go over countless times until everyone in the room looked like they wanted to kill him, that’s when he knew to call it quits, if you stuck to it then maybe things would work out. Too big of a maybe for him, but there was no other choice at this point. 

“Try to sleep,” Aelin murmured sleepily, he heard sheets rustling and felt her head rest on his chest, hand sliding over his stomach to rest just below his ribs. 

“We’ll see,” he kept his voice low, and traced circles into her back, the bare skin warm and smooth under his calloused fingers. Her breaths were even, and she’d already fallen back asleep. 

Rowan closed his eyes, and figured he could at least try and follow his Queen’s suggestion. 

-

Fenrys tried for his usual jovial manner in the morning, but it was obvious he was on edge over breakfast. You waited to call him out until after Ceri and her friends had left, accompanied by guards.

“At least pretend everything is normal,” you pushed your food around on your plate, “or you’ll tip them off and ruin our big plan.” 

The second half was laced with some sarcasm, in hopes to placate both you and him. He snorted, but none of the tension left his body, if anything it seemed to increase. That was a failure. Hopefully the rest of the plan would work out - even with the sense of doom still hovering over you like a storm cloud.

Finally letting the spoon clatter to the plate, your hand went up to trace your scar, thumb running over the still raised skin. It shot back down as you saw Fenrys tracking the movement. Most days, you hardly noticed it, but the habit reemerged once in a while. 

You glanced at the clock. Another part of the plan. Maybe you should’ve come up with a more interesting name for it. You brought it up to Fenrys. 

He let out an edged chuckle, “operation don’t cause another international incident?”

“Technically,” you tapped one finger against the table. “They started the incident.”

The statement did feel a tad childish, but in a good way, a way that lightened some of the invisible pressure pushing your shoulders down. 

“So you admit there already is one,” some of the tension had actually left his shoulder and a small sense of accomplishment filled you, but you just shrugged. 

“Operation mitigating international incident.” 

“OMII isn’t a worthy enough acronym.” 

Fenrys’s eyes lit up at the last word. Acronym. 

After taking the time to come up with your name, the two of you were nearly late - having to cut through a secret passage to make it on time. 

O.S.H.I.T. 

Successfully hinder international tactless-assholes. Hyphenated because according to the two of you, “O.S.H.I.T.A” doesn’t have the same ring. You’d also agreed to only inform their Majesties of the moniker if the plan was successful. 

“Why do I feel like you two were up to no good?” Aelin leaned over, no more than a queen consulting one of her advisors, whispering to you. 

“We would never intend to cause trouble, your majesty.” 

A very un-royal like curse came from her lips, thankfully just loud enough for you to hear, and you fought back a smile. Fenrys winked at you from across the room. 

-

Sun warmed your skin, the temperature absolutely perfect for an early summer mid-morning. They’d requested you stay in the castle until all parties had departed. But, there was no reason you couldn’t wander around some of the gardens. Fresh air was good for you, and you felt like you’d spent far too much time in a stuffy castle recently. You ached to get back to your home, considering everything went fine, hopefully that would be sooner rather than later. Not that you need permission, you reminded yourself. 

You had to fight to keep a big grin off your face. All of the worrying, all of the stress and pressure felt worth it now that you were on the other side. 

Yes, their eyes had flashed with anger when you ‘responded to the inquiries,’ publicly and slid them a handful of notes, drawing curious eyes from their companions. It had been a relatively simple plan, but you’d spent hours rehearsing answers to every feasible and not-so-feasible reaction, making it feel much more complex than it should’ve. But they’d departed that same night, and with them left a weight off your chest. 

At least, that’s what you thought before the cool flat side of a blade pressed against your neck, angled so the slightest wrong movement would have you bleeding out on the floor - dead within a minute, something clamped around your wrist - iron, and your magic winked, reduced down to a mere puddle. Some, but not nearly enough to get you out of this. 

“Don’t move,” a voice snarled in your ear, breath warming your neck. You didn’t dare swallow, didn’t dare attempt to form any words. It wasn’t them. Not the two Akkadian’s who’d been haunting you for the last week. Who had they sent? How many others were involved?

Despite your efforts to clear your mind and focus on the current … situation, names kept whirling in your head, making it near impossible. 

Ceri. Rowan. Aelin. Fenrys. Edde, Edie, and Elias. Reya. Ani. Ines. 

‘Safe,’ a familiar and wise female voice murmured in your ear, ‘they are all safe.’  Your chest loosened a fraction. Your mind reeled through every defensive maneuver you knew, and none of them would guarantee to get you out of this alive.

You froze as his hand slid around your front, you couldn’t glance down to see, did you want to see? But … just the briefest pressure of something sliding into your pocket, a crinkle of paper. Why would they slip you a note? The thought fled from your mind with his next words. “Listen carefully,” he hissed, “to what happens next - your life depends on it.” 

Why now, you thought, why when I have so much to live for?

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #69 – Please Undo This Hurt by Seth Dickinson

As a general rule, I feel like including a short story (not even 40 generously spaced pages on the ebook) in the list of what I’ve read this year is kind of cheating. But I got this as a gift and found it affecting enough that I feel like writing out my feelings, and in any case I’ve been reading 10,000+ words of web serial a week all year so I’ve got a bit of ethical room to manner here, I think.

This reads like an old school Idea Story, which I mean in the best possible way – a more grounded than usual Twilight Zone episode, a light dusting of interpersonal drama, uncanniness and sci fi/horror vibes over what’s exploring and wrestling with a single thought – or really, a single temptation.

Does it ever like life is a trap, morally speaking? Like every act you take cannot help but hurt someone, like complicity in more distant atrocities than you can count is a precondition of existence, like even when you try to be helpful or do the right thing it just ends up being a different kind of selfishness? Like, if you were the star of It’s a Wonderful Life, everyone’s life really would have been that much brighter if you had never been in it? Like in the final analysis, when all you have ever done or will ever do is tallied up and your heart is weight against the Feather of Ma’at, it will fall so far that it breaks the scales?

Well, what if there was a way out? Not suicide, but something cleaner – to be undone, to never have been, to never have hurt or been hurt in the first place. Wouldn’t you be tempted? How, in a world where there are maggots gnawing on every root, and every thing you care about is just one more hook to draw you deeper into the mire, could you convince yourself not to take it?

I intensely dislike psychoanalyzing authors based on their work. So I will instead say that this story is a truly masterful and incredibly successful exercise in writing from the perspective of someone grappling with intense depression – a perspective that simply takes for granted that the main objection to suicide is that it is a selfish escape at the expense of the distress inflicted on those around you. Even the finial resolution is less any realization of life’s inherent worth or goodness than an acceptance of the necessity of sacrifice in endless and varying degrees. It drips from every sentence, and cuts enough to hurt.

Dickinson is easily one of my favourite working writers, and finding another piece of theirs I haven’t come across before is always a delight. Their short stories especially are quite often emotionally raw and beautifully written enough to effect me like very little prose does. It’s no surprise that both their non-sequel novels basically take one of the short stories as the emotional core and climax of them (something I’d say Baru Cormorant did more successfully than Exordia, which felt like it flinched, but that’s a tangent). I don’t particularly think this would benefit from being expanded on, but the rawness feels similar.

This is by far the least worldbuilding-heavy story of theirs I think I've read, but there’s enough dreams and uncanny events and just colourful imagery for the prose to still absolutely sing. It’s a short enough story that actually quoting any excerpts feels like it defeats the point, but there are some lines and images I already know will be rattling around my head for some time to come.

[genericpuff]

I don't know the term for creators who became popular outside the traditional steps to "make it" in their profession; then when people started taking their work seriously and giving them criticism, these creators saw it as an attack because they are not used to mentors and studies.

Smythe's professional training is vague at best, being a folklorist. Then there's the creator of the popular hell cartoon that became her own executive producer and director in her 20s (I'm not going to say her name since it tends to attract her rabid fans) and becomes reactive to any kind of criticism on Twitter. Then there's that TikToker Devon Rodriguez, who became popular for sketching people on subways, and when an art critic gave a mild review to his art gallery, Devon unleashed his fans on him.

Like am I seeing a pattern here for artists? And I guess, what do you think we can learn from it.

Ah, so this is a very interesting (and broad) topic that we've touched on in discussions in ULO and other webtoon-related communities. So buckle up, it's time for an ✨essay✨

I think the best way I can sum up my thoughts on this issue is: the vast majority of people who become paid content creators don't seek out a job as content creators, a job in content creation is just something that happens to them.

I say "content creation" because this is something that applies to a lot of other platforms and online mediums as well, such as the examples you included (TikTok, Youtube, Twitch, etc.). And don't get me wrong, it's not like every successful content creator out there didn't work their asses off to get to where they are, but for many... it still involves an element of luck. People don't go to school for it, people don't "apply" to become influencers, and much of it relies entirely on just making stuff until it gets seen and propelled into success.

I think a lot of these issues arise with the creators themselves and how they view their own work. The reality is that many of us artists have been treated as the "rejects" of society, we constantly feel like we're misunderstood and have some deep inner pain that we express through our art, and instead of going to therapy, we come up with OC's. It's a lot more fun and it's a lot cheaper LOL Webcomics naturally wind up being the perfect lightning rod for people who feel that way, where we can pour ourselves into the characters, the world, the narrative, in a way that perfectly mixes our talents for art and our need to express our innermost thoughts and feelings about ourselves and the world around us. So when our art gets criticized or rejected ... it can be hard for a lot of artists to not feel like it's a criticism of the self, a rejection of our identities, an attack on our feelings and experiences, because we've tied so much of ourselves to our work. And this can make that transition very difficult for people who are trying to go pro, because being professional demands separating yourself from your work, at least enough that you can view it objectively, recognize its flaws, seek out pathways to improvement, and not take every bump in the road personally.

A lot of successful creators are people who just never made that transition. It's led to an abundance of professional creators who know how to film themselves or react to content or, in the case of webcomic artists, write stories about their OC's, but don't know how to actually navigate the industry at a professional level. They don't know how to read and negotiate contracts, they don't know what deals are actually good for them and which ones are better left on the table, they don't know how to manage teams of people, they don't know how to react to the attention, praise, and criticism of their audience - they're just doing what they've always done, but now they're making money doing it.

None of this is to speak ill in any way of the creators who've found success and are still just doing what they've always done for money. None of this is meant to be a slight on the creators who are using webcomics and art as an expression of their deeper selves (I do it myself, it's very cathartic!) because ultimately that's what makes your work your work, the fact that you made it, with all your good parts and bad. Many of these creators are capable of running their platform without any issues because they've learned how to play the game, or because their platform is made up of people just like them so their audience is more like just a social circle.

But many of them still also can't operate on a professional level and those are the ones we often see getting called out and held accountable when they do shit like, I dunno, scamming their audiences for money or making alt accounts to manipulate user reviews or plagiarizing from other people's work or just being really REALLY shitty to their own audience.

Often times these are people who are just doing what they'd normally do as a hobby, became well known for it, and managed to turn it into a living. But they never actually learned how to turn their hobby into a job, and themselves into professionals.

And artists especially are prone to this because, let's face it, a lot of us are just weebs having fun drawing our blorbos, so of course if we get a chance to monetize that, we're gonna! We should! We should want to be paid for our work and time and efforts!

But we also have to remember that it's a different ballgame, especially if you're turning your audience into customers. "I'm just a baby creator doing this for fun" doesn't and shouldn't apply anymore once you start signing contracts, selling your art as products, taking people's money to fund your projects, etc. because now it's not just your art, it's what you're expecting people to pay for so you can eat and pay your bills and live.

As much as our art is often personal and should be cherished as such, you can't expect people to want to pay for it if you're not setting a bar and meeting it, or if you're not treating your audience with any amount of dignity or respect.

I'm not saying you're not entitled to having feelings or still wanting to treat your art as art, but the line between art and products is there for a reason, it's to set people's expectations and ensure that both sides are having those expectations met. Webtoon creators suffer from the same thing that a lot of Youtube creators and other types of content creators suffer from in this transition, and I feel like HBomberGuy summed it up best:

"In current discourse, Youtubers simultaneously present as the forefront of a new medium, creative voices that need to be taken seriously as part of the 'next generation of media' - and also uwu smol beans little babies who shouldn't be taken seriously when they rip someone off and make tens of thousands of dollars doing it."

It's not gatekeeping a medium, it's not telling people they aren't allowed to have feelings or to want to still have that personal connection to their work in spite of the professional level it's achieved, it's simply just expecting people to actually live up to the label of 'professional' that they're using to make money.

And this especially goes for someone like Rachel, who claims to be a 'folklorist' despite all the contrary evidence that says otherwise. This is the same person who copy pasted the first result on Google as her source on a simple word definition:

There's a second part to that HBomberGuy quote that also actually applies to Rachel really well in this discussion, concerning how she labels herself a "folklorist" and how that's affected and influenced the greater discussion surrounding Greek myth:

"But on the opposite end, Youtubers who act like serious documentarians gain a shroud of professionalism which then masks the deeply unprofessional things they do. We just saw that with James. I think [James] partially got away with what he's doing for so long because he acts so professional about it, so people assume, 'there's no way he could just be stealing shit!' so they don't check. And on top of that, a lot of James' videos contain obvious mistakes and made-up facts... but because they're often presented next to well-researched stuff he stole, no one questions it. I've seen James repeat a lie in his videos, and then other people claim it's true, and link his video as the proof. He has helped to solidify misinformation by seeming like he's doing his diligence."

There's always going to be discourse over what's legitimate and what isn't when it comes to Greek myth, there are loads of things we still don't know simply due to the knowledge being lost to time. But there's something to be said about a white New Zealand woman using her self-insert romance comic and platform to build a veneer of professionalism and legitimacy around herself, as if she's the authority on the subject, while simultaneously relying on first result Google searches and citing works that have no real foothold in the way of scholarly or "folklorist" discussion.

All that's to say, you're right, her professional training is vague at best. She's never completed a longform comic prior to LO, she's not doing her due diligence in actually engaging with the media she's trying to "retell" and exposing herself to the voices of those from the culture that's tied to it, and she's not holding herself to any sort of standards when it comes not only to being a professional, but a professional who's been held on a pedestal for all these years. She's still operating the same way she was 5 years ago - drawing and writing whatever pops into her head and sending it to her editor for uploading, with next to no intervention or guidance. Except now it doesn't have the benefit of being new and having "potential", it's getting noticed and called out more now than ever because it's been 5 years of this shit and it's been getting worse on account of her clearly being burnt out (or just giving up/not caring) and the readers can't be sold on "potential" anymore.

And that's all I have to say on that.

[dalesramblingsblog]

OK, I think it's time to actually commit words to writing and actually stick to them. I have tried several times to write this post, and on several occasions have even managed to do so, but I've never managed to follow through on my stated commitments. For the most part this is because, well, I simply didn't want to, because I knew it would be difficult, but I think I've reached a point where it would be far more difficult not to.

Let me cut to the chase: Dale's Ramblings, on WordPress at least, will be going on indefinite hiatus. There are several factors at play here, from the fact that I simply don't find the average quality of the books at this time to be good enough to make the project as much fun as it has been in the past, to my ongoing university studies, but the main reason is... well, I'm sick.

I have, of course, known this intellectually for a while now. It's been about a year since I actually started to figure things out and realise how profoundly affected I had been by my long COVID. Frankly, the fact that I was able to write as much as I did in 2024 - 252,000 words, let's recall - even in spite of being ill is something of a minor miracle.

And more to the point, I did all that because... well, it was fun. Like, I say it's become less fun, and in an objective sense yeah it probably has; I'd rather be still reading books like The Also People than Kursaal or War of the Daleks. But, like, it was still fun. Tremendous fun. I can't stand books like Kursaal or War, but I look back on those reviews with quite a lot of fondness, and I think I've done some of my absolute best writing over this past year.

But there comes a point where you have to weigh the fun in one hand against the realities of your body in the other, and the fact is that I'm sick. I have, in all likelihood, been pushing myself a mite too hard at times, but I wouldn't have done it if I didn't sincerely get enjoyment out of every syllable. If it stopped being fun, I would have stopped, and I'm lucky enough that Dale's Ramblings has never stopped being fun.

Yet I also realise that I can't keep up this gruelling production schedule forever, chasing arbitrary deadlines for no greater reason than my own neurotic desire for neatness and symmetry.

So, then, a hiatus. We've done them before, but this one still feels harder because I desperately *want* to continue. And I will, some day; I've already committed too much energy to the idea of this project as my weird, sprawling autobiographical magnum opus. As much as it's about charting the Wilderness Years, Dale's Ramblings is just as much about charting the evolution of some scrawny suicidal fourteen-year-old into... well, we still haven't quite figured out an ending just yet.

Consider this a weird blip in our chronology then, a literary caesura, to be followed up on at a later date.

Which leaves us with the Ko-fi, as eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that I've already put up two of the three book reviews for April 1998, thinking as I did that I'd release them in March to coincide with the next anni-VARsary. I won't, obviously, but I will keep them up on the Ko-fi for those who are just dying to get a sneak preview, and you should be getting an additional 9,000 word review of The Hollow Men in the next couple days once I give it the final readthrough. Oh, and I'll probably cover Andrew Cartmel's Swine Fever for free on here as well.

There might be further Ko-fi exclusive early access reviews published in the coming months, but they will not be coming with anything like the current rate of regularity or reliability. I don't know exactly when they'll be going public, I suspect I'll want to hold the entire volume until I finish it so I can write without deadlines looming over me.

Is that greedy of me? Perhaps. But again, I'm sick and, for the foreseeable future at least, unemployed. This is, for now, the only way I pull in any sort of income that I can really call my own. If you can support the Ko-fi at all, even if it's just for one month or it's just a one-time payment, it would be greatly appreciated, but if not, I mean, I'll still be here. Just, y'know, rambling with a little less frequency or structure.

But I think any sense of structure went the way of the dodo when I ditched the dedicated "Positives" and "Negatives" sections of my reviews, really, so I think this was always just going to be my cosmic fate.

[mollywog]

When the Stars Align

Start from the Beginning | Part 5

“Peeta.”

He jolts from his seat on the chaise. She’s so quiet he hadn’t heard her approach, “Katniss.”

It’s evening now, well past dinner. She must have dined at the Abernathy’s. He’s had hours to review their initial encounter, too much time to dread and anticipate a reprise.

“I didn’t know you’d be here. I requested some milk from the kitchen.” She waved her hand in the direction of the hall, “I can ask Sae to send it to my room…”

“No, please stay.”

She eyes the door wistfully, before nodding and slipping into a seat across from him, “please let me apologize for earlier. I was surprised by your arrival. I’m sure it’s not the welcome you expected.”

“I do not expect anything, though I must admit I was surprised to find you here as well.”

She flinches, sinking into her seat, a worry line creasing her forehead, “I can leave if you wish to have your home to yourself.”

“That is not what I meant. This is your home as well and you are welcome to come and go as you please. It is only that you have not been to town these last two seasons.” As soon as the words leave his lips he wants to kick himself.

Katniss frowns, “you’ve been keeping track of me?”

“Sae’s letters were full of you.” He waves his hand flippantly. If she only knew how those fleeting mentions of her had fed his soul these past years, “Haymitch’s as well, as were the solicitor’s and tenants’. Everyone was eager to tell me how well the estate was managed in your care. I trust my thanks we’re conveyed?”

“Funny you never thought to write me yourself,” she scowls.

It’s not an unreasonable critique, but his temper flares all the same, “And I suppose all your letters to me were lost in transit?”

The arrival of a steaming pitcher of milk breaks the tension and Katniss readies two mugs. He’s missed watching her perform little tasks. Whether pouring tea, listening intently, or singing, she’s mesmerizing. He watches her hands elegantly move from milk, to honey, to spice, to spoon until she’s satisfied with her concoction.

She’s careful not to touch him as she passes the cup, but his skin still buzzes just the same at her proximity. He closes his eyes as the milk hits his tongue. It tastes like coming home.

“I am sorry,” she says barely above a whisper, breaking his trance. “I should have written. But by the time I’d felt ready, I’d convinced myself you would not want to hear from me.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. “I am sorry as well. I-”

“I’ve missed you,” she’s not looking at him as she speaks and he watches her profile as she swallows back feeling.

A mixture of joy and shame surge through him, that he was cared for enough to be missed and that his absence caused her pain. “And I, you,” he says. If this had been two years ago, he might have taken her hand in friendship and reassurance, but now she’s seated herself far enough away to be just out of reach. He’ll need to move slowly to regain her trust.

“Will you tell me of your travels? Not tonight of course. You must be weary… but soon?”

“Only if you will tell me of all your rambling walks at Bakerston and your objections to the new vicar.”

She raises a brow.

“As I said, I’ve heard much of you through my correspondence.”

She smiles this time, small but genuine, before rising from her seat, “I accept, though it is an uneven trade as you can hardly avoid hearing my qualms with Mr. Heavensbee. But that will have to wait. You’ll excuse me if I retire?”

He nods and she moves to leave, but pausing before she disappears behind the door, “welcome home Peeta.”

[thebootycrusade]

Oh man am i going to catch some heat for this but someone needs to say it at least once, and my hot take after reading wottg, even after reading a few other review post from notable blogs here, is that the pjo fandom here whos 20s+ needs to realize that they arent the target age demographic/audience anymore. Ive been reading the books since tlt hit the shelves, and even with that much investment i recognize that these are, at their very core, books still written for older kids and early-mid teenagers.

We've had books where characters die, get tortured, and explore other heavy topics on page, but face it, we as 20somethings will never going to get a cannon rrverse book that fully addresses the trauma or ptsd these characters have throughout the series because those topics we want explored as adult readers are way too dry and a little advanced for that age group to stay engaged, and actually chronicling the healing from them wouldnt be so easily explored in a single series. The trio recognizes that they have been through a lot even in demigod standards, but having the ability to talk and articulate through that trauma isnt easy when youre still in it. Being an adult with hindsight, i can recognize that parts of my early life were traumatic, but in the moment, was i able to recognize it as trauma or ptsd? no, i just knew it sucked. while i was in it or slightly removed from it was i ever really thinking about it in any deeper form past "well that fuckin sucked"? no. (does it sound like a familiar demigod anyone?). was i able to recover from it neatly and concisely in a couple months or years? no. and the most important part: could i do so in a way that would sound entertaining or even the least bit appealing to a 12yo when put into writing? Fuck no.

Even switching it up to ricks actual storyline, are there really mischaracterizations? or do we just think people stay the same from 12-16 or 16-18 especially after taking into account everything in the books? or are we just rewriting cannon to "fix" the timeline because now its not following the fanfic fanon timelines and characterizations again. Percy is objectively an awful and unreliable narrator throughout the books, but because we are only ever shown his view of a situation we as readers have to discern if he is reading a situation wrong or if we are. We already know all three of the trio are impulsive, capable of bad ideas, and still (surprise surprise) figuring out how growing as people works because its already rare for greek demigods to live into adulthood, so of course things will happen or are witnessed by percy that can be observed as being completely out of character. Lets be real, the trios entire past 6 years have been "plans with just enough 'winging it' for the world (and conveniently you) to survive" and now that they are finally given some breathing room together, would they really be cognizant of or care if something was "in-character" and consistent with all their past choices? did you make all the same choices at 18 that you would have at 12? 16? hell even 17?

[writingwell]

20 13 fanfic questions

Thanks to @randomfoggytiger for the tag. I didn’t do all of them, just the pertinent ones, and I modified those just to include ffnet as well. 

1. How many works do you have? 26 on AO3 (for my mature rated Spy Castle stuff); fanfiction.net has 278 Castle fics;and about 300ish archived at Gossamer for X-Files.

4. What are your top fics by kudos/reviews? The Return of Vulcan Simmons, Tempest (not a spy work!) on AO3; ffnet would be One Hundred Days of Summer (co-authored with SandianeCarter) and Dash It All.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yeah, I think if you take the time to contact me, you deserve the respect of hearing from me. It might not be a full-blown conversation, but I’ll do what I can with a full-time profession and a writing one as well. Also, suuuuper sorry, just discovered AO3 has an inbox. 300 days ago, some of you messaged me and I am just now seeing those. Lol. 

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I have a spy fic where the two of them are just so at odds, so grieving with and over each other… okay that’s most of them. But I try not to end on angst, as it’s supposed to be the journey not the destination. (Angst is a twisting of the heart, not a place where you stay. According to me.)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Dash series has the ‘happiest’ endings. Not because life is happy, but because they figured out how to create contentment within what they’d been given/dealt in life. And in ways other versions of the Castle characters hadn’t accomplished. They did the work.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Oh definitely. A while back, I turned off comments on tumblr for about a year as I processed and healed from some targeted attacks, and I can say that I came out more certain of myself and my writing. But I was also an adult who had not been forced to weather these attacks as a vulnerable 13 y-o on social media (as so many of you are unfortunately dealing with). I was able to detach, center myself once more, and rise above because I’d grown up IRL, so to speak. I have a faith in something bigger than me which, while it doesn’t look like what it did, has sustained me and given me the confidence to know my worth even as it spurs me to be/do better. 

9. Do you write smut. If so what kind? Oh definitely, lol. It’s on AO3. Usually I like to explore M/F with a third in there for kicks, as the concept of generosity and giving within the sexual relationship/experience is intriguing to me.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I objected to the term ‘stolen.’ I’ve had my fics, without my knowledge, posted elsewhere, translated without my knowledge, and changed to other fandom characters to be posted elsewhere. However! I’ve had loads of people ask me too, and I really appreciate being able to go visit them. (Stolen would indicate I somehow own these fanfictions, and I do not, as that would be a legally difficult hill to stand on. I also do not perceive collective fan art in this manner, because the world is all of ours.)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? Oh there’s a co-written story that me, carto, and muppet47 started and have NEVER finished. We all know Castle has to go to jail, but we can’t write it.

16. What are your writing strengths? Writing it the first time. Correctly. As in, it comes out the way it should or ought to or how I am seeing it in the moment. I have the right rhythm, I can spell and I have the grammar skills. My first draft is fast and good enough for submission. Of course, I go back and edit, and I have to, but I’m very blessed in not ever going through anything like writer’s block.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Secondary characters. I have a tendency for tunnel vision, where all I want to do is talk about and to and for the main characters. If they have friends or family, I barely include them. I can’t manage to care that they exist. But all of us live in a complex web of relationships and community; no one is alone. My last novel, Taste of Salt, was an concentrated effort to include as many other perspectives as possible, so it was told through the POVs of the two main characters and interspersed with flashback chapters from the POVs of their friends, family, coworkers, chance encounters, medical personnel, kids, support networks… there you go.You have to do the thing that’s hard. Write it out, over and over, keep practicing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? Yeah, sometimes it becomes necessary for the character. But please keep it to a minimum (imo) as it detracts from the reader’s understanding and experience of reading. It ought to be rather easy to understand what the person is saying due to context or just the flow of the scene. If you’re writing in English, and you have a character visiting France, then obviously some of that ought to be in French, but after a while, you can indicate that the language is being used while writing it in English. I say this because most of you are fandom writers who are not writing for literary audiences; therefore, don’t ruin everyone’s fun my making it incomprehensible or inaccessible. Please.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? Don’t ask me to choose between my children! I can tell you that Dash holds a special place in my heart due to the amount of readers who said it gave them understanding of their own sensory issues or their child’s autism, etc. Spy gave me one of my greatest friends, carto, who continues to love and support me and my writing. 

I won't tag anyone, because I deleted so many of these questions, but feel free to answer or share or talk with me about them!

[i-mybrunettelady]

im enjoying playing guardian again after not playing it for a long time— also having brainrot about nyra at the same time (i’ve been reading through her tag a bit 👀). so i have questions im curious about

maybe i need to read about her more, if you’ve already talked about this, but how did nyra’s guardian powers manifest? did she always have them since she was young?

& how did they develop over time? did her powers adapt with her as she traveled (like how you got a new elite specialization in each expansion)? is there anything unique with her guardian powers that other guardians don’t have?

omg hiiiiiii

i am so !! that you like my girl!! thank you!!! i'm so glad we are all unwell about her, actually, and i get very emo whenever people tell me they like her ;;; she's my dottir! and i'm so happy you're enjoying guardian!! if you ever have any questions for it (sans wb which i don't really play) my dms and inbox are open <3

a lot of my guardian nyra hcs and lore are like. old content almost and live in my head and i don't talk about them as much here, which i probably should since they're due for a review/revision. a few core things remain:

she was a magical late bloomer; humans generally are, seeing as they're not originally from tyria, but she was a late bloomer even for human standards. she got her magic at 15. i wrote some of it here for my commander week prompt!

she is a firebrand/dragonhunter mix in canon. her starter abilities resemble dragonhunter moreso than base guardian. she doesn't use firebrand tomes but she uses the mantras, and she doesn't have blue guardian fire. she doesn't use dragonhunter bow (even if i use it mechanically for her build.)

she can use light to transform it into physical objects.

her weapon pipeline goes like this: hammer (PS to HoT) -> staff (HoT - EoD) -> polearms/spear (SotO, JW and onward) + a crystalline weapon called Lightbringer that she can shape to be whatever she wants it to be, a gift from Aurene.

her powers progression is less tied to elites and more tied to her magical usage i'd say. in PS she's only had her magic for about four years, enough to know basics of how to operate it, but not enough to be the caster she will become in the future. we're talking spirit weapons as aids to her melee, hammer attacks. when mordremoth gave her her shoulder scar, she had to switch to staff because wielding a hammer with a badly healed shoulder is unattainable, and her magical abilities developed further.

during her time in elona, she spent some of it in the company of roni gehianu, who she got the knowledge of mantras from that help her to this day! i give little nods to this in my writing sometimes when i describe her making a motion and being suddenly calmer than she'd been before, for example, so she gave them day-to-day usage as well. by season 4 she developed her own blend of guardian that she technically is to this day :)

in cantha she never really took to willbender. she took notes on willbenders' mobility, which help with her spear fighting, but never quite leaned into that part of her training fully. this might change if i give wb another shot and i see if i like it, but for now, she isn't a willbender.

i will also add that if she wasn't a guardian at all, she'd be a warrior, and a spellbreaker at that, because her magical proficiency could've also been inverted and become an ability to repel magic. for an awesome exploration of this idea that i don't think i'll do well bc i'm too attached to guardian!nyra, look no further than Wayfarer, an amazing high fantasy interactive fiction novel that is legit one of my fav pieces of media of all time. Anyways.

thank you for dropping by and for dropping this question! i'm always down to talk abt my girl and abt guardian and like. get my brainrot constantly enabled further <3

[990forever]

ex fashion intern starts fashion blog

Well the lightbulb in my lamp is one of those fancy ones that you control with your phone but somehow it got disconnected. So I’ve got about ten candles going in my room right now, blackout-style, and you know what it’s pretty nice actually. I've been meaning to start this blog forever. Like last week at some party for an art magazine this girl I know came up to me and said that she's the one who took over the fashion magazine internship I'd had over the summer. I warned her about how it's unpaid and how everyone kind of hates working there, but I also wished I'd stayed on longer because of how wonderful my coworkers were. The two staff writers were so smart, and excellent writers, and along with the fashion assistants, they all were really some of the most knowledgable and obviously best-dressed people I've met-- which brings me to my point: I SUCK AT FASHION WRITING. And it's because I'm not smart enough.

By vocation I suppose I'm a novelist. I study at an art school, but it's kind of a look-don't-touch situation for me, a novelist. But I think you have to be really smart to write about fashion, or art. To write about objects, visual culture. The fashion editor for Interview recently posted a tik tok with a response to the question: what should I study if I want to get into fashion? Her answer? Be a student of everything! And I think that's true. Because fashion is culture. Over the summer, my interest in writing about art and culture (THINGS! OBJECTS!) expanded greatly. I even started reviewing visual art shows. But still, my skills for writing about objects and materials is... lacking. During fall fashion week, I could barely get a word out about any garment: "The smallest hint of danger entered this breezy, almost nautical scene as imposingly large trench-coat buckles cinched at happily floppy collars and metal belt buckles served as shoulder straps," I wrote of Proenza Schouler's S/S25 show. What?

My best friend is the smartest person I know. Like, that's why she's my best friend. "There are moments in this show where I see something like elegance, but it’s also very arid, it’s like the process of stripping something back, sex defined in a roundabout way, like Mapplethorpe’s flowers," she texted me about Courrèges S/S25 show back in fall. She's a novelist, too, and a brilliant writer at that, but she doesn't really write about fashion. She just lives it. She works at Beacon's closet, which has provided her with a shockingly robust education in archive vintage and designer fashion. Like, scary. She can identify the season of a Rick or Margiela garment just by looking at it. She showed up to a movie one time wearing five skirts layered on top of each other, that one's miu miu, these two are comme, that one's junya... When we were invited to a party at Comme de Garçon by a writer friend, she gave me a vest to throw over my favorite supersnatched Gucci button-down. You have to wear it backwards, though. My editor from the magazine was there and she pointed at me and yelled, Vandevorst! And I had no idea what she was saying because I was drunk and apparently too stupid to recognize that I was wearing archival AF Vandevorst... or who that was. She kept going Vandevorst! Vandevorst! And I kept going What? What? and if anyone had been watching it would've seemed like we were doing a bit, Vandevorst! What?

My handle is a reference to the nightclub I used to work at, where again the limits of fashion were constantly being pushed, challenged. Some of is not the best looks I've ever witnessed happened while I was working the bar--things that a runway or an editorial spread couldn't dream. That's why I think this stuff is important. It's evidence of how we live.

Back when I was at The New School majoring in gay robots and apocalypse poetry, I heard that the fashion students at Parsons were required to explain their own outfits every day. I don't know if that really happened or if it was just part of a canon of fashion-world imaginary glamorous bullshit (think: The Devil Wears Prada, and then grittier but essentially the same, How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell), but I think about it a lot and now, every day when I get dressed to go to art school. It might be productive to write about that unconscious morning's first foray into culture. Practice makes perfect!

see you soon

x

[sunscreenstudies]

How to Get Your Life Together

1. Set Clear Goals

First things first, you need to know where you’re headed. Take some time to write down your short-term and long-term goals. These could be anything from acing your exams, saving money, to learning a new skill. Having clear objectives gives you direction and motivation.

Tip: Use the SMART criteria to set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

2. Create a Daily Routine

A structured routine can make a world of difference. Start by mapping out your day, including study time, work hours, meals, exercise, and relaxation. Consistency is key to building healthy habits.

Morning Routine Example:

Wake up at 7 AM

15 minutes of meditation/journaling/movement

Shower, wear an outfit that makes you happy, put on sunscreen

Have a healthy breakfast (stock up on that protein!)

Create your to-do list for the day

3. Prioritize Your Tasks

Not all tasks are created equal. Learn to prioritize by using tools like the Eisenhower Matrix, which helps you categorize tasks based on their urgency and importance. Focus on what truly matters and tackle those tasks first.

Eisenhower Matrix:

Urgent and Important: Do these tasks immediately.

Important but Not Urgent: Schedule these tasks.

Urgent but Not Important: Delegate these tasks if possible.

Not Urgent and Not Important: Consider eliminating these tasks.

4. Declutter Your Space

A cluttered space can lead to a cluttered mind. Take some time to clean and organize your physical environment. This can be your desk, room, or even digital spaces like your email inbox.

Decluttering Tips:

Tackle one area at a time.

Use the Marie Kondo method: Keep only what sparks joy.

Create designated spaces for your items.

Whenever you lose something: after you've found it, put it back in the first place you searched for it (10/10 life hack right here!)

5. Develop Healthy Habits

Your daily habits shape your future. Focus on building habits that contribute to your well-being and productivity. This includes eating well, getting regular exercise, and ensuring you get enough sleep.

Healthy Habits to Consider:

Drink plenty of water throughout the day.

Incorporate a 30-minute workout into your routine.

Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep each night.

Setting a time limit lock on your phone for apps that don't serve you (looking at you Instagram, and that goes double for TikTok)

6. Learn to Say No

Overcommitting is a common pitfall. Practice saying no to tasks or commitments that don’t align with your goals or that you simply don’t have time for. It’s okay to prioritize yourself and your needs.

Saying No:

Be polite but firm.

Offer an alternative if possible.

Remember, you gotta fill your own cup before you can pour into anyone else's!

7. Reflect and Adjust

Lastly, regularly reflect on your progress. What’s working? What isn’t? Adjust your strategies accordingly. Life is dynamic, and so should be your approach to managing it.

Reflection Tips:

Keep a journal to track your progress and thoughts.

Set aside time weekly to review your goals and routines.

Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small.

Remember: Getting your life together is a continuous journey, not a destination!

[snarktheater]

I read part of your Maze Runner reviews and wanted to ask about toxic masculinity and purple prose. I still have trouble seeing toxic masculinity as I always thought guys could talk about women being attractive amongst themselves but also know that appearance does not define anyone. That's something that guys can joke about. And I wondered about purple prose, as I have always been a descriptive writer with how I describe things, and I wondered if I am being descriptive or writing purple prose. Any advice for these topics?

P.S. I am worried that I have biases because I am a straight, white, male who has predominately grown up in a small metro city in Texas. I went to college, which definitely opened my eyes, but I still have trouble adjusting to the world as it changes(commuted from home). I've been introverted most of my life and the two friends I have are white men. My parents always taught me to treat people the same, and I always thought that was the right thing to do. I never thought of anyone being superior or inferior to anyone else. Now I hear that it can be bad to treat people the same way as it could disregard their backgrounds or upbringings. I only share this to provide context to my character and whether I can still learn to be at least a good or decent writer/person.

Okay i'll start with the purple prose because, well, it's been ten years and i have to recant some of it. I mean, the prose in these books did annoy me. I do not like it. I've just grown enough to recognize it's more "not for me" than "objectively bad" and i think the phrase purple prose pathologizes or vilifies a certain style of writing that's ultimately valid. Ineffective in my opinion, but I'm sure it has its perks.

What I would say on the topic instead (now) is to be mindful of the medium you're writing in. Having encountered that type of prose more, my working theory is it tends to irk me when the writer comes across as writing as if they're making a movie in their head. Which is not playing to the strengths of the medium you're in, and kind of comes across as if the writer wrote a book by default, because they didn't have the means to access a hollywood-level production, rather than out of a genuine love of the medium.

At least, that's how it feels to me.

It's not like describing visuals is inherently bad, but it's much more powerful if you can give the visuals meaning. Tell us how the visuals makes someone feel. Make the scene affect something. Sparkle in some theming! Don't make those curtains just be blue.

Toxic masculinity is a much broader topic, one that a single tumblr ask can't possibly begin to cover. But to bounce off your example: the issue is that "men talking about women's appearance in private" doesn't happen in a vacuum. Women are objectified in society, and it reinforces that notion when they're treated as literal objects to be discussed behind closed doors.

But that's not the part of it that I would really put into toxic masculinity. To me (as far as I understand as someone who has a very layperson understanding of it) the part of it that's toxic masculinity is how the act of discussing it with other men, or people perceived as such, behind closed doors, creates an environment in which one can either participate in it, or see themselves devalued. Speaking from experience as a queer person: there's nothing more terrifying than being forcibly dragged into that conversation, and having to decide how to navigate it without putting myself at risk. And I'm actually attracted to women, contrary to popular belief. It just so happens that my gender is complex and my attraction to women is more akin to a lesbian asking Agatha Harkness to put a curse on me, mommy. But interestingly, if I brought that to the table in boy talk, that would also get me ostracized. Because it's not just about talking about women's looks, it's about doing so in a prescriptive way, one that enforces a certain type of attractiveness above others (and that intersects with race, ability, etc) and that also enforces a certain power dynamic in the attraction of a man to a woman.

(Well, I say it's terrifying. It was as a teen. As an adult who has grown comfortable enough with his autism to make it everyone else's problems I just side eye and go blank until they stop)

But this doesn't affect only queer people, obviously. This same mechanism of social ostracism also affects any man, even a cis straight man, who would want to object to the treatment of women, or express a less conventional kind of attraction (like, say, the example I just cited, although I've yet to see a straight man say that about Agatha Harkness).

And that's...not easy to wrap your mind around! You kinda have to deconstruct your entire world view. It's not easy. The only reason someone like me might have an easier time of it is because I've had to do it to figure out who the hell I am in the first place.

This is why I don't think your point about treating all people equally works all that well. Maybe something may have gotten lost in translation, because it's not about giving someone preferential treatment. The thing is, objectification is harmful to everyone, not because you're feeling or expressing attraction (or lack thereof) but because of the implied power behind it. And that power, in the world we live in, is concentrated in the hands of privilege and wielded against the marginalized. So it's more that, in trying to redress social injustice, it's more urgent to call it out when wielded in that direction.

And just to be clear, as I hope was obvious in my little segue: you can still be horny without objectifying someone. It's about treating them with respect, as people with autonomy.

Anyway. Last thing I'll say is we live in an age where you have countless opportunities to find other perspectives, even if you're introverted and with friends who are mostly from a similar background. I am very much a shut in. That's what the internet is for.

[claireelizabethsblog]

~ August's Books Reviewed ~

The month started out strong with me riding a Sanderson high, then I did a thing that I objectively hate and know will 9 times out of 10 have me reading less, which is started several books at once.... as of the end of August I was reading three books at once, yet none of them were finished so none of them get included in August's round up... look forward to that in September I guess!

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

(763 pages)

The stress I felt reading this was unreal... which is simply evidence of how good it is. It genuinely was pulling actual visceral reactions from me and I physically could not put it down at points. I know this is a shorter review than usual, but I can think of nothing else to say.

I gave this book 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

(748 pages)

An amazing conclusion to a really really good trilogy. The twists and turns of this were so well executed and completely shocking in exactly the right way. The ending in particular I never could have seen coming. If this were a spoiler review I'd be able to go on more, but for now, I leave with simply the promise that if you love fantasy novels, Sanderson novels, epic twists and/or social/religious/political commentary then you should definitely give this series a try!

I gave this book 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

(585 pages)

I was gifted this book and admit to being a little wary before committing to reading it, as a general rule books that blow up exclusively on social media tend to be a let down to me after the copious amounts of hype they've received. I'm pleased to say that was not the case with this book. If anything, I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed it. It was extremely uniquely written; it was emotional, clever and beautiful. The characters were all so complex and felt genuinely so real. I would say that was the highlight of this book, the characterisation. Every character you could relate to a real person. You sympathised with their decisions, or at least understood them. Like real life, there was no villains and heroes. Bad people and good people and somewhere in the middle people, sure. But also like real life, the last group was the most prevalent, and the first two groups different to each individual's opinions. I would actually really recommend this book to almost everyone I know who reads, I'm pretty sure everyone could find something in it that keeps their focus, be it the mystery, the love story, the characters....

I gave this book 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The twist of a knife by Anthony Horowitz

(373 pages)

I am like 90% sure that this was not the first book in a series, however it stood well as a stand alone book too! Like the other Horowitz book I read earlier this year, I found this novel a little slow to pick up at first, however I did get into it in the end. I found it clever and quirky and I loved the meta elements. Ultimately, it was exactly what it was advertised as - a light, humorous murder mystery - and actually, I'm not mad about taking a break for something silly every so often!

I gave this book 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️

If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio

(422 pages)

After the success of The Seven Husbands, I felt brave enough to try another recent social media favourite book. I'd seen mixed reviews over this one, however my flatmate strongly recommended it and as usual, our tastes in books aligned and it was extremely good. Despite the predictability of the plot, I was fully engaged the entire way through which speaks to how well the characters were depicted that I was willing to look past the predictability of it all just to read more about the people. In fact, I would like to make this a formal call for more people to start writing fanfictions for this novel because I want to read even more about these characters and am being denied that currently based off the limited options on ao3 (if anyone has any good recommendations please let me know!) I think, if I had read this in another month it would have received five stars, however it was let down by the fact that it was read within the same weeks as Sanderson and The Seven Husbands which meant I could not in good conscience give it full marks when the plot was just a little too easy to see coming for me. Therefore....

I gave this book 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[thatstormygeek]

Another passage from the Cass review that has garnered attention reads as follows: 16.20 For birth-registered females, the impact of testosterone will give a higher sex drive than they might have experienced during their biological puberty, and after one year will result in robust increases in muscle mass and strength (while birth-registered males will maintain their muscle strength) (Wiik et al., 2020). In the absence of any experience as an adult cis-woman, they may have no frame of reference to cause them to regret or detransition, but at the same time they may have had a different outcome without medical intervention and would not have needed to take life-long hormones. [Cass report, p. 195] This seems to suggest that trans male/masculine youth should not take testosterone because, if they do, they will never know what it would have been like to be a cis woman (presented here as the healthier outcome: “without medical intervention”). More crucially, if they do transition sans regret or detransition, well, we can never truly know for sure whether transitioning made their lives substantially better because they don’t have the proper “frame of reference” to assess that (read: because they didn’t turn out cis, we can’t trust anything that they say about themselves). Can you see how twisted this line of thinking is? As bioethicist Florence Ashley responded, “By that logic should we force cis people to take HRT just so they can have a frame of reference for what it’s like to be trans?” Ashley’s comment was obviously intended to illustrate a point, but let’s take their proposal seriously for a moment. What if we administered cross-sex hormones to all adolescents, just to make sure they aren’t trans. If they don’t like the effects, no worries, they can always choose to stop taking these hormones once they’re 18 (when they’re old enough to “know for sure”). After all, many “objective and science-minded” pundits have assured us that there is nothing wrong with forcing trans adolescents into unwanted puberties, so the same probably holds true for cis adolescents, shouldn’t it? And if these kids complain about the effects of this unwanted puberty—discomfort, cognitive dissonance, dysphoria—well, those are subjective feelings and we shouldn’t let them get in the way of science! I’d imagine that this thought experiment generated visceral reactions in many readers (it certainly did for me writing it). Can you imagine the horror of being forced into the wrong puberty? Well, I can. Firsthand. Same goes for most trans people. And if you can relate to how horrific it would be for a cis adolescent to be pushed into a puberty that was abhorrent to them, what’s preventing you from extending those feelings to the trans daughter from the earlier anecdote? Or to the trans boys who Cass seems to think need to experience a cis womanhood in order to acquire a proper “frame of reference”?