#i care so much about frank. but its written so deeply into the story that he is a teenager and that's how i read him.

[hersweetrevenge]

rohan is so cute as frank. and not enough people talk about it!! just wanna hold him and tell him everything will be okay 😭

he is !! anon, you are so right !! 💗 i could talk all day about how pretty rohan is and his boyish good looks, but i could spend just as long talking about how much i love frank and how interesting i find his character so i really wish there were more frank fans out there too (i guess we just have to stick together lol) !! season three is not available for me yet so this is based on s1&2, but my agenda remains the same: protect frank hardy at all costs.

i think what i love most about frank is he is so earnestly genuine. i love how when he first meets callie and chet and isn't sure how to respond to callie's playful scrutiny. i love when he can't take the rosegrave tour seriously. i love how he understands the need to hone his detecting skills through fenton's books, rather than joe's intuitive approach. i love when his voice goes all soft when he realises he was wrong about tom ellroy (and also how it signals the first inkling that he is getting too reliant on the eye). i love how when fenton comes back from finding rupert, his reuniting with frank is so different to his one with joe; he tells frank "it's okay", over and over because frank's reactions are so much more internal than joe's (for the most part).

frank is honestly just very well-written. he's athletic but not a jock. he's studious but not an academic. he's romantic but he isn't particularly flirtatious (i'm not sure it even registers to him that he is handsome, beyond the "clearly biased" opinions of his mom/grandma/aunt). he's level-headed and has a check on his external displays of emotion, but his internal emotional experiences runs very deep. he is rational and measured, but he can also be one-track minded.

i love how there are so many facets of his character but none of them are ever really contradictory, and when they are it just highlights how he is a teenager who is struggling with this huge trauma and sometimes makes irrational decisions because of it. he's a skeptic, he's level-headed, but he's also not had the support he needs in order to grieve his mom properly so all of his skepticism goes out of the window for a chance to see laura again. he's selfish in his grief because even though he knows joe is hurting too, it's difficult to see past his own hurt because (as everyone points out) he was laura's counterpart, and joe is fenton's. the fact that he really is a perfect fit to be gloria's heir but he's so deeply compassionate that he could never be ruthless enough for that sort of business.

where was i going with this? i don't know, but i agree with you, anon. i really want to tell him it'll all be okay. frank really has the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he is struggling so much but it's revealed in much more subtle ways than with joe. in the first season, he's lost his mom, he's in a new place and his dad has left. i think part of him feels like he has to stay grounded and reasonable, for joe and fenton and trudy. i just want him to be supported and happy. in the second season, he's still struggling, and now has to try even harder to keep himself grounded even with unimaginable influences working again him in his very own brain. he's trying so, so hard to remember that it is the eye that manipulating him, he tries so hard to ignore george even when he's starting to see him everywhere. he can feel himself going mad and there's nothing he can do about it.

by the end of season two, before the sleep room, frank feels like he needs to save himself because no one else will. he feels like he needs to save his mom, because no one else wants too.

the show is really about, amongst other things, how grief can effect people. and even more so, it's about grief effecting people in different and unexpected ways. joe clearly channels his grief into solving mysteries and helping people. sure, he's a little bit gung-ho about it but it makes sense for his character -- optimistic and impulsive. frank, on the other hand, who is shown time and time again to be skeptical and level-headed, is the one who becomes irrational and unstable and emotionally volatile. of course the eye has some influence, but i also think frank's more reserved nature is being strained by the grief that he isn't given a chance to deal with and ultimately it makes him desperate and scared.

what i'm trying to say is: frank is so very cute and caring and earnest and i love him very dearly.

[thepunkmuppet]

UNHOLYVERSE CLOSING THOUGHTS YIPPEEEE YIPPEE YIPPEE

it’s 1am and I’ve finished it :)

the plot was fucking amazing as was the writing, it was like a really really good tv show, or maybe an amazing movie (pt1) and its slightly more deranged sequel (pt2 and 3). I think I definitely preferred all things unholy as a whole, but yeah the next parts really did feel very sequel-like, in that the first one was The Story and the second and third were building on that first core story, expanding the characters and world. which ummmm btw the lore is insane??? so much going on lmfao but I think it all worked really well. the fallout boy stuff was fucking wild though icl because WHAT 💀 I’m also obsessed with the idea of god talking to frank in the form of the cardinal dream, that worked soooo well and still leaving it open at the end is great. I’m so glad frank and gerard got a happy ending, I ship those stupid twats SO hard I’m literally clawing at the walls they make me INSANE RRAAHHHH!!! icl I really didn’t care about mikey and ray’s romance like at all but it worked as a source of conflict and was pretty cute

I kind of forgot it was meant to be mcr fanfic for a while lmfao, which brings me on to I guess the most important part which is my main takeaway on the whole rpf thing

as I’ve said in a post before, I really struggle to picture voices and faces accurately in my head when reading. well except when it comes to buffyverse characters, but that’s just because those shows are so deeply ingrained into my psyche forever that istg I could literally channel buffy summers at this point and just become her. lmfao but yeah I really struggle with that! so when I’m reading, I just kind of create a vibe, a vague mind’s-eye image of a character, it’s very hard to explain. so for me these frank, gerard, mikey, etc characters were subconsciously already way far removed from the real people, like I had to consciously make an effort to make them sound and look exactly like them in my head. but like I said, it felt like a real piece of media like a tv show or something, so to me the unholyverse characters are just that - characters. it really felt like mcr playing movie roles lmfao which I was perfectly happy with. the romance and other relationships were written soooooo well, the real problem was ofc the smut!

I don’t like smut in general, not in a judgy or censor-y way, I just get no joy or kick out of reading it and all it does is make me feel awkward. but with rpf smut, even though I see unholyverse frank and gerard as fictional characters, I can’t ignore the fact that THIS IS FULLY EXPLICIT WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY PORN BEING WRITTEN ABOUT REAL PEOPLE 💀 read it write it all you want, personally I find it uncomfortable and it just doesn’t do anything for me. made me think too much about the fact that it WAS rpf, yk?? got me thinking about the real frank and gerard and how fucking weird it would be to read smth like that about yourself idk, also the fact they have wives and kids…. 😟 gosh idk it was very very well-written smut, it just made me so icked out the more I thought about it

but anyway, OVERALL: I loved it. it was so good, will definitely reread, bookmark, and think about it for a very very very long time. possibly scream and cry and tear my hair out too, idk. part 1 was my favourite by a long shot, it’s so iconic, and feels pretty removed from parts 2 and 3 in a nice way that makes it feel like a movie and its strange sequel. I’ve discovered I like rpf when it’s good and when it’s a complete au and the people feel like original fictional characters in their own right. I don’t enjoy rpf smut, though, AT ALL, which isn’t a surprise bc I don’t enjoy smut in general, the rpf aspect just made it way more uncomfy for me personally. kind of feel the need now to bleach my brain out and consume normal mcr content just to remind myself of the disconnect between unholyverse frerard and the real people lmfao

OH ALSO THAT

I do NOT ship frerard irl, that shit’s fucking weird don’t do it. yes there is a difference between fic like this and saying two married friends and colleagues in real life are actually in love with and attracted to each other. I do for sure ship unholyverse frerard, as I’ve said they’re fictional characters to me

[misscrawfords]

Thank you so much for the support in my Henry/Susan shipping! I always see her shipped with Tom (well, in the MP sequels I have occasionally come across and not read) which I think is boring because a) repetitive - like saying, "We want to rewrite MP but with cousins with different personalities" and b) Tom Bertram interested in women? Naaaaaaahhhh. I headcanon him as asexual, I've seen him written as gay. But heterosexual? Definitely not. The man had no interest in Mary Crawford: the man is not interested in women!

But I find Susan herself so interesting. I think I've said it before but MP is so unusual in Austen's novels in that it leaves so many characters unaccounted for and somehow unfinished. In Emma, Frank Churchill is perhaps a similar character type to Henry Crawford but he gets married off at the end. Wickham, Willoughby, William Walter Eliot are all also sorted - and too unpleasant to feel much interest. No-one cares about John Thorpe's love life lbr. But Henry is left unaccounted for. So is Mary. So is Tom. So is Maria in a way because a cottage with Mrs. Norris doesn't feel like a life-sentence. Mrs. Norris will die before Maria anyway and then what? And in Susan, Austen explicitly sets up a future in which Susan is placed in Fanny's position with the Bertrams as if to replay the circumstances of the novel. It's like she's inviting the question "What if we did it again but Sir Thomas was more self-aware and the child was actually a strong-minded teenager with an older sister who cared about her? What then, eh?" While Kitty and Mary are sisters left behind with potential futures, Margaret Dashwood will grow up into a potential heroine as will Catherine's numerous siblings, no younger sibling in all of Austen is placed in such an interesting position as Susan Price in terms of the actual narrative. Like, writing a P&P sequel focussed on Kitty Bennet could be very fun and there is speculation that she improves but there is little link between Kitty as a character and Elizabeth as a character or their respective narrative arcs as there is between Fanny and Susan and their situations.

The thing that also fascinates me about Susan is her potential for both deep goodness and intelligence and strength but also anger and frustration and wildness in a way that I don't see matched in any Austen heroine and makes me think more of later heroines. Susan has grown up at best neglected, at worst abused in a lower class household. She has learned to be self-reliant. We know her to be forthright, clever, possibly manipulative and desperate for self-improvement and guidance. She's brought to Mansfield Park at an age when she will see right through its veneer of respectability in a way shy 10 year old Fanny wasn't capable of and probably never fully will be able to. But at the same time, she's deeply indebted to them and the opportunities they give her. I just think that's a really fascinating set-up to work with.

In my story, I pick her up at 19, still at Mansfield and totally content ruling the roost under the guise of supporting Lady Bertram. I actually see Susan as being most similar to Mrs. Norris in terms of genetic inheritance and that is fun to play with as well. Julia Yates invites her to London and Fanny is encouraged to let her go because she suspects that Tom is in love with her and figures this might not be a great idea since Susan has seen so little of the world. (Susan and Tom are platonic besties who read silly novels in ridiculous voices together but Tom does want to marry her for continuation-of-lineage reasons so Fanny and Edmund aren't too wide of the mark.)

Susan knows that London is the Root of All Evil and She Must Despise It All (thanks, cousin Edmund!) but unfortunately it's also really fun and pretty much the first people she meets are Mrs. Grant and Miss Crawford living a fun old life in Westminster and they are also fun. Super awkward. Anyway, Susan is here for a Good Time and not a Marriage Time because lol she's the plain, impoverished daughter of alcoholic sea-captain with only a veneer of polish covering the Portsmouth grime so who'd want that? and she's trying so hard but maybe she isn't Fanny Bertram's good and pious little clone after all. Maybe she doesn't want to be. Maybe there is more to life than the Mansfield parsonage. Maybe she can dream bigger than being Lady Bertram's companion all her days, though that used to seem like a paradise. Maybe she doesn't have to clamp down on all her angry, resentful, passionate, wild impulses. Anyway, she's basically Elsa from Frozen. I see it now.

Yeah. So anyway.

Unfortunately, when I'm writing, it feels so stilted. I haven't found a good voice yet. Austen is inimitable and anyway, she wouldn't have written this story with the morals and development I want to give both Susan and Henry, but I haven't found the voice that sounds write for it so I read what I've written and cringe and then don't write more!

(I say she wouldn't have written the story I want to write but I also feel like one of the amazing things about Austen and what is so tantalising about Sanditon is that every single novel shows her going in a new direction and innovating. Persuasion takes her writing in a more Romantic vein and Sanditon shows signs of anticipating authors like Dickens and Eliot in its social satire and focus on the changes of the 19th century. Who can say whether had Austen lived another 20 or 30 years she would have experimented with difficult, angry, wild-hearted heroines like Susan and reformed rakes like Henry as the Brontes did? She took on Emma Woodhouse after all so there is a precedent!)

If you receive this, you make somebody happy! Go on anon and send this to 10 of your followers who make you happy or somebody you think needs cheering up. If you get one back, even better. 🩵💜🩷🖤🩶🤍 (Can't ask you anonymously but actually don't care! <3)

ahhh thank you!!! <3

Right back at you. I’ve been thinking of you lately and hoping that you’re well! Also your Susan Price/Henry Crawford idea is brilliant and you’re so right for it. I have also low-key shipped it for years.

[voyagerprobe]

i do actually want to get my thoughts down on dune but don’t want to subject anyone to dune against their will so they are under a cut

first of all i want to make clear that i have only read the first 3 books (dune/dune messiah/children of dune) and have no intention of reading more. furthermore as it is well established that frank herbert viewed these three books as a trilogy and had planned and partially written all three books whilst writing the first, i think it is appropriate to view them as a single work of literature and will be analysing them as such here.

i think dune carries a lot of contradictions within it because at some level it is an anti-imperialist story written by a racist white man, and this is something that manifests itself throughout the entire trilogy

its easy to read the first book and come away with the impression that it’s a white saviour narrative; this is because it’s exactly what it is. but it specifically plays with the white saviour narrative and tries to expose its fatal flaws in ways that don’t really become apparent until the second half of the trilogy. and throughout this the view the narrative seems to take on the characters also changes; in the first book kynes and stilgar are presented as pretty much unilaterally good people who want the best for everyone and paul is generally presented as a well meaning person. 

kynes, the coloniser who is himself a white saviour narrative of sorts, fancies himself as having “gone native” yet at the same time introduces the plan to transform arakkis into a wet planet, a plan that the narrative eventually condemns as a colonialist exertion of control, an ecological disaster, and borderline genocidal in its destruction of fremen culture. by the end of children of dune, though kynes is long dead, the narrative has changed from viewing him as a caring sympathetic visionary to at best a naiive fool and at worst an insidious force who kickstarted unspeakable evils.

stilgar is, i think, the most interesting character to me, as he’s arguably the most tragic character. at every point in his arc he makes what is ostensibly the right decision—trading the harkonnens for the atreides secures more rights and better conditions for the fremen, and the ecological transformation lessens the burdens of life on dune. for this he is initially portrayed as noble (and i very purposely invoke the “noble savage” trope that herbert was using). but by the end of the trilogy it becomes clear that stilgar has feet of clay, that he simply traded one coloniser for another and in the process royally fucked everyone over by siding with that coloniser.

and paul, who by the second book is a dictator responsible for tens of millions of deaths, is reduced to being a miserable lone wanderer in the desert regretful of everything he ever did or stood for; he only gains any moral victory in the end by reversing course to speak out against the colonisation, assimilation, and ecological transformation of dune.

dune is a deeply racist book series. it is deeply orientalist to its core and is rife with racial stereotypes even outside of the fremen. the fremen, as a portmanteau of indigenous peoples around the world, are at every turn exoticised, sexualised, treated as barbarians or noble savages, and aside from stilgar are largely non-characters. aside from stilgar the fremen have little agency; aside from stilgar the narrative shows us that only the white coloniser characters are worth caring about. despite all this, these same coloniser characters are shown to be rotten to the core and their actions one way or another are eventually revealed as morally reprehensible.

dune’s attempts to be anti-colonialist can only fall flat because of these contradictions. it asks us to believe in the personhood of the fremen and sympathise with their plight yet refuses to portray them as more than tokens in a world of political intrigue amongst white colonisers. to the very end as it attempts to unravel these white heroes and reveal them as complicit, it is always other white heroes who get the final say. it is consistently undercut by its own colonialism.

[whatwillyoudodifferently]

Look, Louts! Lilies! - Yuri For A Hope-Flung Present and Hopeful Future

Look, I’ll be frank. I typically try to keep to a more formal tone when I write for this blog. I’m not in a formal mood. It is June October 2020, and I, like the rest of you, have been under quarantine for a little over three almost seven months now due to the Covid-19 virus. Throw in a eensy, teensy bit of massive political movements and change in response to police violence and racism, and an increase of police violence and racism in response to those movements, and I think it’s fair to say it’s been a tumultuous couple of months. Except, strangely, it also hasn’t been, because so much of this time has been characterized by ennui and isolation. Stressful, yet soul-numbing. In short, it’s been a very weird place to be in.

So, we’ve all found our different ways to cope. My sister’s way has been getting really into succulents(?), and my way has been buying digital manga and video games. I’ve finished stuff I’ve put off for literal years and bought stuff I had heard was good but wasn’t that hyped to get into. And somehow, the one thing I’ve really gotten into has been yuri? 

Now, yuri has a very long and rich history, as well as its own sets of conventions and nuances, so it is with a great, great, GREAT deal of respect that I say that I’m going to simplify it for this essay as “Japanese media with a particular focus on romance between women” for brevity’s sake. If you want to know more, there’s actually quite a lot that’s been written about it in English, but I’m aiming this essay at English-speakers who have had at least a little experience with yuri and more than just passing knowledge.

Because you see, I’ve found that yuri fans have a lot of things to say about yuri! And a lot of those things really bug me!! “Yuri is only fetish quasi-porn written by men,” “yuri is only bland wholesome fluff,” “yuri is only high school drama,” so on, so on. It made me mad, but it also made me realize something: a lot of people simply must not know how big this field of lilies truly is! How else can we get people saying “yuri is oversexualized” and “yuri is sexless” as gospel truth? Something’s not adding up here, guys!

So, all that is to say I’m doing something different for this blog: I’m writing up a recommendation list of yuri. A large chunk of it will be stuff I’ve read and can officially give my seal of approval to, while some of them are just titles I’ve heard of that I think will interest others. All of them have been specifically chosen to counter common untrue things I’ve heard about yuri as a whole. I hope you can find at least a few things on this list that you will enjoy and help you keep your head as the encroaching darkness lurches yet a few inches closer!

1. “Yuri is all schoolgirl stuff! Where’s the sci-fi, the period pieces, the action, the fantasy?”

Otherside Picnic

What It Is: A light novel series written by Iori Miyazawa (illustrated by shirakaba). Ongoing, four volumes at time of writing. The story is being adapted into a manga by Eita Mizuno, and an anime adaptation directed by Takuya Satou will be airing in January 2021.

What It’s About: It was on her third trip to the Otherside that Sorawo Kamikoshi almost died, and it was on that same trip she was saved by an angel. Toriko Nishina is a beautiful and confident young woman who also happens to have intimate knowledge of the Otherside, a dangerous yet captivating world that Sorawo can’t help but being drawn to. Toriko convinces Sorawo to join her on her expeditions to the Otherside, fighting off bizarre creatures that have somehow been ripped out of Japanese urban legends and finding strange artifacts in order to make a little extra cash-- all the while keeping an eye out for someone dear to Toriko’s heart.

What I Think: Otherside Picnic is heavily inspired by the novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and features several creatures and scenarios from ghost stories, net lore, and-- there’s no other way to put this-- creepypasta. On paper this sounds deeply unoriginal, so it’s pretty surprising that OP has an incredibly strong identity. The idea of fusing horror with a yuri love story excited me enough the moment I heard about it, so when I finally got to read it for myself, I was delighted to find that the horror elements and the romance elements are both quite strong. 

I will say that thanks to the author’s commitment to following his sources of inspiration to the letter sometimes causes him to undercut his own writing (good example: in one arc there’s an ominous train that keeps being mentioned, causing the reader to dread its arrival with each passing page, but seeing what’s on the train will inevitably fall flat in comparison to the reader’s imagination), but those moments are made up by the more original moments-- the things that are left unseen and unexplained.

The place where the story truly shines is the relationship between the two leads. Sorawo and Toriko are great characters, both incredibly charming and deeply flawed, and they achieve a great chemistry with each other right off the bat. Sorawo is a very interesting protagonist, one who turns out to have a deeply tragic past that has made her into a reclusive, somewhat selfish young woman. What’s great is that Toriko, vivacious and confident, everything Sorawo isn’t, accepts this part of her, in a way. Toriko flat out admits she’s not looking for a particularly virtuous person to accompany her, but an “accomplice.” A big part of the appeal of OP is seeing these two “accomplices” bounce off each other, and eventually come to care about each other, all playing against a background of some genuinely spine-crawling horror. Otherside Picnic is a truly underrated series, and I deeply hope that the anime adaption next year will finally get it all the eyes it deserves (menacing phrasing very much intended).

Where To Get It: The light novels are published by J-Novel Club and can be found via various digital platforms and bookstores. The manga will be published by Square Enix Books starting May 2021. The anime will start airing on January 4th, 2021.

Goodbye My Rose Garden

What It Is: A manga by Dr. Pepperco. Three volumes, complete. It inspired a stage play that ran for a while in Japan, but not much information is available about it in English. 

What It’s About: Hanako has two goals: to meet Victor Franks, the mysterious author who pens the books she adores, and to become a writer herself. Despite having the mettle to travel to England on her own to pursue her dreams, she soons finds that it’s difficult for a young, unwed Japanese woman to dream in 20th century London. However, her luck seems to turn around when she meets Alice Douglas, a noblewoman who offers her a job as her maid-- as well as a surprisingly warm friendship. Alice even offers Hanako a way to meet her idol… but at the price of a horrifying request.

What I Think: In the afterword of Volume 1, Dr. Pepperco openly admits that Goodbye, My Rose Garden was the result of them trying to marry all of their favorite tropes (“Victorian maids! Loads of frills! An English family manor!” are some standout items), and this is apparent in the best way possible. GMRG is a lush period piece that will likely appeal to fans of movies like The Handmaiden and Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, with loving attention paid to details like clothes and settings. 

The relationship between Alice and Hanako is quite charming, with Alice supporting Hanako as much as she can while still taking every available opportunity to tease her, while Hanako constantly surprises Alice each time she shows her moxie and strength. It’s an adorable, sweet dynamic, yet a dark, melancholy weight lurks in the background in the form of Alice’s request-- in short, it’s a relationship that feels tailor made for me. Still, I believe this “darkness” never threatens to overwhelm the story, only enhance it in such a way that the reader will soldier on, hoping for a happy ending for our two leads. With an engaging plot and gorgeous art, this is a great manga for both longtime yuri fans and newcomers looking for an introduction to the world of yuri.

Where To Get It: Seven Seas Entertainment has translated the first two volumes, with the final one coming to English soon all three volumes into English.

Seabed

What It Is: A visual novel by paleontology, a Japanese doujin circle.

What It’s About: Mizuno Sachiko is a designer who is haunted by visions of Takako, her vivacious childhood friend and former lover. Narasaki Hibiki is a psychiatrist who wants to help Sachiko make sense of these hallucinations. Takako is… confused, trying to figure out why she keeps losing her memory and why she and Sachiko drifted apart despite being so close. Seabed is a story that spans the pasts and presents of these three women as they attempt to find and understand the truth.

What I Think: At first glance, Seabed seems simple, but it’s a bit of a hard story to explain. In a way, there isn’t much to explain-- it’s a very slow, down-to-earth story that gets almost tedious at times. I think it would be a hard sell to someone who isn’t used to visual novels, but I could imagine it being challenging even for fans. All I’ll say is this: if you give Seabed a chance, it will draw you into a surreal, gentle, melancholy tale akin to slowly sinking beneath the water of a strange, yet not unfriendly sea. For its simplicity, it’s got quite a few surprises in its long, long runtime, and any attempt to explain further will just ruin an experience that’s meant to wash over the reader over time. The only thing I’ll say is the one thing I think everyone knows: the climax will make you cry.

Where To Get It: Seabed is published in English through Fruitbat Factory and is available on Steam, Itch.io, and Nintendo Switch.

SHWD

What It Is: A manga by Sono. Ongoing.

What It’s About: Sawada is one of the few women working for the Special Hazardous Waste Disposal, and the only one in her office. But that changes when the stunningly-strong yet staggeringly-sweet Koga is hired, and the two become close in no time. Sawada trains Koga and soon the two go on their first mission to dispose of the “hazardous waste” left after a recent war… the dangerous, organic anti-human weapons known as the Dynamis.

What I Think: SHWD opens with several close-ups of Sawada’s arm muscles as she works out. I have found that page alone is sometimes enough to convince someone to read SHWD, and if not, pictures of Sawada and-- especially-- Koga are often enough to do the job. In all seriousness, what I love about SHWD can be summarized by something Sono said in an interview about the manga:

‘The first motivating force was "I want to write a yuri manga featuring strong women." I was very drawn to strong female characters by watching "PERSON of INTEREST" and "Assassin's Creed Odyssey." However, I felt that I should differentiate myself by doing something other than a "strong woman" and "weak woman" dynamic. So, I thought about coupling women with different types of strength. This is why all of the SHWD main characters are "strong women."’

It’s a mindset I love a lot. Koga is remarkably strong in a physical sense, but her mental fortitude is fragile due to her past experiences with the Dynamis, and as such, it’s Sawada who uses her immense mental strength to support her. Indeed, every character in SHWD so far bears intense trauma born of the Dynamis in some way, and it’s hard to see how their pasts still hurt them in the present. But that just makes it satisfying to see these women come together to support one another. SHWD drew me in with a unique and often dark action-oriented story with horror elements, but it’s this idea of “strong women” who make up for each other’s weaknesses that really makes it dear to me. 

Also, it can’t be stated enough that Sono is so so so so so (etc) good at drawing muscular women. 

On a completely unrelated note, there’s a side story about Koga and Sawada playing sports together. This includes judo. I am saying this for no reason.

Where To Get It: The English translation of the manga is released in chapters by Lilyka Manga.

Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress!

What It Is: A two volume light novel series by Ameko Kaeruda, illustrated by Kazutomo Miya. Possibly complete.

What It’s About: Tanya Artemiciov is an absurdly talented Mage. So why the hell was she kicked out of her adventuring party? Her leader and former friend sums it up in four words: “You’re a woman, Tanya.” In a fit of rage, Tanya channels her anger into a “venting” session that involves swearing her head of and casting a volley of Explosion spells into the wasteland… and accidentally releases a legendary sorceress! Luckily, Laplace is actually quite nice, and just as powerful as the legends say, so the two decide to team up so Tanya can have her revenge!

What I Think: So, this is a silly one, but after a couple of darker entries I think it’s a good palate cleanser. Sexiled is a loud, not-even-remotely subtle, unabashedly feminist take on the “power fantasy” light novel, especially the “revenge fantasy” subgenre-- and even if that sounds awesome on paper to you (ex. me), it will probably feel over-the-top at times to you (ex. me). But in a way, that’s actually kind of its charm. 

I like that Kaeruda utterly refuses to let up on what she wants to tell you, especially because the story was inspired by a real case in Japan. One may be tempted to think “this story is ridiculous, no one would ever be this cartoonishly sexist!” and then you read a news article about how in a famous Japanese medical university was found rigging the test scores of women, and you realize, “oh, people are still this cartoonishly sexist.” So I’m fine with Kaeruda letting it all out in this story. At the same time, I think Sexiled is best when it’s focused not on Tanya’s revenge but on her kindness, and the way her compassion, her strength, and yes, her anger inspires the women and girls around her. 

Sexiled is a fun and often very funny romp about assholes getting theirs, with some surprisingly deep and nuanced moments hiding in a very unsubtle story.

Where To Get It: The light novels are published by J-Novel Club and can be found via various digital platforms and bookstores.

BONUS: Other titles with sci-fi/fantasy/action elements that may interest you!

The Blank Of Describer: A one-shot manga by kkzt about a pair of two dream-builders. They’ve taken all kinds of commissions in the past, but one job they recieve throws them for a loop: a request for a shinigami that can predict and report death. And then comes the kicker: the customer asks the two of them to give it features that the both of them “adore the most…” (Published in English by Lilyka Manga)

A Lily Blooms In Another World: A light novel by Ameko Kaeruda (illustrated by Shio Sakura), author of Sexiled, about Miyako, a Japanese wage slave reincarnated into another world based on her favorite otome game. However, she’s not interested in her would-be love interest, but in Fuuka Hamilton-- the game’s villainess! After Miyako confesses her love, Fuuka decides to give her a challenge: if Miyako can make her say the words “I’m happy” in fourteen days, she’ll stay by her side! (Published in English through J-Novel Club, available on various platforms)

Superwomen In Love: An ongoing manga by sometime about the sentai villainess Honey Trap and her infatuation with the masked superheroine Rapid Rabbit. After being kicked out of her evil organization, Honey Trap decides to team up with her former nemesis to fight evil-- and hopefully, find romance! (To be published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment, coming in April 2021)

2. “Yuri is all stories about teenagers! Where’s the stuff about adults?”

Take a look at the previous section: there’s the stuff about adults! Otherside Picnic, Goodbye My Rose Garden, Seabed, SHWD, Sexiled, The Blank of Describer, A Lily Blooms In Another World, and Superwomen In Love are all stories with adult-aged protagonists! But if you’re searching for a more down-to-earth romance, I’m happy to report there’s quite a bit of options to look into!

Still Sick

What It Is: A manga by Akashi. Three volumes, complete.

What It’s About: Makoto Shimizu is an office lady with a secret: she’s a yuri fan who draws doujinshi. She’s able to keep her two lives separate, all until the day she comes face-to-face with her co-worker at a convention! To Makoto’s horror, Akane Maekawa is amused by her nerdy secret, but Akane may have some secrets of her own...

What I Think: This one was a roller coaster for me: I loved the premise of the manga, but wasn’t sure about the dynamic between the leads… that is, until near the end of the first volume, where something happened and everything changed. Without giving too much away, I implore people to give Still Sick a chance-- it has a much deeper story than one might initially guess, as well as an interesting character dynamic between the two leads with some surprising turns.

Where To Get It: The first two volumes of Still Sick are published in English by Tokyopop, with the final one coming soon All three volumes have been published in English by Tokyopop.

After Hours

What It Is: A manga by Yuhta Nishio. Three volumes, complete.

What It’s About: After being ditched by her friend at a club, Emi Ashiana is ready to write the whole night off. All that changes when she meets Kei, a DJ who seems to be everything Emi is not-- cool, confident… employed.... But Kei and Emi hit it off and Emi’s life changes as Kei draws her into the world of Japan’s club scene!

What I Think: It’s hard to explain exactly why I like this manga, but I reeeeally like this manga. 

There’s just something about the sleek art, the amazing atmosphere of the scenes set in nightclubs, the chemistry between Emi and Kei, the focus on more mature topics.... it’s a manga that’s remarkably magnetic for how down-to-earth it is. It’s also just interesting to read stories about subcultures that don’t normally get a spotlight in comics. To sum it up, After Hours is just a lovely manga that’s severely underrated that’s perfect for someone who’s looking for a story that’s both fun and mature.

Where To Get It: All three volumes are published in English by Viz Media.

How Do We Relationship?

What It Is: A manga by Tamifull. Ongoing, five volumes at time of writing.

What It’s About: Miwa and Saeko’s first meeting is… interesting. But despite that, and despite their clashing personalities, the two of them become fast friends. Well… actually, perhaps more than friends. You see, pretty soon the two of them learn that the other is into women. With that in mind, Saeko suggests they try dating each other-- might as well, right? “Might as well” seems like a strange place to begin a relationship, but perhaps even something like that could end in true love?

What I Think: “Why do romances always end when they decide to start dating?!” That’s the question Tamifull poses in the afterword of Volume 1. And it’s a great question! What makes How Do We Relationship? an interesting manga is how oddly realistic it is, highlighting things like the compromises people make in relationships, people who get into relationships for pragmatic reasons rather than love, the whole “thing” about sex… as well as highlighting the additional issues queer people have to deal with. That may sound like a heavy story, but it’s actually quite light-hearted, as well as very, very funny at times. With a cute art style and surprisingly deep premise, HDWR is a great manga for older yuri fans who are craving a more mature story.

Where To Get It: The first volume has been published in English by Viz Media, with more on the way.

BONUS: Other titles with adult protagonists that may interest you!

Even Though We’re Adults: A manga by Takako Shimura about two women in their thirties. Ayano and Akari meet each other in a bar and almost immediately feel a sense of chemistry between them. There’s just one problem: Ayano is married to someone else. (To be published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment, coming in January 2021)

Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon: A manga by Shio Usui. Uno Hinako wants nothing more than to be seen as a normal young woman, but she just can’t seem to make a “normal” romance work. But maybe Sato Asahi, a woman who works at the same company as her, can show her a new kind of normal? (To be published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment, coming in February 2021)

Our Teachers Are Dating: A manga by Pikachi Ohi. Hayama Asuka is a gym teacher, Terano Saki is a biology teacher. One day, they come into work both looking suspiciously happy… because they’ve started dating! (Published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment)

I Married My Best Friend To Shut My Parents Up: A one-volume manga by Kodama Naoko. Morimoto is sick and tired about constantly being badgered about finding a man to marry, so her kouhai from her high school days offers a solution: marry each other to make her parents back off! (Published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment)

Now Loading…!: A one-volume manga by Mikan Uji. Takagi has just snagged her dream job at a games publisher, but being put in charge of a mobile game that’s barely pulling in any attention isn’t exactly what she was hoping for. What’s worse, she’s drawn the attention of her strict higher-up Sakurazuki Kaori… who also happened to design her most favorite game of all time?! (Published in English through Seven Seas Entertainment)

3.  “Yuri is all schoolgirl stuff! Where’s- wait, didn’t we already do this one?”

Yes we did. And you know what? I’m making a stand! There’s a lot of really, really good yuri stories set in high schools, and I think more people need to give them a chance! Here are some high school titles that I think are worth a second look for one reason or another!

Bloom Into You

What It Is: A manga by Nakatani Nio. Eight volumes, complete. A twelve episode anime aired in 2018, covering about the first half of the series. A three volume spinoff light novel series written by Hitoma Iruma was also published.

What It’s About: Yuu Koito has long dreamed of the day she’d find That One, Storybook Romance that would make her feel like she was walking on air, but the day that a boy confesses to her, her feet remain firmly planted on the ground. When she meets Touko Nanami, a girl who seems to have the same strange, distant relationship to romance as she does, Yuu feels like she has found a comrade. But what will happen when the next person to confess to Yuu… is Touko?

What I Think: What can I say about Bloom Into You that hasn’t already been said? There’s a reason it’s basically considered a staple of yuri despite being only five years old. The art is beautiful and delicate, the story has a deft mastery of comedy, drama, and romance, and the characters are deeply loveable. Really, the only reason this one is here is to tell you to get to reading this manga (or watching the anime) if you haven’t already. So get to it!

Where To Get It: The entire series-- as well as the spinoff light novel series Regarding Saeki Sayaka-- has been published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment. The anime is currently streaming on HiDive.

Yuri Is My Job

What It Is: A manga by Miman. Ongoing, seven volumes at time of writing.

What It’s About: Hime wants nothing more than to be adored by everyone and to someday bag a rich husband. Of course, being loved by all takes a lot of work, and she prides herself in keeping her perfect, adorable facade so well-maintained. But of course, the one time she slips up, she ends up injuring the manager of a local cafe! Hime finds herself strong-armed into working for this cafe under their star employee, a kind, graceful girl named Mitsuki. But things aren’t quite so simple-- you see, this cafe has a gimmick in which all the employees are constantly acting out yuri-inspired scenes for the customers, so in a way, the employees also have their own facades. And under her facade, Mitsuki… hates Hime’s guts!

What I Think: Yuri Is My Job is an odd duck, but in a good way. It’s advertised and initially framed as a comedy, but it becomes a surprisingly thoughtful drama about the personas people adopt and why they do so (though, luckily, the comedy never truly goes away). There’s an interesting web of relationships between the girls, and having those interactions take place in a setting where they must act out a completely different sort of drama adds an extra level of drama and intrigue. The cute, polished artwork is just the icing on the cake. YIMJ is a good manga for those who are already familiar with yuri tropes and those who are interested in a drama that doesn’t get too heavy.

Where To Get It: Six volumes have been published in English by Kodansha comics, with the seventh on the way.

Riddle Story of Devil

What It Is: A manga written by Yun Kouga and illustrated by Sunao Minakata. Five volumes, complete. A 12 episode anime aired in 2014.

What It’s About: At Myojo Private School, an elite all-girl’s academy, Class Black has a secret. Twelve of the thirteen girls are actually assassins who have been offered a dark deal-- one wish will be granted to whoever manages to kill Haru Ichinose, the thirteenth student. But there’s still hope for Haru in the form of Tokaku Azuma, one of the assassins who has decided to defect to Haru’s side-- and defend her from the other girls at any cost.

What I Think: I’m not sure… if I can say Riddle Story of Devil is “good.” It’s definitely something. Although its premise is vaguely similar to Revolutionary Girl Utena, its tone and atmosphere remind me a lot more of the Dangan Ronpa series. It’s schlocky and ridiculous and often over-the-top and at times exploitative. It’s pure junk food, basically… and I believe that’s where the charm comes from. It’s my guiltiest of guilty pleasures. It may not exactly be good, but more often than not, it’s fun. It’s hard not to be immediately interested in a yuri battle series, you have to admit. 

And if it does have one undeniably good element, it’s Tokaku and Haru’s relationship. They contrast each other nicely, and while one might expect Haru to be boring and helpless, she’s actually quite proactive at times, and some of the most interesting, engaging parts of the series come from seeing how the two work together to fend off the latest assassin. It’s a short read and if anything, it’s worth it to see how each girl ends up. I recommend it for older viewers who are okay with violence and ludicrous battle scenarios.

Where To Get It: All five volumes are available through Seven Seas Entertainment. The anime can be watched through Funimation.*

*Please don’t watch the anime.**

** At the very least, please don’t watch the anime unless you’ve read the entire manga. Riddle Story Of Devil was one of those unfortunate cases where the anime adaption was produced before the manga reached its conclusion, and as such it has a very strange, rushed ending that includes none of what I enjoyed about the actual ending. Several scenes were also changed, and if I recall correctly, fanservice was added in several places where there was none previously. All in all, I’d really only recommend it for big fans of the series.

Side By Side Dreamers

What It Is: A light novel by Iori Miyazawa, illustrated by Akane Malbeni. One volume, complete.

What It’s About: Saya Hokage has been suffering from insomnia, but one day finds relief in the form of Hitsuji Konparu, a strange girl who can put people to sleep. As it turns out, Hitsuji is a person who has the special ability to move freely in their dreams, known as a “Sleepwalker.” The Sleepwalkers have been battling beings that possess people through their dreams, and it turns out they want Saya to join them in the fight.

What I Think: Side By Side Dreamers is short and… well, dreamy. I really enjoyed the premise and I think it’s a good novel for people who think Otherside Picnic may be a little too much for them. I also enjoyed each dream sequence-- I tend to find that the writing in light novels is a little dry, so the use of figurative language to describe these scenes was really refreshing and interesting. SBSD is a fun oneshot that I think is especially ideal for newcomers to yuri.

Where To Get It: Side-by-Side Dreamers is published by J-Novel Club and can be found via various digital platforms and bookstores.

Cocoon Entwined

What It Is: A manga by Yuriko Hara. Three volumes, ongoing.

What It’s About: Hoshimiya Girls' Academy is a strange, almost otherworldly paradise with a peculiar tradition. For all three years, each girl grows out her hair to absurd, breathtaking lengths, in order for it to eventually be cut and weaved into uniforms for future students. Perhaps it is these strange uniforms that seem to whisper about the past that makes the school seem frozen in another time… picturesque, yet stagnant. But one day, a shocking incident shatters the quiet peace of the academy, and the tumultuous feelings that have long been hidden in the hearts of these girls come rushing into the light.

What I Think: Cocoon Entwined is, in a word, eerie. It’s not marketed as a horror story, and I don’t think it’s intended to be one, but I’ve seen some that say they get horror vibes from it. I definitely understand that-- there’s a deep sense of unease that permeates the entire story in a way that’s a bit hard to articulate. The running thread of uniforms made from human hair definitely doesn’t hurt (it does-- I’ve seen many people understandably turned off by this element), but it’s more than that. It’s the sense that everything at Hoshimiya feels frozen and fragile. It’s the sense that everyone is burying their true feelings under countless layers. It’s the fact that in one scene, Saeki reaches out in a dark room full of uniforms and feels her arm touched by countless hands made of hair. 

Cocoon Entwined is a strange manga, and I feel it’s not for everyone-- besides the way many are put off by the central premise, the way that the story jumps around in time can be a bit confusing to follow. But in my opinion, I love it for these elements: the uniforms and their marriage between beauty and grotesque, the sense of frozen time, the delicate artwork that feels like it might be shattered by the weight of your gaze, the strange, airless atmosphere, the girls and their clear exhaustion of having to be ideal women. It’s a strange little series that I think should be given a shot, particularly if you want something a little more out there, or a darker take on Class S tropes.

Where To Get It: Yen Press has currently published two volumes in English.

BONUS: Other high school titles that may interest you!

A Tropical Fish Yearns For Snow: A manga by Makoto Hagino. Konatsu Amano has just moved to a new town by the sea, and must deal with her new school’s mandatory club policy. Luckily, she meets Koyuki Honami, an older girl who runs the Aquarium Club. Recognizing her loneliness, Konatsu decides to join her club. (Published  in English by Viz Media)

Flowers: A four-part series of visual novels published by Innocent Grey. Flowers focuses on Saint Angraecum Academy, a private high school that prides itself on overseeing the growth of proper young ladies. One notable thing about the academy is the Amitié program, a system that pairs students together in order to foster friendships between the girls. But friendship isn’t the only thing blooming… (Available in English from Steam, J-List, and JAST USA)

Adachi And Shimamura: A series of light novels written by Hitoma Iruma and illustrated by Non that has recently received a manga adaptation and an anime adaption. Adachi and Shimamura are two girls who encounter each other one day while cutting class. Little by little, the two girls become a part of each other’s lives, and feelings begin to form. (The light novels are published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment, the anime is licensed by Funimation)

And there we go! 24 different yuri titles. I didn’t even go into the series that I tried but personally didn’t like that still might interest other people. I primarily made this list to gush about yuri that I liked, but I also tried to include a fairly wide range of things so that, hopefully, any random person who read this whole list could find at least one new title that interests them. And I hope that includes you!

The yuri scene is quite large and wonderful if you know where to look, and it too often gets a bad rap. I hope that this list could give you a new perspective on what kinds of titles are available, and I hope it gives you something new to try. And remember: if you want something specific, try looking for it! There’s a good chance the story you’re craving is already out there, waiting to be discovered!

[mashounen2003]

Sonic opinions - 1

Honestly, I think it's time for me to give closure to the “Sonic fan phase” of my life. I’ll keep playing the games if they pique my interest, but in terms of the stories they tell and how their characters are portrayed, these games no longer appeal to me. The comic currently published by IDW isn’t complete garbage nor does it have so much drama and controversy surrounding it, in addition to having Whisper and Tangle, two characters I really like at least on a conceptual level, but the story and characterizations are leaving me deeply disappointed and sometimes fall even lower than the recent games written by Pontac & Graff, namely with regard to the characterization of Sonic himself.

The continuity of the TV series Sonic SatAM and the comics published by Archie was always the branch of the franchise that truly caught my attention and is my main source of inspiration for writing stories; in fact, SatAM was the way I found out about Sonic and became a fan in the first place. But this “North-American continuity” is already as dead as the Mega Man Legends saga, and it looks like the vast majority want to forget it as if each and every one of its elements and ideas inherently had just been a massive nightmare regardless of its execution by the writers. At best, the fandom currently sees this branch of Sonic as some silly “edgy” attempt to take the franchise seriously, something that may have been laudable but was always foolish and doomed to fail and is such a risky gamble that it's not worth trying again.

I'm also getting fed up with the Sonic fandom in general, despite sharing a lot of opinions with some individual fans. Yes, I know there are already many who have declared this for the most varied reasons, be it the “shipp wars”, something in Sonic or even the franchise as a whole suddenly becoming “cringe” due to a whim of a majority portion of the fandom, or the way Sonic reuses "hackneyed" tropes in an alleged demonstration of lack of originality; however, when someone gives Sonic the middle finger for this kind of reasons, they usually do it hypocritically.

No, what got me tired of the Sonic fandom is the way everyone becomes obsessed with picking one branch of the franchise, calling it "the true Sonic", claiming this is the only pure and genuine incarnation of the “soul of Sonic” (if there really is such a thing), marking as “foreigner” every character, concept or element from any other branch of the franchise, and demanding from the fans of those other branches to get on their knees and be thankful that the "True Fans (TM)" even allow them to stay in the fandom. Note that I’m not accusing fans of only one specific portion of the franchise: there are such people among fans of the videogames’ continuity, @skull001 being probably the worst offender, but there’s also that kind of people among the SatAM and Archie-Sonic fans, such as the “nostalgic” delusional pissbabies, blatantly homophobic and conservative, who are now supporting Twitter hashtags like “Rally4Sally” and “Udon4Sonic”. You may think this is actually something typical of all fandoms, but it’s not: this is truly something unique to the Sonic fandom; I don't see huge hordes of Mega Man fans bullying the Legends fandom or making fun of them for the way their favourite saga ended two decades ago; even in the Dragon Ball fandom, despite constant discussions about what is canon and what is not, there’s some kind of tacit consensus that GT and Super are two offshoots of the franchise, equally valid although not coexisting in one same fictional universe (although Shūeisha itself seems to officially support this view, which certainly helps prevent some discourse), while the only part of Dragon Ball universally despised (and rightly so) is Dragon Ball Evolution.

I'm sorry if this hurts some people’s sensibilities, but if I decide to write a story with any given set of characters, elements, concepts, setting, internal rules and whatnot, the only thing in my mind will be to write a mildly decent story. I'm not here to “honour” -let alone honour at all costs- some supposed legacy and traditions that some people say should be upheld by each and every Sonic content creator. And let’s be brutally frank: we’re talking about a franchise that started as platformer 16-bit videogames whose sole purpose was to show SEGA’s consoles were better and handled speed better than Nintendo's; SEGA never really intended to tell a story or portray its characters consistently, only later did the cast begin to receive more defined personalities and the games start telling stories because SEGA suddenly saw this would make them sell more, and even that varied wildly according to whatever seemed more convenient at the time; not to mention SEGA's unique habit of entering vicious cycles of failure and over-correction, where Sonic Team makes a few mistakes in a game that did everything else more or less well, SEGA throws away the entire game along with the foundations on which it was built and the story that was told by that game, Sonic Team makes a new game with absolutely everything replaced and makes mistakes again but those mistakes are different from those of the previous game, the process is repeated ad nauseam and no-one is ever satisfied with anything. A few Sonic fans trying to impose on every other fan a supposed single Sonic canon with some kind of official approval seal by SEGA & Sonic Team is something quite backward, because that single official canon almost never really existed, and if it does exist, it makes no sense and is internally inconsistent, dependent on the creation of new games, and very likely to be retconned, overwritten and modified at any time.

There are other "bad habits" of the Sonic fandom that have led me to break ties with them. One of them is the way many fans take one trait of a character, be it simply one of many facets of their personality or even a physical trait, and turn that into the entire personality of the character; many of those same fans are also massive hypocrites, complaining (albeit rightfully) about how SEGA oversimplifies Shadow into either “Sasuke the Hedgehog” or “Vegeta the Hedgehog”, but then they do the same as SEGA. One of the cases in which this is most evident is when they make Sonic's personality boil down to "gotta go fast" and "be a free spirit"; based on that, they denounce that Sonic saying "I would slow down for you" to one of his closest friends (even if Sonic and Sally weren’t a couple when he said that and/or you don’t support that shipp, it can be said she was at least one of his closest friends in the SatAM-Archie continuity) contradicts the very essence of the character, or they do something even worse: saying that "being a free spirit" means being away from your friends and not having "ties" (like... literal ties, made with ropes, the ones that are actually a bad thing) with anything or anyone. It's like when Goku is portrayed by Dragon Ball fans as far more insensitive than the actual way Akira Toriyama had conceived him and always wrote and portrayed him in his official work.

There are also the plainly disturbing ideas many fans seem to have about personal relationships, judging by the opinions they give about the relationships of Sonic and the rest of the cast. In addition to making everything revolve around vaguely defined words and concepts they throw right and left almost without thinking about their actual meaning, they also seem to believe that having friends and caring for them, or any kind of responsibility no matter what kind it is, is nothing but a drag, like rat-s*** stopping you on your way to "freedom" (this is just amazing: they say the entire Western canon is edgy and the British comic’s Sonic is a jerk, but if you think about this for a bit, these fans’ version of Sonic turns out to be even edgier and more of a jerk than Shadow in his spin-off videogame); in the case of Archie-Sonic, there are all the abuse apologists supporting Scourge and Fiona being a couple, even though you don’t need any “meta” analysis to see he’s (at the very least) verbally abusive towards her and had attracted her by posing as someone else in the first place.

[radramblog]

Kaname Date’s optic nerves

AKA, AI: The Somnium Files brainworms.

I burned through the entirety of AI: The Somnium Files over the last few days, after having meant to play it for a couple of months. And while I luckily got through right before Uni started, the brain worms still remain, and so I want to commit some thoughts to digital paper so they can stop spinning around my head.

For those unaware, AI: The Somnium Files is a Mystery Visual Novel series released a couple years ago, written and directed by Kotaro Uchikoshi, who is best known for being the writer/director of the Zero Escape series. While Zero Escape is largely overshadowed by its sister series(?) Danganronpa, it’s an excellent time (the second game, Virtue’s Last Reward, is the best visual novel on the 3DS, fight me Ace Attorney fans), and some of the ideas and themes from it carry through to AI.

The plot of the game centres around Kaname Date, a detective whose division uses a technique called Psyncing to enter the subconscious (or Somnium) of persons of interest in order to piece together facts from their memories. He is assisted by Aiba, an advanced artificial intelligence that lives in his prosthetic left eye, serving as his intelligent, snarky partner. Together, the two investigate a series of murders starting with the death of Date’s best friend’s ex-wife, with her daughter- who Date has essentially been raising for the past 4 years- found at the scene. It’s a solid hook, with a more complex premise than most of Zero Escape’s, but filled with the same scientific and pseudoscientific technobabble that the series is known for.

As far as gameplay goes, I’d put it solidly not as great as ZE. Both centre around visual novel sections interlaid with gameplay sections, however the abstract Psync puzzles tend to be more frustrating and tedious than the escape room sections of Zero Escape, and the QTE-based combat sequences are lame gameplaywise and the jokes behind them don’t really land. This is the only main complaint I have about the writing- Outside of these sequences and Date being super horny for no good reason it’s consistently interesting, witty, and impactful. Aiba and Date’s banter is excellent, and the game has the presence to shoo out the clowns once shit starts getting extra serious.

(Ok look there is a speculative reason for Date being so thirsty but it’s stupid and not technically canon and super spoilery so fuck it)

The presentation is a grand step up from Zero Escape, which was limited by having to release on handheld consoles- to be frank, Zero Time Dilemma looked awful, and Virtue’s Last Reward’s visuals haven’t aged super well. The designs are great, although some of the animations can be a bit janky. The surreal worlds of the Somnium are excellent (with one exception imo), with different moods depending on who’s dream world you’re in- particular highlights being Iris’s silly totally not Minecraft world and the genuinely horrifying final Psync. The music is solid, but nothing stands out as iconic compared to ZE’s Morphogenetic Sorrow (and the pantry theme from VLR, that shit is a banger).

Overall I think this game is absolutely worth the time it takes, between the gripping story and lovable characters (and Ota). The reason I’m specifying this now is because I want to quickly talk about some things that are spoilers, so if you don’t want a spoil (and I don’t want you to have a spoil if you’re gonna give it a go) then don’t keep reading, just pretend this doesn’t exist, see you tomorrow.

Spoilers below for both AI: The Somnium Files and the Zero Escape series.

One of my favourite things about Date’s character in this game is his Big Dad Energy. In my (limited) experience, stories about single dads, adoptive are not, are rare, and the way the relationship between him and Mitsuki (and, later, Iris) very much suits this theme. While Date basically “adopted” Mitsuki out of necessity, it’s clear- especially in her ending route, that the two deeply care for each other, regardless of how they outwardly communicate.

The other thing I wanted to discuss is the interesting inversion AI’s story takes as compared to Zero Escape. Zero Escape (mostly just 999 and VLR) have a relatively simple premise- a bunch of people captured and forced into a death game for their lives- that slowly unravels into a much much larger mystery involving supernatural elements, conspiracy theories, and secret organisations. Just about every time someone in those games waxes philosophical or theoretical about some idea, concept, or story, that thing ends up being plot relevant in some way.

Uchikoshi knows that a large chunk of the audience for AI is Zero Escape fans, and the game takes advantage of this. The Iris route is essentially a trap for ZE veterans- she’s worried about a secret society called Naixatloz (sic?), and conspiracy theories, all of which appear to tie into the game’s plot. Trusting her beliefs lead to arguably the game’s silliest route, with a patently absurd fight sequence leading into a final Psync and the game screeching to a halt as she suddenly dies. Did Naixatloz finally get her?

No, because they aren’t real. Because she’s got terminal brain cancer, and has hallucinated a conspiracy into her worldview. This route implies a case of parallel universes, a constant theme in ZE, but it later turns out to be a case of mistaken identity. While most of the concepts discussed in each route are relevant to the plot in some way, these aren’t and a lot of people fell for it- according to a poll in the game’s subreddit, Iris’s route was the second most common first route, and it likely would have been higher had it not required getting arguably the bad ending to the first decision point.

In fact, the only supernatural element outside of the pseudoscientific stuff about Psyncing and Aiba is memories passing through timelines, a constant factor in Zero Escape- which interestingly, is left unexplained. It’s like Uchikoshi is saying, “you know what the deal is here, I know what the deal is here, don’t worry too hard about why Date knows what the deal is here”. This lack of explanation has lead many to believe that AI and ZE take place in the same universe, and that the cause of this phenomena is identical to that in Zero Escape- but the point is that it doesn’t matter.

At the end of the day, sci-fi nonsense aside, AI: The Somnium Files’ story is essentially about a revenge plot. A psychotic serial killer accidentally ended up outside of his own body, and wants to make it’s current owner suffer by killing people close to him before he takes it back for himself. Of course, it’s never that simple with a mystery story, but you get the idea. AI essentially inverts Zero Escape by having a fantastical premise that boils down to a simple story, rather than a simple premise that balloons into an expansive story- and I think that’s really interesting.

[hopevalley]

The Real Problem with the Love Triangle

Here we are, in Season 8, and I feel like I’ve finally settled on what it is I hate about the love triangle.

I mean, there are a lot of things wrong with it. It divides the fans, it splits the attention of the scenes between two “potential” romances instead of one certain one, and, perhaps one of its biggest offenses: it’s in the spotlight due to the fact that the plotline was given to the main character.

I could talk about all of these, and I could do it all day, but let’s just look at them quickly (because I do feel there’s a bigger issue than any of these at play, here).

It divides the fans. Yikes? They clearly expected some kind of...I don’t know, Twilight-era Team Jacob/Team Edward split, but Twilight’s endgame was always painfully clear. It’s not that fans weren’t disappointed by the reality when it hit, but...I don’t think many people were...genuinely surprised by it, either. Splitting the fans of an already itty-bitty teeny-tiny fandom was maybe not the best idea, but I guess I can see why they took the risk. After so many characters left the show in S5 (Frank, Dottie, Phillip, Shane, Jack) they probably felt they had to do something drastic to keep the fans invested in the show.

It splits the screentime between two potential romances instead of one certain one. This is less yikes in some ways and moreso in others. The biggest issue with this is mostly that When Calls the Heart has limited screentime to begin with, so splitting screentime and therefore also believable development of any romance makes everything take twice as long to happen, which can either bog down the show (if they take the time to do things correctly) or everything will feel rushed (if they skip proper character development).

It’s in the spotlight. Obviously they had to do this to get attention from the fans, but I can’t help but think that a genuine love triangle for a side character/background character might have been a more appealing option story-wise. Having the focus of the triangle be on Elizabeth means that most of the fans are very invested in their choice...which is GREAT up until the point where it’s suddenly not anymore. Writing yourself into a position where approximately half of the fanbase will be disappointed, perhaps even to the loss of their viewership when things don’t go their way (this is always a risk) is...maybe not the best idea. I can’t imagine anyone would quit over a minor love triangle storyline (for example, Bill/Molly/AJ or Fiona/Kevin/Hickam). Sure, you won’t have the level of engagement in the fans that Lucas/Elizabeth/Nathan brings to the table, but I think it could be fun while also not really risking anything. Not many people would stop watching if Fiona picked Hickam over Kevin, you know?

There are other problems with the love triangle and the concept/use of it, but I think the writers at least tried to make it feel balanced. Did they succeed? Well, that’s personal opinion, so I won’t get into that, but you can tell the effort was there from the start.

So we have a love triangle. Lucas and Nathan are both vying for Elizabeth’s affection, and the crux of Season 8 is: she needs to choose one of them.

Which brings me to my thesis statement.

The problem with the love triangle is that the choice is limited to two options.

She chooses Nathan.

She chooses Lucas.

I think logically as a fan and as a writer who occasionally does enjoy trashy tropes, it’s really no surprise that one of these choices is going to be endgame. What’s annoying—what hurts the love triangle the most—is that they are also the only options presented to the audience. They are the only options Elizabeth and those around her are openly considering.

In reality, there are at least three options.

She chooses Nathan.

She chooses Lucas.

She chooses nobody/to remain single.

We all know When Calls the Heart is a romantic “period drama” so naturally the writers leaned into writing the romance. And again, we know that one of these men is endgame.

But when you’re writing something like this, a plotline that is most assuredly risking future viewership to some degree, you can’t really forget that Staying Single is equally as good an option as Lucas or Nathan.

It’s made worse with things like time skips. Elizabeth has had plenty of time to make a choice if she wanted to make one. She’s obviously not that attached to either man if she’s just going to leave them hanging like that. I think it could be argued that she’s avoided letting herself get too emotionally intimate with either of them on purpose—because she’s scared to try again after what happened to Jack, she’s afraid of having to feel like that again—but that lends credence to my thesis: if she’s not that emotionally attached, and she’s not ready to actually move forward romantically, then...Staying Single is looking like a great option.

But...not one character in the show has told her that. No one encourages it. Not Rosemary (which I sort of expect), not Bill or Henry or Florence (who all seem likely candidates), not anyone. It’s not like Elizabeth’s still heavily mourning Jack (if so, I could see her friends eagerly encouraging her past that). She seems perfectly content by herself and is seemingly doing a good job of raising her son. She doesn’t need a man. She doesn’t act like she wants one.

So why does she have to choose between TWO of them?

What could fix it? Not much at this point. Elizabeth said ages ago that she was ready to move on, or at least try, and that was followed up by all of her friends (Rosemary and Clara specifically) being extremely pushy about how she needed to find romance again. Not once were all of her fears/anxieties seriously discussed and validated.

The best they can do now is have someone close to Elizabeth point out that if she’s not ready to move on, or simply doesn’t want to get involved in a romance again, she doesn’t have to pick anyone (but should be honest with both Lucas and Nathan that she’s not looking for that kind of commitment in her life). It’s also possible that Elizabeth herself could come to this conclusion and speak it aloud to a friend like Rosemary. Just because both men are interested doesn’t mean she has to pick either of them.

I know the fans have been really frustrated at the triangle, specifically how drawn-out it’s been, but I think the reason for that is that Elizabeth’s character has been written in this...really confusing sort of way where...she’s understandably not ready to move on right after her husband has passed away, but even though she’s still in mourning the “potential suitors” get shoved down her throat (and ours) for two full seasons. We (and she, by extension) never get the idea that she could just choose to stay single. The next “logical” step is to choose a man. And that would be fine if she were like Mary Dunbar from the first season, but...she’s the main character. We should see her considering all of her choices.

And like, not to be a fun-killer, but...everything from the past few seasons makes me think she’d just be happier single. That’s the issue, too, with not giving Elizabeth “staying single” as a valid choice: we’re all kind of at a point where we all see how poor her relationship to both suitors is and we’re like, “Hey...maybe neither of them are good options for her at this point in her life.”

Certainly the ensemble-style show lately has contributed to less screentime for Elizabeth and therefore also Lucas/Elizabeth and Nathan/Elizabeth stuff, but I think this could all be fixed if...her choice wasn’t between the two of them, but between choosing to date again vs. choosing not to. She has a career. She has a child. She has a lot of friends. She doesn’t NEED a man, so I want “choosing a man” to feel like...she actually WANTS to date. She WANTS to be romanced. She WANTS physical affection/sex/to be loved and cared for in a romantic fashion.

If I felt that Elizabeth was wholly into the idea of romance and dating and finding someone to live out the rest of her life with, then I might feel good about the love triangle, and about her trying to decide which of two decent men she’d like to allow to court her first.

But because she doesn’t seem eager to court or date, we feel like she never made the decision to move on, and as a result of all of this and the writers trying to keep the love triangle balanced (which unintentionally makes her seem equally DISINTERESTED IN BOTH MEN), her relationships with both Lucas and Nathan feel flat and uninspiring. 

TL;DR? The love triangle should have been presented from the start as Nathan vs. Lucas vs. Staying Single, and then we wouldn’t be in a situation where she’s known these men for two+ years and has been ready to move on for more than one of those years, and still doesn’t feel like she knows either man well enough to choose which of them she might like to court.

If we would have started with three choices, she could have spent all of Season 6 working on eliminating one of the options (staying single, in this case) while also being open to CLOSE friendship with both Lucas and Nathan*. Then, in Season 7, she could find that while it’s flattering to have the attention of two good men, it’s emotionally draining and anxiety-inducing to feel she has to choose between them as she likes them both a great deal and doesn’t want to hurt either of them.

*I think they were sort of trying for this, but it fell flat. It would have been ideal to have Lucas and Nathan confide in Elizabeth about deeply personal/emotional things that never leave those scenes. Fears, concerns, they could have some inside jokes... In order for a love triangle that lasts a long time to work, she has to feel very close to both men...and right now she doesn’t feel close to either of them.

As an aside, the love triangle would definitely feel softer around the edges if it wasn’t pushed from Day 1 as a Thing They Were Doing. Elizabeth forming close friendships with two men without TPTB ever saying anything about romance (let alone a love triangle) would have given the characters time to feel like they’re friends first. What we got was romance shoved down our throat (à la “Elizabeth’s still in mourning because her husband seriously just died BUT ALSO LOOK AT THESE TWO NEW MEN... WHICH WILL SHE CHOOSE WHEN SHE’S READY TO MOVE ON?!”) which put too much pressure on the triangle and the characters/interactions from the get-go. It felt like they jumped from brand-new acquaintances to love interests in the span of five minutes...which is, you know...bad.

[killingeveperspectives]

Perspective: Killing Eve Season 3 Retcon – Can a show Retcon itself into a different genre?

Recently, I learned about the term ‘Retroactive Continuity’ and I am pretty proud of it because now it sounds like I know what I’m talking about. Retroactive Continuity, or retcon for the intimate like me, is the addition of new information that changes or reinterprets events/narratives previously established, therefore opening new possibilities for the future. It can correct inconsistencies, change world/character limitations, or allow for a dramatic plot twist. For example, a character previously established as an incurable psychopath goes on an emotional growth journey. Killing Eve got fundamentally retconned season 3 and it changes everything. And I need to talk about it. (Look, it’s been a while I wrote this and re-addressed some points here :) )

Villanelle is not a psychopath anymore, I guess

Villanelle was written explicitly as a primary psychopath meaning she was mainly born this way®. Which is different from a Secondary psychopath, whose emotional developmental arrest is caused by disturbingly severe neglect and abuse in early infancy. The impairments in their brains and psychological development prevents them from thinking and, most importantly, feeling like a regular person do. They have a different subjective experience. Psychopathy is incurable in adults, which sets limitations to character development.

Villanelle can’t empathize, perceives people as objects and is very utilitarian. She doesn’t know how to show people she likes them, and her idea of love is possession. Endearing as she is, this is the character the writers wrote. And this is the character portrayed to us in the show. Villanelle is unapologetically a psychopath. She is remorseless, amoral, derives pleasure from killing, all the better to get paid for it. She is basically a self-indulgent goddess. This is enunciated repeatedly in Season 1. Of course, we are not just told, we are shown. Her face glimmers in every kill with enjoyment and cruelty. She is able to conjure any emotion to manipulate – depicted more terrifyingly with Nadia. She emulates emotions from others to connect with people like depicted in the opening scene. My favorite chilling moment is when she gives the “what it is like to die” monologue to Frank, just to terrify him before killing him. Or this face:

Season 2 dives deeper into her psyche where she tells us how she feels, or better yet, doesn’t. We establish she feels this overbearing boredom and seeks to feel anything, so she collects things (or people, no difference) that make her feel something and these things she cherishes by possessing them. The poverty of emotion is reiterated. Again, we are shown, not only told, time and again. The writers are quite clearly asking us to just accept Villanelle for what she is: a psychopath. Like Jodie Comer said herself during that season: “I think some people are bad and that’s what they are, and I don’t think she should be redeemed.” It felt impossible to make it more established within the narrative and the world building. She is, like all adult psychopaths, incurable. These are the character’s limitations, in a purely storytelling sense.

Then, Season 3 happened. In season 3 Villanelle’s character’s development is irreconcilable with the previous seasons. Much of the character’s limitations were simply erased to give her room to “grow”, starting early with one of my favorite scenes of the entire season:

It was marvelously shot and so symbolic. This time around she is gifting Eve something intimate and safe: a teddy bear. Then we have Villanelle by herself and vulnerable, stripping the layers of her feelings towards Eve, the mask of anger cracking as she tries to convince herself she wanted Eve dead, to finally giving in to longing. Her own words are repeated back at her in a loop in a little booth. It was an admission. The booth, the privacy, the lighting, the acting: It was a confession. More than that: it was a love confession. As if falling in love was something she could now do? I don’t want to entertain the actual nature of her feeling, but this is a level of emotional complexity she is just prohibited of displaying by the character’s limitations. And yet, it happened. And I will argue, all the elements of this scene deliberately lead the audience to believe these were romantic feelings.

But this is foreshadowing, and the major shift in perspective happens in her bottle episode. In this episode we see Villanelle display genuine empathy and care for her brothers, not only by sparing them but by giving them more than enough money to go see Elton John. A bonna fide display of correctly conveyed affection and consideration. Which, again, is prohibited by the characters limitations. Then the episode builds the narrative that her “psychopathy” was the result of her abusive upbringing, especially in the confrontation with her mother, when we are clearly asked to side with Villanelle.

Here is where the show subtly retcons Villanelle’s character. It cleverly never denies she is a psychopath. It retcons her ability to emotionally grow, by shifting the emphasis to childhood trauma. Nevertheless, for Villanelle as a character, the emotional growth is still prohibited – despite of trauma. The sleight of hand is passable because audiences (actually, any empathic human being) find it incredibly hard to grasp that trauma cannot be overcome. That’s why it feels plausible she has a very complex, deeply transforming emotional response to killing her mother, despite still being a psychopath. Because that is a response that feels plausible to us, the audience, despite being inconsistent with what is plausible for the character’s the inner experience of reality.

This shift not only changes all the interpretation of her character that was previously established but also changes all future interactions. Here is where we see Villanelle getting conflicted about killing, not in a utilitarian sense of it being impractical or boring, but in an emotional struggle. She starts to worry about how others perceive her, and specially that she is perceived only as a “monster”, pointing to a development of a moral compass, deeper self-awareness, self-evaluation and ability to feel remorse. This is all not only incredibly far-fetched: it was prohibited. This is a clear break in continuity from the character of previous seasons. However, after S3E05 it feels plausible.

Villanelle is a carefully crafted monster

We are, then, asked to believe that Villanelle was made into a ruthless killer, which logically follow can be unmade. Hence, her past needs to be explored so it can also be somewhat resolved, symbolizing the undoing of her atrocious (but delightfull?) persona “Villanelle” (the distinction between Oksana and Villanelle was useless before and should still be. But now it feels like it makes sense). Initially, it was established that her mother died, and she had an abusive drunk father who abandoned her in an orphanage. While I believe there was potential in creating a convincing traumatic abusive background from the established narrative, it may have seemed too unsettling to have a man mistreat an infant, which might explain the writers choice for such through retcon. Transferring the source of the neglect to the mother, might heighten the stakes, since daughters are expected to develop a strong bond and mirror their mothers. Thus, adding depth to their face-off and making her murder more symbolic. Addicionally, a full house – with her mother, stepfather and brothers –would allow Villanelle to flesh out her relationship to family and explore the conflict more thoroughly before confrontation. Despite the symbolic tension, in the end we have no definitive answer to the nature x nurture question, nor to what happened in Villanelle’s infancy, except that the metaphorical darkness may have been passed on from her mother.

Villanelle’s joy in cruelty is the most alienating aspect of her character – also the most gripping – and thus, in order for her arc to be more digestible and relatable, it also needs explicit retconning, which is mostly explored through her relationship with killing. Therefore, her cruelty is also displaced to her abusive upbringing. Most specifically, displaced to another character: Dasha. She is the source of the cruelty transmitted into Villanelle through severe trauma during her teenagerhood, ingeniously avoiding the gravity of discussing infant abuse (Dasha brings a downpour of plot inconsistencies). This is unmistakably conveyed in this scene:

Villanelle was something soft and whole that got broken and reshaped into steel, into a stone cold killer, by external forces. Thus, Dasha is an estranged mother figure from the past who tortured Villanelle into a killer, mirroring the dynamic between Villanelle and her mother. Since there is no clear narrative surrounding her early infancy, and her mother needed to be killed to spark the transformation, Dasha becomes the surrogate through which the conflict of Villanelle’s transformation can be explored. The story doubles its efforts to get the audiences to not only believe Villanelle can change, but also that she deserves to change. And here is where we enter dangerous territory.

 Killing Eve is not a spy-drama anymore, it is a rescue romance

I stand with the writers, Killing Eve was not a romance. Not until Season 3. The topic of how audiences, especially queer fans, perceive the show as a romance is worth a whole essay on its own. However, in Season 3, audiences are treated with a romantic atmosphere (remember the teddy bear scene?). Everything is toned down; the pace is slower and the investigation is put to the side. The cat-and-cat game is replaced with this reinforced sense of destiny, of fate, where characters seamlessly come together, as if all their actions were just leading them up to that moment. Their approach carries no sense of danger, their obsession is replaced with anticipation. Characters stop thinking about each other neurotically, that scrumptious voyeurism is gone. Character’s don’t need to be reminded of each other. There is no need for it anymore, it has been written for them. They will meet each other, no need to pursue.

Gone is also Eve’s curiosity and intrigue about Villanelle, along most of her character’s motivations, with one simple retcon: Eve wants to rescue Villanelle.

To which Eve replies: I don’t think so. Meaning “I believe there is more to Villanelle than killing and I will cling to that” (Why, we don’t know. But that’s for another time)

Previously, despite the irresistible attraction Eve felt for Villanelle, the story never portrayed Eve as trying to redeem her. It was precisely the fact that they are polar opposites that brings them together, each trying to quench a deep hunger through the other, in all the wrong ways. Eve pursues in Villanelle much of her unfulfilled impulses and is challenged to embody them herself. Eve’s never been attracted to what Villanelle might have of redeemable, she was drawn to what Villanelle had of profanely feral. On the other hand, Villanelle longs for the safety and intimacy she sees in Eve but has no way of even comprehending what it means.

This honesty to the character’s true desires and realities is what has allowed the show to explore an enticingly destructive dynamic while avoiding romanticizing it, which would downgrade the show to a disservice. However, ultimately, there is a writer trying to sell a story. And in this case, they are setting up a redemption arc within a romance, despite character desires and realities not aligning with that. But in season 3, Villanelle’s psychopathy got retconned to make her crush on Eve without it being too problematic and Eve’s past season character development got simply blissfully ignored so her crush on Villanelle could flourish without it being too problematic, and in the end, their attraction got stripped away from all it’s complexity and danger so they could bring characters together without it being too problematic. These characters got rewritten to give us the tease of a romance we have seen iterated one million times elsewhere.

The premise of the show was to explore the dangerous temptation to bite the proverbial apple. Still, at some point the tension needs to be resolved, and the writers decided to shift it to a rescue romance. A very slippery slope. A slippery slope to romanticizing disturbingly destructive relationships, to perpetrating the cliché that “Love redeems all”, even psychopaths can change if they have someone who believes in them – not only dangerously dishonest but painfully dull.  As if somehow having your life and your sense of self ruined for a person is some sort of martyrdom to match the person’s redemption itself. What a beautiful pair they would make, cozy in heaven. But damned be the day Killing Eve becomes cozy. While writing the redemption of the serpent and the power of female love despite the obliteration of Eden; they forgot the most delicious part of the story was the apple.

[manuscripts-dontburn]

The Doll Factory

Author: Elizabeth Macneal

First published: 2019

Pages: 336

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 3 days

I felt that this book, while perhaps not exceptional, was very well put together. It was paced just right and the sense of growing dread escalates in a way which kept me glued to the page. Truly well written historical fiction.

Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife

Author: Bart D. Ehrman

First published: 2020

Pages: 352

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 2 days

I am rather conflicted about this book. Firstly, as a Christian bordering on agnosticism (I have never been a part of any church and my family is completely atheistic), I felt both somehow comforted by Ehrman´s deductions and somewhat resentful at the same time. Not because he very convincingly talks about the changing of religious perspectives (I am a historian myself so that information was only natural), but because he is clearly working with the notion of non-existence of God, not really treating it as a possibility. That, however, is my own personal issue. Objectively speaking, this is a very good book. Though academic in tone, it reads quite easily and is obviously well researched. The title, however, is misleading. Like many others, I had expected this to be a study of VARIOUS theories of afterlives, but 80% of the book is focused on early Christianity only. Not that isn´t fascinating, but for people hoping to learn something about other religions and cultures and their post-mortem ideas, it can only represent a big disappointment. So - know what you are getting, have an open mind and you might find this book a worthy addition to your personal library.

Wuthering Heights The Graphic Novel

Author: Emily Brontë, John M. Burns

First published: 2011

Pages: 160

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 1 day

I don´t think there is much to review. I love the original book. I enjoyed its re-imagining here.

The Vanishing

Author: Sophia Tobin

First published: 2017

Pages: 390

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

How long did it take: 3 days

This was sort of OK I guess??? The beginning was promising, but I lost interest in the latter half, which also became somewhat convoluted. Not very memorable, though Sophia Tobin´s writing style is fine. I would not mind trying another book by her in the future.

The Mercies

Author: Kiran Millwood Hargrave

First published: 2020

Pages: 352

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 7 days

Stunningly-written and deeply moving, this book has really only one weakness. It somewhat drags in the middle. But the atmosphere is alive and palpable and the emotions pure and real. There are many other books dealing with the topic of witch-trials, but few manage to be as powerful as well as respectfully restrained. Hargrave as an author knows how to keep the balance and her book beautiful.

The Wizard of Oz and Other Wonderful Books of Oz: The Emerald City of Oz and Glinda of Oz

Author: Frank L. Baum

First published: 1900, 1910, 1920

Pages: 432

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How long did it take: 5 days

This book is not commonly known in my country and so I have only read it for the first time now when I am over thirty. It definitely has its charm, especially the first volume, which holds some beautiful truths one wishes to teach the children (or adults). The Emerald City of Oz and Glinda of Oz are both mostly just a flight of fancy with no actual conflict. In fact, the danger to any of the characters is so nonexistent it begs the question of "why should I care". Not bad, but perhaps I would have loved it more if I was 5, not 33. Mea culpa.

Vasilisa the Wise and Other Tales of Brave Young Women

Author: Kate Forsyth

First published: 2017

Pages: 103

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 1 day

Very sweet retelling of several classic fairytales in which the girl saves herself (even if she needs some help by others, and the others are never the prince).

S.

Author: J.J. Abrams, Doug Dorst

First published: 2013

Pages: 456

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 19 days

This book felt like an acid trip with Umberto Eco or something in a similar vein to me. I was rather terrified that the whole thing would be completely dependant on the unusual format, but to my delight, the format merely enhances and enriches the actual novel, which in itself is dark, confusing, moving, terrifying, philosophical and weirdly fascinating. I am sure a lot has escaped my attention or flew over my head, but I welcome it because it gives me more reason to return to the book in the future. It was not all flawless though. My biggest gripe, as an actual Czech person, is that even though so much effort and thought went into the creation of this book, the author decided that Google translate will do just fine - and no surprise - it did not. There are not many instances of the Czech language being used, but when it is... it is all wrong. The Czech language is quite difficult and complex and Google translate does not know how to deal with it most of the time. Just one example: In the book, Eric writes OPICE TANCE on the wall and says it is Czech for "MONKEY DANCES". Yeah. Yeah, it is. IF THE WORD "DANCES" IS TAKEN AS A NOUN IN PLURAL. The correct translation would be "OPICE TANČÍ" and trust me it IS a big big difference. (Do not get me started on the vintage newspaper article....) You definitely need a lot of brainpower and focus when reading, this is not an easy book to follow. You also need to accept that not all questions are answered. I am glad I read it though. I found it an interesting experience.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

First published: 1954

Pages: 407

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 3 days

What can I say? Yet again I had goosebumps and tears in my eyes. Few, very few books have the power of this one.

Mexican Gothic

Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

First published: 2020

Pages: 301

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 12 days

I don´t have much to say but I was a bit bored at the beginning, but it turned out to be a pretty wild ride.

Aristokratka u královského dvora

Author: Evžen Boček

First published: 2020

Pages: 184

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How long did it take: 1 day

Miluji celou tuto sérii, bohužel tento díl mi, ač stále zábavný, přišel prozatím nejslabší... Měla jsem pocit, že první polovina knihy opustila můj oblíbený, laskavý humor teenagerky, která se musí potýkat s výstřední rodinou a situací, a sklouzává spíše trochu k upřímné krutosti... Doufám, že další pokračování se vrátí ke své laskavosti.

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz

Author: Erik Larson

First published: 2020

Pages: 608

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 2 days

An excellent and above all readable account of a chapter in the WW2 history. Larson explains well why Churchill was the best man for that dark hour and why he is still viewed as a hero in Europe (his questionable and even abhorrent views and actions in the context of the British Empire and people of other races notwithstanding), as the person who stood up to Hitler and pretty much kept the fires of defiance burning. There is definitely not enough "family" in this "family saga", but given the sheer amount of material and information presented to the reader, I suppose the author struck an acceptable balance between the politics and the private matters.

Conjure Women

Author: Afia Atakora

First published: 2020

Pages: 416

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 8 days

The beginning of this book seemed tiring, and at risk of sounding insensitive, not interesting, since it seemed to tackle the same things that have already been tackled. But then there appeared strands of stories and of secrets, and suddenly I just needed to know everything. The whole story then appears as an artful mosaic. The last chapter felt unnecessary though and I did not understand its meaning if it was supposed to have any.

[gadgetgirl71]

Top Ten Tuesday 16 March 2021

Welcome to this weeks Top Ten Tuesday. Originally created by The Broke & The Bookish, which is now hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week it features a book or literary themed category. This weeks prompt is:

Books On My Spring 2021 TBR

Girl in the Walls (ARC)

Synopsis: Girl in the Walls is a story of overcoming grief, of unconventional friendships and learning that we shouldn’t always fear what we don’t understand. It is about understanding the difference between a house and a home and what it means to lose both. She doesn’t exist. She can’t exist. Elise knows every inch of the house. She knows which boards will creak. She knows where the gaps are in the walls. She knows which parts can take her in, hide her away. It’s home, after all. The home her parents made for her. And home is where you stay, no matter what. Eddie is a teenager now, almost a grown-up. He must no longer believe in the girl he sometimes sees our of the corner of his eye. He needs her to disappear. But when his fierce older brother senses her, too, they are faced with the question of how to get rid of someone they aren’t sure even exists. And, if they cast her out, what other threats might they invite into their home?

Pages: 323, Publication Date: 18 March 2021

The Best Things (ARC)

Synopsis: Warm, funny, life-affirming and true, The Best Things is the joyous debut novel from much-loved comedian, writer, actor and presenter Mel Giedroyc.

It’s the story of a family who lose everything, only to find themselves, and each other, along the way.

Sally and Frank Parker have it all.

Then one day, because of Frank, they don’t.

As the bailiffs move in and the money runs out, Sally realises that she and her children don’t have a clue about how to survive.

Or do they?

The Parkers are about to discover that the best things in life aren’t things at all.

Pages: 432, Publication Date: 1 April 2021

The Dictionary of Lost Words (ARC)

Synopsis: In 1901, the word ‘Bondmaid’ was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it.

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the ‘Scriptorium’, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word ‘bondmaid’ flutters to the floor. Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world.

Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. While she dedicates her life to the Oxford English Dictionary, secretly, she begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words.

Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape the world and our experience of it.

Pages: 384, Publication Date: 8 April 2021

The Summer Job (ARC)

Synopsis: Have you ever imagined running away from your life?

Well Birdy Finch didn’t just imagine it. She did it. Which might’ve been an error. And the life she’s run into? Her best friend, Heather’s.

The only problem is, she hasn’t told Heather. Actually there are a few other problems…

Can Birdy carry off a summer at a luxury Scottish hotel pretending to be her best friend (who incidentally is a world-class wine expert)?

And can she stop herself from falling for the first man she’s ever actually liked (but who thinks she’s someone else)?

A snort-out-loud romcom for fans of The Flatshare.

Pages: 352, Publication Date: 15 April 2021

Cunning Woman (ARC)

Synopsis: Lee is a magnetic new voice in historical fiction and CUNNING WOMEN is sure to be loved by fans of The Essex Serpent and The Mercies.

Spring of 1620 in a Lancashire fishing community and the memory of the slaughter at Pendle is tight around the neck of Sarah Haworth. A birthmark reveals that Sarah, like her mother, is a witch. Torn between yearning for an ordinary life and desire to discover what dark power she might possess, Sarah’s one hope is that her young sister Annie will be spared this fate.

The Haworth family eke out a meagre existence in the old plague village adjoining a God-fearing community presided over by a seedy magistrate. A society built upon looking the other way, the villagers’ godliness is merely a veneer. But the Haworth women, with their salves and poultices, are judged the real threat to morality.

When Sarah meets lonely farmer’s son Daniel, she begins to dream of a better future. Daniel is in thrall to the wild girl with storms in her eyes, but their bond is tested when a zealous new magistrate vows to root out sins and sinners. In a frenzy of fear and fury, the community begins to turn on one another, and it’s not long before they direct their gaze towards the old plague village … and does Daniel trust that the power Sarah wields over him is truly love, or could it be mere sorcery?

Pages: 332, Publication Date: 22 April 2021

Lost Property (ARC)

Synopsis: Dot Watson has lost her way. Twelve years ago her life veered off course, and the guilt over what happened still haunts her. Before then she was living in Paris, forging an exciting career; now her time is spent visiting her mother’s care home, fielding interfering calls from her sister and working at the London Transport Lost Property office, diligently cataloguing items as misplaced as herself. But when elderly Mr Appleby arrives in search of his late wife’s purse, his grief stirs something in Dot. Determined to help, she sets off on a mission – one that could start to heal Dot’s own loss and let her find where she belongs once more…

The Perfect Life (ARC)

Synopsis: HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO BE SOMEONE ELSE? Vanessa has always found it easy to pretend to be somebody different, somebody better. When things get tough in her real life, all she has to do is throw on some nicer clothes, adopt a new accent and she can escape. That’s how it started: looking round houses she couldn’t possibly afford. Harmless fun really. Until it wasn’t. Because a man who lived in one of those houses is dead. And everyone thinks Vanessa killed him…

Pages: 400, Publication Date: 5 August 2021

The Summer Villa (ARC)

Synopsis: Three women. One summer reunion. Secrets will be revealed…

Villa Dolce Vita, a rambling stone house on the Amalfi Coast, sits high above the Gulf of Naples amid dappled lemon groves and fragrant, tumbling bougainvillea. Kim, Colette and Annie all came to the villa in need of escape and in the process forged an unlikely friendship.

Now, years later, Kim has transformed the crumbling house into a luxury retreat and has invited her friends back for the summer to celebrate.

But as friendships are rekindled under the Italian sun, secrets buried in the past will come to light, and not everyone is happy that the three friends are reuniting… Each woman will have things to face up to if they are all to find true happiness and fully embrace the sweet life.

Pages: 384, Publication Date: 8 August 2019

Trusting Taylor (Silverstone #2)

Synopsis: Former military man turned government assassin Kellan “Eagle” Trowbridge isn’t looking for love. He’d rather keep his head down at his cover job as an employee of Silverstone Towing. That all changes, however, when he meets Taylor Cardin.

Beautiful, smart, and witty Taylor instantly falls for the mysterious tow truck driver, who comforts her both in the aftermath of the car crash she sees firsthand and when the police dismiss her as a credible witness because of her prosopagnosia, or face blindness. Eagle, on the other hand, can remember every person he’s ever met—and the two counterparts forge an immediate connection. But someone else is just as intrigued by Taylor’s unique condition as Eagle is…and his intentions are downright deadly.

Soon, Eagle and Taylor are too caught up in each other to see the danger that’s approaching. But as time runs out, they’ll discover their love isn’t the only thing fighting to survive.

Pages: 278, Publication Date: 2 March 2021

Ransom (Laurel Springs Emergency Response Team)

Synopsis: A new series from the author of the Moonshine Task Force Series! Laurel Springs, AL is about to be hotter than a mid-August thunderstorm. When the Moonshine Task Force is absorbed into a new entity, Laurel Springs Emergency Response Team (LSERT) new faces come to town, new love is born, old love is found again, and there’s a plethora of drama and romance happening all over the tri-county area. LSERT puts police, firefighters, nurses, doctors, K-9 handlers, and EMT’s all in harm’s way as they work to keep the area safe from any threat. Emotions run high, passions ignite. Come with me, back to Laurel Springs, in what’s sure to be a wild ride! Ransom Thompson For years I’ve wanted two things – to be a member of the Moonshine Task Force and to be the man Stella Kepler can’t live without. One out of two isn’t bad, or so I tell myself. Being the only K-9 handler for The MTF presents its own share of obstacles, but me and Rambo? We make it work. Life is status quo, until I’m called in to help with what appears to be a hostage situation and Stella is right in the middle of it. This is my one chance, and I’m not going to blow it. Stella Kepler When I’m stuck in an examination room holding a hurt woman and a man with a gun, I do the only thing I can. I sneak out, call 911 and hope help comes quickly. It does. In the form of Ransom Thompson. He and I have known each other since we were babies. Our mother’s are friends, our dad’s work together, and we’ve always been friends. Only, the last few months I’ve started to notice things. How mature he is, how alpha he can be, the chiseled six-pack, and the abundance of ink spreading across his body. When I offer to cook him dinner for saving me, neither one of us know how that one moment will change the course of the rest of our lives.

Pages: 227, Publication Date: 5 January 2019

Until next week.

[kurowrites]

Letters From Beyond - Chapter 4: The Reply

AO3

---

How did one reply to a letter such as this?

Lan Wangji sat in front of an empty sheet of paper for far too long, and still he couldn’t think of a suitable reply. Hei was dozing now, apparently not in a hurry to return home after gorging himself on too many berries. Lan Wangji could take his time.

He considered the empty paper. What did Wei Wuxian want from him? What had he wanted to say by sending him a single line of text?

Wei Wuxian had answered every letter that Lan Wangji had written so far. Perhaps that was already answer enough.

He set the brush to the paper and started to write.

Wei Ying

I do not know how to reply to your letter, other than telling you that I do not wish to make you cry. It was the same then, too. I was angry, maybe am still angry now, though that is no excuse. I simply do not understand. I wish you would let me understand.

They call you a monster now. I have had the misfortune of hearing the stories they tell about you, how you eat children and hunt in the dark with glowing red eyes. But when I think back, instead of a monster I see you asking me to look at the ants in the courtyard because you thought they were cute. I do not understand. Your sister worries about you, and I wonder how you can subsist in a place like Burial Mounds. I wonder why you chose your own confinement instead of justice.

That was your wish, was it not. To be just and live without regrets. Are you without regrets now, Wei Ying? Have you chosen the right path for yourself? I have regretted not listening to you many times. Perhaps, if I had, your sister didn’t have to lament the absence of her brother on her wedding day. How can she believe you are still good when you are clearly guilty of the crime you are accused of? I do not understand.

Lan Wangji

He didn’t reread the letter, knowing full well that he wouldn’t sent it if he did. He folded it and placed it in front of Hei, so he could take it and choose to return home whenever he wanted. Then he cleaned his desk and went to take a bath.

He felt tense, harried. A bath might help to soothe his warring emotions.

---

The distance between Cloud Recesses and Burial Mounds was not inconsiderable even to a winged creature, and Lan Wangji couldn’t reasonably expect a reply before many days had passed. If Wei Ying was still willing to answer him, that was.

He knew he could do nothing but be patient, but despite his best efforts, he spent the next few days in a state of constant expectation, an impatience giving its way to irritation, making him more withdrawn than he already was.

Lan Xichen asked him if he was all right more than once. He only shook his head and assured his brother that he was, since he could hardly tell him that he was expecting a letter from the elusive Yiling Patriarch. He knew his brother wouldn’t judge him for telling him the truth, but he might want him to make the communication public. That, Lan Wangji could not allow.

He pondered over whether that constituted as a lie or not. But then, he had already broken another rule of his clan – do not associate with evil.

At the same time, Jiang Yanli’s words still reverberated in his ears.

Whatever he did, there is no doubt in my mind that he is a good man.

Could it be true? Or was it simply the denial of someone who wanted to protect themselves from the truth?

If this was about Lan Xichen, Lan Wangji would say the same thing without hesitation. He knew that his brother was a good man, that he would never draw his sword without reason. But Lan Wangji didn’t know the relationship between Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian, and he hadn’t known Wei Wuxian for long enough to truly know the depths of his character. He did not know if malice and falsehood hid behind the silly mask Wei Wuxian usually wore. He had no way of gauging that now.

He continued to debate the issue internally, until finally, Hei returned.

Lan Wangji found him hanging upside down from one of the tassels that held up the bamboo lattices in front of the windows of the Jingshi, amusing himself by gripping the cords with his feet and swaying back and forth.

“That is not a toy,” he chastised Hei. “I will give you some berries.”

Hei crowed in eager agreement, dropped from the tassel, and fluttered over to land on Lan Wangji’s shoulder. For such a large creature, he was surprisingly light, not at all what Lan Wangji had expected.

He went to fetch the berries he now always kept ready for Hei, and set them in a place he could easily clean up after Hei was done eating, careful to keep him far away from any more books he could destroy with a beak full of berry juice.

Once Hei was fed, he went to his desk. To his surprise, Hei hadn’t delivered just one letter this time. There were two.

He picked up the one that looked familiar to him now, the way it was folded saying “Wei Wuxian” more surely than any actual writing. It was, again, disappointingly short.

Lan Zhan

You say you do not wish to make me cry, and yet I must believe that you do. Telling me these things. That you of all people speak of regret, it pains me. I cannot regret what I have done. I still believe I made the right choice, and have chosen the right path. I have no proof, and so I hope that you believe me when I say that. Just… don’t blame yourself, please, Lan Zhan. This is my burden to carry. I shouldn’t keep writing to you, I know it puts you in a difficult position, but I cannot help it. I was serious when I asked you to be my friend, even though that can never happen now. I am so sorry. I knew when I saw you the first time that you were a special person, and I could not resist wanting to know you. If I had never met you, then I would be without regrets.

Wei Ying

Lan Zhan stared at the letter in shock. His heart was beating fast, blood rushing in his ears. What a letter this was!

He read the last line again.

If I had never met you, then I would be without regrets.

He put the letter down and closed his eyes, breathing deeply for long moments, trying to compose himself.

Me too, he thought to himself. If I had never met you, I would be without regrets, as well.

He fought for composure and reached for the second letter once he felt reasonably calm.

It was much longer than the first one, and as soon as he opened it, he could see that it was written by a different hand. It was also written in an entirely different style. It was properly addressed to him, as well, and contained the appropriate greetings and civilities at the beginning. The writer of this letter clearly wasn’t Wei Wuxian. It was Wen Qing.

He skipped over the general civilities and moved on to the main body of the letter:

Forgive me for being so frank, but I cannot stay silent any longer. Every time a letter arrives from you, Wei Wuxian is distraught, and it is worrying us to see him like this. He smiles and he acts like it is nothing, but I have never seen him as discomposed as when it comes to you.

My word may not be worth much in the eyes of the cultivation world, but I know that he will not tell you unless I do it first. Let me give you a true account of what happened that fateful night.

As you no doubt already concluded, I was sent as a spy to Cloud Recesses by Wen Ruohan himself, tasked with helping Wen Chao find one of the pieces of the Yin Iron. We knew it was in your possession, but were unable to retrieve it. I had my reasons for complying with Wen Ruohan’s orders, and I will make no apology for my deception.

At this point, we all believed that no one else was aware of the existence of the Yin Iron, and though we were pressed to retrieve it quickly, we weren’t much worried about anything else. That proved to be a major mistake. I do not know how he learned about our plans or where the Yin Iron was, but Jin Guangshan gained knowledge of it somehow. Since we were already suspicious and, compared to Wen Chao, relatively unimportant, he must have thought my brother and I convenient scapegoats. We were asleep when he snuck into our dorm that night, overpowered us, tied us up, and abducted us. He was smart about it, too. He knew how much my brother means to me, and he made use of that.

I don’t know the exact details of his plan, but I’m sure he wanted to make it look like the Wen sect stole the Yin Iron, and then planned to get rid of us once we had fulfilled our roles. Perhaps he was truly afraid that the Yin Iron would fall into Wen Ruohan’s hands. Perhaps he was simply greedy for his own share of power. Whatever it was, he showed no hesitation in stepping over a few dead bodies in order to get what he wanted.

He nearly killed my brother when I tried to disobey him, and he might have succeeded if it wasn’t for Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian is a magnet for trouble, but it saved our lives that night. He had snuck out of his own dorm that night, to plunder the kitchen or sneak wine into Cloud Recesses or whatever foolish thing he tends to do when left to his own devices. He managed to find us just in the nick of time. He is an honourable man, and did not hesitate in defending us. He stood between Wen Ning and Jin Guangshan without fear or hesistation. Jin Guangshan told him that if he was decided on defending the scum of the Wen clan, he should die with them too. He was the one who drew his sword on Wei Wuxian. I am sure Wei Wuxian didn’t want to kill him, but he also refused to let us die. You know how the fight ended.

As Jin Guangshan finally lay dead, we panicked. Perhaps we should have woken you up, and relate the circumstances to you, but it all happened so fast, we had no proof that Jin Guangshan had been the perpetrator, and we were scared. I was a spy, after all. So we ran away, taking the Yin Iron with us because we were afraid it would fall into the wrong hands.

The Yin Iron is still with us. Rest assured that I would never hand it over to Wen Ruohan now. Wei Wuxian uses the Iron to keep us safe, but the effect on him is becoming more and more visible each day. He is not doing well. I worry how long he can keep doing this, before he destroys himself completely. He says he does it to keep us safe – me, my brother and the remaining members of my clan that have made it to Burial Mounds – so it is no burden to him. He is lying, however. He knows he is slowly destroying himself, and I know that he is trying to figure out how to make sure we stay protected once he dies.

I cannot go against him and protect him from himself. But maybe you can. That is why I thought you should know the truth.

Lan Wangji put the letter down. He noticed that his hands were shaking, but he couldn’t stop it. His heart clenched, and bile rose in his throat.

If only Wei Wuxian had called for him. If only– If only–

He reached for Wei Wuxian’s letter again, and read it once more.

I have no proof, it read. And then, that last line again.

If I had never met you, then I would be without regrets.

Tears rose in his eyes, and for once, he didn’t try to stop them from falling.

To lament for a person he barely knew.

He looked at the letter again.

No, he thought. No, you will not.

[booksoanahasread]

A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab 

It is utterly impossible to truly explain and express how much I love this series. I love it with my soul, I love it with my heart, I love it with my brain. Every single cell in my body loves this series, every fibre of my being loves this series. 

I didn’t think that I could fall so deeply in love with characters again. No book has hit me so swiftly or so painfully as this book. I wouldn’t change a thing about it. Its story I will treasure up until I die, its characters will live on in my heart until I cease to exist. 

This monster of a book broke me. It did. Now while that sounds dramatic, I know that it is the truth. It is so well-written and well-constructed that I would start rereading it right now if I didn’t have at least six books on my shelves that should be read.

The characters are wonderfully complex, none of them are purely evil. There is one exception, but if the villain isn’t evil, then what’s the point? I could talk about each character for hours on end, I could cry for each and every one of them on command. 

Before I begin speaking about the protagonists, I find that the way the antagonist was written was delightfully clever. Osaron, a magical entity, is one of the most terrifying villains I’ve ever read about. He is always three steps ahead of the reader and only one step ahead of everyone else. 

The extent of his will and brute force are felt throughout all the Londons; Red, Grey or White. Knowing that he had obliterated the world of Black London made him all the more malefic as the plot continued. In the second book, he seemed much more like a nuisance, not a potential for disaster. 

In this stunning finale, Osaron gives you chills down your spine. Reading the chapters from his point of view were absolutely fascinating, but also frightening. He had this ache for anything he didn’t have that grabs a hold of the reader and constantly shows the extent of his greed and ambition. Alone no one can stop him, which is for the best, who wants a weak villain? 

Now, as a reader you need a protagonist that you share values with, one that you can relate to. The main characters of the novel are so richly described that there must be one you love. I loved Lila throughout the series, but this novel just shone a light on her strengths. 

Delilah Bard, or rather Lila, is strong and feisty. She is a thief and a pirate. She’s an Antari, something we find out at the beginning of the novel. Her arrogance knows no bounds and her power is absolute. She is a force to be reckoned with even though most people believe her to be the weakest of the three Antari. 

While she may be the youngest Antari and the most reckless one, she is respected by Holland and Kell. She learned how to control her magic with the help of Alucard and it shows. Thanks to her spirit, she is vitally important in saving the worlds she has travelled to. 

Her level of confidence is aspirational and her sarcastic quips are incredible. She reminds me slightly of Aelin from the Throne of Glass series, both of them are strong female characters who don’t care about what anyone else thinks of them.

Kell is a work of art to be frank. He has this martyr complex which is crystal clear throughout the series. His saving Rhy and his wish to be the one who contains Osaron are probably the clearest examples. He is this strong, empathetic Antari that no one dares underestimate. 

While Rhy may seem like a weakness for Kell, in truth he is the reason he cares so much about the empire he lives in. Kell is over-protective and hilariously cagey when it comes to Rhy. While Kell may be one of the strongest magicians of his time, he is just as bull-headed as anyone else when it comes to his loved ones.

Holland is a peculiar character, his motives are understandable, but his actions are questionable. He is truly a case of a morally grey person who lived in a place where violence was the quickest solution to any conflict. Despite his past being revealed during the novel, he is still somewhat untouchable.

He doesn’t seem to be in great shape at any point of the novel, but he was never a truly happy character. He loved his home, even the murderous people who lived there enough to risk being overtaken by an evil magical entity. He is selfless and it is heartbreaking to watch how he dies at the end of the novel, even though it is a perfect circling back to the beginning of his life. 

Alucard Emery is courageous and funny. Most books have a character destined for comic relief, but Alucard is so much more than that. His motives become ever more complex, his devotion for Rhy becomes even more obvious. 

He is a mentor to Lila, but also a friend, one of her first true friends. While Kell hates him because he broke his brother’s heart, Alucard is truly in love with Rhy. It is the kind of love where the captain would die for the prince. 

While admitting that the characters are fabulous is one thing, the action of this novel is on a completely other level. You constantly want to read more and more and more. It doesn’t satiate you at all, because it always leaves you asking yourself what will happen to London. 

The way the author constructed the action was absolutely phenomenal. It was perfectly executed and wonderfully complex. Although I loathe the fact that the author killed about four characters in fifty pages, I know it was useful and advanced the plot and the character arcs of the few who remained alive. 

I did cry while reading this book. The last page made me weep a second time. It was the perfect ending to a series. I just wish I could see what will happen to the characters from now on. 

In conclusion, this book is impeccably written and incredibly close to my heart. I love this novel and I love this series. I will recommend this to everyone I know who reads fantasy novels. I loved this so much.

[I borrowed this book from Biblioteca Judeteana Cluj-Napoca, American Corner]

[theopaquemind]

Grief in all its Glory

Written: 10/08/2020

Posted 5/01/2021 - 4 years since Brandon’s passing.

Content warning: death, suicide, grief, drugs, addiction, swearing.

I recently came across a website for Australians to speak openly about grief. It was startling. Not what was said on it. But the fact that a website like that now existed. I’d never seen anything so open and frank before. What should be startling is that humans still live in this discomfort of talking about certain sadness's, bereavements, pains and anguish. The most inevitable experience is still faux pas - we all die, but talking about it is not altogether acceptable. Along the journey of life, there are other sadness’s and struggles which, once brewed in scalding waters of unsavoury conversation, now seep in tepid tolerance. For the most part, I refer to this broadly as ‘mental illness’, and while its garnered greater awareness, it is still riddled with stigma and misunderstanding. Similarly, discussions around addiction are typically soaked in the self-aggrandising dogma that this only happens to the lower echelons of society; those plagued by weaknesses that led to their inevitable misfortune. And then the doozy of ‘grief’ – talking about it makes many people uneasy; people hold an expectation that you transcend these melancholy confines in a swift enough fashion that you don’t leave them feeling uncomfortable. Yet, grief is unfortunately something every adult will likely experience at some point. Another scandalous topic is that of suicide, despite it sadly becoming an increasingly more and more common way of dying. Then there is the matter of suicide survivors – the one’s who must continue their life with a chasm formed by the absence and loss. Grief with the awareness that someone chose to die is something very staggering.

One of the things that I find most difficult when talking about mental health is that I am in part supporting a system that I do not have faith in. You can tell people that help is out there, but when it comes down to it, the mental health care system in Australia is wildly ineffective (globally, I daresay, and infinitely worse in many locations; however my experience is significantly with Australia so I’ll refrain from speaking too broadly). Worse, it can be even more detrimental than the ills that plague the human mind.

It is hard trying to get help when you need it. It is harder getting the right help. It is a battle. It is a challenge and sometimes it feels like the world is working against you. That's probably because it is, albeit not always intentionally. This is what happened to my brother, to my family, to me.

I should note that he was a very private person, with a strong distaste for the narcissistic realms of social media. I wholeheartedly acknowledge that I am possibly doing something so deeply against his wishes by speaking openly about him and the situation, but to be blunt, he lost the privilege of secrecy. Others too, may not agree with how I elect to narrate this, but from my perspective, you can’t grow awareness and fuel prevention without the discourse.

I understand that this is in part a unique occurrence that I will expand on, but because of this experience I was exposed to a great deal more stories of a similar nature where the health care system let people down. However, this isn’t an ‘all hope is lost’ memoir. To the contrary.

I have…had an older brother. His name was Brandon. He took his life at the age that I am while writing this - 29. Brandon saw mental health specialists. He did try to get better, although arguably not nearly hard enough. In fact, when I cleared out his room after his passing, I dug through the referrals and prescriptions. There was a blister pack of antidepressants. Without the other appropriate tools to recover, or at least to find a semblance of stability, anti-depressants can only do so much. By this point he had very evidently given up on these little dosages of ‘here-this-will-help-but-may-also-increase-your-risk-of-suicidal-ideation.’ Only one pill was missing. The anti-depressant was not in his toxicology report, although the post-mortem showed many, many other drugs. In clearing his room, I later read his journaling scrawls that he had found drugs that numbed his pain more effectively than anti-depressants. Some of these are ones that Brandon got hooked on due to an overzealous general practitioner. And then another general practitioner. His addiction began with prescription opioids and graduated with drugs acquired from the dark web including heroin and fentanyl, amongst other things. My family and I only found out about this after his passing. 

TOXICOLOGY:

Codeine (free)

Codeine-6-glucuronide

Diazepam

Fentanyl

Mirtazapine

Morphine (free)

Morphine-3-glucuronide

Morphine-6-glucuronide

Nordiazepam

Oxazepam

Paracetamol

Pholcodine

Quetiapine

Temazepam

Tramadol

This part isn't altogether unique. We take suppressants to deal with pain…to deal with life. A hard day at work - have a drink. Can't sleep - have a vali. Can't survive the never-ending and all-encompassing pain - take it all.

The opioid problem in the US is significant and garners a fair amount of attention. It exists here in Australia, too. That is why legislation came into effect to further regulate practitioners from prescribing them. This took place about a year after Brandon’s death. This blanket restriction isn’t an entirely curative solution. There are those that genuinely need these medications for chronic pain who now must jump through hoops to get their treatment. There are those who still have the wherewithal to find a source, even if through illegal means (queue Brandon). This form of paternalistic legislation does not solve the problem at its root – why there is a mental health epidemic; where is society failing that the individual solution appears to be a sturdy dose of numbing or a leap of faith into the dark abyss. Opioids work in a manner of escalation. A dosage that was once satisfying does less and less. So, you need more and more. Price can also become a factor, so you salvage heavier shit for a lower cost.

Brandon wound up in hospital only a few days prior to taking his life. He had collapsed in my father’s kitchen. My dad thought he was losing him right then and there. An ambulance came and he was rushed to hospital. He had 'accidentally' taken too much tramadol. During this incident, the ambulance respondents commented in front of my younger brother on the visible track marks on Brandon's arms. Brandon was released from hospital the following day. Simple as that. My father didn't know that the foreboding premonition of losing Brandon would be the stark reality a few short days later as he tried to perform CPR on his eldest son.

The ambulance workers that saw Brandon's track marks would not have consciously made the choice to neglect a person who clearly needed help. But somehow, he fell through the cracks of a less than fastidious system. In some ways, learning about Brandon's history with prescription drugs was more difficult than his actual suicide. Learning how he had been failed was, and is, harder to come to terms with than the fact that he recognised he had been let down. The thing that came as a shock to Brandon's friends (and subsequently me) was that he did not die of an overdose. He did not take his life in that way. That is something I have battled with. He made a very different sort of deliberate effort in how he left us which I may never understand. That’s suicide though – you often don’t understand and are left wondering so many things.

We won't ever know if the tramadol overdose was intentional or not, but it was explained to me by my older brother as an 'oopsy-daisy' in an email. I was overseas at that time. Ironically, I took one tramadol tablet for my flight back and found the experience horrible and was sluggish for days after. The same day that I had recovered from my singular adventure with tramadol my brother made that irreversible choice.

I was at the pub with friends when Brandon made that fateful choice to dive into that dark void. I had missed calls on my phone from my mother. I called back and didn’t receive an answer. I later found out my younger brother and mother were debating just driving straight to me in order to not have to tell me over the phone. It was my younger brother's birthday that day and I had presumed they were contacting about that. I texted back that I was currently out and tried calling again. ‘Brandon hung himself’, my mum said. I dropped to my knees on the outskirts of the bar and wailed, ‘no’. In a daze I went back to my friends, grabbed my bag mumbling that my brother had killed himself. A friend walked me home. My mother and brother arrived some period of time after. I still don't understand how my mother was capable of driving. She drove us to my dad's house where the suicide had occurred. We weren't permitted near that section of the house and the police referred to it as a 'crime scene'. We sat outside the house as a family, coming in and out of tears and shock.

At one point I had to go to the bathroom and went up around the other side of the house – the side that wasn’t deemed part of the crime scene. Through the glass I saw my brother lying on the cold stone floor with a neck brace on and a sheet pulled midway up his chest. I went to the bathroom and vomited. I stared at my face with mascara smeared everywhere and recognised that while I looked so distraught, that was possibly the most peaceful I'd seen my brother in a long, long time. I took some breaths and went back to my family. I have never really been able to leave my family since that point. I will have panic attacks if I can't reach one of them, thinking that something bad has happened. That is part of the PTSD of losing a loved one in a shocking way.

On my family's healing journey, we attended suicide survivor groups. At these I heard other tales of the health care system having failed them and/or their loved ones. One that stuck with me the most was a suicide in the middle of a hospital ward while under 24/7 suicide watch. On my personal healing journey, I've had several problematic run-ins with the health care system. To name a few:

I had a psychologist tell me that Brandon's choice to take his life in the family home was a sign that he blamed the family. Guilt is such a huge thing that follows a suicide. Psych 101 is alleviating that form of mental anguish for suicide survivors. That mental health practitioner failed at the first hurdle. Despite me having the knowledge that you cannot blame yourself, having someone - who is meant to understand the human mind, with all the complexities of grief and guilt – tell you that you are blamed is a pretty heavy cross to bear. I had found Brandon's parting note. It was on stained paper, written a long while ago. On it he said that he was sorry, but the pain was too much. A psychologist I had sat in a room with for all of 15 minutes told me that he blamed us. A sister riddled with guilt that she didn't save her brother. Brandon said a lot of things, but Brandon did not outright blame us. Still, in most ways, he did not say enough.

Sitting in anger about Brandon's introduction to prescription opioids, I had a different psychologist tell me that I shouldn't make noise because it would cause me more distress, that people can't change and the system won't change so it's best I change my view on things. That was her response to most things. No inclination to think that holding someone accountable for some of Brandon's struggles would have offered me enormous relief. One of his original GPs died two weeks prior to writing this. I honestly felt a sense of liberation but also a sense of loss, primarily because I never got to lambast them. Only last week did I learn that the best avenue would have been to make a complaint via the Health Care Complaints Commission so that this GP would not make the same grave errors. That would have potentially changed a person and a segment of the system, as well as maybe saving others from addiction. But in a system where health care providers would prefer you don't 'rock the boat' it's better you just sit quietly in your grief.

I have struggled with this loss. I wasn't close with Brandon anymore. We had a dysfunctional relationship and I had honestly largely tried ridding my life of him. Subsequently, as mentioned, I felt overwhelmed with guilt. I myself turned to ways to numb this feeling. I drank too much and partied more. I made reckless choices, acted rashly, behaved erratically. A psychiatrist put me onto medication to help me deal with these stages of grief. This is now a medication that I have been unable to get off because of the withdrawal side-effects. The mental health industry prefers a quick-fix solution such as medication. It appears as though they are making effective progress. Brandon's pain was 'effectively' dulled by opioids. My grief was 'effectively' subdued with medication rather than giving me the tools to process the grief and miss my brother in whatever way I needed to. I’ve learned the hard way, but the greatest remedy for some of the most common forms of mental illness doesn’t come in the form of a pill. It is habitually changing the way you think, how you perceive yourself, how you see the world. There are tools and techniques you can learn to make these changes, and these are not measured in milligrams or dosage frequencies. They do not have side effects. Tell a depressed person that one of the potential side effects of their anti-depressant is to experience depression and see how much hope you give that down-trodden soul.

Grief is a peculiar thing. It can come in waves. It can come in so many ways. But something I can definitively say is that you can be stronger than the grief and you can be strong enough to survive, whether the system lapses or not. I am testimony to that.

To mental health generally, in the end, only you can make the best decisions for yourself. That choice is yours. Yes, addiction can make that a whole lot harder, and the crutch can create a cyclic pattern in a self-fulfilling prophecy of defeat. A lot of external factors can impact your choices and make it more challenging to make the right decisions. But you’ve been through harder things. To climb out of those dark places is entirely within you. Sometimes you don’t have great footing to help get you out, be it the health care system, employment strife, financial burden, or friends letting you down. But it doesn’t mean that the required strength isn’t still inside of you. YOU have that strength. YOU have all that within you. You need to see that power in all its glory and grace, and you will see that your situation can, and will change. The first step to that change is what you decide to do.

Yes, I am placing blame on the shoulders of some others besides Brandon, while in a contradictory fashion saying you make your own choices. That’s another thing about grief – you want to assign blame somewhere. So, for clarity, Brandon made his choice and might have made it irrespective of the system. But our broken system sure as hell got him there prematurely, not even seeing 30.

I have shared this because I absolutely know that it is hard. That it is not always easy to get help. That the system is fucked. But that is not enough reason to give up. I sit here in my anger and sadness that the system let both my brother and me down countless times. But it is still not enough reason to give up. You can always be stronger and will get back up. Each. And. Every. Fucking. Time. Some people have said to me that it’s impossible to get better, that they can’t be fixed, that they can’t find help that works. There are many different ways of getting help, and if the ‘traditional’ mechanisms of speaking to a shrink doesn’t float your boat then it doesn’t mean all hope is lost. On the contrary – you’ve found one approach that doesn’t aid you and the process of elimination on your mental health journey should be valued. Knowing what doesn’t help can sincerely lead you to learning what does help.

I have also shared this because this is just a small portion of what losing someone to suicide does. This is the honest truth of what grief looks like. I recognise and admit that I have struggled so much with it. As I said, Brandon and I weren’t even close anymore. This is the pain that I feel from losing a dysfunctional sibling relationship. Do not think that you won’t leave people in agonising pain, no matter your relationship with them.

A further reason why I’ve written this is what I alluded to at the start – these are topics that people don’t like to talk about or hear about. But this is reality. These conversations are fucking triggering and upsetting. Hell, it’s taken a god damn lot of strength for me to write this. However, the more we elect to not talk about what’s wrong with the world, these social maladies will continue under the cloak of secrecy, the guise of accepting the status quo, and within the nonchalant notion that we can’t change things.

The final reason for why I’ve shared this is for my own personal growth and to voice some anger and dissatisfaction. I am so tired of the way the world operates. The abuse of power. The legitimisation of harmful actions in the name of greed. You don’t need to spend $490 (not an exaggeration, this is an actual amount) for 45 minutes at a psychiatrist’ office to ‘get better’. Being told that costly drugs are your only cure isn’t the singular answer. Not banking your hope for a tranquil mind on external sources should be a part of psych 101. It’s a hard fucking slog, and I get to say this from my ivory tower of white privilege. Likewise, my older brother won’t fit the stereotyped bullshit of a lowly sort destined for failure who succumbed to addiction. He wasn’t deprived of finances and destitute; he was extremely intelligent and had potential beyond belief. The ineptitude of the mental health system might fail us privileged ones, but the collateral damage is far greater than just us. Quite often those who are struggling the most do not have the financial stability to even contemplate these forms of ‘solutions’. It is a mental health system supported by greed and the foundations of neoliberalism. If we are forced to adhere to this approach – that the onus is always on the individual to better their personal situation – then use this to your advantage. Say fuck the system, I’ve got this with or without you. I am a strong human and I will carry myself through.

There are some ugly things being put on full display because of Covid19. But there are also some good things that you can't lose sight of. We might feel alone, either physically or mentally, but I promise you that you are not. Please get in touch if you need to talk and I will be there. Sometimes even a stranger can extend a kindness to you that you so desperately needed. This is a huge part of why I always say to be there for the people in your life. There is something so significant that loved ones can provide. Although, this is just the icing on the cake of what a gift your life is. You don’t need this affirmation and support from others because you’ve bloody well got this on your own. Albeit, it sure does help having someone care, so don’t forget that part when you’re given the opportunity to be kind to someone else. We are all part of a thriving organism called society that breathes and glistens on the basis of human connection and the human experience. It reaffirms that we are not alone. You are not alone, even when you feel as though you are.

That voice calling for calm or a cessation to the pain isn’t asking for the dark abyss; it’s asking you to stand up and fight the battle worth fighting. Your life is worth fighting for, even against an invisible enemy.

[dedicatedfollower467]

oh hey, while i’m thinking about it, one of the reasons why homestuck’s exploration of metanarrative conceptions of authority and authorship both works incredibly well and also completely falls apart is because underneath the meta-narrative stuff, there’s actually a really good story there

homestuck is fundamentally metafictional and more than a little absurdist, and the thing about most metafictional absurdist stuff is that it’s just. impenetrably boring. it’s about characters sitting around talking about the futility of existence and not fucking doing anything (looking at YOU, Waiting for Godot). they’re just. super pretentious and boring and weird and not much fun to read, unless you’re like. a philosophy major or academic literature nerd.

but homestuck is like. actually fun? it has good characters and a riveting plot and incredibly broad and populist appeal (to say the least). it makes you actually like the story that is exploring the nature of stories and existential reality. it’s more like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in that you actually care about the characters and their plots (or at least, i do)

but where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tells you right off the bat that this is gonna end in existential tragedy simply from its title, homestuck... doesn’t. it does such a good job portraying the actual story and characters that you don’t even realize how deeply entrenched we are in metanarrative bullshit. you don’t even realize that the metanarrative is just as important as - possibly more important than - the regular ol’ narrative (sub-narrative? proto-narrative? concrete narrative? whatever the fuck we want to call it i guess)

which is great! it’s amazing! it’s really actually awesome that andrew hussie got to write this incredible postmodern metafictional epic that got people actually interested in and excited about it! i mean like, i’m a huge Rosencrantz and Guildenstern fan, but i’m not exactly writing fanfic about it, y’know?

but the problem is that... people want to see the narrative have a satisfying conclusion

and hussie can never do that, because the fundamental premise of the meta-narrative is that stories are inherently flawed do to the absolute control of the author, and the reader is and should be just as important as the author, if not more so

if hussie ever gives the narrative of homestuck a satisfying, complete, cathartic resolution that makes people happy... he will have betrayed what the story is actually about

on the other hand, if dozens of fans provide their own narratively satisfying conclusions to homestuck? that’s exactly what the metanarrative is about

(jesus christ i should write a fucking essay. i mean to be frank this is the third essay i’ve written on the subject but i feel like maybe i should write a more coherent essay and not just ramble bullshit)

[bodegacowboy]

Heartwork

I am aghast I almost forgot about NaruSaku day. Not even sure if it’s still going on (on tumblr) but if it is....Happy belated NaruSaku day. Here’s something I put together very quickly that was inspired (ripped off) by a P.G. Wodehouse short story and one or two Macy Gray songs.

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Custom dictated that every December the elder monk at the Fire temple and the Hokage of Konohagakure would each display a work of calligraphy that encapsulated their respective thoughts of the previous year. If the year happened to include an incoming Hokage-elect, the villagers would be treated to three works being put on display. The Hokage-elect would be given the privilege of brushing a phrase or a single kanji that encapsulated his or her thoughts for the upcoming year. Though most had forgotten the reasons why this tradition had begun, it was nevertheless held as semi-sacred to those inhabiting the leaf village.

Naruto felt nothing but gratitude as he lifted his ink drenched brush from the rather large and framed sheet of mulberry paper spread against one of the walls of the Hokage residence.

“What do you think of this one?” Naruto beamed.

Manuba Yamanaka gazed upon Naruto’s calligraphy with his face illuminated by a frown.

“I must apologize again that my criticism of your work has to be a little harsh”

“No worries Manuba, I am relying on your expertise.”

Naruto was not too familiar with the man who now cast a critical eye upon his work. Beyond Manuba’s familial ties to Ino, Naruto only knew what he had heard. He’d heard Manuba was an established artist readily accepted by Konohagakure’s bohemian elite. It was said by some that he had his finger on the pulse of the village's artistic vision.

“Your brushstrokes continue to come across lifeless, your words nor your spacing nor your characters truly live on the page.”

“I think it’s lovely.” Sakura said from the back of the room.

The customs of any festivities that involved a Hokage-elect were clearly defined by years of tradition. Every single activity that Naruto participated in that was directly or indirectly related to his future title was a ritual onto itself. Tradition recommended that Naruto complete his artwork in solitude, preferably after hours of quiet meditation and or contemplative prayer. Having a consultant for his art was a questionable act. Visitations from his girlfriend during the ritual was also pushing the envelope. For the sake of custom, compromises had been negotiated. The consultant was allowed two hours of Naruto’s time during the day. Girlfriends, or any other guests could also visit, but they weren’t allowed more than three steps into the entrance of the room where Naruto would be doing his duty. If they wanted to stay for awhile they could sit in a formal sieza position near the entrance of the room.

Manuba puffed his chest out. “Yes, perhaps it is lovely to the eyes of the amateur.”

Sakura was not fond of Manuba Yamanaka. From her seated position she had watched Manuba Yamanaka savage Naruto’s efforts. And he did so without a trace of empathy or leniency. Naruto still inflated with gratitude at being elected Hokage took the beatings with good humor. Sakura’s blood on the other hand had long since boiled.

“At least you both can agree that I wrote something. It’s something you can read. See that’s progress” Naruto grinned.

“Yes but progress isn’t always progress, do you understand?”

Naruto shook his head. “Manuba  I am beginner. You’ll have to dumb it down for me.”

Manuba nodded. “Oh I know, I know. The fact that you are a beginner is readily apparent. That said, your defects are not so much technical as they are emotional. It doesn’t engage the audience, it doesn’t make them feel enough.”

“What do you feel when you look at it?” Naruto inquired.

“I feel bored. I feel common.”

“That’s not enough feelings?”

“The work, it should speak to the hearts and minds of the audience, it should speak life!”

“Is my calligraphy not speaking?”

“It is speaking...in it’s own way.” Manuba grimaced.

“What is it saying?”

“To be frank it is saying ‘I am written not by a Hokage but by an unconscious plebeian.’ Of course I say that with all due respect.”

“Of course.” Naruto nodded.

“You should heed his advice Naruto, Manuba Yamanaka is a true artist.”

Naruto turned and despite the length of the distance between them he found himself startled by the cold glint in Sakura’s eyes.

“Yes a true artist indeed Naruto, I’m sure you’re familiar with his famous works.”

“I uh...Unfortunately I haven’t seen any of Manuab’s stuff” Naruto stammered. “But I heard he is an up and coming star in the art world.”

“Yes...he is held in high regard among the art community. And why wouldn’t he be? He sold a painting to the Fire Daimyo.”

“Really?” Naruto said impressed.

“Indeed the daimyo’s household paid a hefty five dollars for the artwork. It’s a well known fact that the painting can be found in the daimyo’s palace, in the bathroom, right over the toilet.”

A tense silence crept into the room. .

With feigned cheerfulness Sakura turned to Manuba. “And of course Ino has told me you write the greeting cards that her parents sell at the flower shop.”

Naruto scratched at cheek. “Ah well I admit I have seen those. I’ve bought some for Sakura. I like them. They’re usually cute.”

Manuba cleared his throat. “Miss Haruno seems to be focused on my more commercialized works. My deeper more complex contributions have done much to spur on the current artistic movement that ....

“How could I forget!” Sakura exclaimed. “The police sketches that you do on the weekends for the Konoha military police.”

“Maybe it’s time for a  break” Naruto declared.

Bowing stiffly the red faced artist stomped away from the Hokage-elect. He paused for a moment at the door just long enough to scowl at Sakura and then with his nose held high he departed the room.

“Hmmm your punches are sharp today Sakura.” Naruto stated.

“I’m sorry.”

Naruto shrugged, “Hey it wasn’t my ego you just KO’d. Are you alright?”

Sakura sighed. “I am fine. Look I will apologize to him...eventually. Really, it’s just that he was so horrid to you.”

“But he’s a great artist, it's only natural that he criticize.”

“Who told you he was a great artist?”

“I heard...”

“It’s all hype” Sakura snapped. “Most of it is coming from his friends.”

“Well he walks and talks like a great artist”

“He would.That doesn’t mean much.”

Naruto considered her point.. “So he’s not a genius?”

“He’s incompetent...in my opinion. But art is very much subjective Naruto.”

“How do you know all this Sakura?”

She hesitated before answering. “I’ve done some research on him. You’ve been very busy and joyful these last few weeks Naruto. You haven’t exactly paid a lot of attention to everyone around you.”

Naruto studied her with curious eyes before commenting musingly. “I see”

“It’s understandable. You’re preparing to fulfill your life’s ambition.”

A look of gratitude returned to Naruto’s face and a smile followed in its wake. “There really has been a lot going on lately.”

“You should get used to it. There will be a lot more to do after the first of January.”

His smiled deepened. “Yes, when I am sworn in as Hokage.”

Naruto looked off to the side and sighed deeply, happily. But when he looked back at Sakura the curious eyes had returned. “Are you sure you are alright?”

Sakura smiled back. “Couldn’t be better. I am happy for you.”

He nodded in silent appreciation before glancing back to his calligraphy “You think I can get this down before the ceremony?”

“I’m sure you will. And when you’re the Hokage you can do whatever you want...”

Eyebrows raised Naruto returned his full attention Sakura. “The Hokage can do whatever he wants? Why didn’t anyone tell me? Now I really can’t wait to be Hokage”

Sakura laughed softly. Naruto smiled thinly.

“Sakura....”

“Yes?”

“There is something wrong isn’t there?”

She sighed, she sadly sighed  “Remember when you mentioned how people from other villages were mobbing Shikamaru because they were hoping to gain more access to you.”

“Yeah he hasn’t really been enjoying that kind of attention.”

“Were any of those people representing some of the more prestigious clans....were any of them proposing marriage alliances?”

Caught off guard by the question Naruto simply blinked in response. When he recovered as best he could all he could say was, “yes.”

He waited for a follow up question.

When no further questions came Naruto asked one of his own.

“How do you know about that?”

“I’ve been approached as well.”

Stunned, Naruto sputtered, “That’s crazy-I mean they..why-to you...I mean we’re dating.”

“They don’t really care about that” Sakura said cooly. “They just want to get in your ear. Get the message out there.”

“Sakura why didn’t you say anything about this?”

“I’m saying something now. I think it’s something you should consider.” Sakura said indifferently.

At a loss for words Naruto stared at her for a moment. Eventually he blurted out “WHAT?!”  

 “You should consider it” Sakura said.

Anxious laughter escaped from Naruto’s lips. “Wow these guys must be very persuasive.”

“They make sense, they make practical sense for you, for the village really. These are very logical, pragmatic opportunities that will be very beneficial for you, but more importantly for the village.”

“Sakura, I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t going to waste my time-you know I have to be honest, I am a little annoyed you are taking this so well.....”

“What? Did you expect me to hit someone?”

Naruto ran his free hand through his hair. “I wouldn’t expect you to hit anyone. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you did. At least In this specific scenario anyway.”

Sakura licked her lips. “Honestly I did punch the first representative. But then I thought well that didn’t really help anything. You will need these people politically right? In the future. So I was polite and I listened. By the fourth and fifth representative they were starting to make sense.”

Naruto shook his head. “Plenty of things sound like they make sense but that doesn’t mean they actually make sense Sakura.”

“I am just saying you should consider it. These people can be vital allies.”

Naruto pointed towards the entrance “Manuba Yamanaka is technically an ally and you destroyed him.”

“He was a hack who had no right being that awful to you!”

“Sakura I-” Nartuo stopped to draw in a breath, “My allies and my potential allies, they may have good intentions but they obviously won’t always know what is right for me.”

“Just think about it Naruto” Sakura said with a small voice. “Your future and the village’s future are linked.”

Naruto groaned out loud. “Yeah I’ve thought about my future and the big problem with this plan is the minor fact that I am going to marry you!”

Sakura’s eyes flashed with sudden surprise.

“Yeah you, I want to marry you!” He shouted. Then he paused and with sudden softness he said “well I mean, well you’d have to say yes first.”

Naruto dropped the paintbrush in his hand when Sakura suddenly burst into a flood of tears.

Bewildered Naruto stated, “I’m sorry - I-- I take it back.”

“No! Wait!” Sakura said before placing her face in her hands. “J-Just turn around I need some time to think.”

“Alright, alright.”

Picking the brush off the floor Naruto turned his attention back to the art. In a subdued mood he replaced the paper on the wall with a new sheet. He dipped the brush in ink and with slow methodical strokes he went to work. He’d just about finished the latest draft when he heard faint sniffing followed by a few big gulps of air. He waited to hear from her but when nothing came he resumed his work. Once he was finished he took a few steps back from the wall and knelt down before it.

“I’m sorry Sakura. I’m sorry you had to go through all that. They shouldn’t have insulted you like that.”

She responded with silence.

“You know we’ll be very happy if you say yes.” Naruto said with his back still turned to her.

Silence

“But I guess I have to consider that you may say no for whatever reason.

After a moment’s consideration Naruto continued. “You said before that I’ll have plenty to do as Hokage. That’s probably right. Maybe I’ll have enough to keep my mind off you.”

He drew in a deep breath and released it.

“But you know Sakura-chan it’s the heart that’ll be the problem.”

“You’ll have everything.” She said finally.

He shrugged. “Everything but what my heart wants. It’s my heart that wants you. It’s my heart that won’t forget. It’s my heart that loves you.”

Suddenly Naruto heard footsteps. Sakura strolled across the room and knelt beside him.

“I am an idiot” She said.

“Sakura....”

She looked up at his calligraphy.

“The future is in the air, the past is in the ground, all is right in Heaven and on Earth,” She read aloud.

“I’m not sure if it’s pessimistic or optimistic” Naruto said.

“It’s lovely”

“Do you think Manuba will like it?”

“I don’t care, it’s lovely.”

“But do you feel anything?”

“I feel foolish, but very much loved. I feel that I am in love with someone wonderful.”

“That’s great! But I don’t know if that has anything to do with the calligraphy. Does it speak to you?

“Yes.”

“What does it say to you?”

“It’s saying “I am written by the the man whom Haruno Sakura will marry. It says ‘she will be happily married to my author for the rest of her life’.”

Naruto laughed happily, “I am thrilled, but again I don’t know if that has anything to do with the calligraphy. How will the villagers feel about it?”

Placing her head upon Naruto’s shoulder Sakura said, “They’ll love it-or else they’ll deal with me.

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Welp that’s it. Leave a comment if you like it.