#i didn't even do a readthrough for parts of it

[cina-full-moon-xanadium]

Heisei/Reiwa Kamen Rider Bike Riding Time research

Hello there! Does anyone remember from a little while back when this image was going around?

For a while, at least in fan communities I frequented; this was quite infamous for showing just how sharp a decline Kamen Rider's namesake had become in the last few years, with the absolute nadir of the Heisei 20th anniversary Kamen Rider using his bike for a total of 47 seconds (and also, on the other end; just how much Kuuga would not get off his bike)

Obviously, it's been a few years since Saber now; and I've found myself wondering from time to time exactly how the Riders since then have fared, especially since both Geats and Gotchard have garnered a reputation of sorts for putting a bit more emphasis on the bikes and feeling like they have more screentime than your Zero-Ones and your Sabers.

So! I went looking and found the source. This extremely dedicated Japanese poster called Yamashita Radio who of course I will be basing the majority of this on, including his rules and his counting. And when I say 'dedicated' I mean that at one point he lost all his data so he just counted Kuuga through Saber all over again. MAD respect for this man! I highly recommend a full readthrough of this 5-part post at one point because it's very impressive and interesting stuff in my opinion

One other interesting point is that that chart there? That's main rider only; and also includes any riding they did as civilians. There is a separate chart for all motorbike riding in the show as a whole; including other riders, including monsters, including even just random civilians! For posterity, I think it's important to post that chart for comparison with the main rider one -- I've colour coded here so that red is Heisei 1 (Kuuga-Decade), green is Heisei 2 (W-Zi-O) and yellow is Reiwa (Zero-One onwards). Main rider only on the left, all biking on the right.

Up front there are some absolutely fascinating observations to make here - Zero-One had the least bike scenes of any show! Brand new era of Kamen Rider! - but I think I've talked about the past enough. With all this said and what I feel is a very important plug to make, let's get into the meat of this -- how do Revice, Geats and Gotchard compare to previous shows?

Rules

... okay, yeah, sure; let's quickly establish a baseline first. As I'm going off of Yamashita's work, I'm also going by all his rules; it's a good thing I agree with all of them because I kinda didn't want to completely redo the count of every season!

TV Show ONLY! No movies, no TTFC specials, no HBVs, no V-Cinema, none of it. The main reason given is that, uh, Paradise Lost has a 100+ bike scene near the start so that's too much of an advantage -- fair enough! Personally I also think it's more interesting, because movies generally have more budget and allowances for bike scenes so those tend to be the same. Maybe a separate count would still be interesting, but I think including movies would flatten out the times too much and make the data pretty uninteresting

No openings! Agito has too much of an advantage

Non-transformed states count the same as transformed states. Godai riding a bike is the same as Kuuga riding a bike.

All motorcycles are treated equally! Mopeds and even CG scenes and bikes are allowed

Other vehicles such as cars, trains and even bicycles and hoverbikes are excluded. Two big exceptions are made for Drive and Revice as they do not have a main motorbike otherwise, but this does exclude things like Gaim's Dandeliner, many of the Oni in Hibiki's transport vehicles, Den-O's Den-Liner, Gotchard's Steamliner and Madwheel and Decade's Agito Slider

Transformations of the bike still count as long as it's being ridden. The Boostriker turns into fox mode while you're riding it? That's fair game

Flashbacks and other repeat footage ("previously on" segments etc) don't count of course. But in cases where it's clearly stock footage but it's still a new event, like the many Ryuki Rideshooter scenes, that's still counted

Count from the moment the bike is straddled to the moment the bike is gotten off, and everything in between. Scenes where the bike isn't technically visible - such as close-ups of the rider's face, or cutting to another character's reaction - are still counted if it's all the same scene

Revice

3m21s (2m23s for Revi only)

Oh lucky me, this was actually done for me! Yamashita made a small update after Revice finished to add this. I just went over and double checked it.

At 3m21s, Revice is at this point the series with the 2nd least amount of bike riding; above Zero-One and below Zi-O. For Revi alone he's in 3rd least; above Zero-One and below Saber. Happy 50th anniversary!

An interesting note here is that Ikki never rides Vice Ptera untransformed -- concerns over the actor's safety, maybe? Daiji also pulls in 58 seconds for the show on his own motorbike, but abandons it completely after episode 13; only bringing it back for the summer movie (which is also the only place he rode it as Live). Interestingly, the 12 seconds he rides it with Sakura in episode 13 is the only time he uses it in the show after becoming a Rider. The skateboarding scene in episode 7 for Jackal Form goes on for over a minute, but unfortunately can't count for this...

I think most people expected Revice to place quite low, though. So let's move on to a show I think a lot of people expect to place higher.

Geats

4m05s (3m45s for Geats only)

I keep repeating it, but this is a show where it seemed a lot of people got the impression of the bike having more importance than before. I think there's a lot of aspects that come together into that -- the bike being tied to a specific 'special' item that's even part of the main rider's main form, the upgrade forms going off of that, and the bike being used in prominent scenes including in the first episode. Geats even arrives on it in his Revice summer movie cameo!

But ultimately if you look at riding time, Geats ends up in 3rd place for overall bike time; above Revice and below Zi-O, while for main rider only Ace ends up in 5th last; above Saber and below Decade. As such he ends up being the main Reiwa Rider to use his bike the most.

This is where I started splitting main rider and untransformed rider in my personal tracking charts, just for fun -- I actually couldn't do that for Revice because as said Ikki never rides anything untransformed except his bicycle. Until episode 11 Ace actually just slightly edged out Geats for having more bike time which was enjoyable to see.

A very interesting thing happens in regards to the Boostriker's transformed state. I decided not to include finishers involving it unless the Rider is specifically riding it -- and the one and only one to do so was Buffa in episode 6, accounting for every single second he rode the machine. He had a penchant for using the buckles' weapons in ways he wasn't supposed to, and he kept up that rule even when the 'weapon' was a bike.

Geats spends a decent amount of time in the final episode sitting on his bike while talking to Regad and the other Riders, and that really saved the show's overall times.

Gotchard

5m09s (2m32s for Gotchard alone)

According to production blogs, Gotchard had a stated aim of using the bike more. Unfortunately it seems this didn't manifest itself in a very major way... but I think we did see more interesting uses of it! Spanner has his own bike (that like Daiji, he never rides transformed!), there's a version of Golddash from the future, other characters including Golddash itself ride rather than Hotaro at multiple points!

For 'others', the 3 seconds in Episode 2 is when Minato rolls up to deliver Golddash to Hotaro personally. Episode 9's 5 seconds have Renge (with Sabimaru in the back) riding it to deliver Hotaro's cards to him in Kyoto.

Spanner shockingly saved the series' overall time here in a similar way to final episode Ace, by sitting on his for an extended period of time during his conversation with Lachesis at the start of episode 47.

While it's not a very long scene nor did it change anything for the rankings, the bike scene in the final episode that just aired is notable for an extremely rare instance of a Rider Machine being ridden by a Kamen Rider's final form. To my knowledge this has previously only been done by Agito, Den-O and Revice (the latter in a movie). Fittingly for a show where part of the direction was inspired by Agito, both Agito and Gotchard do this Final Form bike scene in their final episodes.

And now, for the final count...

Gotchard ended up in 21st for overall bike time between Zi-O and Saber, but this was largely due to other characters; so Hotaro alone ended up in 22nd between Revice and Saber.

Overall we're now 5 shows in instead of 2, we can indeed see a very large dropoff in the Reiwa Era -- including Zi-O, the most recent 6 shows are all at the bottom of the list. This is especially notable when The next most recent series, Build, had 12m31s; almost double that of Saber's -- and this wasn't uncommon, with Ghost and Ex-Aid sharing similar times.

This was the main thrust of my research... but what say we go on a little addendum? Because when I mentioned Yamashita updated his post to include Revice in 2022, there was... one other series he saw fit to do a count for. One that was only halfway through, but nonetheless saw an impressive amount of bike riding time. He only got halfway, but what say I finish the job out of pure interest?

It is "Avataro Sentai Donbrothers"

The extremely normal 2022 entry into the Super Sentai series has a number of bike scenes. Some you may expect from Don Momotaro riding his CGI Enyarideon on his Palanquin for much of the first cour. Some of you might say that CGI shouldn't count, it's easy enough to animate together a scene than deal with road laws and such -- but does Kijibrother not count? Does Inubrother not count? Do none of the mech scenes count? It's a festival, people. Let's enjoy it.

Even aside from the CGI, Yamashita noted halfway through the show; that can't quite account for everything else. Sonoi has a bike he rides in multiple episodes, every time with a wheelie. Inuzuka twice within 4 episodes steals a bike and almost runs people over with it, as is perfectly fine for a hero. Don Kaito shows up with his own motorbike to promote his new book, which you should buy. For a show where it's not even in the name and for recent Sentai, there's an awful lot of riding going on.

Yamashita in his post speculates that part of this is Inoue's own habits -- as a man whose Toku experience largely consists of regularly writing for Kamen Rider in the 00s, it's natural to expect he would be inclined to write something like "Inubrother escapes the scene on a motorcycle..." as if it was second nature; as if that's nothing special for a modern show.

And I would be inclined to believe that... as such a habit is something that would likely get ironed out after a while; and sure enough, while bike scenes are frequent for the first half of the show, they disappear entirely from episode 23 to 43. It is at this point in my own count I thought we would simply never see a large bike scene from the show again, and the sheer fun of counting up Donbrothers would be lost.

And then... he appeared.

My saviour from the future.

With a full uninterrupted 1 minute 15 second bike scene

I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I remembered the future episode but I had completely forgotten this was a part of it. When I started timing this episode I was leaving the house fairly shortly and I figured like the past 20 episodes this would be easy enough to count, and I was utterly bewildered. I should never have disbelieved for a moment.

With all that said... where does Donbrothers end up in full?

7m21s (4m23s for Don Momotaro alone)

This overwhelming record easily puts both Donbrothers and Don Momotaro in 20th place of their respective charts; beating all Reiwa Riders and Zi-O -- with Don Momotaro even coming close to dethroning Kamen Rider Decade's riding time!

This is where we stand, my companions. In an era where Kamen Rider's biking time is lower than ever before and shows no sign of significant recovery, Donbrothers swoops in to steal its glory. Never lose faith. The festival never ends

[bogkeep]

once again bravely attempting to continue my readthrough of Robot Book.

when it's not doing backstory exposition, it's actually not so bad. there's a very fun dynamic between the protagonist and another robot who tried to poach her for parts, and who are now forced to work together. like that's genuinely compelling and i want to see where it goes.

Unfortunately the backstory exposition chapters make me wanna scream into a pillow. the book tries to be smart and clever but is deeply unaware of like... people and dynamics that exist in the real world. it could have done many interesting things with the world building, but it can't, because it wants robots that act and speak like cowboys and talk of god and heaven and hell. that could have worked if it had just handwaved the past away and didn't go into the backstory of how we got here. maybe this whole thing is like an alternative history thing a la fallout where the robot revolution happened in the early 1900ds or something, because at this point it's the only thing that could make sense.

weird backstory thing #1:

so the protag, pre apocalypse, belonged to an old man who dies in his sixties. he had a wife twenty years his junior who he had married twenty years prior, which most people in our world acknowledge as Kinda Creepy and Mayhaps A Red Flag. but okay. then we find out that this wife, while admiring how her husband chose to age, used anti-aging technology on herself so that she looked like a twenty-something year old for the duration of the marriage. it is described as "a gift she gave to her husband" which is such a chillingly creepy sentence it literally gives me goosebumps. it's says her husband never asked for it and also that she was not a type to care about what others think. i think this book is trying to portray this as romantic, that she loved her husband deeply and thought of him often and fondly after her death and never remarried. THIS IS KINDA WEIRD RIGHT. like the way it is presented without zero awareness of real life dynamics is weirding me out. will this be brought up later with sinister implications or are we just accepting this????? time will tell.

weird backstory thing #2

i already complained about the robots choosing to have genders despite the robots also not caring about "human values" anymore. this book is from 2017, so i get that it isn't like, particularly aware of transgender philosophies, but it also Could have been. anyway, there was another passage about Robot Gender. with warning for transphobia:

head in hands. didn't even try.

there's so much interesting commentary ripe for the picking but this book just Doesn't. just will not

[veliseraptor]

July Reading Recap

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. I can see why people said this one had Adrian Tchaikovsky vibes because in terms of the worldbuilding and the alien species involved it absolutely did. I was not super enamored of the part of the plot that wasn't on the Tines' world (which was...an important part of the plot), but my investment in the politics of the Tines and the worldbuilding around them made up for it. I'm curious about the apparent sequel and whether it's worth reading - does anybody know?

Thousand Autumns: vol. 5 by Meng Xi Shi. I have finished Thousand Autumns and my verdict on it mostly hasn't changed from what it's been throughout: enjoyable but not really fully clicking for me. I liked it! But I didn't love it, and I don't know that it'll stick with me the way other books have, or compel me to do a reread.

A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome by Emma Southon. Maybe I just don't have a sense of humor, but I felt like this book was trying too hard to be funny/clever and it landed wrong for me. It was interesting, certainly! And I learned some new things from it, and probably will go on to read the author's other book (about women in Ancient Rome), but this one tonally was not a winner, for me personally.

Ballad of Sword and Wine: vol. 1 by Tang Jiu Qing. Rereading this one (Qiang Jin Jiu, they're really going off in their own direction title translation-wise there) with the official published translation even though I am also binding it, because I can, I guess. And I still deeply appreciate how unhinged Shen Zechuan is, but in, like, mostly a way where it's not obvious to most people until they've known him for a little while. Also the sheer amount of politics, which I'm following better on this second readthrough. I think it'll be rewarding to reread.

The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan. One of two Jewish fantasy books I read this month, just by chance (I wasn't intending on a theme, they'd both been on my to-read list for a while). I liked it a lot! I thought it was going to be a stand alone and feel a little funny about it being a series (I'm always looking for more stand alones), but I am also looking forward to more of it.

The Devil & Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession by David Grann. I've really enjoyed the other David Grann books I've read/listened to (The Lost City of Z, Killers of the Flower Moon) but found myself fairly underwhelmed by most of the essays here. It's not that they weren't good (they were) or interesting (most of them were), it just didn't feel like they were that good or that interesting. Maybe I just like his full-length books better.

Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland. It was fine? Not as good as I'd hoped. I called the twist which was satisfying for me personally. I don't know if I'm going to be reading the sequel. Most of the POV characters I liked fairly well, which is the main thing this book had going for it, but one of them bored me to tears and that inflected my enjoyment of the book as a whole.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez. This book earned its five stars by making me cry in the last 20%. Overall a beautiful book, though, relatively quiet; I wasn't sure about it early on but then it hit a turn that really got me. Makes me want to read his other book. The summary on the back really does not do the book justice but I don't actually know how I would explain it better, and I recognize that makes it a difficult recommendation.

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb. This one was really good and a lot of fun. Very Jewish, too, which was enjoyable and not something I run into all that often in fantasy books. Just...very charming, entertaining, a joy to read.

I'm currently reading Godkiller by Hannah Kaner though I should be reading Edenville since I have it checked out from the library (I'll get to it!). I keep meaning to get back to reading more nonfiction (or realistic fiction) and then getting distracted. My plan for upcoming books, though, includes The Ratline, To Shape a Dragon's Breath, and (after years of having it sit on my shelf) Beauty Is a Wound. We'll see how on task I stay or if I end up wandering off to other stuff.

I'm currently looking for horror and mystery/thriller recommendations, though, so if anyone has any of those I will take them.

[paradoxcase]

Gideon the Ninth audiobook, through to the end of Chapter 20

I like Judith's voice, no real comments here

Is the voice she reads the piece of flimsy that has G1deon's name on it in supposed to be Pyrrha's? If so, I'm not really enthused about it. But it might have just been her regular narration voice, too

It sounded like Mayonnaise Uncle was really going to succeed in contacting Abigail before Protesilaus punched him. I figured that was probably the reason later, but I didn't remember how much it definitely was that until hearing it the second time

Also, I'm not sure how I misremembered his voice being low, because the text says his voice is low practically every time he opens his mouth

On this second readthrough I am developing a new conspiracy theory about Teacher. He says that there are monsters in Canaan House repeatedly, but the only monsters we actually encounter are the bone construct that was part of G1deon and Pyrrha's challenge, constructs created by Cytherea, and the devil/zombie thing that possessed Colum. Kiriona will later claim that John didn't know anything about the devil things until very recently, and therefore they wouldn't be something that Teacher would be aware of, and none of the other monsters are of the kind that Teacher describes. When asked why Teacher didn't recognize her, Cytherea later shrugs and says "who knows?" - but would she really have come to Canaan House without at least a plan for keeping Teacher from telling everyone who she was? My new conspiracy theory is that Cytherea came to Canaan House beforehand, and recruited or possibly just reprogrammed Teacher and the priests to support her plans - by telling everyone there were scary monsters in Canaan House that were definitely 100% responsible for the deaths and obviously it wasn't murder. Her murders of the teens even seems to suggest that the monsters are killing people because they're not following Teacher's instructions carefully enough, and Teacher never says anything to the contrary about this. Cytherea seems likely to be the one who destroyed the shuttles, but Teacher surely would have remarked on that, wouldn't he, and probably Teacher has access to do that. Teacher also interrupts the attempt to summon Magnus and Abigail. Teacher says that he lives in fear of the day that the monsters come for him, but being that he's a construct himself I think that can't be true, can it? Anyway, I think Teacher was aiding Cytherea now, and Judith was actually at least partly right

When Judith argues that they should bring in the Cohort, Corona says "This is us, you've come to all our birthday parties", and she is the main one arguing against her. In retrospect, this is a Jodybeth scene. I'm also reminded of how I figured that this stage that Judith was just a filler character to show how the Second House is regarded generally and would never become interesting and was never going to be important again, and oh, how wrong I was

Cytherea claims to Harrow that she doesn't have enough thalergy to get Harrow through the avulsion challenge, but how she would have been proven wrong if Harrow had tried that!

Cytherea says to Gideon: "Remember this and don't let anyone do it to you ever again" about being siphoned. Gideon then proceeds to specifically ask Harrow to siphon her again at not one but two points later in the story

She also says "It's very easy to die, you just let it happen, it's so much worse when it doesn't." I think maybe she feels kinship with Gideon, who she's probably realized by now also can't die, because I think it's pretty clear from this part on the second time through that she did die but it just didn't stick because she is Space Jesus

[artist-issues]

Been a while since we've heard, how did your readthrough of the Harry Potter books go?

Hey! Ho! I forgot to update on that didn't I? My bad!

I haven't worked out all my feelings about it! The last book was so...odd. I felt frustrated through the whole thing. Most of the books felt like you were waiting to figure stuff out—the main characters would try to get information and solve problems and fail or cause more problems in the process, but there was usually some secondary goal they consistently had hope in. Like, maybe Harry Potter can't figure out who's trying to kill him, and has constant setbacks in that. BUT, their secondary goal, winning the Tri-Wizard Cup, is usually...hopeful. They're usually doing well with one of their two main goals, and then the climax happens, and they lose something important, but ultimately ene on a hopeful note. You know, Harry wins the Tri-Wizard Cup, but Voldemort's back and Cedric is dead, that sort of thing.

But. In the conclusion of the series, it felt like the main characters were getting nowhere, in their primary goals AND their secondary goals, for so long. Then the ending, the pacing of it all, felt rushed. And I didn't love the plot device of the Elder Wand, or how in the climax of the book, when Harry is fighting Voldemort, they stop to have like a twenty-minute conversation about all the exposition the reader needs to know to understand how Harry is about to beat him—and Harry was basically insufferable for the whole book.

that was my initial impression. It might age better if I go back and re-read. I definitely like some of the Messianic notes of Harry dying for everybody—then picking his life back up again to defeat the bad guy once and for all.

and they killed Lupin. Which. He's my favorite I thought he had the most interesting "character arc" of any of the adult characters. It seemed like his biggest fear was inadequacy as a father, heightened by the fact that he's a werewolf, so he thought he'd make his son's life harder and more shameful by even being alive...so as part of that interesting character flaw, Lupin tries to kamikaze by going on the run with Harry. Then he goes back and resolves to live with his wife (who he wrestles with the safety of loving) and child (same wrestling match) because being present as a father and husband is the right thing to do, regardless of how difficult it is for you.

And then he dies anyway.

So it's like. What the heck was the point of that? Makes the lesson he, as a character, was teaching, hollow. Like "Living as a good father is harder than dying a martyr—but I'm dead, so I don't have to worry about that, I guess the thought was what counted."

And people will say to me "nooo he was willing to take risks and sacrifice! He sacrificed his life! To make a better world for his son!"

Yeah okay but we already had self-sacrificial love impacting an orphan's life through the death of parents in the main character. Lily and James Potter did that. Already got that lesson. Now tell a story about how just going on and living your life for someone, say to day, especially when it's hard and they might not thank you for it, is also self-sacrificial. I thought that was the mini-story Lupin's character was telling, on the side of the main plot. But then no, Rowling just repeats herself. She just starts an interesting thing and then finishes it in the least-interesting way.

I feel like one of the basics of storytelling is "create a character that needs to learn something. Then put them through the hardest circumstances so that they're forced to change into what they need to learn." Dying in battle was not Lupin's hardest circumstance. You know what would've been? Killing Tonks, his wife, so that he's forced to raise their son alone and still stay—or keeping them both alive, but Lupin's curse is worse than ever after the battle. Or just simply keeping them both alive, and putting a little nod in the epilogue to how Harry's kids defend Lupin's son from bullies, and it's hinted at that society still doesn't accept werewolves and their lives aren't perfect, but they're all sticking around for each other.

I mean you don't even get to have Tonks react to Lupin's death. And the only Weasley that was killed was one of the twins—don't get me wrong, that's still horrible. But if you're trying to make a point about the losses of war, kill a character who is one-of-a-kind to the audience...not one-of-two.

Also, the thing with Snape and Lily didn't hit. Haven't analyzed why, yet. There's something to be learned about showing and telling there. I mean, what the author showed me for seven books was a mean and nasty man who loved nothing. I experienced it with Harry. I tasted the sting of the insults and the cruel remarks and the unfairness. For seven books. You know what's less powerful? A handful of pages quickly info-dumping the idea that no, he was in love and acting out of unrequited love all along. Like anti-heroic Snape is a compelling idea to be told about, but it's not nearly as strong as the experience of being shown villainous Snape, moment by moment, book by book.

Same thing with Dumbledore's emotional reveal of his own history. Like. Okay. But you only just now told me I should care about Dumbledore's family, in the last half of the last book. I don't feel as badly about him and his family as I would've if you'd slowly shown me who they were, even in memory, for the last seven books—like she did super well with Lily and James and Sirius.

anyway. Those are my half-baked thoughts. I was also...running a super high fever and reading the last few chapters at 1 in the morning, at the time. So they're super underdone thoughts. Thanks for asking!

[bethanydelleman]

Northanger Abbey Readthrough Ch 25

Catherine might have missed like 99% of Henry Tilney's flirting, but she has an inkling it has happened, maybe, "He had—she thought he had, once or twice before this fatal morning, shown something like affection for her."

Which is why I love this meme so much:

Again, Catherine touches upon Marianne Dashwood behaviour but she just can't really commit, "But now—in short, she made herself as miserable as possible for about half an hour, went down when the clock struck five, with a broken heart, and could scarcely give an intelligible answer to Eleanor’s inquiry if she was well." However, by the end of the evening and with Henry being kinder than ever, she has recovered. she had nothing to do but to forgive herself and be happier than ever; and the lenient hand of time did much for her by insensible gradations in the course of another day. She does indeed bounce back quickly!

Catherine reflects that in England at least, the type of villains described by Mrs. Radcliff must not exist. She doesn't go so far as to pardon France and Switzerland from containing such evil, but she's pretty sure about her own country. She also believes that while Henry and Eleanor may not be perfect (never!), she's certain that General Tilney has some "specks" in his character. Well you've come a long way girl, we won't ask for more just yet.

Murder was not tolerated, servants were not slaves, and neither poison nor sleeping potions to be procured, like rhubarb, from every druggist.

Quick, someone tell Shakespeare!

Now Catherine's thoughts return to Bath, but she has no news. Her faithful friend has proved unfaithful again: But Isabella had promised and promised again; and when she promised a thing, she was so scrupulous in performing it! Oh Catherine...

Not as bad as her brother though! Poor Thorpe is in town: I dread the sight of him; his honest heart would feel so much. Honest heart! That man doesn't have an honest cell in his entire body! I would have more hope for James if we knew he finally figured out John, but the only hint we have is this: the failure of a very recent endeavour to accomplish a reconciliation between Morland and Isabella. So James and John met again and John tried to get them back together, but whether James rejected both siblings or just one is unknown.

I really feel for Catherine here, she has to sit through breakfast trying not to cry, then cannot return to her room because it is being cleaned (bedrooms in this era were mostly for dressing and sleeping, so she wouldn't be expected to use her room again until 4pm*), tries the drawing room only to discover the Tilney siblings, but then they kindly leave her to herself. Catherine needs another half hour (her magical sad-feeling time) before she can face them.

This line from Catherine is so very Jane Bennet:

"Could you have believed there had been such inconstancy and fickleness, and everything that is bad in the world?”

What a stroke was this for poor Jane, who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind as was here collected in one individual! -Pride & Prejudice, of Wickham

The poor girls, having their eyes opened to the wickedness of the world.

Then this part:

This post by Fira Wren playing in my head. His kids know the General is full of it. Eleanor is surprised her older brother has fallen in love, since it seems he never has been before, which again has Henry Crawford vibes.

No, not very. I do not believe Isabella has any fortune at all: but that will not signify in your family. Your father is so very liberal! He told me the other day that he only valued money as it allowed him to promote the happiness of his children.” The brother and sister looked at each other.

Now the reason that Isabella Thorpe would lose in a battle to the death against Lucy Steele and Lady Susan is that she didn't keep her first man secure until she had the next engagement entirely locked down. Rookie movie Izzy! I have too good an opinion of Miss Thorpe’s prudence to suppose that she would part with one gentleman before the other was secured. Isabella just could not manage two men at once.

I love this interaction:

This line from Catherine too, "I never was so deceived in anyone’s character in my life before.” and Henry's response: “Among all the great variety that you have known and studied.” has so much in common with this interaction in Pride & Prejudice:

“But perhaps,” observed Catherine, “though she has behaved so ill by our family, she may behave better by yours. Now she has really got the man she likes, she may be constant.” “Indeed I am afraid she will,” replied Henry; “I am afraid she will be very constant, unless a baronet should come in her way; that is Frederick’s only chance. I will get the Bath paper, and look over the arrivals.”

“I did not know before,” continued Bingley, immediately, “that you were a studier of character. It must be an amusing study.” “Yes; but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least that advantage.” “The country,” said Darcy, “can in general supply but few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society.” “But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.”

Henry also manages to tip us off about his intentions to marry Catherine right under Catherine's oblivious nose!

"Prepare for your sister-in-law, Eleanor, and such a sister-in-law as you must delight in! Open, candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple, forming no pretensions, and knowing no disguise.”

“Such a sister-in-law, Henry, I should delight in,” said Eleanor with a smile.

Catherine also realizes that she feels much less sad about losing Isabella than she thought she would, which Henry tells her to think about. The falseness of Isabella's friendship is dawning on Catherine, perhaps now just unconsciously.

*Quote illuminating this point from Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, spoke by a character who would have been young during the Regency era: 'No, no, Cromer: bedrooms are for sleeping in, and sitting-rooms are for sitting in. Keep everything to its right purpose, and don't try and delude me into nonsense.' Why, my mother would have given us a fine scolding if she had ever caught us in our bedrooms in the daytime. We kept our out-door things in a closet downstairs; and there was a very tidy place for washing our hands, which is as much as one wants in the daytime.

[torrentialstardust]

TOUHOU TIME: YUUGI BEING ALL STRONG AND STUFF

This was finished a while back, I think towards the end of March (which now that I write it I have emotions about!) and I'm really proud of how it turned out! I think the initial inspiration back in February or January was just drawing a buffer woman. I think I can improve with that to some extent, but I wasn't trying to go for ripped, more swole, and I think I brought a nice energy to her.

I was initially just trying to draw Yuugi herself but I ended up finding a pic of the wrestler Rhea Ripley which I liked the pose of, and she was stepping on another woman in the photo so I decided to draw Marisa here too!

I also realised that since Yuugi had two major costumes this would be a great opportunity to flex my alt skills! I definitely think Yuugi looks better both in terms of her base looks and her alts, and it was really wonderful getting to design new alts for her. Some of the alts for her T-Shirt costume were based on her sprites in a MUGEN character pack, but all of the Robe alts were mine, I really like what I managed to do. I even had one alt representing Kasen Ibaraki! This was fun to do, and I hope to do more pieces with alts in future. The Umineko stuffs, I haven't really done that much, although I am gonna be posting a new piece based on that tomorrow so look alive!

I think after my uni course it was a little difficult to muster up any desire to draw, so it's nice looking back and seeing myself be able to draw at a pretty fast clip again! Part of that is cos that Umineko readthrough is motivating me to get pieces done faster but also it wouldn't work if I didn't already have the beans to do it. It's nice to remember why I'm doing this, why I love art.

Anywho! Upcoming is that Umineko piece I alluded to and I've also applied for that Seasons of Gensokyo zine so I'll hopefully have something in association with them soon! Comms open as usual, and I hope you have a wonderful day! <3

[pixelgrotto]

D&D Deconstruction, via Goblins

Around the end of last year I made the decision to get into Goblin Slayer, and I've now gone through every chapter of the manga released in English, including all of the spin-offs. I've also skimmed parts of the light novels and anime, and I even did a readthrough of the Goblin Slayer roleplaying game with my buddy Daniel of Asians Represent, mostly to see how well it translated bits and pieces of Sword World, the most popular fantasy TTRPG in Japan.

In short, I know the franchise well by this point, and I like it, which is not what I expected. In fact, I steered clear of Goblin Slayer for years because of its reputation. If you're unaware, when the anime adaptation came out in 2018, it turned heads for depicting sexual violence in the very first episode. Basically, newbie adventurers go down into a dungeon, attempt to fight some goblins, and suffer terrible consequences, with the women of the party facing the sort of fate you might expect. It's a plot point intended to communicate to the viewer how awful goblins are in this world, and it also offers justification for the titular Goblin Slayer to show up on the scene to save the only survivor, Priestess. Goblin Slayer kills all of the goblins responsible for the attack, and he even goes the extra mile to unearth a hiding spot of goblin children. When Priestess shows some reservations at slaughtering kids, Goblin Slayer remarks that there's no such thing as a good goblin before stomping the little ones to bits.

In case you didn't know, Goblin Slayer is based on Kumo Kagyu's Dungeons & Dragons adventures. There's probably some influence sneaking in from Sword World, Tunnels & Trolls, and Wizardry, since those are the often-cited building blocks of Western fantasy tropes in Japan, but D&D is definitely at the forefront of the recipe. And knowing that Goblin Slayer evolved from D&D is what made me want to read it. (Well, that and the main character's armor design - dare I say that GobSlayer possesses one of the simplest yet coolest armors in all of existence.)

However, when I run D&D myself, I always say that all three of the things that this franchise begins with (bioessentialism, sexual violence, and violence against kids) are off-limits. So why does Goblin Slayer get a begrudging pass from me?

It's probably because I see the series as a meta analysis of D&D, right down to the tendency of most Dungeon Masters to get needlessly edgy with their campaign story arcs. Put another way, this is a 3.5e campaign where the star player has min/maxed himself around only one thing: the best possible build required to kill goblins. He's somehow managed to gain 15 levels by doing this, and he comes up with incredible battle strategies that the rest of his party quickly fall in line with. Every time I see GobSlayer pull off some ridiculous tactic to take down a foe, like the time when he links a portal scroll to the bottom of the ocean and proceeds to unleash the raging tides of the sea against an ogre, I can't help but shake my head and mutter to myself, "Damn, that's cool."

Then there's the more obvious fan service. And I don't mean "fan service" in the sense of pantsu shots or big boobed femmes, though Goblin Slayer does have a lot of that. (Hi, Cow Girl, childhood friend of the main character.) No, I'm talking about the fantasy roleplaying fan service. For instance, GobSlayer and his buddies fight creatures out of every edition of the Monster Manual. There are obviously goblins up the wazoo, but you can also expect beholders, drow, liches, oni, and even a mythologically-accurate tarasque, which shows up in Goblin Slayer: Year One.

There’s also a dungeon crawling aspect as GobSlayer and his party systematically plan out their roles and tactics everytime they delve into a hole in the ground. There's constant talk of who needs to be in the "frontline" and "backline," which are terms right out of Sword World, and Dwarf Shaman and Priestess are often chatting about how they can only use their spells a select number of times a day, which is that Vancian magic we all know and love/hate. Dai Katana, a franchise prequel that tells the story of a samurai and his comrades, outright feels like Etrian Odyssey in how it systemically shows the party tackling a megadungeon level by level, mapping as they go. (This does get repetitive over time, and I liked Dai Katana the least out of all the Goblin Slayer spinoffs. The characters have cool designs though, especially the mantis-like myrmidon dude.)

Finally, there's the idea that GobSlayer's realm, the Four-Cornered World, is a literal four-cornered game board lorded over by "gods" who are just enjoying a cosmic tabletop campaign. The more you read, the more this becomes clear. Everyone's referred to by their class or job titles rather than their names, after all, and a major arc in Year One involves GobSlayer assisting a mage who wants to enter the realm of the gods and "travel beyond the game board." After the pair ascend to the top of a seemingly endless tower (I do dig a reverse dungeon crawl that goes skyward rather than downwards), the mage disappears as her role in the campaign narrative that the "gods" have developed presumably ends. And last but not least, GobSlayer himself is constantly referred to as an average miniature on the battle map who somehow took on a life of his own by surviving whatever threats the cosmic GMs tossed at him. "He does not let anyone roll the dice," the tagline for the franchise goes.

I love all of this stuff. Maybe I'm giving Goblin Slayer too much credit, but I see this series as a deconstruction of what it means to sit at a table and imagine lives and stories for a diverse cast of characters, riffing off of fantasy concepts first assembled by Gary Gygax and his contemporaries back in the 70s. I can't be that off-base with this assumption, seeing as how characters in Goblin Slayer regularly "curse Gygax" when stuff goes wrong.

But just as Gary Gygax had questionable views when it came to a wide variety of things (like women, for instance), Goblin Slayer's got icky bits that can't be swept under the rug. This is a franchise that depicts female victims in titillating poses when they’re being abused. Goblin Slayer isn't alone in this regard - plenty of other seinen manga exhibit this nasty habit, including fan-favorites like Berserk - but it feels all the more annoying here because Goblin Slayer presents its assault scenes mostly at the very beginning for the sheer sake of shock value. As the series goes on, sexual violence disappears from the narrative almost entirely, as if Kumo Kagyu and his collaborators realized that it shouldn't have been emphasized in the first place. Instead, we're left with an interesting tale about GobSlayer moving through trauma (his family was killed by goblins when he was a kid, you see) and slowly learning how to feel again as he surrounds himself with the found family that is an RPG party. That's a good story, and a heartwarming one. Unfortunately, it's buried under a veneer that will likely turn many away.

I can't blame anyone for noping out of Goblin Slayer due to the sexual violence. I also can't blame anyone who doesn't play TTRPGs for not fully understanding the appeal of witnessing GobSlayer and his buddies strategize about the best way to defeat hobgoblins. But personally speaking, Goblin Slayer hit me in some good places, warts and all. I was fully prepared to write the franchise off as grimdark schlock, but it surprised me - and after reading up on some of its contemporaries, like Redo of Healer (which really is schlock) I'm further convinced that the series is smarter than it appears. It's just a shame that the smart bits are held back by the same problematic tropes that often cause D&D itself to falter. (Remember that whole orc discourse from 2020?)

For better or for worse, Goblin Slayer is representative of all sides of traditional tabletop roleplaying: the critical successes that celebrate imagination and comraderie, the critical failures that dehumanize women and veer too far into edgelord territory, and everything in between. The franchise has its problems, for sure, but there are moments when it shines - just like the glint of a well-painted miniature resting on the edge of a four-cornered game board.

[makima-s-most-smile]

Trigun Maximum 6.2

Okay, okay... I shall take a tumblr-break until I finally catch up to the bookclub and finish the other two pieces for it. Mmmmmaybe... We'll see how strong my determination is

Trigun Ultimate: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 Trigun Maximum: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2, 6.1, 6.2, 7.1, 7.2, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 9.1, 9.2, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5

04: Death Omen

*looks at the frontpage, sees Knives* I mean, the title of the chapter is not untrue.

Auditory overstimulation… I feel you, Knives. (Never thought I would write that) But it gives you the feeling that Knives is so close to lashing out. When was the last time he was in such a mass of people? July? And current Knives is so much more unhinged than July-Knives, and even that dude was already off the handle.

Conrad, Conny. YOU have no right to be that stressed out. Knives being alive is YOUR fault. You gave him a new body. Hell, you are the reason that Vash unleashed the angel arm in the first place. 

Elendira… just there for the slaughter. Girl, I wanna dissect you. (affectionately)

Comparing to the other towns we have seen, this one looks really big! *looks how the chapter progresses* Oh… Oh NO! NIGHTOW!

Me, when I get to talk to someone about Trigun. I am the opposite of hinged.

And explanation why Vash was especially wanted for the murder of Vasquez. As a plant engineer he was pretty important for the continuation of the human race. At least this Conrad does not seem like… well… *stares at Stampede* *stares harder* Someday I'll make an OC that is German and kicks him in the nuts and asks him if he didn't learn anything from the past... Someday... *whispers*

*looks back to Trigun Ultimate 1* Yeah, 50 plants still seems a bit steep, but not that steep anymore. Also, ewewewewewew, that looks like they produce big pieces of chicken breast. Just imagine a fucking raw chicken breast plopping out of this cloaca-like apparatus

Does Knives reach out to hurt plants like Vash does? He seems to be in the city for his dying sister. That shows at least some kind of care for his kind, more than he has spared to Vash. Then again, Vash has the ability to say no. Knives cares for his sisters. I overread it in my first readthrough. They don’t have a voice and they don’t have a choice, but he cares for their physical wellbeing. That is more than I assumed. 

Well, at least Knives is okay with Conrad experimenting on him. Yay for Conrad having consent from ONE of the twins he experimented on? Weeee?

What is the timeline here? When did Conrad join Knives? He still looks like in his 30-40s. So he has to be 190 years old now? How? Knives got to Conrad before July and after parting from Vash. Why does Conrad realise that Knives is beyond sanity just now? Knives was a big player for the July-catastrophe. Conrad was there. If Conrad didn’t… make a new body for Knives, Knives would be gone. All of what happened since Jeneora Rock is partly Conrad’s fault and it starts to dawn on him just NOW?!

Whatever happened, the researcher holds the plants in high regard. He is grateful for her service. And he is right with pointing out that humanity’s situation forces them to exploit the plants. But they are also just delaying the inevitable. Less plants means more stress on the living plants, which leads to more plants dying. The only resource for anything is plants. Humanity is on their last legs. Then again, could the plants even survive without the humans? It is a symbiosis that has lost its balance.

How has Knives never heard of last runs before? Like, dude, you feel when your sister is in bad shape. WTF?!

Does Conrad know that Knives caused the Great Fall? Knives is one of the main reasons WHY his sisters are exploited. He is one of the main reasons that humanity lost so much knowledge and technology that they do not know how to care for his sisters. There is nothing to forgive. Knives has to eat the bitter consequences of his actions. Not that he is able to.

YOU COULD HAVE JUST NOT GIVEN HIM A NEW BODY?! With that in mind, this whole betrayal just falls so flat for me. 

But like Rem, Conrad is dealing with regrets. That’s why he wants Knives to have a normal life. That’s why he offers to stay with him, in a way sacrificing himself to Knives. This Conrad here is a much softer man than the Stampede Conrad ever was. This does not absolve him from anything. But this man at least tries to take some responsibility for his actions and how they affect others. Something, something, repentance/atonement. Well, except for Vash. Conrad says “Fuck Vash”

Knives cares about Vash. It is twisted love. He doesn’t care for Vash as a person, but there is some care in him. He doesn’t want his brother to die. He wants his brother to shut up and run after him like a mindless drone, praising Knives and thus erasing his insecurities.

Yeah, not gonna lie, this chapter really was death omen like...

05: Colourless Expression

And the frontpage shows Vash smiling. Man…

Milly is so good with kids! So cute!

But the content is also important. Too much colours causes everything to become grey, too many things happening, cause even the strongest person to break.

I love the page. Vash does his best to keep up his facade, but he is starting to crack. His companions start to realise this. They see his depression.

I kinda wanted Wolfwood to preach in the church. Gimme more priestwood. q-q For having faith, hope and guilt such an important part of his character, we do not get much of it.

Going to church to receive some kind of forgiveness. But christianity is more about guilt and sin than true forgiveness, at least how it is preached. The only person who can forgive Vash is Vash himself. But he has been a martyr his whole life, he will never forgive himself. Loss, guilt and punishment makes him. The scars on his body are there for that very reason. Vash even tries to atone for things he didn’t cause, like losing Rem. And now one important detail was ripped from him, the detail that made him different from Knives. Having killed in anger, be it by pointing the gun towards Knives while losing control or actively shooting Knives and losing the whole of July as consequence.

And the next page counters Vash’ true face with the face on the wanted poster, the face he uses for people around him. That’s harsh.

Is that Ozzy Osbourne?!

And ruined meal Nr.4. Let WooWoo eat in peace! Though, his annoyed faces bring me life. I giggled like a little girl at this. This is one of my favourite scenes. Let this guy have some peace, please. (I will come to regret this sentence.)

Thank you! I am terrified. This is sinister.

Alcohol! 

Vash is pretty dependent on alcohol and this scene drives it home. Vash is seen sleeping drunkenly more than once. We see him eat alone with a full bottle of high percentage alcohol next to him. Heck I went through the volumes, even in the first chapter at his introduction he ate with a full bottle of high percentage alcohol next to him. And there are more than a few panels of those meals. There is one scene in the first town, where Vash fakes being drunk. So it is open to interpretation if he reaches his breaking point in this volume and his coping habit becomes dangerous or if he has been dependent on alcohol before remembering July. But Vash can become drunk and he has not the ability to sober up by plant biology. He becomes sloppy. If not his senses/reaction time, then at least his control over his plant powers. Like we see soon.

Wolfwood… We don’t see him drink as much as Vash. Or *I just went through the volumes* We don’t see him drink over excess at all. *stares at ‘98 Wolfwood* You are the reason why I think he drinks overly excessive, too! There is one scene where he has a beer can at his side when eating. Then the second nightmare scene, where he did not even open the bottle, though the shot glass was filled. And he does not open it even after leaving the pub. Begs the question, why? Does he use alcohol purely to socialise with others? Or is he too aware of him having less control over his body/himself when he is drunk and is scared of losing that control?

Everything becomes grey. Vash is unable to see anything good right now. He only sees his pain and how nothing makes it better. The old granny has no reason to forgive him. But he doesn’t need her forgiveness either. But Vash is not there, he may never be there.

But Vash, honey, you look like this to others, because you constantly mask like this. Even your friends aren't wiser than the common folk. If you bottle everything up and swallow everything, no one knows what you really look like, no one will see your pain or help you address it. Meryl wants to help you, but you blocked her off, as you did with Wolfwood and surely did with Milly. This is a hell of your own making (not considering the random people but Vash' personal relationships)

And then the loudspeakers bring all back down to Knives. Knives is the reason for Vash’ pain. And Vash is less and less able to avoid him. He has to confront him soon. But all is grey.

I don’t get that scene. That can’t be Vash that shoots. Is it Wolfwood? Is that why he is angry? Because he has to jump in for Vash again?

And there it is. Maximum grey, Vash at a lowpoint. (Don’t worry, that’s not the lowest :3) Sloppy due to being drunk and being unable to control his power. Though it saves his life.

As much as Vash is latently suicidal, I do not think he only shudders because of the uncontrolled outburst of power.

He is also scared of himself. Meryl, too. Not only Vash reaches his low point, Meryl reaches her breaking point, too. And I can totally feel with her. Wolfwood tried to talk to her, but it was about saving her hide not about what she lived through. Milly is there for her, but I did not see them talking or reflect upon what happened. And Vash? As if. Meryl is alone with her pain like Vash. She is rightfully afraid and now her body forces her to start and take her own mental health seriously. And rightfully so, til this point she was about Vash and his pain. But her pain is right there and rightfully so!

That’s how group mentality works. No one is interested in the truth. No one cares about Vash. He is just othered.

Just ouch. At least Wolfwood tries to comfort Vash? In his very... Wolfwood-way?

06: Seeds voyaging to the stars, a world inside a pot

Oh, it is flashback time. I hope we get something to smile about.

Yeah, Elendira is right. Now Knives is a rat in a corner. Those are dangerous.

Just, damn, girl. Elendira is the kind of nihilist that is like: The world burns and I make smores. She has no real care for others, she is not affected by the end of humanity, this is a game for her to watch. If humanity survives or not, she doesn't care, she just wants it to be interesting.

I didn’t get that it was such a clean cut that it reflects like a mirror the first time reading this.

There are so many bulbs of plants left, just sitting there. Considering their importance, why is no one recovering them? Eh, most likely Vash and Wolfwood were there too quickly for the scavengers to have made their presence known.

Former street kid Wolfwood knows grifters and has no patience for their money grabbing nonsense.

Does Vash realise that the echo represents Conrad? Or is it just a random dude that his brother angrily kills in front of him? But Vash immediately connects their sisters death to Tesla.

Is that Rem talking or one of the twins? But anyway. “Mood”, says the formerly autistic child that learned facial expression due to Sailor Moon.

I… dunno. Vash is so very aware that he is not Rem’s kid, that he is different. He is distanced even from Rem. This is not a mother-child relationship at all. More like weird roommates that you try to teach being responsible people at the same time. 

Vash is thankful for Rem’s care, but his thanks reads so much like he assumes she will reject them every second, like he is that different. (So accidentally autism coded.)

Rem did so much in that year. She was truly thrown into a situation that no one could prepare her for and the twins… She was not ready for this.

Vash is so aware of their differences to humans. He is so distanced from everyone. And here is Knives, cute, naive and hopeful. Makes me sad

And that’s why you need parental advisory. No kid should watch these kind of things! The little fears and doubts Knives has get just blown out of prorpotion like this. He is left alone, thinking, and that never ends well with someone anxious.

Oh, hindsight is 20/20. Knives looks sus, but only if you know.

[silverstoryteller]

Here we go, part one of my Dark Rise readthrough! Beware, as this series will include spoilers for both Dark Rise and Dark Heir. I have read the Captive Prince trilogy, so I was already pretty sure I'd love it once I did read it, but I put it off for a while until I was ready to get into a new fandom. (And also until the second book came out.) I did manage to avoid almost all spoilers going in; I knew from reviews that there was a twist at the end, and knowing Pacat, it was going to be a good one. Ditto, the romance: I knew there was a dark-haired protagonist with a bitchy blond love interest and that their names were Will and James but, crucially, not which was which. I also had the cover of the sequel to go off of, which did influence my theories just a bit.

So, knowing the above plus the summary of the first book, I made a pre-book prediction: The twist was going to be that the supposed Chosen One was going to turn out to be the big bad, or related to him, and that it would turn out he was aware of this the entire time. And yeah, I was pretty much spot on, wasn't I? It's a testament to Pacat's skill as a writer that by the time I got to the twist, it still surprised me that I turned out to be right. I had been leaning more toward Will being related to the Dark King, not being him. I wasn't sure Pacat would actually go that far, but oh boy, I loved being wrong!

This post will cover the Prologue and the first chapter.

Prologue

First of all, the map is very nice. I did notice there’s no indication of Bowhill on it, which, I realize it’s likely outside the bounds of this map, but I’d still like an indication of which direction it's in, but oh well.

Confession time, the first time I read this book, I vaguely remembered that one of the main couple was named James, but I got it in my head somehow that that was the name of the MC, not the bitchy blond LI. So I read this entire prologue under the impression that James was the protagonist, and all I thought was, ‘Wow, Pacat sure is bold, introducing a flash forward that shows her MC being a total asshole. I figured he’d turn out to be an edgy bad boy by the end, but this is a lot more than I was expecting!’

Then I got to Chapter One and Will’s introduction and, ‘Oh, nevermind, I’m just dumb.’

I did catch on during my first read that James was formerly with the Stewards, so I wasn't shocked when that was revealed later.

“He said the words like there was a system of honor in the world, like all you had to do was appeal to a person’s better nature and goodness would prevail.” I bet that's exactly what smol James tried to do when he got kicked out of the Hall, and now I'm sad.

‘“The boy’s alive.” James felt hotly resentful that it made him stop.’ I do wonder why, at this point, James seems invested in a boy he hasn’t even met yet. Is he that invested in Simon's plans at this point? I have a half-baked theory about it, but I’ll talk about that in one of the later chapters.

Chapter One

Will! <3 Despite my pre-book prediction, I got taken in by Pacat’s misdirection pretty early on, so a lot of his sneakiness in the early chapters went right over my head. Look at him, saving a stranger from a totally random accident that occurred because somebody didn't do their job right, I’m sure it's a coincidence that tying the ropes was Will’s job and that's the part that just so happened to break and lose all of Simon's cargo. What a sweet boy! (No, but seriously, he must have felt so guilty that he almost got an innocent person killed.)

Also, I found myself thinking about the details of barges during my first readthrough, and I realized that, hey, I’d never once wondered about how they stopped river barges so they didn't run into the docks in the 1800s in my life, but now I know, and that's neat! I love it when authors flex about all the research they did before writing their novel.

“Accidents were common on the docks. Just last week Will had seen a plodding draft horse shy unexpectedly as it pulled a barge along the canals, breaking its ropes and overturning its boat.” Pacat's got me so paranoid now that I'm half convinced Will caused this accident too.

Hey, are we ever going to find out what's up with the mirror, or is Will literally just hallucinating his past life onto a convenient surface?

[cordycepsfem]

Pageboy Readthrough, Part Three

Previously

EP goes on a date (that she does not describe fully which irritated me because it's lazy writing)

during said date she's asked "when did you know" which means "when did you start liking things traditionally done/enjoyed by boys/men but can also definitely totally be done by girls/women as well"

EP says "four" which is not a thing

this leads to a very long and trying chapter about how EP did things that again, you can do if you are a girl, or if you are actually just a child of either sex

EP tries to make friends

EP has a boyfriend; they get called "f slurs" by teenagers and EP revels in being thought of as a boy (note: she just has a short haircut)(also second note: who revels in being called a slur? Jesus)

there is a lengthy discourse about a boat explosion in 1917 Halifax which is tangentially related to things being discussed in the chapter but interested me enough to go learn more about it today

EP refers to Halifax's gay community in 1917 as "queer" and your reviewer ended the night before she put her fist through the wall of her very, very hot apartment

You can now find previous parts of this readthrough here.

Now

Chapter Four

EP and her mom move to a new home

it is nice; people do normal people things there

Not a boy.

EP talks about playing in the bathtub with action figures; again, this is a thing that all kids did

her mom supports her imaginative play

EP has a crush on the girl in Honey I Shrunk the Kids

EP's mom is a good teacher

together they watch hockey and eat Canadian food (ketchup chips burned my tongue off last year when I visited but hey nobody's perfect)

There is a three-paragraph stint here that got me in the chest.

So let's talk this one through. A female child didn't like wearing restrictive clothing that female children are made to wear. Tights are awful no matter if you think you're a boy or not. No one should wear them. (I am correct on this and I do not take notes.) Dresses are confining and most girls are told to not do certain things when you're in them. Your humble reviewer wore dresses almost every single day throughout her childhood so she climbed trees, rode her bicycle, went wading, performed science experiments, jumped rope, hid during hide and seek, went sledding, and played any number of other games and sports in them. Was I told to stop, to be more feminine, to be a young lady, to be more "modest"? Yes. Would it have been easier in pants? Fuck yes. But I wasn't going to stop doing the things I wanted because I was wearing dresses and tights.

"Boy as friends should have been over"? What? Is there an age where one cannot be friends with a boy? It must be older than 36, because I am younger than 36 and still friends with many boys. They are now called men, of course, but I have had friends who were boys for all of my childhood and teenage years and my Catholic mother didn't find that strange. (After all, Jesus had many friends who were boys, and many friends who were girls.)

Mothers sometimes want things for you that you don't want but they want. It is okay to let go of those things. It is okay to start to forge your own path. Wear dresses when they want, once a year or whatever. Play nice. Take it off as soon as you can. Learn to negotiate "nice pants and a sweater" into the equation as soon as you can. It doesn't mean you're a boy.

And EP's Mom - who sounds a lot like my mom on this topic - was right - being someone who is GNC or who is even a bit different (for instance, someone who might be a closeted lesbian) is going to make your life more difficult, because kids are assholes who believe strongly in pattern recognition so any outlier is going to be attacked. My huge imaginary world was built to protect me from all of the bullying I received. I was happiest alone because no one bullied me there. I still wasn't a boy. I was just a weird kid who would one day realize she was a lesbian.

EP says she has never doubted her mom's love for her

but she feels like her mom didn't know how to say "no" to things that were harmful and her mom made her conform because she didn't know what else to do

EP tells a story about trips she and her mom would take to a beach where they did things like enjoy the natural scenery and pretend they had walkie talkies

it leads to this

This is why thirty-somethings have no business writing memoirs, and it's only half-because of the sappy dramatic writing. EP, you are still free. You can still have any kind of relationship with your mom you want. You can even make your relationship better.

EP liked snow days

she and her mom went to Tim Hortons and got hot beverages

sledding was also nice and leads to further fanciful writing

I'm getting to a point in this book where I'm honestly wondering how it's going to end. And I don't mean that in a a negative way (although there are times when I'm reading that I have to physically push on my lips because I feel like I'm wading through molasses trying to make sense of it all), but in the way that EP and I come from not dissimilar backgrounds, had not dissimilar childhoods, and - so far - have similar feelings about those things, and I need to know how it gets from Point A to Point B. We both came out as lesbians, we both have gender dysphoria. I want to know what the justification was for the massive body modification and a trans identity over therapy, or if EP's going to talk about therapy at all. I want to know how she settled on leaving her wife. I want to know if she thinks of herself as straight.

I can honestly only read one or two chapters a night because some of this hurts - it feels too close to home. I am understanding how someone like EP, like me, like a lot of weird and maybe undiagnosed girls, gets to a point where "not being a girl" is the best choice. I want to know what the tipping point is.

[semper-legens]

73. Deathless Divide, by Justina Ireland

Owned?: No, library Page count: 561 My summary: Jane McKeene and Katherine Deveraux barely escaped Summertown with their lives. The scientist's vaccine didn't work, the dead overtook their new haven, and now they're back on the road again. But what new dangers lurk way out West? On a mission of revenge, hated and feared for her newfound reputation, is Jane losing all the parts of herself that mattered? And will Katherine ever find a place that she can settle and feel at home? My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

Remember this? It's been a while since I last read Dread Nation, a story of an 1880s America overrun by the undead and the black girls taught to fight and defend society, but it stuck in my head. And I discovered that not only was there a sequel, but the sequel was in fact extremely accessible to me. And so, I ordered it. I had worried that the length of time since my last readthrough of the prior book would hamper any potential enjoyment of this one - but, to my glee, I found much of it coming back to me as I cracked on with it. And, of course, the book itself did a good job of reminding me of what I might have forgotten, which is always great to see in a sequel. It did not disappoint, and I'm gonna tell you why under the cut!

Unlike the previous book, which was solely narrated by Jane, this book alternates chapters between Jane and Katherine, which I liked - Katherine in this book rises from major secondary character to full-blown deuteragonist. Still, let's talk about Jane first. Remember what I was saying last time, about how your protagonist doesn't have to be a saint? I feel like Jane in this book is a good reflection of that. Per the first book, she was always blunt, practical, and no-nonsense, but after the fall of the town they were in, losing her lover, and surviving a shambler bite, Jane becomes 'the Devil's Bride', a legendary bounty hunter with a twisted sense of justice. She makes no secret of the fact that she prefers to deliver her bounties dead, and they aren't exactly in the best condition before she dispatches them. She drives people away because of her all-encompassing need for revenge. And yet, we as the audience have been with her for one and a half books at this point. We've grown to know and love her, and to understand what she's been through and why she becomes the person that she becomes in this book. So while her actions are less than ethical, we understand why she is doing them, and as such, she retains our sympathies. Which is a hard line to walk! It was entirely possible that Jane could have tipped over into being unlikeable here, but she doesn't, she keeps her charm and her wit and her charisma even when she's hit rock bottom. It's some neat writing.

Meanwhile, Katherine gets narration for the first time here, and I really liked seeing her perspective. She interested me in the first book - a girl who can pass as white, who is nonetheless in danger from the racism endemic to this setting. She's prim and proper, but that's partially her training as an Attendant and partially a sort of respectability politics - she can be seen as being respectable, unlike Jane whose dark skin leads her to be dismissed by white society, and so she uses politeness and 'decency' as a shield. It's her armour, the same way that Jane's blunt and abrasive personality is her armour. Katherine walks a fine balance between trying to temper Jane's harshness and trying not to let herself go the same way, keep hold of all she knows herself to be in the face of immense trials. She reveals a bit more about herself; she's from New Orleans, the daughter of a sex worker who wanted nothing more than to be out of that environment. Now she's a killer of the undead, but she wants a quiet, settled life. In the turmoil that is the zombie-ridden US, who can blame her? She makes a perfect foil for Jane, just as stubborn and pig-headed but in a different direction, and she's very easy to love.

This setting continues to be intriguing. We see how racist myths perpetuate despite all common sense to the contrary - Jane often remarks that white people love to say that black people are immune to the zombie virus, a clear echo of the 'black people have higher pain tolerance' myth of the real world. There's a very credible sense of survival being scratched out on the margins, of the desperation as our heroes run from town to town trying to stay ahead of the hoardes. And the consequences for any missteps are severe. Jackson (spoiler!) dies on the road, and while Jane's shambler bite doesn't lead to her death thanks to the vaccine, she does lose an arm and struggles for the rest of the book to accommodate the injury. She isn't helpless, but there's still a realistic fallout from it. Characters come and go, alliances are formed and broken, and midway through the book there is a very effective year-and-a-half timeskip so we can see what time and tide have done to these girls. One thing I thought was a particularly nice touch was that the intro to Jane's chapters in the first half were always a Shakespeare quote, whereas Katherine quotes from scripture. In the second half, both use quotes from in-universe survival guides to the West. It's a neat little device that subtly shows their shifting attitudes and priorities. But in all, really enjoyed this book, and if there's any more I'd love to see it.

Next, a man out of time learns to adjust - with some help, of course.

[veliseraptor]

June Reading Recap

Heaven Official's Blessing: vol. 6 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. BOOK FOUR OF TGCF BABY, WE LOVE A DOWNWARD SPIRAL

I'm not saying that book four and all of the continuous trauma and misery that comes with it is my favorite part of TGCF as a whole, but I am saying it's very good for me personally and has some of my favorite moments.

Urban Jungle: The History and Future of Nature in the City by Ben Wilson. I read Darwin Comes to Town some years ago and was very struck by it (drove people around me crazy by referencing it constantly in conversation), so when I saw this book on a new releases table I immediately put it on my to-read list. I ended up being...not dissatisfied with it, but not really satisfied, either. A solid 3-star read, for some interesting stuff around how cities have and are dealing with the question of nature in an urban environment. Read interestingly paired with Fuzz by Mary Roach, which I also read recently.

I felt like in some places the author veered a little more into apologetics for why cities are good for nature, actually, than I found strictly convincing. But I'd say if you've got some spare time and any interest in urban infrastructure and the natural world, it's worth a read.

Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati. A second book in recent memory that was a retelling of a Greek myth and didn't make me actively angry! I don't know that I'd say I recommend it either, though. There were things I liked about it, and it was certainly interesting to see an iteration of the story of Clytemnestra that makes use of the version where Agamemnon was her second marriage and she had a previous husband and child. I think what I lost with that version, though, was that it ended up with an Agamemnon who was never anything but nasty and brutish, which, while I don't necessarily mind that as a version, I think makes for a slightly less compelling story. A genuine betrayal is always more fun than vindication of existing hatred, don't you know.

If you're as obsessed with Clytemnestra specifically as I am then I'd say to read this even though it's not the best work of Clytemnestra lit I've read, but otherwise I don't think I'd recommend it more broadly.

Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini. I checked this one out from the library and was deeply self conscious as the librarian was looking at the title, because boy could that go a lot of directions. Ultimately, I appreciated a lot of what this book was doing, and learned a great deal, but I don't think I'd say I enjoyed it, even in the sense that one can enjoy a book like this. I felt like it dwelt a lot more on the history of race science than I was expecting it to, and didn't dig as much into the current (as in, past 10 years) resurgence as I would've liked. She got into some of it, but it felt like most of the book was more about the 20th century than the 21st. Still, though, a compelling and thorough overview of the history of race science in Europe and North America.

The Gathering Storm / Towers of Midnight / A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan. I feel like I have no way of objectively assessing Wheel of Time as a series because it is so intensely intertwined with a whole bunch of really strong emotions and I recognize that. That being said, I did cry during A Memory of Light so I was obligated to give it five stars by my own rule, even if overall I don't think it's one of my favorites. I spent too much time during this readthrough thinking about Brandon Sanderson-isms and I would have appreciated if I hadn't been doing that, but I wouldn't have been doing it if it didn't feel so obvious to me.

I think of these three The Gathering Storm is my personal favorite. Reading Rand in it got really rough, though, and I think I'm sort of in the minority in not hating the catharsis on Dragonmount at the end. I can see peoples' points with it, but for me personally I don't think the tension could've gone on any longer and I don't know that I have a tone-consistent way of releasing it that I would've written.

That's all for June, which was a pretty slow reading month...probably going into another one for July. Currently I'm reading Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder (a historian I've read before and really liked); I'm not sure what I'm going to read next but leaning toward one of the SFF new releases waiting for me on my shelf. Maybe Witch King by Martha Wells. I do want to try to finish QJJ this month, also - I'm very close to the end, just need to sit down and read the rest in ~an hour or so.

Also: taking horror novel recommendations, I've been feeling a hankering lately.

[little-peril-stories]

Happy STS! So if you don't mind, imma keep asking questions about The Queen of Lies until the big day arrives (whenever that may be!) Consider me your unofficial hype machine.

What was the biggest challenge or difficulty you encountered in the course of writing TQOL that you didn't have when writing TPOT? Did it surprise you? And why do you think it was an issue here and not in the original story?

Thank you, Claire, for the ask! Happy STS! Even though it's Wednesday!! I super do not mind, and I'm sorry I took a while to get to this. I'm staying with family and my free time always gets kind of messed up when that happen.

I love having you as my unofficial hype machine and I appreciate it so so much!!! 💕

This is such a good question. I have been pondering it for days. I kinda got rambling so I'll add a Read More to avoid taking up too much real estate on the dash.

One thing I struggled with: writing Will so that his snark and defiance still felt fun and fresh despite the fact that we've met him in this way before, but also writing Will so that he still felt like the same person. His character arc is really different in TQOL, and his struggles and suffering are largely (though not entirely) of a different sort as well. We get to see a different side of him for at least part of the AU, and I guess I feared accidentally just making him into a whole new character. I still want him to feel like himself.

(Of course, this wasn't an issue for TPOT because it was the first time I was writing him and I had nothing to 'keep consistent' to.)

So...yeah. Keeping the characters consistent from TPOT to TQOL was a big challenge. Colette also got a bit of this; she definitely reads a little different in the AU, although there are plot reasons why, and I did pull from one (TPOT) scene in particular to explore one aspect of her character we really only see once(ish) in TPOT.

I didn't worry about this for Breanna because as far as I'm concerned, she is a different person, and this story is of how she grows into someone far more like Bree.

If I'm being honest, my biggest challenge with TQOL is happening, like...now. I've started my readthrough and will soon be preparing to post it. The story just kind of fell out of me, so fast that I didn't have much time to second-guess myself, but that's all coming out now.

is it realistic enough? (super did not care about this while writing TPOT; now there are some things I would edit out)

was I too mean to [character] in [x] chapters? (in TPOT, there are like 2 things from early in the story that I feel were either 'too mean' or 'not realistic' and I may very well edit them out, but I didn't have this concern. Even though I was, like, really mean to the characters.)

did I do enough time period research? (super did not care about this for TPOT. enjoy your anachronisms. yum yum.)

did I treat [x] subject with the appropriate amount of sensitivity, care, and respect? (in TPOT, I really only had this concern with *that one chapter* but with TQOL, there's a few things I'm nervous about)

even though I knowingly and purposely repeated some plot elements/tropes because I wanted to see if I could / because I just wanted to, will readers see that as cheap or lazy? (n/a to TPOT)

is there enough whump for the whump people? (n/a to TPOT. there is whump aplenty in there)

is the romance executed well enough for the romance people? (lol in TPOT I was allergic to Bree & Will's romance until the bitter end so this was...not really on my mind)

and the list goes on.

Thank you so much for your question. It made me think a lot!

[paradoxcase]

Gideon the Ninth audiobook, rest of Part 1

One thing you can say for audiobooks, they go faster, especially since I'm not essentially reading everything twice now. But I don't feel like I would retain it in the same way I do when I read visually, if this were the first time through

I am getting used to the pronunciation of "Nonagesimus", as expected

More voices:

Teacher is not at all what I expected, I expected more disconcerting jollity and less creaky old person voice. The nonbinary priest I expected to be more creaky, but their voice is not creaky at all

Cytherea's voice is basically exactly what I imagined, though

Also, Teacher's pronunciation of "Naberius" doesn't match the pronunciation guide here, or the pronunciation in the Dramatis Personae, which is odd

More stuff I noticed:

Aiglamene said, when looking for a sword: "I'm looking for a blade in the style of [Ortus's] great-grandmother's." Is this the great-grandmother who owned Nonius's sword that Ortus was talking about with Abigail in Harrow the Ninth?

Gideon asks "How are you going to get Ortus back, anyway?" and Harrow has a moment where she reacts to that - originally I though this was just reluctance to break it to Gideon that she was replacing him, but I now I think it's that they have gotten the news that the shuttle exploded

Gideon makes a joke that by being Harrow's cavalier she would be responsible for aiding "Harrowhark Nonagesimus's fascist rise to power." But what historical reference does she actually have for fascist rises to power? Nobody remembers WWII anymore. Arguably the only fascist rise to power they have a reference for is John's if you want to label him that way, and certainly none of them objected to that (or, I think, even have much information about it). I don't think this universe has the historical and political depth for a character to be making a joke like this

Aiglamene tells Harrow that if she doesn't free Gideon after attaining Lyctorhood, she would consider it a betrayal, because she's trying to secure freedom for Gideon in order to get her to go along with the plan to go to Canaan House with Harrow. I think this goes a long way to explain why Aiglamene is very angry at Harrow at the end of Nona when she finds out that Gideon died

Harrow says "we're not becoming an appendix of the Third or Fifth House" when talking about why it's important to not reveal the state of the Ninth to anyone. I missed this the first time through, but it's making more sense to me now why Harrow didn't want outside help

Harrow says "I'll mix bonemeal in with your breakfast and punch my way through your gut" which I have seen other people comment on, although I can't remember if I ever said anything about it myself. But my thought is that the reason Harrow was able to conceive of and execute the soup assassination while incredibly sleep deprived was that she had already worked out and finalized the whole plan back on the Ninth when she was coming up with ways to torment Gideon. It was probably just lucky that that plan also turned out to be effective against a Lyctor

I know the sunglasses are mostly a meme, but I'm wondering now why there were sunglasses on Pluto for Gideon to find. That seems like the last place in the universe for there to be sunglasses

The description of Teacher's belt doesn't really resemble the friendship bracelets, I don't think, although it is described as being rainbow colored

The narration says "her legs ran as swiftly as her awful judgement" when Gideon is running to rescue Cytherea, which seems a bit like foreshadowing, since I think on the first readthrough the reader doesn't have a reason to find fault with her judgement here

[themyscirah]

okay this is SO obvious but. elseworlds with simonjess! i wanna hear ALL your ideas.

SIMONJESS ELSEWORLDS!!!!!!

okay wait. Now I actually have to come up with elseworlds ideas 😅

Okay like for me elseworlds is definitely different than just like an au (a few of which I do have for simonjess) and has a few different elements so I can't really reuse anything I already have. I'm also a huge canon divergence fan so definitely going with something in that arena.

This is kind of dark but honestly? I'm thinking a prison setting. I'm early on in my full simonjess readthrough (only one jess panel so far 💔) so my brain is lingering a lot on the 'bad resumes'/misunderstandings part of their respective origins.

I think this elseworld would differ from canon in that Simon does still break out due to the GL ring, but gets recaught before the proof of his innocence is discovered. His breakout with the ring would cause his ring to be taken and for him to get moved to a prison for metahumans and villains. (This is where he'll meet Jess)

Before Jess shows up though he'll talk through the wall at someone next door whose been there longer (who will disappear before Jess shows up, and then reappear with a breakout plan before betraying them on the way out). I have no idea who this character would end up being but definitely some DC villain.

Anyways the neighbor villain guy disappears bc uh plot reasons and Jess shows up on the other side! I haven't made it to reading her origin yet but I know broad strokes with like Power Ring and all so like yeah. She's in prison too.

Something something they talk and become FRIENDS (awwww) and then previous neighbor shows up with his breakout plan. And they do it (and see each other for the first time aww) and then neighbor guy betrays them

Anyways it's at this point that Jess does something really brave or something and Simon's ring shows up!! Asking for Jess! Anyways cue Simon trying to explain how to make a construct to Jess (even though he's only done it like twice before) etc. Etc. I can't decide if in the breakout Jess somehow wills Simon's ring to split into two (with special conditions) or if they just pass it around like hot potato but anyways they escape and get together and it's great.

There would be more outside the prison setting (like fighting the justice league!!! Maybe including Hal for extra fun points 👀) and then becoming superheroes and helping people but this post is getting long as is so yeah. I guess this idea would really function as an exploration of the "looking out for a world that didn't look out for us" thing they've got going on, except this time they go through that arc more dramatically and also together <3

So that's an idea I suppose : ))))))