#it hit every single one of my pet peeves which is kind of impressive

[shroud-of-empire]

Review: So Speaks the Heart by Joyce Carlow

I had low expectations going in, and yet this was still somehow worse than I anticipated!

So Speaks the Heart—published in 1997, and currently available for free through the Internet Archive—was brought to my attention by @suburbanbeatnik last week, and the cover looked so absurd that I immediately knew I had to read it. And I tried. I really tried. But I ultimately ended up DNF'ing it around the halfway mark when the lead characters abruptly died, then reincarnated centuries later as different people in sixteenth-century France.

It technically makes more sense in context, but, like, barely.

The premise

So: The plot of this book revolves around "immortals"—vaguely supernatural beings who reincarnate every few centuries to steer historically important figures towards their destinies. Aside from possessing the ability to reincarnate, immortals are also beautiful, intelligent, infallible, and psychic, frequently receiving premonitions from the future, as well as insights into other people's minds. In some ways, they're like an unholy hybrid of stereotypical romance vampires and high-fantasy elves—their powers are as unclear as they are expansive, and their inherent beauty and goodness means that they can do no wrong. Our protagonists, a physician named Leandra and a charioteer named Alexander, are a pair of Immortals who were born in the sixth-century Byzantine Empire to steer Justinian and Theodora towards their fates as Emperor and Empress of Rome.

I'll admit at this point that I disliked this premise from the start. It's very Great Man History™, except the "great men" are random nobodies with vague, unattainable powers, pushing people around like chess pieces for reasons that are unclear to everyone involved. The magically-perfect, always-right nature of the Immortals also makes them dull characters to read, and blaming every historical event on Immortal meddling only serves to reduce the agency of the few humans in the story—the end result is a book where everyone is underdeveloped and boring. The Immortals don't need character development, because they were born perfect, and the humans don't get character development, because the Immortals do everything for them. I do think the concept of star-crossed lovers dying over and over again only to find each other in new lifetimes could have been done well, but it was wasted here, shackled to all of this weird baggage.

The characters

Leandra and Alexander obviously compose the "main" couple, but Justinian and Theodora also soak up a lot of page time, serving as the secondary, human protagonists to their perfect, Immortal friends. Leandra is the Immortal "assigned" to Theodora, like the most irritating kind of guardian angel, and Alexander is similarly "assigned" to Justinian, so all four of them come as a set. Every single one of these characters is terrible.

Leandra gets the most focus out of anyone, and consequentially, she is the absolute worst. She's the type of protagonist who can be generously described as an "escapist character"—again, because of her Immortal status, she's automatically right about everything, she receives special insights that nobody else understands, and she's beautiful beyond words (and way prettier than Theodora, obviously). She's also a virgin, which makes her even more special; while every other woman in the Hippodrome sells her body for fun, Leandra never gives into the temptation. (For what it's worth, the author doesn't harp on this as much as I expected, but it does come up more than once, and it's used as yet another metric by which to compare Leandra and Theodora—Leandra being superior, naturally.) Leandra also has medical training, by which I mean that she magically understands complex microbiological concepts that were not discovered until the Scientific Revolution. Not only does she believe in germ theory, she also understands what bacteria are, and how antibiotics work. How does she know these things? Because she's special. It's beyond aggravating—especially because the author has an incomplete understanding of what penicillin does, and as a result, Leandra does, too. Leandra spends half of the story spouting total nonsense, but the narrative treats it as correct, and any character who questions her is depicted as an idiot.

Outside of her interest in medicine, Leandra really has no personality. Her only goal in life is to get Theodora where she needs to be, so she spends most of the story just kind of orbiting Theodora like a satellite. This isn't even a conscious goal, though—Leandra has no idea what she's actually steering Theodora towards. Most of the time, her suggestions to Theodora are based on vague feelings and indecipherable prophecy dreams. It's the blind leading the blind—Leandra gives Theodora advice based on nothing, and Theodora follows that advice based on nothing, and they're both headed towards an end goal that neither of them understand. Everything they do is guided by feelings and instincts that they have zero control over. It's boring to read, and Leandra's sheer perfection, combined with her lack of agency, made me want to tear my hair out.

The male lead, Alexander, is not much better—his main character traits are “liking Leandra” and “being handsome,” and that’s about it. He actually begins the story as a nervous virgin, but then he buys a night with Theodora and, apparently, a personality transplant, and he’s a completely different person by the time he and Leandra actually get together. (Specifically, he transforms into a generic, stereotypical, pushy “bodice ripper” love interest, but the “bodice ripper” elements feel halfhearted, probably because he was nothing like that for the entire first half of the book). Theoretically, Alexander is meant to guide Justinian the way Leandra guides Theodora, but he doesn't seem to share Leandra's medical knowledge or psychic dreams, so it's unclear what Justinian is actually getting out of their friendship. Actually, it's unclear why any of these characters like each other at all, because, again, their friendships and romances are entirely determined by "fate." Why does Justinian hang out with Alexander? Fate. Why do Alexander and Leandra fall in love? You guessed it: because it's meant to be. Everything is insta-love or insta-friendship, with no relationship-building at all.

Aside from the two leads, Justinian and Theodora are the only other characters of note, and they're both... well, kind of stupid. Again, because their decisions are largely driven by Immortal meddling, they don’t get to make many choices of their own, and whatever choices they do make independently of the Immortals are shown to be incorrect. (For example, Theodora leaves with Hecebolus despite Leandra’s protests, which results in both Theodora and Leandra nearly dying.) Theodora at least gets a couple of cool scenes—she wins the Blues’ favor by somehow taming a snake (?!), and she does get (a truncated version of) her Nika speech. Justinian, though, barely does anything. Their romance, which serves as the B-plot to Leandra’s A-plot, is hardly even a romance—like every other relationship in this book, it’s underdeveloped insta-love driven by “fate.”

Oh, and finally, something else I felt the need to mention: Justinian and Theodora seem to have no friends or advisors outside of Alexander and Leandra. Belisarius, Antonina, Narses, Theodora’s Monophysite allies, Justinian’s sister and cousins and nephews, etc, are all totally absent from the story. Theodora’s sisters do appear once, but they vanish after their introductory chapter and are never seen again. I understand sidelining less important characters for the sake of keeping things concise, but it struck me as strange that so many people were casually cut from the narrative. I guess the author figured Justinian and Theodora would never talk to Alexander or Leandra if they had literally any other options.

The sex scenes

There are a lot of sex scenes in this book, which isn't necessarily problematic—I'm not a puritan. Unfortunately, the sex scenes are weird as hell. They're all cloaked in bizarre, convoluted metaphors, which is to be expected, but they're also odd in other ways:

The phrase "moist depths" is used more than once.

There's a lot of "moistness" and "dampness" at pretty much every turn, actually, and it gives off real un-sexy bog energy.

The word "pleasure" appears 8 times in rapid succession in the same sex scene. Other words that appear too often: "undulating," "pulsating," "throbbing," and "nipples." (Do I understand why these are used in sex scenes? Yes. Is it a lot of repetition that could have been worded differently? Also yes.)

Justinian and Theodora love each other so much that a "miracle" occurs when they have sex: Theodora is "incarnated anew," becoming "like a virgin again."

Leandra's guardian is a fellow Immortal who once had sex with Zenobia, and he fantasizes about having sex with her again as he lays dying, which makes for some weird tonal dissonance.

An evil Immortal named Cyril is depicted as an agent of the Empress Euphemia, and they are obviously having an affair with each other, and you can tell it's an evil affair because they do weird shit in bed.

Alexander calls Leandra "my little virgin" as a nickname.

Alexander verbally calls Leandra's breasts "pink-tipped mounds." Like, it's not a metaphor that the narrator uses; he says this out loud to her. It's not even part of a longer sentence. He's trying to seduce her, and the only thing that comes out of his mouth is fucking "pink tipped mounds" and that's it.

"He sucked strongly, like a hungry child" <- NOT A METAPHOR YOU SHOULD USE DURING A SEX SCENE.

"She excreted warm, wet moisteners to ease his passage" <- ALSO BAD, FOR DIFFERENT REASONS. "EXCRETED" IS THE WRONG WORD TO USE HERE.

The plague

About 90% of the plot of this story revolves around the plague, and plague is my specialty, so I'm about to go off here. (Feel free to skip this if you do not care about plague.)

So, Leandra is a physician. She receives medical training at some Byzantine school early on in the story—women, obviously, did not get to become physicians very often in the Byzantine Empire, but again, Leandra is special—and she is then appointed as Justinian and Theodora's Official Royal Court Doctor. Because Leandra is Immortal and Not Like The Other Scientists, she immediately figures out germ theory, basic immunology, antibiotics, and a host of other extremely complicated concepts. How does she figure this stuff out? Not from experimentation using the scientific method, or anything else that follows any kind of logic. Instead, she just gets flashes of insight, which she assumes are true, and then everybody operates as if her unproven theories are obviously correct. Why does she believe that disease is caused by microorganisms invading human tissue? Because She Just Does. Why does she know that inflammation is an immune response to injury or infection? Because She Just Does. Nobody questions her beliefs at all, even though they completely contradict the theories of seminal figures like Hippocrates and Galen, and they're based on such little evidence that nobody has any reason to trust her. She's not seeing microorganisms under microscopes—she doesn't know what a microscope is. She's just saying random shit that happens to be true for reasons nobody in the setting understands.

It's difficult to put into words why I find this so irritating, but I think a huge part of it is that it plays into an idea I really hate—namely, that the people of the past were stupid and unobservant, and that science is easy enough that they could've solved all of their problems with a few basic thought experiments. Leandra criticizes the people around her for having dumb, incorrect theories about medicine—but these people have no reason to think that their theories are wrong. Miasmic theory is a perfectly rational thing to believe in if you don't have microscopes, and you've never heard of a bacterium, but you have noticed that people who live in smelly, unsanitary conditions seem to get sick and die more often. Blaming "bad air" isn't stupid if that's all you have to go on! Germ theory isn't obvious if you can't see the germs! But Leandra knows better, because She Just Does, so everyone who disagrees with her is evil or stupid, and all of the good guys think she's the best doctor on Earth. It's infuriating, partially because it plays into the popular image of early medieval people being dumb and zealous (Leandra claims that Roman medicine was superior to Christian medicine, as if Roman medicine gels with modern germ theory at all?), partially because it makes Leandra all the more obnoxious, and partially because it misrepresents the history of microbiology and epidemiology in a way that I do not like.

Because Leandra discovering germ theory hundreds of years too early isn't special enough, she also goes on to discover penicillin (not named as such, but obviously penicillin), and I also hated this subplot. It plays out exactly like Alexander Fleming's 1928 experiments—Leandra leaves a bunch of cultures out on a lab bench, and finds them contaminated by mold when she returns, then she notices that the mold has seemingly prevented the growth of the infectious bacteria. She then puts this mold to use, and everyone acts like she invented a miracle cure. There are about eleven billion problems with this, but this review is long enough, so I'll just list a couple of them:

The most obvious issue here is that penicillin is fucking hard to isolate and use as a medication. Fleming did his first experiments with penicillium molds in the late 1920s, but pencillin wasn't deployed as a drug until the 1940s because it was so difficult to extract. Seriously, read the Wikipedia page on the isolation of penicillin. It took over a decade and cost a shitload of money, and that was with the technology of the early 20th century. You cannot take raw penicillium mold and cram it into people's wounds and expect it to cure them of plague. That is not how this works. (In fact, various ancient cultures were aware that certain fungi could prevent infections from worsening, but they couldn't identify or isolate the actual antibiotic compounds, which limited their use.)

Leandra somehow understands that she shouldn't feed her patients liquid penicillin, because their stomach acid might degrade the drug and prevent it from working, so she decides she needs to introduce penicillin into their bloodstreams. How does she accomplish this? By cutting people's buboes open and cramming them full of mold! And this is portrayed as the correct course of action, and a reliable way of getting medications into the blood.

Leandra's mold-shoved-into-buboes treatment has a 100% cure rate, and all of her patients survive. For reference, plague has a 13% fatality rate today if treated with IV antibiotics. It is an extremely dangerous disease. So either the author dramatically underestimated how lethal plague actually is, or we are meant to believe that Leandra's cure is more effective than modern medicine.

The author completely ignores pneumatic and septicemic plague—everyone who gets sick gets bubonic plague, period. I get that buboes and fleas are the first things that come to mind for most people when they think of plague, but if you're going to build your entire plot around your protagonist's inexplicable knowledge of Yersinia pestis, maybe consider its other presentations?

Relatedly, the author also ignores that plague can be spread from person-to-person, as well as through other means. Leandra seems to believe that flea bites are the only route of plague transmission, and this is presented as right. Leandra spends a lot of time handling infected tissues in her laboratory, getting up close and personal with infected patients, and having sex with her infected husband, and she never worries about getting sick herself, because plague is transmitted by fleas. She does die young, but only because an evil rival doctor stabs her out of envy—not because she's spent the past six months breathing nothing but aerosolized plague.

Other inaccuracies

Obviously, a lot of the science is wrong, but so is the history. The timeline is all muddled—plague hits Europe and becomes endemic before Justinian even rises to power, and then it spirals into a pandemic at some point before the Nika riots. Theodora is infected with plague (although she's cured by the mold), while Justinian remains healthy. The Hagia Sophia in its current form exists before the Nika riots even happen. Justinain doesn't start work on his law code until after Theodora gets the plague. You get the picture. Everything happens out of order, on a condensed timeline, so that Leandra and Alexander can experience the best Byzantium has to offer before they die young and reincarnate in sixteenth-century France. (I know less about France than I do about Byzantium, but for what it's worth, I suspect the French setting is also filled with research errors.)

The ending

I gave up on this book at some point after Leandra's first death, but I did skim the French part until I got to the ending, and I discovered that the scene on the cover—the picture of Leandra and Alexander riding a pegasus to the sky—does literally happen in the final paragraph. Nostradamus actually witnesses them flying into outer space as he's charting the movement of the stars.

For what it's worth, I think both Leandra and Alexander are anthropomorphic constellations at this point, if that makes it any better.

Final verdict

This book is insane. I've read a fair amount of wacky Byzantine romances, but this one is on another level. The premise alone is bonkers, the characters are all horrible, the sex scenes are absurd, and the science and the history are both so wrong that I don't even understand how we got to this point. I majored in microbiology, and I minored in medical humanities, so I know a fair amount about the history of infectious disease research, and this book feels like it was designed specifically to torment me. When I got to the penicillin subplot, I said "noooooo" to myself, out loud, like some kind of madwoman. This book has driven me to the brink of insanity. There weren't even any fucking birds in it.

10/10, would write a scathing review of again.

[anna-something]

I was wondering, if you don't mind! If you could talk a little bit about the Dreamcatcher members and what stands out to you about their personal? styles? From what I gather, it sounds like you have a background? in dance, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I’m presuming you mean their personal dance styles ?? if so, I’d love to! 

I’ll start off with our main dancer, queen Sua. If I had to pin point one thing about Sua that I love, it’s that she’s unafraid. You can tell when a dancer is scared to hit something *too* much - I can think of many performer’s whom I believe would be 10 times better if they stopped being scared of looking a bit wild/unrestrained. Sua has no problem with this (both on stage and off stage shdgdhsgd). Another tiny aspect I always admire, is her head, shoulder and neck isolation. It’s a pet peeve of mine when someone doesn’t pull down their shoulder blades to properly extend out their posture and neck when they dance. If you rotate your shoulder’s down and away from your ears all your extension lines look sharper and cleaner. Sua being really good at this is important to me as she’s not from a purely ballet/lyrical dance background and instead actually is a commercial and street (our girl did a B-boy comp back in the day) dancer. The training styles are massively different and you can almost always tell by the way someone holds their back but Sua is able to maintain a shoulder positioning that suits both fluid and strong styles, which is hard to do. Her footwork is also ALWAYS amazing. She’s got very quick feet, and something that I think is so utterly *her* is how she adds an extra bounce in each step. She is a wonderfully energetic dancer. I honestly could pin point so many tiny bits of Sua’s dance ability and this could go on forever and ever so I’m gonna leave it here with just one more compliment: her central core control is so good, almost completely isolated from the rest of the body, that all other body parts’ movements are hit with an extra degree of sharpness. (I’d also like to add that Sua’s leg flexibility has been improving over the years of promoting with Dreamcatcher and I’m super hyped to see it)

Now I’ll go down through age order so next up is Jiu. The word I think of first when discussing Jiu’s dance style is ‘refined’. It’s clear she’s trained really really hard and it has payed off phenomenally well. In my opinion, Jiu is one of the cleanest dancers in dreamcatcher - there’s no awkward moments in transition but also, she holds ensemble choreography together really well. There are no awkward body lines when Jiu dances, even in both their strong choreos and their more fluid ones. Jiu is a show dancer, where every move is hit to maximise the aesthetic of the line, of the position. I can’t understate how much of an impressive skill that is and how much it ties in with people describing her as ‘charismatic’. Pulling focus is her thing. Pause on every frame of Jiu dancing and she will look good, no matter what. She’s a dancer you can always trust to look right. 

Siyeon’s best known for her voice (as she should be) but it was weirdly her performance and dance ability that first made me take notice of her upon watching their debut stage (best decision I ever made to check out the new rock girl group lmfao). It’s been pretty much proven that Siyeon’s one of the physically strongest in Dreamcatcher and her dancing *looks* it. It’s almost negligible with dreamcatcher to talk too much about how sharp they are as dancer’s since.. well.. duh.. look at them.. but Siyeon’s got this ability to only a hit a move right at the last second - right at the perfect moment - as hard as she possibly can, when she dances. It’s just intensity from beginning to the end and a lot of that is to do with her physicality (that she doesn’t do any extra working out apart from training as dreamcatcher is truly the cherry on top dghdgbsd). I’ve often seen people reblog my posts of her dancing saying she looks possessed and like,,, they’re not far off. She dances like she *wants* to intimidate you. Side note but Siyeon does seem to have very impressive leg flexibility on her right leg. Combine that with her strength and it makes me think she might have done some kind of martial arts as a kid.

Handong!! Our musical theatre trained ball of talent! She’s actually the person I deem as having had the most ‘traditional’ dance training, as seen by her grand jeté (or split leap) and she’s got the best spotting (following a single point during turns). Click this link and go to 01:19:38 to see what I mean. Handong is the perfect example of how you can *tell* when someone’s had ballet/lyrical training because her back is always more straight than the others. She has by far the best technical extension and with more confidence, I think she’d be able to relax into her movement’s to just get the extra reach I know she has. Her technical (ballet) hands are also gorgeous, I’m always transfixed when she get’s to utilise them. But saying all that, I think Handong is actually at her best when she’s confident enough to showboat dance. So much of dance is believing you’re the best thing on that stage and when Handong is in that mode, you just simply can’t look away from her. Can you get that I want her to be more confident in how good of a dancer she is??? Am I making that clear enough ?? Handong,,,, if you’re out there,,,, you’re so good,, please know that. 

Yoohyeon’s the tallest member of dreamcatcher by quite a bit and being tall and being a dancer isn’t easy (I’m 5ft10, I know this first-hand) and I remember Yoohyeon introducing herself as an awkward tree (lmfao) but she actually is really good at using her body proportions. Being long-limbed means you gotta move quicker to extend properly and she manages it every time. I classify Yoohyeon as a ‘face’ dancer - her body moves it’s best when she’s expressing something, often times using her face. You can really tell that the energy she get’s from other’s is important to her when performing too. A small thing I always notice and adore about Yoohyeon’s dance is her knee is always well aligned with her thighs - a really *really* important part of turn out. It’s visually more appealing and showcases strength but it’s also really good for her health and she’s less likely to injure herself so uh… yey? dhgbsdg. 

Now onto lead dancer Dami! A lot of people don’t click that Dami legit has that title in the group because she (quite rightly) is known for her gravitas on stage when she’s rapping and performing. A huge part of that gravitas? She’s a very VERY clean and sharp dancer. Also let it be known she had a natural talent at spin pole and if anyone knows me they know I’m a pole dancer and pole enthusiast. Skills required for spin pole: incredible core control, good balance and strong arms and legs. Dami’s ticking all the boxes. Being that she has the more masculine aesthetic image in the group, I’m always utterly thrilled to see how she incorporates *who* she is in the way she dances. You can feel completely and utterly how her identity ties in on stage. She called herself the dancing prince for a reason ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Dami’s style is effortless honestly. Like she’s clearly working hard but she doesn’t ever come across she is (which is how all dancer’s want to appear). Do I even need to mention her skill with props too? The dancer’s nightmare is involving props and fucking up but our girl’s cool as a cucumber. 

Finally, we’re at Gahyeon. First things first, I gotta say, she’s a pilates baby and so in turn, she’s extra strong and extra bendy. If you’re unfamiliar with reformer machines (the first contraption) they work by using resistance spring’s on a moving platform. They’re pretty tough. Another link for bendy Gahyeon here and go to 01:18:00. I’m remembering the time she lifted Siyeon on her back from a crouch position in a pair of heeled boots. She’s small but she’s !! mighty!! Her dancing is the most improved in all of dreamcatcher from debut to now (she debuted at what? 17?) She debuted doing all the steps right and synchronised but now she has her own performance style and atmosphere. Gahyeon has said before she’d always wanted to try a ‘sexy’ image in a recent interview so I gotta plug her adult ceremony performance. To do sexy so easily on stage is really tough and I feel like this was a real turning point for her as a stage performer because she’s been so much more confident. I am so ready to see who she’ll grow into even more. Something individual I really wanna point out is her hip flexor rotation ! Of all the girl’s, she and handong had the best fan kick and it also shows in her dancing. 

This got real long but I hope you appreciated my thoughts anon !

[dakarimainink]

Chapter 5

WARNING: Mild language

Mark stood waiting outside the entrance of my building with an umbrella. He had short and dark brown curly hair, partnered with a pair of brown eyes with hints of golden flakes. His warm smile made me almost forget about the rain as I approached him. He stretched out his hand and I gently shook it. “Nice to meet you, Luna.” He began. His hand was warm and soft by the touch. “The café is down this street.” He gestured towards down the road.

“Let’s go then.” I smiled and we made our way down the road. We walked close to each other to seek shelter under the umbrella. There were no one else walking down the road and not a car in sight. As we made our way down, a warm light emitted from the other side of the road. A wooden sign with the words; Midnight Coffee, were painted on.

Mark opened the glass door and let me through first. There were a few people sitting around, drinking coffee and reading a book or a paper. It had an old English style to it with dark red and brown tones, leather wingback chairs, wooden tables, a fake fireplace at the end of the room and a warm and low light. The smell of freshly ground coffee mixed with fruity tea seeped through my nostrils as we walked up to the barista. It was completely silent in the café, except for a distance chime of the spoon stirring in a cup and the sound of fire crackling.

The barista only greeted us with a smile. On the wall behind her was a small selection of coffee and tea. We made our orders quietly in order to not disturb anyone and sat down by one of the tables.

“It’s so quiet and nice in here.” I remarked and glanced around in the room. “I’ve never been here before.”

“This is my go-to place whenever I can’t sleep. Not a lot of people know it’s a 24-hour open café. It’s like my own little hideout at night.” He smiled and leaned back in his chair. “So, what kept you up tonight?”

I looked over at him. I knew I couldn’t tell him a handsome stranger kept me up, so I decided to go with a half truth instead. “Work. I have a lot of responsibility with one of the projects and it just keeps me up.” I rubbed the back of my neck as I felt a sting of guilt for lying. “What about you?” I asked and leaned forward on my elbows.

“Just regular insomnia. Been seeing a therapist about it, but they don’t know the cause, so they just prescribed pills for me.” He chuckled.

“Isn’t that the solution for everything these days?” I laughed.

“Indeed.”

The barista came over with our coffee and tea and silently placed it on the table. I reached forward to take a sip. Fuck! Too hot! I felt the sting linger on the tip of my tongue. I never learned from previous mistakes, how old would I be until I finally learned that tea is hot and should cool down before consumed.

“What do you work as?” He asked.

I ribbed the tip of my tongue against my palate. It helped some to linger the pain, but deep down I wished I had something cold. “I’m a freelance copywriter for Hopper Media. It’s a good job, but I think I am seeking something else in life.” I answered and kept my hands wrapped around the warm cup of tea. It was a nice contrast to the chilly rain outside. “What do you work as?”

“I’m a surgeon. More specifically a Cardiothoracic surgeon.” He replied. My eyebrows shot up before tying themselves together. He let out a chuckle as he saw my face expression change. “It means I specialize in surgical procedures of the heart, lungs and other organs in the chest.” He explained and I nodded in understanding. It sounded impressive that he was a surgeon. I had never been to the hospital to get any kind of operation, as I was a careful woman. I hadn’t even broken a single bone in my life, I considered it a small achievement. “I managed to get a week off, but still on calling duty. So if I get a call, I gotta go.”

“Do you enjoy it?” I asked. I myself had no trouble with blood but thinking of opening up a person and see the insides gave me chills. I had great respect for anyone working on bodies in general.

“Yes I do. It’s an interesting job, I feel you learn something new each day and I get to truly put my skills to the test every day. I have great colleagues as well.” He answered honestly. “And it pays well.” He cackled out and a stranger hushed at him. He sucked in his lips while trying to keep back a grin. He leaned forward and took a sip from his coffee. “You said you wanted something else in life. You’re not happy where you are?”

I gently bit my lower lip as my eyes glanced at my tea. “Well, I like where I am now, it’s much better than where I used to be. But I feel that copywriting isn’t really my thing. I want to write and act. I want to contribute to this world and leave a piece of me that people can remember for ages.” I admitted and fiddled with my own fingers. “I am contempt, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I feel like I could offer the world something else.”

“You know, Luna, life isn’t about leaving the biggest mark on this world, it’s about leaving a small piece of yourself, no matter how small it is. If you can change only one life, even if that is your own, then that – for me at least – is more than enough of a mark.” He grinned at me with his chocolate eyes. I felt my stomach do a small flip as I felt his words hit my heart.

He was right in some way, but a part of me was greedy and if I could leave behind a mark to reach more people, then I would definitely go for it. “Seems easy to say for a man who changes and saves lives every day.” The words came out harsher than I wanted them to. I covered my mouth with one hand as my eyes widened out. “That didn’t sound right, I am sorry.”

He just chuckled and leaned forward in his seat. “No, you’re right.” He scanned my face with a wide smile. “I appreciate your honesty.”

We continued to talk for another while. Enjoying each other’s company as we drank our beverages and talked about everything we could. I learned that Mark liked to dance tango, play guitar and to cook. As a child he wanted to become a firefighter but followed his father’s footsteps and became a surgeon instead. He used to be bullied for his looks and brains as a child and for the fact that he was mostly home-schooled. His pet peeve was loud chewing, line cutters and slow walkers, (which I of course agreed with, because slow walkers were the worst). At the end of our conversation, we realised we had been going on for about two hours talking non-stop. The thing that brought our attention to the time was my wide yawn mid-sentence.

“Perhaps we should get going. You seem a bit heavy-eyed.” He chuckled and stood up from his chair. I nodded in agreement and we made our way out of the café. The rain had calmed down to a slight drizzle.

We made our way to outside my apartment building. Without thinking I leaned forward and hugged him. He hugged me back in a warm embrace and I couldn’t help but smile. “I had a great time getting to know you, Luna. I hope we can meet up another time.” He said and we let go of each other.

I took a step back to give ourselves some breathing room. “I would like that, Mark. I had a lot of fun. Much better than tossing in bed.” I laughed.

“Agreed.” He remarked. “You have my number, so give me a text when you want to meet up and I’ll see where I can squeeze in some time.” He smiled.

I smiled back at him before entering the building. I looked over my shoulder and saw he waved at me as I was about to walk up the stairs. I waved back before walking up to my apartment.

I entered my apartment and locked the door behind me. Mozart was lying in the windowsill sleeping. I walked over to him and stroked his body. He let out a meow followed by purring. I slid out of my clothes and crashed down into bed. Mozart followed pursuit and lay down on the second pillow. The thought of Mark made me smile, as I thought back on our conversation and how open he had been.

My eyes suddenly popped open and widened out. Oh god… another man to dream about. Fuck me!

CHAPTER LIST

[survivormuxloe]

Episode #1 & 2: "so that was fun, and by fun I mean hell" - Ahrre

So I'm so confused right now lol. Like I feel like discord should have a similar format to skype, but maybe I'm just dumb and cant figure it out. Also the only people I know/heard of are on the other tribe which is fun. Hopefully I can set myself up so my lack of understanding Discord doesn't make me look like a liability to the rest of my tribe.

we legit just got into our tribes.. missus sweyn.. LOL. i legit don't know ANYONE!! APART FROM MY BABY RYAN!! LIKE WHO ARE THESE PPL? liek i've heard of rhys and malik from like other orgs but the other people like god.. why can't I just have my circlejerk like in emvv. ): and idk WHO IS EVNE ON THE OTHER TRIBE WHICH MAKES IT WORSE I COUD HAVE LIKE A BUNCH OF RLY STRONG PLAYERS who are gunna win every single immunity challenge.. and i ain't wantin to go premerge nnn. uhm. ya. thats my mood rn. Xo

Oh wow, hi it’s me, Mo. I’m going into this game with an advantage of not having a social life so I can be more active. I like my tribe so far everyone’s really nice. I only know Fabricio because he won the game I got PoTS on. But I think I’m going to withhold that information of him winning his last game because I kinda wanna be allies.

First impressions of my tribe, they’re pretty cute I guess I like people well enough but I’m always nervous about pre existing relationships people may have in other communities so that’ll be fun to manoeuvre around my plan is just to lay low be social and hopefully not stick out as a target

deadass the challenge has barely started and wes already has 2 images.. meanwhile his ass has prob spoke in the tribe chat like once and he aint comin in  my pms anytime soon so. LAMJHNFG . better hope his social game saves him over the physical x

this is my 3rd one already but this is important. linus is the first person to say haha to me. TWO! FUCKING! HA'S!!!!!! JUST SAY LOL!!!! SAY LMAO!!! IDGAF!! Omg this is geniunely my pet peeve and i wanna scream a a a a a  a a a a a  aa

Man, I'm back with Tobi from Survivor Ko Chang and that scares me to death. He claims he wants to start on a clean slate with me and work together again, but I don't trust him one bit and the first opportunity I have to take him out, I'm gonna do it, cuz I can't have somebody like him around. Bad for my game.

On the other hand of the spectrum, I know Michael from Zwooper and we've always had a good relationship so I think that's one person I can fully align with right out of the gate. I've also worked up some social connections with Dani, Jose and Ahrre so far, and they all seem pretty chill for the most part.

Right now, my focus is to win. I'm gonna go hard in this first immunity challenge and rack up as many points as I can. Losing the first challenge always sucks and I wanna make sure that doesn't happen for me again.

Okay im like mad excited to play this game. One Ive been kinda down, and this should help me be able to invest my time into something and potentially help me feel better.

Seeing this cast. I love it. I have really only worked with Felix in a past org before but we havent talked in ages. So I dont have any past connections which feels great because I hate people assuming were working together because were friends?. So this wont happen this season which is great.

So far my tribe is okay. Havent had a chance to speak alot to everyone yet. However the people I have done are alright. So far my favorite person is Scott or Scooty Toots. Hes British as well as me, he's 18 and we're both starting University without a clue what were doing. Like twins?!? So hopefully he feels the same way about me too.

Alliances are key. I want to make a few smaller ones to form a majority for me. Like two allainces of three. Giving me 4 allies. Not sure if this will happen soon or not, but its my goal to take control of this game, as Ive never done it before. I dont want to come across as controling however so smaller groups is the way to do it in my head.

Omfg y'all...... The game started like maybe 16 hours ago and I have barely spoken to most of my tribe bc I was a lil busy last night & had some damage control to handle in EMVV but like..... ??? I already found the idol in the Play Room CTFUUUU. We fucking stan. I immediately told my son Scooty because he's my bae.... I haven't had my hands on an idol in an org since like...... 703 San Marcos when I was voted out w it in my pocket (i think?? i cant remember any others so..) so BEST BELIEVE I'm going to use this correctly. THAT IS MY MAIN MISSION. I'm craving that satisfaction of a successful idol play...... I would love to cross that off my imaginary org goals list..... BUT WHEW I'M PUMPED.

I am making a pact with myself to not be an overly annoying gamebot this season because I just wanna have fun with it and make it a chaotic season, and this lil buddy is gonna allow me to be as extra and messy and turbulent as I please <3 big dick energy

Helloo so here I am doing this org thingy so you're stuck with my thoughts of regret until I die, or you could just not read them that's also an option.

Anyhow god save the queen blabla after more time that it should've taken me I get that I'm in one of two tribes of 9 which is kinda good because with snaller tribes I feel lime everything is more claustrophobic and shit hits the wall the moment we lose a challenge. But with 9 players imo I feel more relaxed.

So summary of who am I stuck with, there are a few who I know from before so let's start with that.

First off Jose, already played an org with him and we were good allies so my first instinct was to call him a bastard and hey he took it well so hopefully it will be a smooth sailing with that lad.

But after Jose I don't expect the meta to be kind to me.

Michael and Mo were both in my last org and I blindsided them both. Tbh they were good allies until that point so I'm more than willing to work with them in this game, hopefully they feel the same way.

But anyhow then there's Felix who I think I technically played with? We meet during a merge and he went out early without us ever talking much so really this is gonna be my first time really playing with him, he's the only one that I haven't talked to yet though I hope he gets online.

Then there's Tobi. I've heard of him and from the get go he strike me as a very straight shoot-y player. Those are always interesting to play with so let's see how that goes.

There's Dani, she seems nice and compared to Tobi she seems more social instead of strategy focused but then again it's been one day and I'm talking out of my ass.

Then there's jaylen who seems nice aswell even if I haven't talked much to him.

And finally David the absolute unit, and I say that bc he instantly started focusing on the challenge, which is a breath of fresh air plus he's Canadian so what's not to like thus far.

Talking about the challenge I get anxiety by just looking at it, scavenger hunts are always hard for me bc I live with people and I want them to remain thinking I am a normal member of society so I always need to be sneaky to do this crap, plus I don't have a car or anything so I have to use public transport if I need to go anywhere.

Apart from that well I would like to set up a 5 man majority alliance just to be safe, my only fear is the ever so feared overplaying-doom. But I feel like someone like tobi would jump on that idea pretty easily so I'll have a chat with him about that idea.

Oh and also look at me I remembered to guess for the idol TWO times in a row. I could die this very same week doesn't matter that's already an improvement on my usual gameplay.

Hi since I’m required to do these once an episode, I’ll use this one to talk about my tribe and maybe a few on the other tribe that I saw were on.

Guacamole - They seem fun. I talked with them last night, but our convo went short because we played jack box together. They seem nice though.

Linus - Mix feelings. I can get a completely loyal Linus here, or a cutthroat linus, so I’m kinda wary right now towards him but the vibes I’m getting I don’t think he’s going to be an issue, atleast for now.

Madison/Madisin - She was also at the jackbox last night and I enjoyed her, she was dying laughing at the games and I thought she was funny. So hopefully I get a chance to talk to her today.

Malik - Who? Let’s not talk about that bitch.

Rhys - He literally waits until we’re in a game to talk to me, so I peep it. And you could say I should reach out to him but it’s annoying when I have and he doesn’t do it until we’re in a game together. Boggles the mind. If I can overcome doing that, so can you. But I enjoy our current coversation as of the moment.

Ryan - We just played Mount Olympus together recently and that was a bust for us both. I’m kind of hoping we can be on the same side since it’s been a while since that’s happened. However, Ryan says he just wants to have fun so I don’t fault him if he does crazy things down the road!!

Scooter - I don’t know about him yet. We haven’t talked at all but he seems interesting. Maybe I can give a better opinion when we talk.

Steven - Very hilarious and I’m also intrigued by him. His thinking and way of talking during the jackbox had me DYING I loved it. I think he’s my new favorite new person here so far.

Wes - I only saw him once but we haven’t talked yet so idk what to say. He said he’s from ndims and is an alias of someone, I just don’t know if I know the alias since I was on that site also. But hopefully it could be someone who knows me as Orlando.

Now for the people I know on the other tribe:

Ahrre - I cant stand him too much after our last season of JPORG. He has this self righteous attitude to him and I don’t like it. However, I warmed up to him a bit during the movie times we had been present for awhile back so hopefully if we see each other again, I won’t have that opinion anymore.

Big Tuna aka Danielle - YASSS I love ha! I know her from the Skype minis and she’s amazing. I hope I finally get to play with her for once in a non mini game ❤️

Felix - Felix is a fucking wildcard. I love him, but he has really pissed me off in games in the past, and I’m hoping this one won’t be like those other ones.

Jaylen - A mess but a friend! He plays how he wants and doesn’t care what people thinks or tweaking it to better it but that’s Jaylen for you! Accept it or don’t phew.

Jose - He’s a fucking snake at times LOL but he’s lovely. I wouldn’t mind too much of being on a tribe with him.

That’s all from me for now so hope I stay around longer to see how this season goes!

so the tea is that this tribe is drier than an old lady's pussy and its so hard to talk to these people... there are no personalities... the only people i feel mildly happy talking to are ahhre and jose... and the tea is that both of them asked to be allies w me im like o ok sis lets do this so i have at least like 2 votes i know abt... and i know david from a prior org but thats not really a good thing bc i fucked him over hardcore and like... he knows im a snake LKJHDFSLK I really don't know how to maneuver strategically with this cast butttt ill try my best hehe

Oh wow!! I can't believe I haven't made a confessional yet what a shocker. BUT HI! I'm kind of just trying to get myself acquainted with everyone in the group, I'm not as active as I'd like to be :C but I'm trying my best teehee. On the first night or so Linus, Malik, Stephen, Madison and I played Jackbox games and it was SUPER LIT and We bonded over that and I'm v happy about thatttt. (ofc I already know madison and I already love her but I haven't talked to her in game yet aklsdjf) I just started talking with Scooty today, or Scooty? I might just call him Scooty, ANYWAY yeah we got to talk about how we type similarly and that was nice, we bonded over that and it was littY. I also got to talk to Rhys!! He also seems like a neat guy - I still haven't talked to him a lot but I think he's cool. I honestly don't know who else is on the tribe, Wes and Ryan right? Wes and I talked a little bit, but barely. and Ryan hasn't talked to me at all lmao. Hopefully right now I've made enough connections though. I'd like to make tribe swap so I can meet more people and make friends lololol - wish me luck gang!

I’m getting along with everyone really well so I know I won’t be the first fine at the very least so I just need to lay low laugh and Kiki with everyone and hopefully I can survive for the long term

I’m doing the Scavenger Hunt and knowing me I decided to wait till the last two hours to do everything I can. So now I have an hour and a half to film a bunch of videos

Okay so talking to my tribe Im begining to feel less at ease with them. Mostly because most of them hardly seem to talk. Which dosent bode well for me. Could mean im on the outs and they dont like me. Or that They're all inactive.

Madison seems like the easy boot right now just because like, who?!?. Shes not been around Ive messaged her once and she left me on read.

So Steven had to leave but we still have to do the challenge as if he was competing which PROBABLY means were going to tribal. So ive been working on getting an allaince going. Ive talked to Malik and Brought the Idea of us forming a trio with someone. Luckly he picked Linus because I talk to him aswell. So fingers crossed we can get that going.

I also have a great feeling from Scooty aka scott. So like Hopefully i can get another trio with him going aswell. So then I will be solid untiill a swap.

I do have a concern that Scott and Ryan are close and Malik and Linus are close. More so that I would be their second choice out of the trio if one is made. However thats not going to effect me I dont think this early. So fingers Crossed.

uhm so!! STEVEN QUIT which im rly sad for two reasons. one for him bc i know he wanted to do well and i hope hes doing ok and i geniunely wish the best for him and the other reason is selfish bc i literally.. planted my seeds on him already? like. all that work for nothin. and now we sitting here actin as if madison aint afk and aint gunna submit nothing..

like its the only reason ive done these dumb videos so that i wont be seen as the weak link if we ever lose again almdlddg.. but uhm hopefully my seeds that are in rhys/jones keep me safe bc if madison gets out here i have ryan/rhys/jones to keep me safe.. so im not gonna be that upset if we lose LOL esp bc ik linus/malik r gunna be scary af later on

hopefully we win tho? so i dont have to deal with this stress? i dont wanna relive louvre where i visitted every single premerge tribal except for 2.. even tho i did well hehe uhm. YAH WE’LL SEE :)

I'm kinda bummed that this last challenge wasn't immunity anymore because we smoked the other tribe, LOL. But at the same time, I'm glad cuz I wouldn't wanna lose the challenge after one of my tribe members quit, that'd just be sad as fuck, LOL.

Also, I feel a good rapport developing further between Danielle and I. I feel like her and I can dominate this game together, but I can't get too ahead of myself here. The first couple of rounds are meant to create social bonds and I feel like I've done a good job of that thus far. Only person I haven't talked to is Jaylen and I'm okay with that, cuz if we lose the immunity challenge, he's most likely the first one to go.

Okay, thankgoodness that the challenge was changed to reward last minuet. Because we wouldve gone to tribal.  Maddison is legit missing. I dont even care if we win or loose this next challenge because she needs to go.

So firstly that reward was weird like woo thanks pretty crown but there’s nothing else so I’m thinking that someone else has the clue and my best bet would be jaylen bc he got the Crown Jewels the most important piece. Overall I’m very nervous for this battleship challenge because in my mind it’s mostly luck based so my fate is really out of my hands.

Well, not much honestly but I'm gonna write a confessional for round 1 and stuff so I don't get a strike

The game is going okay I'm trying not to be aggressive talking to people, but just letting people come to me and make conversation right now honestly I'm trying to play UTR since I think considering madison doesn't exist right now I think I'm able to do that TBH. Hopefully it all works out.

I volunteered to do the battleship challenge thing because I have no life and it looked like no one else was gonna volunteer.

I actually know Linus he played with me in Epic SBB in Hell, so that's nice to not be going in with no connections period.

Sorry this wasn't that long but it's something I guess

If we lose probably another confessional will be writen but right now there isn't much to report

I’m for sure feeling a little bit more nervous now because a lot of this challenge is about being organised and teamwork and we could barely have someone sit out so fingers crossed

Heyo so we won the challenge so that was fun, and by fun I mean hell but hey we've got bragging rights, which is pretty much it since unfortunately Steven was medevaced out of da game so even though the other tribe lost they didn't go to tribal.

A bit annoying knowing you did that for nothing but oh well the other tribe seems to be having a rough time by itself with steven quitting and someone (Madison I think) not submitting anything lol

And I say for nothing bc technically we won reward but it was one of those first come first serve things and I only got seved a jpg image so nothing fancy there...

But at least now the next challenge is something where 8 out of 9 people on the tribe don't have to do anything and you bet your ass after that first challenge I'm gonna be one of the 8. David the unit took it upon himself to carry us to victory so godspeed lad.

However this challenge is pretty luck based so I'm saying fuck that I'm not talking my chances.

Following last confessional I talked to tobi about making an alliance and he was onboard, he proposed to have Jose on it which is great since that was my idea anyways, plus I told dani and she was also on board, and to finish up the hipotetical majority of 5 she said he was cool with Michael.

I haven't talked to him yet and Jose hasn't been online but hopefully we should be fine.

Ngl would like to have an alliance with david and felix too, david bc he seems like a total lad with the challenges and Felix because he later told me he felt the most confortable with me.

But regardless hopefully we won't even have to go to tribal (and if we do at least there are other options for the vote)

For now I shall be the dumb cheerleader of the bunch for a game of battleship.

Ahhh, I feel so bad that I lost the challenge for my tribe. I feel like going into a challenge with the weight of the win or loss stacked against you is huge. But I did come REALLY close and my tribe seems to respect that I almost got us the win. I don't think I'll go anywhere tomorrow for tribal, but you never know.

Yesss we won immunity. I’m happy we could after Steven left. They made our challenge a reward for that and we lost but it’s fine because WE WON immunity phew. And it’s all thanks to Wes. So far to me, Madison is looking the easiest vote off right now because I haven’t talked to her and I haven’t seen her so that’s my view on it. The three I talk to the most on my tribe are Rhys, Linus and Scoots. Then Ryan and Guacamole. Then Wes and finally Madison. I hope this game doesn’t pull a JPORG Fitzroy Island, I don’t wanna be screwed over by a random ass tribe swap. But I basically dig my tribe and hope that I won’t be the first to go.

Whew we won?! What. I thought we were gonna fuckin loose. Noah fence Wes.

Sad tings though because Madison is probably going to strike out. Oh well.

Ya boi still hasn’t gone to tribal so stay mad.

It’s fucking gross having to go to tribal council and I can’t be dealing but I seem to have found myself in two alliances with only dani connecting the two so I’m gonna work with dani to ride this middle ground and make it further

I’m going home omfg. I can’t really have a deep convo with anyone, which means I don’t have an alliance even though I’m sure one has been made ugh. I’m gonna focus on surviving this round then seeing what I can get set up next round. Wish me luck whew

I’m pissed because it’s super obvious that the other 7 on my tribe are in a mega tight alliance. Steven was my only alliance in this hole game, and like, he even told me he found an idol and then on his way out he didn’t even slip me the idol??? Can’t wait to be voted out 7-1 because he wanted a souvenir.

So the tea is that ahrre and I made an alliance of 5 which includes him, me, Jose, Dani, and Michael which I think is cute but they are really boring so meh idk I’ll just flip during merge x JDJSJD I’m a messy bitch

ugh i'm so glad we won immunity bc our tribe is already severely lacking in strong members bc Steven left us out to perish and Madison aint shown her face yet... so the numbers getting back to even is great for us <3

Right so unfortunately we lost the battleship game so that means we're heading to the first tribal of the game, fun stuff.

Now as we lost I got the Me-michael-jose-dani-tobi alliance set up. Meanwhile Felix was telling me that for him it was between Jose or Jaylen, since they've been the least active. Understandable but more understandable is that I'm in an alliance with Jose so for me it seems like it's gonna be Jaylen, who I also haven't spoken much with so I don't mind, albeit every tribal we go to before swapping or merging I see it as a potential ally down the line going home, which shucks.

Either way the alliance (and everyone else for that matter) agreed on jaylen, I also told Jose in kind words to get his shit together before he gets sent home but that's pretty much it. I'm gonna try to lay down for now I don't want to bring any unwanted attention to myself.

Hopefully tribal goes well.

Oh wow hi it’s me, Mo. Ok so currently the plan is to vote out Jaylen which I don’t have a problem with, it’s kinda sad because he is actually really nice but somewhat inactive. I’m on my way to get a burger and fries and I’m fucking ecstatic like I’m so fucking hungry it’s stupid. Also watch me get blindsided.

So we went into this chalenge on a high after wining the reward and I was the one who got the most points out of everyone :))). Although I’m nervous this will put a target on my back, I’m happy that I have kind of proven my dominance in this game! After losing the challenge, I’m upset!! This was all luck based which sucks! After that, I started talking more with Felix, David, Michael and Ahree. Within the span of like 30 minutes, I got added to 2 seperate groups. I was like “iiii” because this can get messy fast. Michael is in both of the groups as well so I don’t feel too bad because at least there is someone else in my position as well. I get along with Felix a lot and have had quite a few good convos with him! David seems to want to lead things in the group he made, which is whatever. Keeps the target off of me, especially if we go to tribal again. I expect to make more confessionals throughout the course of the game, usually videos but I’m pretty tired right now haha.

I just took a nap and there's no tribal and I'm always trying my best. My tribe doesn't hate me for some reason even though I sure would. Oh well. I really miss Steven I hope he's okay.

Steven quit half way through this episode. Then Jaylen was voted out 8-1. 

[scififootball]

This is an entry for the Insecure Writers’ Support Group, which cross-posts on each others’ blogs on the first Wednesday of each month.

The suggested theme in this month’s edition is ‘pet peeves’.

One of my biggest peeves is writers using references in place of humour. Both Family Guy and The Big Bang Theory get stick for this – rightly in my opinion – but during the last week I’ve read an extract from the Ernest Cline novel Ready Player One which takes this to an incredible extreme.

There’s nothing wrong with fiction drawing on references to real life of course – in fact it’s a good thing, as it connects the fictional world to the wider real world, giving the fictional world a greater sense of depth and a broader range of material to draw jokes from.

One of my favourite examples of this kind of humour is from the second ever episode of Family Guy. After Stewie Griffin opines that television is evil because of its influence on Charles Manson, the show cuts away to Manson’s jail cell where he’s watching TV. Manson says “If I haven’t seen it, its new to me” – a slogan NBC were using at the time to promote their repeats. On the surface level this is (darkly) amusing because of the contrast between the very serious image of the mass murderer and the very silly idea of him repeating back an advertising slogan.

Thinking a bit more deeply, this is also a joke about the nature of advertising. By attempting to mould viewers’ desires to suit their own, advertisers are basically trying to do what Manson’s paranoia convinced him that The Beatles were doing. A joke that uses references well can make these kinds of satirical jabs quickly and subtly. But often references are used purely for the sense of recognition or for shock value – Charles Manson has been referenced five times in Family Guy, with a heavier hand each time. The fourth of these is Peter Griffin taking peyote and suggesting going on a killing spree. It’s not that heavyhanded, dumb humour is always bad of course, but I personally tend to find this kind of joke lazy and irritating rather than amusing. A section from Ready Player One (which made its way around the internet in the light of a trailer for the film adaptation being released at ComicCon) takes this form of laziness to an incredible extreme.

In this extract Wade Owen Watts (the narrator and protagonist) informs the reader of the work he put in to understand the things that inspired James Halliday, the creator of a massively popular multiplayer virtual reality system.

The tone suggests that Cline is trying to be amusing, but there’s nothing recognisable as an attempted joke on that page. If the writer was purely trying to inform the reader that Watts put the time in to learn from Halliday’s inspirations, he could have achieved everything that page of text achieved in a single sentence, by listing nine or ten disparate points of pop culture.

There’s no real reason to list so many works – these are the things that A Generic Geek would like. There’s no amusingly eccentric or lesser known properties, such as My Little Pony or Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

This passage represents a missed opportunity to tell the reader something about Halliday’s tastes, personality and worldview, beyond that he has very orthodox mainstream geek views.

The same goes for Watts, the character who the reader will spend the majority of the book alongside. Other than that he has a “serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukeleles fetish”, the passage tells us nothing about Watt’s personal likes and dislikes. Surely there must have been some of these books and shows that he disliked, even loathed. Going by this section, other than sycophantically agreeing with Halliday’s dislike of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (certainly not the worst thing on that list) Watts doesn’t seem to dislike anything.

My instinct based on this passage is that Ready Player One, like the worst of Family Guy, understands the pop culture it professes to love on only a superficial level. It’s worth asking if any of the things he’d watched and read had an impact on Watts as a person. I’ve only read one book by Robert Heinlein – The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It’s the story of a political rebellion on the Moon and their attempts to gain independence from Earth governments. There’s two things from the book that have stayed with me long after I read it – the idea of rocks being propelled from the Moon with enough force that they hit Earth with the power of a nuclear explosion, and the fictional tradition of ‘line marriage’. (In brief, the idea is that there are multiple participants in the marriage across generations, with the protagonist’s line marriage being over a hundred years old.) This marriage is presented in a bit of detail, and has prompted me to think about the nature, purpose and structure of the family unit, and how it could work differently in different times and periods. Similarly, the Netflix series AKA Jessica Jones has prompted me to think in more detail about emotionally abusive and manipulative relationships. But other than his ukelele girl fetish, there’s no hint of how watching this vast quantity of fiction has impacted on Watts. When I do use references to the wider world in my own fiction, I’m careful to ensure that they serve a purpose within the story, beyond the superficial act of recognition.

It may be that the author’s intent is that Watts is a superficial protagonist who has only understood the fiction he’s engaged with on a skin-deep level – memorising “every scene by heart” in certain films. This may well be something that the book returns to later, so I’m conscious that I may be being too harsh on Ready Player One. But that’s not the impression I got from this passage of the novel, and it reflects a wider irritation I have with The Big Bang Theory and later series of Family Guy.