#i actually really enjoyed the books but holy shit do some elements horrify me

[mrhaitch]

Harry Potter and the Language of Power

[Someone asked so you're all in danger.]

“It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.” - Donna J. Haraway

As you can guess I've got some thoughts about Harry Potter, and this largely going to be a brief discussion about magical systems within fantasy, and how they can be viewed through a political lens. Are we ready? Not yet you're not.

Below is a video of M Nourbese Phillips giving a reading of her poem "Discourse on the Logic of Language". It's about seven minutes long and it's a poem I used to teach, and in fact a lot of what I'm going to say comes from one particular class I taught about a year and a half ago. Go ahead and watch it, I'll wait.

Amazing, right?

The central idea of that poem is that language can shape and determine our social realities. The loss of a language can further a community's alienation, feelings of 'separateness' and even dehumanize them. Or, to play on that Haraway quote at the top there, it matters what languages we use to communicate. It also matters, within fantasy, who has magic, and who doesn't - how magic is taught, passed down, enhanced, developed, used, and activated.

Fantasy and magic go hand in hand, with the latter being a staple of the former - you might almost be tempted to call it a cliche, but it's as essential to the functioning of a fantasy narrative as the presence of electricity to science fiction. It is often the very thing that makes the world turn, and can often be used - sometimes deliberately - to articulate an idea of who has power, or even who should have power.

Just touching on the broad strokes, magic is frequently viewed in an academic context and taught much like any other form of knowledge - at school - with practitioners assuming the guise of academics. In other narratives characters arrive at magical prowess by making pacts, deals, and agreements with entities whose own power arises from their connection to or part of the supernatural order of the world (gods, spirits, fairies, etc.). Now I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes when I say that pre-1990 these magic practitioners who typically white cishet men of a typically European persuasion - with the notable exception of Le Guin's Earthsea books, although the protagonists ethnicity rarely survives the adaptation process. There's been a distinct shift in recent years, most noticeably since NK Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy which laid the connections between magic and power bare, by building a world where magic rests entirely in the hands of a single royal family who participated in the enslaving and slaughter of the gods.

With me so far? God, I hope so.

So let's talk about Harry Potter, a series increasingly maligned for its tone deaf portrayal of race, and its author's increasingly unhinged behaviour - which I won't touch on, others have done a far better job. Instead let's look at the magic.

It's all fairly straightforward: you have a magic tree branch that's bonded to you, prescribed movements of the hand and wrist, and then there's the magic words - which are Latin. Latin holds an interesting place in the western world, both politically and culturally, seeing as its native culture more or less fell apart just under a thousand years ago but has persisted as the lingua franca of power in Europe, especially in Britain. We can largely thank the Catholic Church for that, but a considerable hat-tip to Petrarch and the renaissance for its later revival - particularly the reintroduction of Ancient Greek and Latin to secular political life. Its grammatical rules were later deliberately applied to English in the 16th century, in an effort to centralise the language and diminish and discard regional dialect.

Latin also holds a distinct place in British political life - as it is largely the domain of the upper classes, outside of the medical and legal professions, being taught in only the most exclusive of public schools. Since 1900 there have been 25 Prime Ministers, of which 6 attended Eton college, with a further 11 attending some form of privately funded highschool and 14 receiving their degrees at Oxford. That's not even touching the slew of ministers and members of parliament who have passed through similar institutions of which there are many. Latin and Ancient Greek have been a central part of the public schooling system in Britain since their inception, partially due to its prevalence prior to mass-printing and the push towards using the languages people actually speak for the written word (a decision which, in the early days, could attract a heavy amount of censure, if not execution). It's persistence into our current age, and the exclusive nature of the schools that still teach it, has earned it the reputation of being the language of the ruling classes in Britain.

Using it as a magical language brings some interesting, if not concerning, connotations. I will be charitable and assume this wasn't intentional, but taken in the broader context of wizarding society as a whole and it's relationship with the larger world it contributes to a reading of Harry Potter through the lens of social and political class.

We have a small, naturally gifted, separate society housed within our own who are privy to the innermost workings and closely guarded secrets of our world. They possess godlike powers capable of altering the physical makeup and laws of our world to suit their whims, and they use Latin to do so. There's also evidence, in the later books, of a relationship between their government and ours - where the Ministry of Magic assume the role of shadowy advisors or, even, puppeteers. While this isn't explicitly stated in the books, it's a small stretch of the imagination to believe that in a partnership whichever member can kill the other with a word is steering the ship.

What this all amounts to, in my mind, is a restating of class divisions within the UK. There's no critical element, no serious engagement, let alone metamorphosis - this is a direct transplant informed by an author's preconceived notions about how the world does and, potentially, should work.

Much of this has been coloured and affected by my interpretation of Rowling's politics, and I make no excuses for that.

Does this answer your question?

[siswritesyanderes]

Hey! Im rereading rule one and i felt awkward saying this in a comment but i just wanted to mention how much i really like your characterisation of the cullens and how youve chosen to write them. In general your writing is very well done and intriguing but the way youve chosen to go about some things is very fun. Its been about a year, maybe a year and a half since i last read rule one especially the earlier chapters and im at the point where nessie steals sadie's dog and im just like... Woah. Holy shit. Youve really nailed down the horror of nessie? Like u know its good if its making me go oh holy shit bc im pretty immune to a lot of horror centric things like this. Idk i guess i forgot just how horrifying you made nessies pov of things so it really punched me in the face in a good way. I really admire how youve gone about this fic in general tbh bc you have this sense of creeping horror that actually hits bc its not ignoring the bad elements of canon and the canons bad implications and ur actually confronting them head on in a realistic way while also not going overboard and bashing on canon? Idk its a really precarious balancing act youve got going on but its real inspiring to see how well u do it. What was your thought process for nessies characterisation like? Like how did u arrive at the point we see in the fic. Sorry if this is all over the place its 6 am and im just in awe and really enjoying re reading rule one and i thought itd be cool to let u know how much im enjoying ur writing choices! Ty for sharing your writing with us

Thank you so, so much! For the compliments and for the opportunity to ramble about this, lol.

I guess I just felt fascinated by the potential consequences of Renesmee growing physically at such an accelerated rate. In Breaking Dawn (and the Twilight Illustrated Guide), it's indicated that she has a complete understanding of what is said and done around her, but she still acts like a child. She's still a child. And I find it interesting to imagine what a person would be like if they feel like- and indeed, are -a child but have capabilities that exceed their age and size and don't have worldly experience to match their mental awareness.

I've read fics like "Wedding Crashers" where Renesmee is written as Veruca Salt-level spoiled, and she is positioned to have shades of that, being raised in a family that has bottomless money and seeing evidence in her first year of life that she is so important to everyone she knows that they will put their lives on the line for her. If she fully understood everything that was happening around her during Breaking Dawn, what must all of it have looked like through her eyes?

The book mentions that she only ever sleeps in someone's arms, never in a crib, because she lives in a house of sleepless vampires. Has she ever been denied anything? If so, what? And how did it feel? Pretty much everyone adores Renesmee, or is fascinated by her. One of the first people she laid eyes on imprinted on her on sight. She was brought to the most feared vampire in the world and touched his face, and then the bad guys went away and everyone was happy. She remembers all of it. She understood what was happening. How would that affect a kid?!

And, like the fic kind of explores, a lot of the things she's learned about her family and their lives before she was born would send some pretty concerning lessons about morality that I think someone would have to confront down the line- whether it be her family, or someone Renesmee meets who objects to being treated the way she's learned to treat people, or just Renesmee herself if she happens to learn better without being given reason to.

I just really enjoy exploring the duality of Renesmee as someone who was practically designed in a lab to be hugely entitled and selfish but also just a child who wants everyone to have a good time. She doesn't quite believe her actions have consequences, because everyone in her life is ready to fix anything she does and no one will hold anything against her because she's three and she doesn't know any better, and she's consciously aware of all of it, but also she is three and she doesn't know any better. Imagine an actual three year old, with all the tendency toward misbehavior that entails, but make them 1. capable of going anywhere they want, 2. superpowered, and 3. very aware that they won't get into any real trouble for whatever they do. Her heart's in the right place, but she's a kid, and a kid whose few life experiences to draw on, to guide her judgement, are all bizarre.

To answer your question about balancing a realistic tone without bashing canon, I guess my approach has been to kind of just go "Yes, and" to most things that are established in the books. (The exceptions, as mentioned in some of the chapter notes, being the child grooming and the idea that venom removes melanin; those two things I just got rid of.) I try not to go, "That's stupid, and here's why." For any given thing that the books hold to be true, I try to have a response of, "Okay, but let's look at the consequences." I won't take away anyone's happy ending, no matter how dubiously-obtained I find it, but their actions to get there still matter. I'm glad to hear you found it effective!

I always love getting comments about Renesmee's characterization! I love it, because the fic isn't even about her, so I love to know that a relatively small aspect of it stood out to you.

Also, thank you for specifying that you're rereading the earlier chapters, because I'm super self-conscious about those. 🤣

[ace-trainer-risu]

oh here! i’ll come ask you for book recs lol. do you have any spooky and/or autumn-y book recs? or just your fave books :)

First of all, I'm sorry this took me SO long to answer. I want to say I've been busy but it's just been general [waves hand vaguely] life.

ANYWAY thank you for asking! I actually don't read scary stuff a lot b/c I'm a wimp, but I have a few spooky/autumnal books up my sleeves! Let's see what we've got!!

1) The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Let me just start by saying that Sarah Waters is one of my absolute favorite authors ever! All her novels are suspenseful, twisty historical novels with great female and queer characters. Although, fair warning, actually The Little Stranger is like her one novel that isn't queer, but it is VERY good. If you read The Little Stranger and like it, please read Fingersmith and/or The Paying Guests.

The Little Stranger is set in the countryside of post-WWII England and follows a mild-mannered doctor as he becomes increasingly involved in the lives of the family living in the local, increasingly decrepit, possibly haunted mansion. Think Downton Abbey but creepy. Strange things keep happening inside the house, from dog bites to mysterious sounds to creepy black spots. Literally just typing that gave me goosebumps. It seems like someone may be out to get the family, but who...or what? Is it simply the ghosts of their own painful memories, or is something more? Sarah Waters is excellent at lush, intricate historical detail, and she leans into that here to create an atmosphere of slowly building dread and horror and mystery.

That being said, as a person who isn't normally a fan of horror, I don't think this book is too scary. It's more of an atmospheric, psychological horror than a jump-scare, bloody horror. It's not a book that will give you nightmares (probably), but you might lie awake thinking about it.

Also. Pro-tip. As a haunted(?) house story, the house is obviously fairly central to the story. Dear fellow Americans, keep in mind that the British refer to the floors of a building differently than us. For Americans, the ground-level floor is called the first floor, the floor above that the second floor, etc. For the British, the ground-level floor is the ground floor, and the floor above that is the first floor, etc. There's all sorts of creepy references to characters hearing noises above them on the first floor, but I was just like, Why are they always in the basement?

2) Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia

This and the above are two very different books, and yet they are both set in the mid-1900s and both are about weird, creepy, maybe-haunted houses. What can I say, I like gothic fiction.

After our heroine, Noemi, receives a bizarre, borderline incoherent letter from her beloved cousin, she sets out to visit her in the literally decaying mansion she resides in with her husband and his new family deep in the countryside of Mexico. All Noemi wants to do is persuade her cousin to come back home with her, but her cousin's new in-laws are very determined not to let that happen...or to let Noemi leave either. Secrets abound in the bizarre house and even creepier nearby cemetery, and soon Noemi finds that she too is suffering from bizarre dreams and visions...although, are they just dreams?

This book is so weird, but in such a good way? I read it for a book club and every week we had increasingly bizarre theories about what was going on, we were googling alchemy and fungi and St George, and some of our theories were even right. Although definitely not all. Another very twisty one that keeps you guessing.

In terms of scariness, interestingly I think there's more overtly creepy and horrifying moments in this novel than The Little Stranger, but I found TLS more overall scary? But that may be because I read it quickly, which I think is the ideal setting for suspenseful stuff, and I read Mexican Gothic over a longer amount of time since it was for a book club. This one does have some more typical horror elements to it, but I don't think it's more creepy than terrifying.

3) The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

I listened to this one as an audiobook and the audiobook is excellent so would recommend that, but have no doubt it would also be great to physically read.

Oh my god this book...it's more thriller than horror, but I think it fits the brief. There were multiple moments listening to this book that I literally gasped or said "OH MY GOD!" out loud, and there are moments which are very creepy and horrifying. There's a particular scene in the backyard... Again, incredibly suspenseful and twisty. And the character development and character psychology is just! really really good! There's also really interesting and knotty feminist stuff which is a lot more complicated and nasty than some of the "girlboss" stuff which is popular right now.

Super minimal summary: All you really need to know is that it is a sci fi novel about a scientific researcher trying to pick up her life after her marriage has imploded, only for everything to go BATSHIT WRONG. Trust me, that's all you need to know, it's better to go into this not knowing what's going to happen or what to expect. I had no clue what this novel was about when I started it, and holy shit. Very good book, absolutely recommend this if you want some super suspenseful, creepy sci fi that will make you say "oh my GOD" repeatedly.

Okay, shifting gears a little now b/c autumn isn't just spooky, it's also cozy and restful and daydreamy!

4) The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker

This isn't maybe a cozy book per se, but it's a great book to cuddle down with on a dreary day and lose yourself in. If you've ever asked yourself, "What would it be like if you crossed Pride and Prejudice with Howl's Moving Castle except the wizard was way worse but somehow still sexy" - then you should read this book! I actually came across this book b/c I was like, I wanna read a book that's a portal fantasy but for adults, and this book was like OH here's everything you wanted.

It's about a grad student, Nora, who has totally stalled out on her dissertation and is at a shitty wedding when she accidentally wanders through a portal into a beautiful, fantastical fairy world. At first, everything is amazing and literally perfect...but surprise surprise, not all as is it seems, and soon everything goes to, how should I put it, shit. Nora escapes, but rather than returning home, she finds herself trapped in a far more dreary realm. But not one without it's own charms and it's own magic, and Nora finds herself the student-slash-sorta-captive of the crochety, sexy, maybe-killed-his-wife magician Aruendiel* and she begins to learn magic herself.

Unlike the above books, this is not a fast-paced, twisty book, and I think if you go into this expecting high fantasy along the lines of Game of Thrones, you may be disappointed. It's not really a typical high-fantasy novel, it's more of a cross of an 18th/19th century realist novel, a fairy tale, and a fantasy novel. But if you want that, then it's REALLY good! I loved this book! And the magic in it is so cool, something about the way its described feels so visceral and real and like you could really do it if you just tried hard enough. There is a romance and it's totally, intentionally hashtag problematic, but it's very laid back, very slow burn, so I think even if you aren't a person who digs romance you can still enjoy this. If you're looking for a feminist-leaning fantasy novel that you can just sink into and lose yourself in, this is the perfect book. You will long to magically fix broken plates.

5) The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner

Honestly I can't even justify why I think this one is an autumn book. It simply is. It's autumn colored in my head. It is the coziest book I have ever read about necromancy and crime. Also I just want to recommend it. This is another one that I listened to as an audiobook and it's also a good audiobook, for those who are interested. But it also means I will not be able to spell absolutely any of the character's names.

This novel follows Delly, an enterprising young scoundrel of a fire witch with a teeny tiny gin habit as she attempts to support herself and her hot-mess of a mom in the roughest neighborhoods of Fantasy-City-That-I-Can't-Remember-The-Name-Of. Lice...gate? When Delly comes across an advertisement for a bodyguarding job for young women for a hefty fee, it seems like the answer to definitely not all but at least some of her problems. She accepts, along with an interesting assortment of other sorcerous young ladies, including a wonderfully bitchy Absentia (my love), a young woman who can turn into a boar, boar girl's necromancer mother, and the very sexy part-troll Winn, who in my imagination looks like Gwendoline Christie and talks like Miranda Hart. Which. Perfect woman. Winn being a fine, wealthy young lady, Delly can't help but think to herself that it wouldn't be such a bad thing if Winn happened to fall in love with her and carried her off to be rich and spoiled the rest of her life.

Of course, things quickly don't go to plan, and soon Delly and her companions find herself caught up in wicked schemes of murder, drugs, and an undead mouse named Buttons who says BONG. I love Buttons SO MUCH.

This book is just a silly romp of a novel which worms into your heart and your brain. It's fun and cute and gay, and also it made me cry. I haven't stopped thinking, "Not quite regulation hammerball" since I listened to it like half a year ago.

Also, while I'm here, this novel is set in the same world as and features a few of the same characters as Unnatural Magic. Which is also a hell of a book. Literally the best bisexual relationship I have ever fuckin read. It's a winter book tho, so I simply can't go into it here.

Aaaaand...that it's! Happy autumnal reading :)

[tfw-no-tennis]

animorphssss.....2!

ok one L abt reading the series on my ereader is that the flipbook illustrations arent there ;_; those were my favvvvv

anyways I love animorphs still

I feel like I'll end up repeating myself a lot during these little liveblogs lmao but mannnn it’s so good. its so hardcore. like I know that that’s the whole Thing but I still get shocked by some of the stuff that happens 

like a big theme in the series centers around the morality of killing your enemies - and it’s so all over the place bc in book 6 you have jake boiling a bunch of yeerks alive, which is kinda gnarly if you think abt it, but the alternative would be to leave them there and let them infest people soo...? and that’s basically the point, that there are never any easy choices in war 

also I went on the animorphs wiki to look at trivia bc I love doing that and I cant BELIEVE (some of) the books were reissued in 2011 and they changed/removed some of the references to be more ‘modern’ omfg....talk about erasing 90s culture smh 

likeeee I was born in 97 so I didn't exactly grow up in the 90s and therefore some of the references go over my head but its so charming and fun to have them there! and it makes sense given that the books are SET in the 90s

I don't remember ever being confused by any of the references as a kid (tho for sure a lot of them went over my head), but then again I read the books in like 2008 sooo

also some of the stuff that they change - like changing ‘recorded w/a vcr’ to ‘recorded w/the TV’ or ‘floppy disc’ to ‘flash drive’ may make more sense to modern audiences, but doesn't make sense in the context of the story still being set in the 90s

tho it is funny that the books use the phrase ‘hook up’ to mean ‘meet up’ a lot bc that is a phrase that definitely has a different meaning nowadays

alsooooo as it turns out I'm p sure I only read a couple of the spinoffs - the hork-bajir chronicles and the ellimist chronicles (which was confusing lmao), bc my library didn’t have the others :( 2007/2008 woes....

but now I get to read the spinoffs woooooooo so I read the first megamorphs and the andalite chronicles 

I'm reading them in the chronological order (I think?) which is good bc part of the problem was that I read the ellimist book at a completely weird time and it confused me more lmao

megamorphs 1 basically felt like a regular animorphs book except longer, but the plot didn't feel like it needed all that extra page space tbh? even so it was an entertaining adventure

and rachel having amnesia was great, amnesia is one of my fav tropes lmao. and it was a lot of fun here, though a bit underutilized 

another favorite trope of mine is time travel, so I'm gonna have a really fun time here w/that

as for the andalite chronicles, I really enjoyed that one. I thought it was a well done story about the horrors of war (which is a theme animorphs does excellently), kind of similar to the overarching story of the whole series, but fit into one book without feeling rushed

the way the story starts out with elfangor wanting to be a hero, not understanding what that entails, to the end where he IS going to be a hero, and he knows now that this is a burden rather than a reward 

the horror elements are also really strong, with the taxxon morph being horrifying of course

and mannnn I loved that we got to see more of the taxxons as a species, and see that not all taxxons submitted to the yeerks - which breaks the previous theme of ‘all the taxxons are evil just because’ 

this book also establishes that the taxxons gave themselves over to the yeerks due to their constant hunger being unbearable, so it isn’t just that they’re evil for fun 

animorphs does such an excellent job showing that each ‘side’ of a war will have good and bad (or at least sympathetic and unsympathetic) people 

also loren was awesome, what a cool character. though I didn't realize she was literally like 13 until the very end of the book, holy shit. that's crazy. i thought she was 16 at the youngest....geez. her throwing a rock at visser 3 is even more iconic knowing she's a middle schooler at the time

and chapman was here! I'm assuming this must be the same chapman as the assistant principal controller... I thought it was a little strange to put chapman in that role, bc in this book he was a huge asshole basically the entire time, but in the previous (’future’) book it was revealed that he became a controller willingly only to spare his daughter, which is pretty far from this book where he’s actively trying to sell humanity out to the yeerks...people change I guess? (also he got his memory erased so I guess there's that)

alloran was a really interesting character. horrors of war again - we hear from his old buddy that he used to be a fun, witty guy, but war changed him into somebody who would do horrible things 

and him becoming a controller was horrifying, obviously, but I like that alloran wasn't portrayed as some perfect, holy guy in order to make it all the more tragic when he got infested. its already fucked up enough as it is, and making him flawed was a lot more meaningful 

and him wanting to flush all the yeerks out into space....oooooof the (later) parallels hurt 

plus the fact that elfangor refusing to commit genocide against the helpless yeerks (even though they’re the enemy) directly contributing to alloran becoming a controller.....oof. I love that it shows that even making the morally correct decisions during war can lead to awful things happening, but not in a way that endorses evil actions - the story isn’t saying that elfangor should have killed the yeerks, it’s saying that there are no good choices in war 

arbron being trapped as a taxxon was fucked up. but also really intriguing, especially how he found purpose and led a free taxxon uprising. I don't remember if we hear from him/the free taxxons again but I hope so

also the plot twist of tobias being elfangors SON...bruh. I do remember that despite not having read this book so it must come up in the main story later but my memory of that is vauge so I’m excited to see how that plays out. it’s always gonna be hilarious to me that ax is technically tobias’s uncle 

and then the ellimist drops in and wacks up the time stream even more. classic. I love the crazy time travel stuff in animorphs

omfg and the bits where elfangor is a human tech guy and talked about his friends bill and steve LMAOOOOO

also the scene where elfangor drives the yellow mustang while blasting '(I cant get no) satisfaction’ by the rolling stones was one of the most iconic things I've ever read

basically I loved all the angles of war fucking people up. from loren’s dad, to alloran, to elfangor himself learning about the true horrors of war...v well done imo

ok back to the main series - so my pick for the most fucked up scene SO FAR (in my own personal opinion) - the scene where they're in the jungle and rachel passes out in bear morph and a bunch of rainforest ants start EATING HER ALIVE and like crawling into her ears and mouth and HGGGGGG that was genuinely so fucking disturbing

its a good thing that the time travel made it so rachel couldn't remember that bc that was fuuuuucked

another contender is a scene we don't actually see - erek having his capacity for violence instated and then slaughtering a ton of human and hork-bajir controllers 

like damn, you know its fucked up when its too fucked up for ANIMORPHS to even ‘show.’ this is a series that doesn't pull punches but evidentially that would've been Too Much to actually portray (understandably). also i feel like seeing the aftermath/everyone’s reactions had more of an impact than describing erek killing a bunch of people would have

also I forgot that marco Literally Fucking Dies during that scene and that's why he doesn't get to see the slaughter. wow

and then in the very next book JAKE dies too. jesus

oh it was also so sad and fucked up when marco’s dad told him that he and his wife used to fight sometimes, but then all of a sudden they stopped fighting, and their relationship was basically entirely peaceful and perfect - and this is how marco knows exactly when his mom was made into a controller, bc of course a yeerk wouldn't care enough to get into petty arguments like that....ooooof

Okay and book 15 really got me...that was fucking heavy man. Geeeez. Everything w/Marco and his mom is so fucked uppppp

Like he literally has to deal with so much awful traumatizing shit. The scene where he pretends to be a controller and is face to face w/visser one and THAT HIS MOM but he can’t even do anything, and he just sees the evil in her eyes and thinks about how there’s no way she had been controlled by a yeerk that long before bc he’s never seen her look like that...that was so fucking sad.

Plus Marcos mom now thinking that Marco is a controller...aughh...and then later Marco knows he can’t even think-speak to her bc he’ll just talk about everything he’s wanted to talk about to his mom this whole time... ;_;

And the parts where Marcos humor slips and the utter rage he feels towards the situation comes through...man

Plus everything about him being understandably afraid of sharks after being nearly torn in half by one back during their first dolphin adventure

Augh oh and jake telling Marco that everyone can tell something is up bc Marco isn’t joking around and talking about how insane their plan is like usual, so Marco fakes it sand does all that even tho he’s terrified and conflicted...aughhhh

Ok and the last scene where Marco is thinking about a future where he and his parents can talk plainly about how awful and traumatizing everything is, and then eventually they’ll feel okay enough to joke about it, bc Marcos mom is the one who taught him to look at the funny side of life...Oh The Pain

There were a lot of great fucked up individual lines in this book too. I’m just so sad about these poor middle schoolers jfc

Also I do distinctly remember the scene where they collapse the shark tank at Ocean World or w/e, it was weird af reading it bc I remembered none of the rest of the book but got weird deja vu reading that scene and remembering having read it like 13+ years ago

if it’s not clear by now I have a pretty terrible memory for media which is honestly good bc then I can reread things and it’s like new

Also jake...man...I said it previously but I was kinda eh about jake when I first read these bc he’s kinda the ‘basic’ character, but now I find his story much more interesting

His conflict over being leader is really good. KAA does a fantastic job capturing the pressure he’s under bc he was chosen by his friends to be the leader, so he REALLY can’t back out, and he doesn’t necessarily feel up to it, but feels he has no choice in the matter...

And constantly having to make really difficult decisions that could get his friends killed...geez. It’s so much pressure. And he talks about wanting to go back to being a normal kid when this is all over, and it kinda strikes me as him being in denial - like, there’s no way things can ever be ‘normal’ again, but that’s his way of coping.

Especially with Tom and all that. That conflict is so compelling...jake having to play all these different roles - as leader, as a son/student, as a regular brother to Tom - he’s constantly having to act a certain way and rarely gets to be Himself

It’s actually kinda relatable in a way - that feeling of being In Charge, but in a somewhat abstract and informal way, so you feel like regular old you, but you have to carefully regulate how you act bc the people around you expect a certain standard of behavior from you...

And all the morally grey situations they’re put in are fucked up, but especially for jake who has the final say on what they do, even when knowing it could lead to his friends being killed or made into controllers

Like in the book with the cannibal yeerk guy - there’s basically no good choices there. Jake lets the cannibal live, and (at first) implies that it’s for the best that he’s cannibalizing other yeerks and therefore helping get rid of some yeerks - except that he kills their hosts too

but the alternative would be to directly kill another human being who isn't actively fighting/resisting you, which is a fucked up thing for a middle schooler to have to do 

And the conflict between jake and Cassie is really excellent bc jake has to make these awful decisions, and Cassie is the type of person who can’t stand that sort of thing, so it gets left up to jake a lot, but then she’s upset with jake for doing something awful, even while knowing that there were no better options

like, her asking jake to kill the cannibal guy for her was really fucked up, but also entirely understandable for cassie as a character to ask. it was an emotionally charged situation, and cassie is an emotional person. she’s also somebody who like to Act, to do concrete good, and getting rid of an Evil Bad Guy in front of her would be a definite action

But Cassie is a great source of morality to the group - most of them are pretty jaded, but Cassie is able to hope in a way none of the rest are. It creates a really compelling dynamic between jake and Cassie that I kinda dismissed when I was like 10 or w/e

Also the scene where jake as a fly gets crushed and starts dying? Seriously fucked. And then after when he’s nearly breaking down in the airport and Cassie comforts him...that was a really good scene. Cassie is so good  

And the continuity is so excellent - I love how in book 17, Cassie (and jake to an extent) doesn’t really weigh in on the moral debate abt the oatmeal bc she’s still shaken up by asking jake to murder a guy for her, and then (presumably) going ahead and lighting his house on fire when jake doesn’t kill him

And augh jake and Marco have such a good and interesting dynamic - the entire group kinda pushes each other into their respective ‘roles’ in the group, but for a few books that’s really true for jake and marco

I don't remember what book it was but at some point marco (I think) mentions that jake understands what marco is dealing with w/his mom being a controller bc of tom, but that they don’t talk about it bc they ‘don't talk about stuff like that’ or something and I'm just like noooo talk to each other :( 

but at this point jake feels like he can’t really express doubt and fear and stuff like that bc he’s the Leader and they look to him to be strong (which is ironically very similar to how rachel feels), and marco feels like he can’t be serious bc he’s the funny guy. 

Basically I love all the different dynamics in the group. How Cassie and Rachel are such opposites but are best friends and get along well, while Marco and Cassie are more directly opposed - as jake says, Marco is ruthless, and Cassie definitely isn’t. Rachel and Marco are also pretty different which is interesting, bc they have a lot in common, and actually agree on a lot (even if they disagree out loud) but their commonalities combined with their circumstances make them react very differently to the same situations

I also love seeing the differences between characters from each other’s POV - like, p much all the characters think that Rachel is completely fearless, but when the book is from her POV, we get to see that that isn’t true at all - she feels plenty of fear, but she recognizes that her role in the group is to be the fearless one, so she pushes aside her fear to fit into that role (which inadvertently pushes her more and more into that ‘fearless warrior’ box - something that happens to all the characters more and more as the story goes on, like jake as ‘the leader’ and Marco as ‘the jokester’).

Also I loooove the grey morality of literally everything. Like the book where ax discovers an andalite traitor - not a controller, just an andalite who betrayed them to the yeerks. This leads to the deaths of like a hundred other andalites, and that whole scene you really just feel for ax, bc he feels so awful about everyone else dying while he escapes, yet he’s also so grateful to be alive, which he in turn feels bad about...

And ax’s conflict about being torn between his home w/his fellow andalites and his new home on earth w/his friends is great

And oh man I fucking love book 19. Any of the books where it goes more into the yeerks and their side of things are so good, just like the book where jake was made into a controller.

And book 19, where we meet a sympathetic yeerk, comes right after 18, where we meet an andalite traitor - again, I love how we clearly see that no one side is completely good or completely bad

So yeah book 19 fucking slapped. That shit was so compelling. I love how Cassie made a bunch of foolish decisions based on naïve hope, but it worked out!! Things aren’t always bleak and awful!

Except there were plenty bleak and awful parts of this book. It had a great balance of moods tbh, even though a lot of the situations were extremely contrived lmao. I love the stuff that aftran says, which is basically what I was thinking when I started my reread - being a yeerk fucking sucks, you’re literally a blind slug but also completely and fully sentient, on the same level as humans and andalites - and as afran pointed out this book, the yeerks are born as parasites, just as humans are born as predators - why is it okay for the humans to kill countless animals to eat, but not for the yeerks to enslave races to act as hosts? Well, the situation isn’t totally comparable, which Cassie and Marco both point out when aftran makes that comparison - the yeerks are enslaving sentient species, and cows and chickens are not the same as the humans and hork-bajir (though the story understandably doesn’t fall too deeply into the ‘who deserves what right/animal sentience’ rabbit hole).

And I like that aftran points out that the yeerks basically have 2 options currently - stay helpless and blind in a yeerk pool, or enslave a host. It’s interesting to hear that a lot of yeerks don’t like doing this but see it as the only options, as opposed to complete sensory deprivation. It makes me wonder if there are yeerks who are so staunchly against it that they elect to stay as pool-bound slugs forever

Also maybe it’s the shounen anime fan in me but I don’t even care that much that Cassie’s entire plan was completely off the rails and hinged on only the slightest chance of success - with failure being much more likely and completely catastrophic, with the animorphs and their loved ones all being wiped out, vs success being unlikely and also achieving...a moral victory? Peace between two enemy combatants in a huge war? nothing all that concrete...anyways it was a bunch of good-faith horrible decisions on Cassie’s part, but I don’t even care? I love stories where hope and love save the day against all odds, especially when they’re wielded like weapons by a character and make everything end nicely

This is especially true here bc animorphs is generally a series that leans very far away from that type of thing, so when it does happen, it feels like a victory. Plus the David trilogy is next so we kinda need a happy ending while we can

also bc I compared animorphs to hxh last time, I now have to compare it to the other series I've (partially) liveblogged, transformers mtmte.

this is gonna be more abstract and brief but basically. mtmte is all about after the war, and everyone has so much trauma and everything just sucks, so they all go on a space cruise and work on themselves. basically.

but the series does a lot of exploration of how war fucks people up - same as animorphs, tho animorphs spans the beginning of the war (for the main characters at least) until the end, whereas mtmte starts when the war ends.

but the point is. both series do an excellent job showcasing the wide range of reactions people have to being put in unthinkable situations during wartime. all the major characters in mtmte go through arcs where they heal/change from the war, some more subtle than others

basically the animorphs needs to go on a wacky space cruise adventure with a bunch of other fucked up people and figure their shit out, mtmte style

ok this is wicked long already so I’m gonna end it here. also I feel like I should start the next liveblog w/the david triology bc I’m for sure gonna have a lot to say abt that

[terramythos]

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 1 of 26

Title: The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea (2018)

Author: Various (edited by Ellen Datlow)

Genre/Tags: Short Story Anthology, Horror (Various), Female Protagonist(s), LGBT Protagonist(s). 

Rating: 7/10 (note: this is an average of all the stories)

Date Began: 1/1/2020

Date Finished: 1/6/2020

I don’t usually read short story collections. But since I kicked off 2020 with a trip outside the US, I wanted something that could easily be picked up and read in short bursts. So I dove into a short story anthology @mistressofmuses gave me for Christmas. Since I was staying on the coast, this seemed like an appropriate choice. 

This anthology is a collection of 15 original horror stories by different authors, each somehow associated with the sea. Like any anthology, they were pretty hit or miss, but there were some I really enjoyed. Honorable mentions (scoring 8/10 or higher): 

Fodder’s Jig by Lee Thomas (9/10) 

The Whalers Song by Ray Cluley (9/10) 

A Ship of the South Wind by Bradley Denton (8/10) 

Broken Record by Stephen Graham Jones (8/10) 

A Moment Before Breaking by A. C. Wise (9/10) 

Sister, Dearest Sister, Let Me Show To You The Sea by Seanan McGuire (10/10) 

He Sings of Salt and Wormwood by Brian Hodge (10/10)

For a brief summary of all the stories and impression of each, see below the cut. These are in the order they appear and contain minor/implied spoilers.

1. Deadwater by Simon Bestwick - 4/10

Summary: A man living in a coastal tourist town is found dead by the shore. When her cop boyfriend rules it a suicide, the man's best friend Emily investigates the death on her own.

Thoughts: This one was very predictable. I'd figured out the "twist" and exactly how it would end by the half way point. It wasn’t super exciting and the writing just wasn't engaging for me. I did appreciate the occasional thematic callback and the whole thing about broken people needing to stick together, but there wasn’t enough of that in the actual story to sell me on it. 

2. Fodder’s Jig by Lee Thomas - 9/10 

Summary: Two men in their 60s fall in love with each other and try to form a life together. However, amid one’s rough divorce, a bizarre disease emerges that causes people to dance wildly and speak in tongues after exposure to the ocean. When one of the two men begins to exhibit symptoms of the disease, everything changes. Thoughts: Well done, creepy cosmic horror, and the ending was phenomenal. I loved that it was about two old gay dudes trying to find happiness late in life, struggling with manipulative family issues, and how all of it seamlessly blended with the horror. The prose was great too, and the zinger when you fully understand the title is... an experience. I thought it was interesting that the flashback scenes were in present tense and the current scenes were in past tense, but it sort of makes sense with the themes of the story.  

3. The Curious Allure of the Sea by Christopher Golden - 7/10 

Summary: A woman's father is lost at sea. To honor his memory, she tattoos herself with a strange symbol found in his abandoned boat. However, afterward, sea creatures and people alike find themselves drawn to her. Thoughts: It was moderately creepy. The part where Jenny burns off the tattoo (spoilers) was viscerally horrifying. Beyond that, it didn't stick out a whole lot. Sort of like a “wouldn’t that be fucked up?” Twilight Zone episode. 

4. The Tryal Attract by Terry Dowling - 5/10 

Summary:  After a conversation with his neighbor, a man agrees to spend several nights in the neighbor's house to commune with a talking human skull which he has recurring dreams about. 

Thoughts: The prose was good enough, but the actual horror element was sort of like one of those creepypastas that’s just unintentionally funny. It felt very Scooby Doo and I don’t think that was the intent. 

5. The Whalers Song by Ray Cluley - 9/10 

Summary: When a Norwegian whaling ship sinks after a catch, the small crew manages to escape. On shore, however, the eerie artifacts they find of old whaling ships are more than they bargained for.

Thoughts: Way way way eerie, and the prose was great; very stilted yet beautiful. There was an underlying theme of the past and present, which Cluley explores in multiple ways. It has a slow start but it pays off. One of the more haunting ones in the collection. 

6. A Ship of the South Wind by Bradley Denton - 8/10 

Summary: Three years after the Civil War, two Native Americans -- a boy named Charley and his uncle JoJim -- are accosted by a group of travelers in the plains of Kansas. They find that help comes from an unexpected source-- an eccentric, quasi-supernatural figure named Captain Thomas, whom JoJim met decades ago.

Thoughts: Honestly, setting a sea-themed horror story entirely in Kansas was a power move, but I think it worked. Did a great job building and maintaining tension. I loved the small details, like keeping the villains as "Red-beard" and "Black-beard" even after we learn their real names to keep things nautical. It's kind of like if No Country for Old Men crossed over with a pretty good episode of Goosebumps with some pseudo steampunk elements.

7. What My Mother Left Me by Alyssa Wong - 6/10 

Summary:  Following the death of her mother and breakup with her abusive boyfriend, Emma and her new girlfriend visit her mom's old beach house to collect her things. However, things get weird when they discover partially decomposed, yet still living fish along the shore.

Thoughts: I’m torn on this one. The writing was really good, but it felt like the story couldn’t decide between being a straight-up slasher flick or a deep, heartfelt exploration of family and surviving domestic abuse. I really felt like it needed to be longer, as both elements felt underdeveloped. 

8. Broken Record by Stephen Graham Jones - 8/10 

Summary: A man is trapped on a deserted island.

Thoughts:  I do not want to spoil the "twist" of this one but it's good and a fun scenario to imagine. Toed the line between humor and horror well.  

9. Saudade by Steve Rasnic Tem - 5/10 

Summary: A man agrees to go on a senior singles cruise at the behest of his daughters, but feels awkward and out of place. He is drawn to a bizarre woman who occasionally appears and causes something strange and unsettling to happen.

Thoughts: The writing is good, but Tem spends the bulk of the story focusing on protagonist Lee wandering a cruise ship and being sad about it. I loved the ending and its callback to an earlier, seemingly unrelated scene, but beyond that I feel there’s way more you can do with the inherent horror of a cruise ship. 

10. A Moment Before Breaking by A. C. Wise - 9/10 

Summary: While a little girl and her mother are immigrating to the United States, the ship they are on suddenly sinks. The girl is captured by cultists who perform a strange ritual, binding her to a creature called the prince of the sea.

Thoughts: I really dug this one-- it's just so weird. I loved how the narrative treated the shared body between Ana and the prince, and that we get to see Ana in various stages of her life. The prose was gorgeous. Definitely one of my favorites in the collection.

11. Sister, Dearest Sister, Let Me Show To You The Sea by Seanan McGuire - 10/10 

Summary: When her little sister drowns her in the tide pools by their Washington home, a teenage girl makes a deal with an eel-like entity of the sea to get her revenge. Thoughts: "Holy fucking shit" was pretty much all I could say when I finished this one. Visceral body horror at its finest, and I'm always a sucker for revenge. The prose was beautiful and horrid in the best way. I'm a big fan of the author already but this exceeded my expectations.

12. The Deep Sea Swell by John Langan - 3/10 

Summary: A couple is traveling by ship. One of the two, Susan, recalls a few supernatural stories their mutual friend Giorgio told them before she has her own supernatural encounter.

Thoughts: I found myself begging the author to press the enter key on his keyboard a few times. Beyond that, this was the first story that actually challenged my suspension of disbelief with what happens and how it relates to the main character. I didn't find the horror element very scary at all. There were some cool visuals but that's about all I got out of it. 

13. He Sings of Salt and Wormwood by Brian Hodge - 10/10 

Summary: During a deep sea diving exercise, a competitive surfer comes across an old, sunken yacht. He is horrified by the strange worm-like creatures devouring the wood. However, when he returns home to his wife, they begin to find strange, humanoid carvings every day on the Oregon coast. Thoughts: GOD was this good. Superb voice and writing, very creepy, and everything comes together so well in the ending. I felt an emotional connection to the love and longing between Danny and Gail, which is always hard to accomplish in a short story. Just a stellar read.

14. Shit Happens by Michael Marshall Smith - 3/10 

Summary: A higher-up from a tech conglomerate attends a company conference aboard a converted boat-hotel, but things go south when guests start to experience acute gastrointestinal distress. Thoughts: This gets like 3 points for making me genuinely laugh a few times and -7 points for everything else.

15. Haunt by Siobhan Carroll - 6/10 

Summary: In 1799, a cargo ship is troubled by a ghost ship on their trail. When the passengers and crew are stranded in the middle of the ocean, the dark pasts of the crew slowly come to light. Thoughts: The writing was good, the author clearly knows her shit, and I can admire what she is going for. However, the whole thing was just a bit too brutal and graphic for me, especially knowing that some of the things described were based on real events. I guess that was probably the point based on her author’s note, but I can’t recommend this as an entertaining read. 

[shesamreads]

I did like this book much better this time around. The audiobook helped, I'm sure. It was well narrated, and had a lot of elements that I enjoyed. The open-ended way the story treats the monster ("monster"?) was interesting. I didn't hate it, maybe because I knew it was coming. Having more experience with horror, and King's horror in particular, probably helped, too. Also! Having a kid makes the mundane portion of this story much scarier! Your child is lost in the woods, or over a week. Holy shit. It's not the main focus of the story, obviously, but I hope I never had to go through what Trisha's parents went through.

Possibly still my least favorite King book, but I don't think I'm judging it unfairly anymore.

Trisha making up stories in her head, I feel that. Did I do that in High School?

-

"How could anyone have such a cold and scary voice inside them?"

oops, it sounds like we both have anxiety.

-

I really like that Anne is actually screaming for the parts where Trish screams.

-

Castle Rock reference! I do enjoy how basically all of King's books have a refence to all his other books.

-

Oh my god, the audio for this is PERFECT. When Anne did the announcer's voice over Trisha's Walkman, they added a radio effect to it. Perfection, chef's kiss. I love when audiobooks that do shit like this.

-

"It was just so VC Andrews."

I can guarantee that I didn't get that reference in high school.

-

"handsome yet evil shortstop"

some of the writing is spot on for a 9 year old.

-

so this is what I needed the first time I read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. Anne Heche reading the book to me.

also, this is the first mention of the 'creature' in the woods. Damn voices in our heads making EVERYTHING scary.

(I mean. there may also be something ACTUALLY in the woods. but voices in heads don't make that any easier, either.)

-

It's a different kind of horror, to me now, when kids are involved. Things have changed, and all I can think about is "what would Teacup do if she was in this situation? What would I do if she was in this situation? I'd lose my mind. The main story is about Trisha and her experience in the woods, but I like that King gives us snippets of how her family is dealing with everything, too.

-

Fucking tip call. Fucking hypnotist. I'm so heated that resources are getting pulled away from finding Trisha in the woods. I get that they're worried about a kidnapping, especially since the audience actually know what's going on.

As not-a-hiker, and a Midwesterner, is it terribly unusual that a girl could walk that far, from Maine to New Hampshire? Is there a reason why they didn't branch out farther to looks for Trisha?

-

I'm still not convinced that Trisha isn't hallucinating. Like, a forest full of deer hanging in the woods sounds horrifying, it does! It also sounds like something a hungry, dehydrated girl with anxiety and an overactive imagination would see when losing a battle against the elements.

-

I am not a Baseball Person. I did not grow up in a Baseball Family. I have only JUST NOW looked up a picture of Tom Gordon.

I can see why Trisha likes him. Apparently he was a good player. And was on both the Cubs and the White Sox, too. Neat!

Here's from the Wiki: "His popularity in Boston at this point led New England-based writer and Red Sox fan Stephen King to reference him as the object of infatuation for the young protagonist of the 1999 novel The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon."

-

Over a week! Goddamn, Trisha. What a BAMF.

-

So, either it's a bear and she's hallucinating, and it gets startled away. Or it's a monster using a bear as a vessel, and Trisha is no longer lost, so the God of the Lost no longer has dominion over her.

-

"I closed."

"I know, honey. You did a good job."

I bet Trisha needed to hear that.

-

Poor girl has been alone in the woods for over a week, I'd be pissed if my nurse was pushing my family out. My goodness.

-

"Some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you."

How dare you, Stephen. What an awful thing to quote at the end of this book . 🤣🤣🤣

I'm going back to reread The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I originally read this in high school and HATED it. After talking about it last week, I thiught I'd give it another go.

The audiobook is read by Anne Heche. Her voice works really well for Trisha.

[elanorjoy]

Post-ACOWAR thoughts. Spoilers galore.

I really enjoyed it! It surprised me, because I wasn’t looking forward to reading a war story and I literally didn’t touch it for three days when I knew the first battle was coming. I don’t like war stories. The art of mass killing is lost on me and I get absolutely no enjoyment out of it, even if the good guys do win. I much prefer having my heroes battle it out against a Big Bad one-on-one or in small groups and when I realized ACOWAR wasn’t going to be that kind of book, I had to give myself some time to get used to the idea.

Overall, I was actually really surprised by Maas’ storytelling (stupid of me, I know). I wasn’t expecting such a detailed, gory war with multiple epic battle scenes to be just a prominent, if not more so than the romance element of the story. I had this idea in my head (that was completely built up by the fandom and not by anything that was actually super canonical) that ACOWAR would be all about the various people in the Inner Circle pairing off and hooking up, leaving Amren to become a dragon (I was THRILLED by her storyline with Varian. Absolutely thrilled). I think that her choices with some of the side pairings, especially Nessian and Elucian were absolutely spot on and I loooooooooved that both of those girls got to have the whole book to mourn and rage and grieve and start healing. And I love that neither of them were completely healed by the end of the book and that their love interests were both content to let them be that way. It was more than I would have given Maas credit for and I kind of love her for it.

I was actually incredibly pleased with how the side romances worked out. It was so refreshing not to have everyone neatly paired off at the end of the story. I think Maas worked exceptionally hard to remind us that these characters are immortal in this book and not giving us neatly tied bows on every character’s relationship was really, really refreshing. It’s this reminder that these people are going to live long, long lives and have plenty of time to work out their drama. It also provides some excellent opportunities for fic that I’m super pleased about.

Mor’s sexuality made me SO happy. There’s a lot of discussion and drama existing in the fandom re: Moriel, and I don’t want to get involved in it, but I am so pleased that a main character is queer that I did a little whoop while reading.

On the subject of queerness, I think Maas really upped her game with representation in this book. One polyamorous High Lord, one gay High Lord, a lesbian war hero, and a lesbian MC? Planned or not, that was a huge deal in a lot of criticism of the first two books and I think Maas responded it too that criticism really gracefully. It doesn’t make the super hetero mating bond thing any better, but it gives space for queerness and I’m glad she included it.

Maas did an interview right before the book was published where she said more than one person from the Inner Circle would die. Having this knowledge in the back of my head made every injury and mission that much more intense and I’m pretty sure it contributed to at least three of my crying fits because I was certain that “Oh no, X is done for. Shit, shit, shit.” and each time X lived to fight another day, the tension got even worse because “No one’s dead yet. It’s going to be so much worse, oh god, oh god, oh god.” I mean, without that interview, I probably would have still felt that tension, especially with the tendency authors have towards killing off beloved characters, but god, that interview made is so much worse.

Speaking killing people off! I was expecting Amren to die the whole time. She was Other and I knew her power would be a key element of winning the war and I was kind of waiting for her to die at some point. I was absolutely not expecting Rhys to die and I don’t think I’ve cried so hard since the scene where Will thought Jem was dead in CP2. Holy shit. BUT I love, love, love how ACOWAR ends in an inversion of ACOTAR. It was a really gorgeous choice and it was immensely satisfying.

My biggest takeaway was that the ACOTAR books are all about Feyre’s story of survival. That’s the biggest plot point in all three books. The love stories and mounting tension re: the war make us more interested in Feyre’s survival, but at the end of the day, the books are not about either of those things. They’re just about what Feyre needs to survive and how those needs change as she grows as a person and the world comes up with new and horrifying ways to test her ability to survive.