#it’s just like. it feels like A YA Novel. in a way that (generally imo) good ya novels… don’t

[zodiacsea]

i was right i did get a chapter in and decide it’s beautiful and wonderful once more

sigh. i’m going to read the song of achilles again

[wallbeatjournal]

if you had to base a new riverdale season off three movies, which would you choose and why? they could be tonal choices or you can pluck entire elements of the movies and work them in.

ok i broke the rules bc i didn't stick to movies, i went novels and pop culture with it too. and i also kind of embroidered a few references together around each main riff in a way that i think COULD be riverdalian, but these are my 3 selections:

jt leroy (2018). trashy iffy-hot-take kristen stewart/laura dern movie about a very 2000s literary scandal/internet drama run Too Far into irl drama that i think riverdale would know better what to do with. two ideas (this is a jughead plot btw):

put jughead in the dissociated trauma-projecting controlling persona-having laura albert/jt leroy role and rope veronica and reggie and their monetary-business motivations into the scam angle. monica posh savannah knoop stuff and rattling veronica and jughead around in a jar together intensely in a campy way

or step lightly outside the bounds of this script into the real livejournal and myspace based drama of it all and jughead's sometimes-characterization as a guy who needs help unpacking metaphor even though he's swimming in it. make him into one of the many emo band boys (ryan ross?? ryan ross????) who related so so so so sosososo much to the writing of jeremiah terminator and then had a whole crisis when j.t. was unmasked as a middle-aged woman with a metaphorical literary persona.

permissible bonus web-weaves: james frey a million little pieces and oprah, augusten burroughs and running with scissors. we're doing the 2000s obsession with author authenticity is-this-really-autobiographical-if-it's-not-literally-true-or-are-you-shaming-your-family-for-NOTHING questions and scandals. but we're especially doing the emo community freaking the fuck out about blorbo from their novels doing a catfish online to extend the persona just that much further.

the avril lavigne replacement conspiracy theory (linking the wiki even though what i'm REALLY thinking of here is this moving pandemic essay alexander chee my beloved posted that i can't locate now, riffing on themes of feeling like a ghost inhabiting your own life after a major trauma). they can work in some other famous body double / replacement and assassination conspiracies (paul is dead, jfk) too but avril is the main reference and this is a betty plot.

pull in some actual alexander chee images and motifs too maybe, his novels about csa grooming trauma and having complicated feelings about your intimate abusers via like grandiose opera/paris siege metaphors (the queen of the night) and fox demons (edinburgh) betty would eat, i fear, even if they're a step off her normal serial killer media mix. dark betty has the range <3

stephen king's the long walk / suzanne collins' the hunger games / battle royale / state-sponsored brutal murderous game show authority abuse dystopia media homage in general!! especially when it's homoerotic and full of ptsd and institutional abuse, because clearly this is a plot primarily for archie and the lads. imo the long walk ("how bad do you have to hate yourself to join the military" but it's game show horror) and the hunger games ("child stardom is traumatic institutional abuse especially in the era of social media and society simply pretends not to see it" but make it a ya game show adventure) should be the main references, but we could work the academic/art-competition angle of battle royale for kevin. as a treat. ok yeah and maybe work in that arnold schwarzenneger movie the running man too while we're here picking up interwoven motifs at the store. why not!

[monsterblogging]

Pacific Rim: Ascension is pretty good, actually

So yeah, Pacific Rim: Ascension is a prequel novel to Pacific Rim: Uprising, and based on that you might think it wouldn't be that great. But IMO, it's very much worth reading for a number of reasons.

The author was clearly very familiarized with the lore developed for PR1, and actually integrates a lot of it into the story in a way that gives it a sense of depth, reality, and drama that Uprising and The Black lack. Characters are also generally written well (and Hermann is written so wonderfully well), and Vik and Jinhai's backstories are, in my opinion, extremely engaging. And if you're one of the people disappointed that the Kaidonovskys and Cherno Alpha didn't get more screentime, you are absolutely in for a treat.

For the lore-oriented fans, the author's clear attention to detail means this book is actually a fairly reliable source on what was originally developed for PR1, including Jaeger details and character histories. It does include at least one piece of outdated data (Romeo Blue having three legs), and the story claims that drift compatibility is something you either have or don't have (something we know isn't true from Beacham's posts), but there's no reason to dispute, say, Vulcan Specter having a drill weapon or Shaolin Rogue having an extra-aquatic design.

The book also gives us lots of wonderfully bizarre kaiju. The somewhat frequent mentions of tentacles (forbidden by del Toro) suggests that these are based on very concepts, or were invented by the author himself. Either way, they are absolutely great monster designs. If anything, some of the things these monsters have going on make the movie's kaiju look a little boring.

That said, it's not perfect. Hermann's cane is never mentioned at all, and - well, the rest of the issues are spoilers, so I'll put them under a cut.

We learn that some people have apparently been using Pons technology to implant programming into people's minds - a detail which ultimately has no relevance on the plot, and feels weirdly edgy for Pacific Rim. And I know it's a common trope in sci-fi, but its proximity to right wing conspiracy theory bullshit makes it... not exactly my favorite trope. I don't know whether its presence in sci-fi is really super problematic, but in real life belief in this kind of thing has been used to basically justify witch hunting. Like, I understand the dramatic value here, but at the same time, people still living today were put on trial and even sent to jail based on belief that this was a real thing. Like I'm not going to tell you that this is an Objectively Bad Trope, but it's definitely a trope with a lot of terrible baggage.

The story also gives an explanation for how it was worked out that kaiju blood explodes when exposed to rare earth minerals, and it's pretty ridiculous. Supposedly a kaiju's blood rained down on a microchip factory, and the factory exploded. Accepting this detail means accepting that nobody's phones, laptop computers, or other electronic devices never came into contact with kaiju blood splatter or mist, and that kaiju blood never splattered into a damaged conn-pod. This is the kind of thing that should have been observed fairly early in the kaiju war, not several years in.

Also the PPDC in this book apparently just classifies information for No Real Reason, like the fact that a particularly violent kaiju cult tried to destroy the world. Like you'd think that this would be the kind of thing they'd want to broadcast, for reasons of "hey look how awful our political enemies are."

Also lol the fact that PPDC records pilots' drift memories and just peek into them is creepy. Like it doesn't exactly make Mako Mori look good when we learn she's been invading cadets' privacy like this, ya know?

But yeah like, I think it's definitely worth a read. The book shows a lot of imagination and makes good use of Pacific Rim's worldbuilding. Even if you don't like Uprising, you'll probably still find something to enjoy about it.

[antisociallilbrat]

We Need To Talk About It

Buckle up boys, this isn't one of my fun fandom discussion posts but I want to talk about it.

Before we proceed, Tw: for mentioned racism and csa

So I came across this tiktoker who read It by Stephen King and said verbatim "You should not read it" and then proceed to list reasons why. He has since corrected this but his point of 'it's not crazy to question why this was written' still stood. I want to talk about how this harmful to writers and just the future of fiction in general. Also I'm not giving out the name of this tiktoker because I don't want any hate being sent his way.

Two of his driving points for 'why you shouldn't read It' was the racism throughout the book and the infamous sewer scene concerning the kids. While I have not read all of the book, I am aware and have read parts of what he's talking about. And if you have read all of It and want to contribute to this post, please do, even if you don't agree with me and want to put your own input.

Let's tackle the racism in the book. Mike Hanlon was a black boy (one of the only poc in Derry if I remember correctly) growing up in a small town in the 1950's. This tiktoker's issues stems from him feeling like King 'overused' the n-word. For me personally, writing slurs that are not mine to reclaim, such as the n-word, I usually try to avoid writing in fiction but when an author does it write it in fiction (keyword there) it's much like an actor playing a racist character, at least imo. The actor themselves are not racist but the character they are playing are, just like when writers write fictional racist characters. That is what was happening in the book It. Also it's worth a note that It is intended to be horrifying and King is known for not just using 'monsters' to unsettle the reader but also real everyday horrible things. Hate crimes, violence on minorities, racism, ect, he writes these things to make the reader uncomfortable on purpose. It's a horror novel, that's the point. Other genres this could be called into question when the point of the book isn't to, ya know...scare you.

Now on to the sewer scene. This was probably the biggest point for this tiktoker on not reading It, and I just felt like they kinda just missed the point of this scene. The entire point of that scene was to signify the loss of innocence of the Loser's Club after their first battle with It. It was not written in a 'sexy' manner and it was written again, to make you uncomfortable. This tiktoker's statement that really bothered me was "we should question why this was written" and...you really don't have to. It's a horror novel, you being uncomfortable by that scene was the goal plus the deeper meaning behind it. And the implication of 'questioning why fictional writers write certain things' is so harmful because if this was to be the majority mindset, it wouldn't just stop with scenes like this. There's also the fact it almost sounds prosecutory and literature and books as a whole in the U.S. are already under attack and mindsets like this just fuel that fire.

Moving on, let's talk about Bev real quick. Look I don't like how King writes women for the most part but he's always kinda...written them as 'women written by men' and I just chop that up to bad writing. That's very prevalent with how Bev is written in It- but bad writing is just that, bad writing.

A side note, things like manifestos or harmful agendas should 100% be questioned, I'm only talking fictional works here.

So here's the thing at the end of the day, authors don't owe you trigger warnings (or so they say but that's a deeper topic I don't want to talk about rn) but if you are aware of your triggers there are tools to help you avoid them. Read reviews, ask a friend who's read the book, or google it. Goodreads has helped me avoid a couple of my triggers in books I was interested in. If you don't like or can be triggered by disturbing things King probably isn't the author for you.

This idea of 'questioning writers' or 'holding them accountable' needs to stop in its tracks. I fear the day if this ever becomes the majority mindset. Odds are this would lead to the questioning of 'why do people enjoy reading this, should we judge them?' and the answer is no. Some people enjoy feeling disturbed or scared by a book just like some people enjoy laughing or crying because of the book they're reading. It's honestly not that deep.

Also tiktoker idk if you're active in the It fandom on tumblr (im going to guess not) but again, this is no hate to you, I just deeply disagree with you.

Last statement: King was high off cocaine when he wrote It.

[ravensvirginity]

I just saw your post about Raven’s relationship to sex and I knew it was probably sort of out there in the comics, but I didn’t actually know her total origin.

I’m like, half working on this DCYA graphic novel concept around and older Raven (idk how she ages, but the concept art I’ve made has her in her mid to late thirties), adopting a younger relative found on another planet. I don’t really know the lore well, so I wasn’t sure if younger half brother, or nephew, or something else makes the most sense, and I was basing him loosely off of Razer from Green Lantern the animated series.

The story is ultimately more about him and his love interest because it’s a YA concept, but I thought it was interesting I got some of the Raven lore right on accident. As the story idea revolved around a teenage alien with powers tied to strong emotions falling in love with a robot who secretly has a soul and the drama and angst that comes with it. I had him ask Raven how to have a relationship when you have emotion powers and her answer was basically you don’t.

My logic was stemming from her powers and also the fact I can’t really think of any love interests that make sense to me (Damien and Beast Boy being the only two, and I don’t really care for either as a love interest tbh). But the trauma of what happened to her mother would add a dimension to it, since this adopted son character would not really know much if anything about the demon side of his family.

Anyways, I really need to read the classic comics! Sorry is this is sort of incoherent lol, I’m running on not a lot of sleep. But I just wanted to share my idea and Raven concept. I’m glad I found this blog because a lot of the modern Raven stuff feels like a flanderization of the 03 show. I imagine the departure is even stronger to a fan of the OG raven.

Okay wow, you have no idea how excited this ask made me! I would love to hear more about your graphic novel concept. It sounds really fun!

I think either half brother or nephew could work, though I'd personally lean more towards half brother. In the original version of Raven and Trigon, Raven is his only surviving child after over a hundred failed attempts. However, this was retconned in 2008 and since then Raven has had some form of either brothers or siblings in general (generally she's relegated to being the only girl though).

That being said, there is a noncanon graphic novel that takes place during the 80s timeline where it's revealed that Raven had a forgotten sister who kind of slipped through the cracks. Her sister goes insane without anyone to teach her how to use her powers, and Trigon doesn't know she exists so she's just kind of left to languish on Earth. I feel like this is the most similar to your concept! New Teen Titans: Games, though I'd recommend reading the regular series before you read the graphic novel.

"I had him ask Raven how to have a relationship when you have emotion powers and her answer was basically you don’t." This is incredibly Raven imo. I think she could mostly be a good mentor, but she has a lot of baggage related to how she was trained to use her powers and her trauma from Trigon in general, and she'd probably inadvertently end up passing that along to a sibling who has the same heritage as her.

Yeah, I'm not big on either of those ships either. Raven having to teach her relative about their family would be so interesting and is such a fun concept! Unfortunately, I'd imagine that he would have been conceived in a very similar way to Raven, given the way Trigon behaves. I'd be really curious to know what happened to his mother and how he ended up in Raven's care. Seriously, I'd love to read this story!

I totally recommend the classic comics, I love them dearly. While some elements of them have definitely aged poorly, I don't think any future version of Raven managed to be better than the original. I really agree about modern Raven feeling like a flanderization of 03 Raven, unfortunately. Toon Raven is not a perfect adaptation of Raven's original comic characterization and there are changes that I would've never made myself, but she's a much better version of Raven than whatever is going on in the current comics. Her current appearance and personality is really like someone trying and failing to guess what made toon Raven popular and pumping out an almost completely unrecognizeable character as a result.

Thanks again for this ask, feel free to send me more if you'd like! I'm always so happy to talk about Raven.

[yourlocaldisneyvillain]

⭐⭐⭐ talk away!!! pls talk about whatever suits your fancy, maybe what kinds of traits and themes draw you to a character/story idea, or what themes or traits you notice reappearing in a lot of your works?

oooooh hi hello!!!! thank you for sending this and enabling me lol

okay, so as for what i'm drawn to -- i definitely have a Thing(TM) for poor soggy little meow meows lol. i like my female characters to resemble wet orphan kittens abandoned in the rain lol, but also have a very strong side to them that is in direct opposition to their soggy-meow-meowness lol. i really enjoy that duality. i enjoy that in all sorts of characters, and when it comes to fanfic i do read m/m and only very occasionally m/f pairings, but i am very rarely -- if ever -- inspired to write for them. i guess the formula for what compels me to write something is the combination of 1. soggy woman i wanna keep in a jar 2. is it something i want to read and feel there isn't much of in the world?

i exclusively write f/f pairings and woman-centred storylines -- not bc it's the only thing i enjoy in fiction, but bc it's the sort of thing i wanted to read when i was young and there was just so little of it, and i found it almost exclusively in fanfiction, with some exceptions such as sarah waters novels that i really enjoyed, but weren't translated in my language when i was a kid so i did struggle with them a bit (i would really wanna reread those now that i have a better grasp of the english language and am no longer a tween lol, i wonder if my opinion on them would change). i like to write from experience, and my experience is that of a rather odd gay woman moving through the world, so i like to channel that in my fiction. i feel like i'm Qualified(TM) to write it lol.

i'm about to be an old man shaking my fist at the world and demanding people get out of my swamp lol, but i feel like even though there has been a huge change in the amount of wlw storylines media we are Served every year (when i was a teen i feel i could count them all, that's how few movies/books there were, and at one point it was like okay..... i've seen it all lol or at least all that was accessible to me). and even though the media landscape has changed drastically in the last 10 years, i still feel like there are such few stories that really resonate with me? and we are generally being bombarded with very meaningless stories/media, just regurgitating the same shit over and over again (disney live action remakes are a good example of that trend, saying that as someone who was always a fan of disney if you couldn't guess by my username lol, and hasn't seen any of the remakes bc i simply Do Not Care, stopped caring around 2014 when maleficent came out). if you asked me to name a wlw story, or even a woman-centric story that doesn't involve a male love interest, that i really, truly enjoy, i feel like i'd struggle a bit. we get a lot of storylines in media that, imo, lack substance, and are often audience pandering (idk why supergirl came to mind, but it's a good example i feel). and tbh, the audience isn't picky. most people will just watch whatever lol, and honestly good for them but i Cannot lol. it needs to Hit A Spot for me. as for books, there is a better choice there i feel, but a lot of it is ya novels and i am simply not interested in that lol. no shade, but it's just not something i like to read. i want an old hollywood style romance with lesbians. i want phantom of the opera, i want the Drama(TM), i want a fucking hugh grant cheesy movie with lesbians. and so that's what i like to write -- just things i always wanted but never had lol.

i feel like in my works the Themes(TM) that appear a lot are:

1. loneliness and finding something or rather someone that quenches the thirst for company in a way that matters (i have always found irl that there's a lot of people who listen but don't hear what you're saying, and since i was a child i was always searching for people who will genuinely try to understand where i'm coming from and not just immediately try to put me in a box in their mind so they can Place Me somewhere and understand me in their own language. can you try to understand me in mine?)

2. pondering of morality, what's right and wrong and is there such a thing, rejecting and questioning societal norms.

3. a lot of kinky lesbian sex lol, through which i like to explore the psyche of the characters (or sometimes i'm just horny lol and sexuality and kink is something i like to think about a lot, esp bc my formative years were so traumatic in that aspect)

4. very character driven plots/characters changing their own fate or what *should* happen to them

5. the Intricacies of interpersonal relationships/developing a deep connection with someone and generally exploring emotional connection

6. this will be most prominent in the thing i am yet to post but is almost written, but i do enjoy some horror elements, gothic horror to be specific! i guess it's all the gothic novels i read in my youth :))

[jiminiecrickets]

not a request or anything, but do you have any tips at writing smut? or just sex scenes in general? i've read up some of your work and you seem really good at it from what i'm seeing so i'm just wondering! cs out of everything i've tried writing it's one of the things i can't grasp. so i figured maybe a bit of advice could be rlly good help!

oh man i'm certainly not the best but i appreciate it! honestly i don't know how some people do it so well, but i'll list a few things i keep at the front of my mind when writing :)

my big thing is descriptions upon descriptions. people have different ways of writing smut, like i notice a lot of ya novels are vague yet physical (eg "he took me in his hand"). it's also over quite quickly because the focus isn't on the sex but the characters and how the act of intimacy either progresses or regresses their relationship. bc i have no publisher limitations and bc i want to, i use "pornographic" terms to describe physicality and what they're doing first, then focus on what that action makes them feel and what else they're doing. playing with this can either speed up or slow down the scene (eg. less description = faster reading time = quicker sex) which helps define relationships (like hookup vs honeymoon) or sexual experience. equating the experience of reading with the actual act of sex using time makes it more personal, in my opinion.

in terms of what descriptions i use, after establishing where they are in relation to each other/the room, i frequently "zoom in" on certain sections, like in movies: tensed fingers, shifting bone beneath muscle and skin, etc. the face is where everything happens, so describing the brows/eyes/mouth gives personality to the characters. sex isn't only visual, so adding sound/touch is more immersive. i always go for temperature/contrast in temperature because it's visceral and everybody knows what that feels like. as an artist, i also like playing with light/shadow within the "frame" and how that can affect the shape of a person or their sensuality.

personally, i read/write smut for the relationship. "i sheathed myself inside him" does nothing for me, but knowing whether they grip each other with their whole hand (not just the fingers) or if they refuse to look into each other's eyes makes me invested! how do they react to each other? does leaning in for a kiss make their heartbeat quicken, which the other can feel through their chest? i need backstory as to who they are and what they think of each other :)

tldr; lots of physical descriptions besides the act of dick-in-hole (or anything else) and lots of emotion. imo, emotion and relationships sell it.

hope any of this helps!

[literaticat]

Hi. I received a revise and resubmit asking me to tone down violence and romance elements to make a YA novel more suitable for MG. And also to deafened characters. I was initially enthusiastic and am able to tone down the violent and romantic elements - quite a lot. But the deeper I look into the revision, the more impractical deaging the characters becomes as they drive cars or some of them do and these sequences are vital to the plot near the end. So while I can certainly revise and tone it down, I still think it’s only going to work as YA, not MG. The person who gave me the request was on the fence between YA and MG but leaned MG. Is there any way I can put a positive spin on this and tell them I could give it down but it would up of still only be YA and see if they’re still interested? Could you suggest how I could approach this with them please? Thank you.

Q: "I've got another R&R ask. Can a writer ever decline one after it's made on a call later on via email? Or is it better to just let it fade away and not follow back up? Or let's say the author did want to do an R&R but a smaller one? Like, let's say, they want you to remove bad language, sex scenes, and make every second character a suspect but you only want to do A and B but not C. Will it look like you just don't want to do the work? (But really you just don't want to make them all suspects!) TX"

I'm taking a stab at answering these two R&R asks in one - I don't know if they are from the same person, but either way, there's some of the same answer in them both!

First, for Q1: I don't know what some of this means. "And also to deafened characters." "I could give it down but it would up of still only be YA" -- zero clue on the first part, the second part is probably "I could tone [or age?] it down but it would still be YA"? -- these things don't affect my answers I DON'T THINK, but just in case!

For both: I'm taking this out of the realm of the specific and into the realm of the general.

You never HAVE to do an R&R. You don't have to do it exactly the way they told you. You don't have to fix problems you don't think are problems, or change the protagonists or the plot or the age category or anything else if that affects the way you are telling your story. Literally nobody is making you do that!

Of course -- the agent also doesn't have to rep the book, if they don't think they can sell it.

The first order of business, IMO, when you get an R&R, is to *think about it* -- don't hastily say "YES I WILL DO ALL OF THIS!" or "NO WAY, JOSÉ!" -- just thank them for their time and kind words, and say you will definitely consider their points as you approach a revision.

Then, do that. Take your time. Play around with it. Noodle! See what is doable, and what feels like too much of a departure. Do thought experiments. How COULD you make this change work, if you wanted to? What would that change about the story? Would it change the fundamental meaning of the story? Is there a way you could make whatever change and retain your intention? What would have to happen? Etc.

Sometimes agents (and editors!) ask for [whatever change] -- but they are just making a suggestion of a possible fix because something is wrong. Their suggested fix may not work for you -- but that doesn't mean that nothing is wrong. That something may very well be a problem -- but maybe you can think of a better way to fix it! Maybe fixing OTHER things in the ms will actually serve to straighten out whatever the problem is.

(Random for example: maybe the agent says something like "It feels like there are too many characters in this Ballroom scene, it's kinda confusing, can you combine some of them?" -- well, maybe! OR, maybe the solution is to cut the scene altogether, or to change them to be more differentiated and serve different purposes to the story so it's less confusing, or to tighten the ballroom scene so we are only following TWO people, or expand the ballroom scene into another chapter so the other characters have more time to shine! I don't know - I'm saying, as you play around with the revision, consider what the PROBLEM is, and different solutions that might exist.)

ANYWAY. If at the end of all this you realize, yeah no, I like it the way it was, I'm really not interested in doing these revisions -- you don't have to. You don't even have to ever tell them you aren't -- just don't. And if they approach you again, you tell the truth, which is you gave it a good college try, but ultimately, you realized that the version you had is the story you were trying to tell and you decided not to pursue a revision at this time; you'll be happy to revisit this should you get a brainwave about how to do this revision, or hope you can connect on the next project.

OR -- you take your time and DO the extensive revision, and maybe you followed all their advice, OR, more likely, you wound up changing some of the things they wanted you to change, but not others. (Maybe you change some of the things they wanted you to change, and some other things they didn't talk to you about!) -- in any case, you think the work is stronger and definitely more in line with what they asked for than it previously was.

In THAT case, you write them back, thank them again for their great notes which helped you so much with the revision, and tell them in that letter, "I took your advice for A and B to heart, and I do think the ms is stronger for it. Regarding C, I realized while revising that changing [XYZ] would end up being a problem [for plot reasons, or whatever] -- but I did end up switching some scenes up which I hope address [the problem]. I also [tightened up the middle of the ms, or whatever else you did.] (OR SOMETHING - -the point is, just respond, tell them what you changed, if there's something major they asked for that you DIDN'T change, explain what you did instead) -- I'm attaching the revision, happy reading!"

Hopefully the ms is stronger and enough of their problems are resolved that they decide, hey, those other things don't even matter, I love this now!

OR, maybe they will say, actually, I still really want this to be [a different story than the one you wrote] -- in which case, well, it wasn't meant to be, but at least you have a stronger book out of it, so the effort was worthwhile, and now you can go pitch it to somebody else.

[adolin]

What are your thoughts on The Poppy War?

mildly negative! hence the cut

I started out enjoying the first one, didn't like the ending but was looking forward to reading the rest, but I couldn't finish the series and it retroactively soured me on the first one too.

It just felt... needlessly edgy to me. Like it tried very hard to be as grimdark as possible to gain that Adult Fantasy badge, but at the same time the characterisation + story beats felt very flat in a simplified way that I usually associate with YA (protagonist-centred morality, surface-level worldbuilding and political plots etc) I also was very ???? at the handling of female characters, from Rin's hysterectomy that was The Necessary Evil to make her survive through military school, from the academy rival who reappears to get gang-raped.

In general, I would've been way more forgiving and would have enjoyed this a lot more if it had stuck to the hyper-competitive academic setting of the first part of the novel, because that was IMO where the strength of the story lay.

(In general, I tried a few books by the same author and I just don't vibe with her writing—I feel like it doesn't have the depth to engage with the #themes it try to tackle and the characters don't grab me. But it's definitely a me thing, I know plenty of people of good taste who liked it)

[backlogbooks]

Weekly Reading Update 7 & 8

Okay I missed last week and have been behind on posts in general (had to delete tumblr from my phone for a couple weeks because social media bad sometimes) but I do wanna do my little reading diary! So I’m back for about ten minutes! 

When we last spoke, I’d just started How to Sell a Haunted House, which I have now finished and what a book! It was absolutely terrifying, and had one of the like. best and also worst visceral horror moments that I’m not going to describe, but if you’ve read the book I’d bet you can guess which scene I’m talking about lol. It really might be my favorite Grady Hendrix book, though--grief and family horror gets me in a special way. I’m moving on to Unwinding Anxiety, which I’ve seen recommended for people with anxiety, so we’ll see if it has any helpful tidbits in it! Very amusing to me that my horror streak is being broken up by a book about anxiety though lmao 

As for my school reading, I’ve done Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson (very cute graphic novel that has gotten me interested in roller derby) and The Girl in the Lake by India Hill Brown. I have kind of mixed feelings about The Girl in the Lake, in terms of the “twist” at the end, but it was overall a good book with some creepy moments and a good message, imo. Also, I just have a soft spot for any creepy middle grade books, as someone who checked out, like, every goosebumps and Mary Downing Hahn book I could get my hands on lol. Next up is a YA: When The Angels Left the Old Country by Sarah Lamb, which has one of the best intro paragraphs, and Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon (which I may or may not review for class- I can technically only review one middle grade horror for the assignment, so I’m going to choose between The Girl in the Lake and Hide and Seeker). Oh, also, if anyone has YA horror recommendations, send them my way--I may end up reviewing Clown in a Cornfield for the assignment, but I wanna keep my options open, you know? 

Also, I’m so incredibly behind on The Path of Daggers/Wheel Takes Podcast, but idk if I’m going to get a chance to catch up because of grad school :(

Currently Reading: When the Angels Left the Old Country, Unwinding Anxiety, The Path of Daggers, and The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For 

Library books checked out: 13

Posts the last two weeks: tuesday quote, wednesday quote 

[llycaons]

okay now is later! to its credit, What Souls Are Made Of DID bring a lot of nuance and specificity to heathcliff's character in terms of his background, and it did have a lot of things to say abt what it was like for poc living in victorian-era england (snd cities), and abt colorism, orientalism, and racism, that the og novel never got into. I think it just lost its way when it made heathcliff a nice boy who loves his friends and cathy a nice girl who wants to make the world a better place instead of leaning into the selfishness, anger, destructiveness, obsession, codependency, meanness, and fixation on revenge that the original characters exhibited. I loved that about them! I missed that about them!

this brings me back to the terrible TERRIBLE rewrite of pride and prejudice, which basically boiled down everyone into different, much more generic YA romance characters and rewrote the plot to be stupider. I was excited for a transmasc lead, but in hindsight it does feel a bit shitty that one of the most beloved and legendary female literary leads is a man now. it wasn't enough to make me stop reading, but the book, romance, characters, relationships, were just...complete shit. I didn't understand why they even brought in pride and prejudice. they could have written an original gay and trans regency era romance and I would have respected it more for originality.

like...why even rewrite classics like wuthering heights and pride and prejudice with marginalized characters if they're not going to even attempt to reach the standards of the original, or do something exciting with it? they just settled on generic YA characterizations and dynamics. why not hire GOOD writers and actually work on a transformative project that takes canon into account? I just think that marginalized teenagers - and/including fans of classics, deserve better than this bland, one-note, fanfic-esque writing. like, maybe read some classics from writers of color and/or gay writers in the first place, right?

obviously heathcliff in the original story was a depiction of a man of color as violent, cruel, abusive, vengeful, angry, etc. (and his son arguably embodied the worst of anti-miscegnaion propaganda) but it wasn't a depiction lacking in sympathy. there were ways to preserve his pride and anger and patience and fierce passion while exploring his heritage with greater specificity and building him a better ending. I actually did like that he returned to cathy penniless, but that implies that in the og book he did engage in the slave trade, which is a read I really don't agree with or think makes a lot of sense. tho ig it isn't impossible if he wasn't black - everyone not black benefits from antiblackness

meanwhile, cathy's intensely internal journey ended in leaving her abusive brother and putting her mother's ghost to rest, and using her remaining jewelry to fund their escape and live in liverpool...it's weird to think of her leaving the moors, and she definitely wasn't as cruel as she was in the original, but I enjoyed her storyline rather a lot. it did feel like she genuinely wanted the safety and wealth of the lintons', and that she liked edgar well enough, and her slow development and dawning realizations and eventual firm decision not to marry edgar felt organic and natural and emotional. fewer complaints there. it just didn't get to the core of her in a lot of ways - a lot was lost by making the characters 16 the whole time

except for the unreadably bad take on shek yeung, the only other remix I read was the robin hood retelling, and imo this is the most successful one. robin hood isn't a character in a novel with an arc and themes, he's a folk hero with certain traits and associated friends and enemies. it's extremely easy to remodel him into a teenage soldier girl fighting in the third crusade, and to repurpose his shenanagins into a fun adventure novel of heists and fights and cons and collections of eclectic companion. it's much more an original novel loosely based on a legend, and not a rewrite of a lauded classic into something that I have to worry about characterization for

in conclusion...I see the appeal of this type of book but I really wish they were better! individual execution relies entirely on the specific author, so I have no idea how good the reamining books are. working the actual original character traits and situations - which can include changing small details to suit the new story better - leads to a more authentic and compelling narrative that says something than simply dumbing it down for a presumably intellectually incurious teelange audience. but teenagers read classics too! they can enjoy them!

I am left wondering, once again - WHO are these books even for? classics enjoyers will find them lacking! YA fans looking for representation will probably enjoy them, but what's the purpose of incorporating classics characters and plot so badly? a YA fan looking for rep who loves these classics will be likely frustrated by how they've been butchered, and a YA fan who doesn't care for classics can read this as an original novel perfectly coherently without bringing in the prestige of the titles into it. it sounds like the publishers are just coasting off the coattails of a popular IP instead of doing the work to market an original story on ITS OWN MERITS....lord 😭

DONE. I'm about to go to sleep but when I get up I'm going to talk more about how sanitized and simplified and dumbed-down these 'remixed classics' are in the service of producting derivative and unoriginal YA novels that range from trash to tolerable to pretty fun. I wish Representation (quote unquote, but its rly being marketed as another perk of the story) didn't come at the cost of nuanced stories and actually good writing but that appears to be the price we must pay for these series bc....idk, the publishers want ppl to treat classics like consumable content that can be tailored to better represent them and not as literary pieces that reflect and engage with the conext of their settings? because they want ppl to read these bad fanfics instead of classics that actually deal with race, gender identity and sexuality, and class in meaningful ways? I'd have more respect for original fiction that took inspo from the classics at this point. this was genuinely a wonderful and powerful story in a lot of ways, it just wasn't wuthering heights....

[bigskydreaming]

And to clarify my clarifications further, because I know I’m gonna end up reblogging that post about my Official Stance On Jason’s Murdering and Also How To Like a Character for Being A Good Example of Being a ‘Bad Survivor' and Not Because You View Them As Good At Societal Reform....

In a nutshell, I have complicated thoughts on stories where Jason kills people on the basis they’re unrepentantly committed to wide-scale actions that negatively impact tons of people and he feels society/the justice system will never punish them due to privilege or institutional corruption, etc. Because I think there’s potential worth exploring in those stories IN THEORY, though I don’t think I’ve ever felt stories explored these ideas in ways that are novel or interesting rather than cliche and essentially just revenge fantasy fulfillment.  

That said, this does not in any way translate into being pro-extrajudicial murder in real life, for similar though not identical reasons to why I’m not pro-vigilantism in real life in general.

This is one of those things where I’m like, people have ruined ‘fiction isn’t reality’ as a phrase and I refuse to use it because it lacks nuance and is a performative soundbite....BUT that doesn’t mean that fiction can’t still be used to explore concepts in ways reality can’t duplicate.

For me, the big sticking point is being able to point to WHAT fiction is letting you do that you can’t replicate in reality. Fiction IMO shouldn’t be a catch-all that lets you just spew out any idea or fantasy and essentially platform any thought you’ve ever had while shielding it with some ‘its not real so its exempt from any reactive or critical thought it brings forth in people who see it’ BS. That’s a non-starter with me because it ignores that thoughts, views, ideas and ideologies are all real things that have real effects on people who encounter them, so fuck off forever with trying to dodge accountability from the simple reaction of people encountering a thought/idea/ideology and saying questions, comments and criticisms, we have them.

But what fiction CAN do, when you have a specific REASON for doing something in fiction that you know can’t work that way in reality, without being afraid to just fucking own what you’re doing with that fictional narrative and why.....

Is it allows you to explore various ideas or scenarios or let them play out in ways or to degrees that wouldn’t be possible in reality....because so much in reality is outside of peoples’ control. We can’t ensure that various factors all align or cumulate in the specific ways we need to reach the endpoint that’s the entire reason we started a scenario in the first place.

With fiction though, we CAN line up the dominoes in the right way, steer the narrative down the right channels to get things to a place where we can address the things or ask the questions we started a narrative TO explore.

Its like that one post I made about child heroes, for those who’ve read that. Never in a million years am I going to encourage kids to go out and fight crime or be burdened with the pressure of saving the whole damn world like the protagonist of the average YA novel. But child hero narratives absolutely have validity, because there’s a lot of worthwhile ideas and themes worth exploring in power fantasies for children and young adults, where they can see themselves centered in high stakes situations where they have the power to save themselves or affect real change without having to rely on adults in their lives to do it for them. 

A child hero narrative isn’t a how-to manual encouraging say, an abused kid on how to escape their circumstances and leapfrog their way into having actionable power to better their own life. But it can help mentally or emotionally fortify them WHILE they wait or look for ways for their actual circumstances to change. AND at the same time, it can also help them explore via proxy, the ways they COULD use the increased power and agency they might someday have, in order to get certain outcomes, or to see how various problems or fallout might arise from using that power/agency in negative ways. And per my example of an abused kid using fiction for escapism from their own currently victimizing circumstances.....just speaking for myself, a kid in circumstances like that might absolutely be lacking the kind of parental figures that ideally should be present to help them learn how to make good decisions or navigate complicated situations as they grow older. And while fiction shouldn’t HAVE to be a substitute for adults able to give kids personal attention and guidance towards growing up to be a responsible, empathetic adult who makes good choices and weighs the potential effect their choices have on others....it can at least always be a good supplement, and sometimes it actually is the only thing kids have to rely on.

So from that angle, and plenty others, child hero narratives absolutely have validity and contribute meaningful things to even child readers who one hundred percent should not be encouraged to ever put on a cape and appoint themselves the neighborhood watch.

The kind of questions some of Jason’s narratives could be used to explore, even though they never really are, similarly have potential IMO, and that’s why I hold back from being like ‘extra-judicial murder is never valid and thus Jason’s character is A Literal Bad Guy for engaging in it’. Because this is one of the areas where I think used with intent, fiction can present thought-provoking or morality-examining questions that can’t actually play out in reality.

I’m hardcore ‘no extra-judicial murder’ in real life, and firmly against the death penalty, but not because I believe that there’s no human being out there, no crime that can be committed, that doesn’t deserve death. Sorry not sorry, but unrepentant mass murderers, serial rapists, etc, people who have full awareness of what they’re doing and the harm they’re causing others, absolutely have the means, resources or privilege to make other choices and still do the things they do not out of necessity but out of want, who commit their crimes not because they’re unaware of their impact on others but because that impact absolutely is the whole point of their crimes for them, who have had abundant opportunities to change or reform but dismissed them time after time because they flat out don’t want to change.....hypothetically, yeah, they can fuck right off to hell, as far as I’m concerned. 

The value of that kind of person’s life will never IMO rise to the level of the value of all the lives they destroy with intent, who will never have the opportunity to make better use of the same kinds of power/resources/privilege they themselves abuse and exploit over others, all because they’ve used those things specifically to ensure their victims never get similar opportunities, or significantly hijack or derail their lives before they get a chance to. My bleeding heart does not extend to people who have already voluntarily chosen to sit back and watch while a person bleeds out in front of them, from wounds they inflicted. Its extended to their victim instead, and I truly do believe that many of the people who end up in the latter position would never be victimized if more of the people in the former position did face something like the death penalty after their first several victims instead of a dozen in.

But that’s just a hypothetical for me. The reason I’ll never support the actuality of the death penalty is there is flat out no way to be sure, in 99% of situations, of the actual culpability, motivations, or possible rehabilitation of the people actually faced with the death penalty. And given the institutional biases and the nature of most of our societies, and the way they’re largely set up by people in power rigging the systems they themselves help install and shape in ways quite literally intended to cover their own asses and allow for them and those of like-minds to continue exploiting or victimizing others their entire lives while setting up marginalized or disenfranchised people as scapegoats that societies are usually all too willing to accept as the True Face of Crime in their stead, given that the very nature of marginalization and disenfranchisement speaks to how selective society can be in applying personhood and empathy in the first place....

Well, duh. Obviously a disproportionate number of people who have not done anything to deserve the death penalty are gonna end up the victims of it while untold scores of people who have deliberately victimized people in the hundreds or thousands will never so much as get a slap on the wrist all because their address is a penthouse while the average victim of the death penalty hails from a low income, predominantly marginalized neighborhood.

Except, of course, its not actually that obvious to a lot of people, considering that the vast majority of Criminals in Fiction and the real life prison populations they reflect....tend to be blue-collar POC waaaay more often than they are white-collar white people.

So no real life death penalty is getting my vote. Not when there’s no way to ever be sure its applied to those truly culpable, and only those, with no actual innocents statistically sacrificed on the altar of the societal greater good. And not when additionally, the state appointed judge, juries and executioners determining both the greater good and who society needs to sacrifice for said greater good.....are y’know, all picked and appointed according to the rules and guidelines set in place by many of the same people in power looking to scapegoat others in order to cover their own asses and divert society’s focus away from their own crimes and victimizations of others. And thus, uh, they’re not picked because they inherently are the best moral barometers of society and what it needs, or even because they’re truly and accurately representative of society as a whole, but rather they tend to actually end up in the position to play judge, jury and/or executioner quite literally because its expected they’ll make their judgments in accordance with what those in power want or are hoping for, rather than according to the actual spirit of a Justice that isn’t completely arbitrary and self-defined.

The death penalty as a consequence for people who destroy lives on a huge scale, over and over without remorse, is one of those things that makes sense to me as a hypothetical, but that I understand just isn’t possible to implement as a real, actionable thing in any way I would accept and wouldn’t have reservations about.

But like I said, this is one of the times and ways fiction as a departure point from reality can be used, with intent, to explore stories of accountability, consequences, and the way these things play out on both an individual and societal level.....because fiction is completely defined by an author and their intent. In fiction, a writer can present scenarios where there is zero doubt that the perpetrator of a particular crime, however heinous, is one hundred percent guilty and did it of their own free will, has no remorse and absolutely intends to do it again, etc.

Because the writer has full control of what information readers do and don’t have about a situation or a character, they absolutely can craft scenarios where there is no narrative doubt that hey, this dude did the thing. Its not even in question. The only thing in question then, is the thing that I’ve expressed would sometimes have a different answer if it were possible for that to be the only question, with no question as to their actual guilt: what happens next.

And that distinction can make all the difference in a story, or when expanding on a certain topic. Its the difference between something that’s a non-starter in real life becoming a useful thought experiment in the realm of fiction. Where suddenly it can be used to raise and explore all kinds of different questions like:

How do people in-story and out-of-story react to a vigilante who applies extra-judicial murder to criminals he targets.....when those criminals don’t look anything like society-as-a-whole assumes from the outset? When his targets aren’t the ‘expected’ drug dealers or addicts, marginalized low income men who look like they expect rapists or violent murderers to look....but instead are CEOs who’ve paid off a dozen different women they’ve assaulted over the years and are still doing it like clockwork? A senator who got away with a hate crime in college because the all white jury judged it a youthful indiscretion when he was drunk and didn’t want to ruin the life of a young man with such a promising future, but who since then has gone on to back white supremacy groups and craft legislation that further marginalizes people of color all while using his connections and political capital to smooth over the crimes of his ‘constituents’ while demonizing and scapegoating black men in their stead? Etc, etc.

With fiction, with the guilt of said vigilante’s targets actually assured instead of a troubling question that can’t ever be indisputably put to rest.....instead, here we can use that as a springboard to examine what happens after....does finding out the reasons for why the vigilante went after these individuals in particular change how people in-story and out-of-story view that vigilante and his own actions? Do those who view him as bloodthirsty and morally wrong do so regardless of who he targets and the low likelihood they would ever be punished for their crimes by the actual institutions they hold so much power and sway over themselves.....or do some of them show awareness of the system’s existing biases and seem more entrenched in defending it and how people have to trust in the system and not go outside it because they’re concerned that changing it might make it less effective at covering their asses for their own misdeeds or shortcomings?

Do those who praise said vigilante and his actions seem to support him primarily because he’s ensuring accountability for people the system has failed to protect society from, or does it seem they’re more just enchanted by his seeming fulfillment of their own personal revenge fantasies, letting them see various bosses, politicians, people who’ve exploited or lorded power over them be the ones running scared and enjoying the view of those in positions of power cowering like they’ve so often made others?

Does the deliberate juxtaposition of these things, the narrative raising these things as questions in the narrative, change any readers’ personal stances towards the vigilante and his actions? 

Do some of the pro-vigilante readers start to second-guess themselves, ask whether they’re really sure their enjoyment of the narrative and defense of this character IS rooted in a fairer application of justice, or whether they might just be finding empowerment in the disempowerment of others and justifying it as ‘well as long as its the right people’? If the latter, is this something they’re actually okay with, or does it raise questions of its own, as to whether secondhand enjoyment of others’ disempowerment is ever truly valid or always just a stepping stone to making excuses to enjoy the disempowerment of anyone positioned to have less power than they themselves?

Do some of the anti-vigilante readers encounter things within the narrative that spark questions about their stances? Does it ever confront them to acknowledge whether they’re projecting more onto the vigilante’s direct victims than the victims of his victims, the ones he’s seeking justice/revenge on behalf of? Are their judgments of his actions and morality truly a reflection of their own supposedly neutral perspective, or are they predisposed to be more defensive about one group within the narrative than others? Are they more uncomfortable with the fate of the vigilante’s targets than whatever the narrative reveals the fate of these characters’ various victims to be, because they just can’t justify extra-judicial punishments and say well it was still up to the system to punish them, no one else - even if that meant they likely would never face real consequences.....or is their insistence on adhering to the system’s take, even knowing that it would likely enact no consequences and thus no real justice for the targets’ initial victims, because it just feels like this isn’t real justice, isn’t natural, just isn’t the way things should be done?

And if the latter, does that ever prompt anyone to examine what it suggests that they’re more willing to defend a status quo even once proven unfair and completely useless in some cases....than they’re willing to defend consequences for criminals the status quo refuses to ever hold accountable, not if that means actually challenging the status quo and suggesting it be changed into something new and unfamiliar, with no idea whether it’d be better or worse for them as individuals?

Can stories whose premise has a vigilante side-step an in-story legal system, built as it is on the biases and skewed tendencies of an out-of-story legal system, and applying capital consequences specifically to criminals who parallel those that readers and characters implicitly assume will never be faced with those kinds of consequences.....and with the narrative assuring readers of the actual guilt of those characters....thereby effectively raising questions about how much we ‘let certain people in society get away with’ versus how okay we are with ‘throwing the book at certain people in society’ for far less actionable harm to far fewer people? And how much of this might be rooted in readers’ own biases, readers’ own projections and which characters they personally relate to or identify with most…how much of this is readers just assuming or accepting that the difference in the ‘two groups of criminals’ and how people and the system react to them, is like, just the way things are and they’ve never put too much thought into any alternatives because they’ve never truly spent any time contemplating a different status quo, or what society might look like if one group’s lack of accountability and the other group’s scapegoating weren’t so guaranteed?

With fiction.....you can explore all these questions and more (regardless of how much readers are willing to entertain this narrative and y’know, actually engage in honest reflection of whatever questions you’re aiming to raise), even if, like me, in real life you’re never gonna vote yes on the death penalty let alone morally sign off on extra-judicial murder-by-vigilantes.....because in real life, unlike fiction, there is no way to ensure the consequences only get applied to people you think actually deserve them.

And that right there is another question....what is the line, for you, if the question of whether a person actually committed the crime is taken off the table completely? Do you even know where exactly it lies for you - because honestly, the reason I’ve been so vague and ambivalent throughout this post about who this hypothetical vigilante kills and why is because I do not actually have a clear idea of what I would even consider to be a crime definitively deserving death, even if I am clear on the fact that if questions of guilt and institutional bias can be removed from the equation, I do think that yes there are crimes - or at least degrees or scales of crimes - that can justify a criminal’s death? So apparently we can jot that down as one of the questions I’d read stories like this to explore if I felt any of the stories about extra-judicial murder-by-vigilante were actually interested in exploring questions of morality and accountability rather than just building bad-ass street cred by way of arguably sympathetic/justifiable body counts:

What actually is the point at which we see the inherent value of a human life as no longer outweighing the value of the harm/damage a person does to others, with their own lives’ value and worth taken into consideration? Can we truly be said to value the lives of all a person’s victims, if we know that they killed and traumatized these victims with total disregard for the value of their lives....or does that inherently position us as actionably treating their victimizer’s life as having more value?

Of course.....none of this really matters except in theory, if like, the stories never actually apply similar consideration or try to examine big picture questions.

And my own feelings about Jason, his stories, tropes, and potential aside....I will get a rolled up newspaper and smack the nose of the first Jason stan to try to insist canon Jason ‘the greatest blight plaguing society today is the neighborhood drug dealer who is definitely never disenfranchised/marginalized/driven to crime by necessity or desperation, just Evil and Deserving of Murder’ Todd is actually nuanced in any of the ways this post wishes he was.

But the fact that writers haven’t used him this way doesn’t mean that the potential isn’t there, and well, anyone familiar with how intensely I stan two-line characters on the basis of But The Potential knows that’s more than enough for me, lmfao.

Like, all of this might not be present in his canon or a lot of fandom reaction/building upon his canon, but the capacity for all of it is there in his stories, history, and tropes.

Its Schrodinger’s Stories: both there and not there, at least until someone writes him that way or doesn’t, with far more of the latter than the former but both still existing in the as-yet-unwritten chapters of every new arc or story starring him.

So I’m not like....self-deluded or in denial about Jason-as-is or the way he and his extra-judicial murder marathons are actually written, buuuuuut because I’m pedantic as fuck and always keenly aware of whatever whole big qualifier exists in my head as a footnote every time I round-down to a generalized statement or reference about a character or trope......

This is the qualifier that exists for why I’m ambivalent or vague about not definitively wanting to say Jason and murder always equals bad. Its like, yes, true, it does, but like, it doesn’t have to, there is stuff that could be done with the set-up already given us.

It just....hasn’t been tapped.

Anyway. So this has been a post. A post was had. My thoughts on Jason and extra-judicial murder: Here. Have them!

[celiabowens]

underrated SFF books (YA and Adult)

So uhm, since I keep seeing the same books on my dash all the time (and I like them too, just...there’s more! to read!) here’s a list of less popular SFF books, divided into YA and Adult. I’ve tried to mention when there is lgbt rep and the trigger warnings. Also, books written by poc will be in bold. Please point out any typo or mistake or if I’ve forgotten specific rep/tw mentions.

All of these are books that I’ve read and enjoyed (by enjoyed I mean anything from 3 stars and above), but if anyone wants to add titles please feel free to do so!!

YA:

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi: beautifully written, fairytale-like story rich in mythology (inspired by several Hindu myths. There’s a full list on goodreads indicated by the author herself). Roshani’s prose is gorgeous.

A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi: it’s a companion novel to The Star-Touched Queen, but both can be read as a standalone. I liked this one more than its companion and I particularly loved how the romance was written (slow burn, but specifically, the author really highlights the mutual respect between the characters, we love to see it).

The Young Elites by Marie Lu: fantasy trilogy set in a world inspired by Renaissance Italy, in which children who survived a mysterious and deadly illness ended up with strange and dangerous powers. Secret societies and a female villain!

The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu: historical fantasy following Mozart’s sister, Nannerl, a girl as talented as her brother, but afraid of being forgotten because of the lack of opportunities she has to be seen and heard. Nuanced sibling relationship, no romance.  

The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski: fantasy f/f romance! Both a coming of age story set in a society with a rigid class system and a slow burn f/f romance with a lot of banter. TW: abuse.

The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore: magical realism. The book follows two families of traveling performers that have been locked in a feud for over a generation. This was the author’s debut and I remember getting an arc of it and being impressed by both the prose and how the forbidden love trope was handled.

When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore: another magical realism novel. One of the main characters is a trans boy and the book focuses on issues of racism and gender. One of my favorite YA!

Strange Grace by Tessa Gratton: fantasy romance set in a village that periodically sacrifices a young man in order to keep a deal with the devil that ensures their prosperity. Also, polyamorous and non-binary rep.

The Rise of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee: first book in a duology following avatar Kyoshi’s life. It explores the political and cultural aspect of the Earth Kingdom and Kyoshi’s past. Bisexual rep.

Descendant of the Crane by Joan He: sort of a murder mystery fantasy, as the main character finds herself suddenly thrust into power once her father has been murdered. The story has a slow build up to a last part full of twists and machinations and it features lots of court intrigue. Warning: the ending is quite open and afaik there isn’t a sequel planned as of now.

The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones: a quite unique take on zombies influenced by Welsh mythology (it’s super cool). The novel follows Ryn and their siblings, as they try to get by after their parents’ death by working as gravediggers. Only well, the dead don’t always stay dead. The characters read a bit younger than they are imo. There is chronic pain rep.

The Magnolia Sword by Sherry Thomas: retelling of the original ballad of Mulan. The book follows Mulan, who’s trained her whole life to win a duel for a priceless heirloom, as she joins the army. There’s a lot of political and historical details, which I really appreciated. Do not go into it expecting a fun adventure though. The descriptions of war aren’t extremely graphic, but be aware of the fact that most of the book is set during a conflict.

The Candle and The Flame by Nafiza Azad: standalone fantasy set in a city on the Silk Road! It’s a quite slow-paced tale about love, family and politics. It has lush descriptions of landscapes and cultures (and FOOD, there are some really great descriptions of food). It’s a very atmospheric book and while I struggled a bit with the pace I’d still recommend it.

Forest of a Thousand Lanters by Julie C. Dao: sort of an East Asian inspired retelling of Snow White, but following the Evil Queen before she became Snow White’s stepmother. I honestly haven’t read its sequel (which should focus on Snow White herself), but I do think this can be read and enjoyed as a standalone too.

The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner: it’s hard to point out exactly what this series is about because it has evolved so much with time. It starts out as classic quest/adventure series with The Thief (which may seem a classic and simple book, but is actually full of foreshadowing and has a really clever set up), but develops into a complex and intriguing political fantasy in The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia (and then goes back to the quest theme in book 5, Thick as Thieves).

Adult:

A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong: I’m cheating with this one because it’s technically a short story but I love Alyssa Wong’s stories so I’m putting it here anyway. It can be read for free and you should just...read it.

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang: grimdark fantasy (TW: abuse, self harm, rape, drug abuse), inspired by Chinese history. It’s adult, but follows younger MCs and the unique blend of different historical periods/inspirations makes it extremely interesting. The characters are extremely fucked up in the best possible way, plus the use of shamanism is awesome. Please make sure you check all the TW before reading.

The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang: a Japanese-inspired militaristic fantasy, with elemental magic, a badass housewife dealing with her past and hiding a sword in her kitchen’s floor. It has interesting and nuanced family dynamics and a great reflection on propaganda and the use of narratives.

Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri: first book in an epic fantasy duology inspired by Mughal India (TW: abuse, slavery). I really liked both Empire of Sand and its companion and I find them pretty underrated. Both books have great slow burn romance (with a focus on mutual trust and respect) and focus on culture, religion, self acceptance and politics.

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: a fantasy bildungsroman set in Mexico during the Jazz age. It’s a great approach to adult SFF as it follows a young girl on a life changing adventure. It features Mayan mythology and a god slowly becoming human (this trope is everything!).

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden: a coming of age story inspired by Russian folklore. The trilogy as a whole has one of the best arcs I’ve ever seen: each book is perfectly self-contained and has its own arc, but also fits perfectly in the bigger picture of the trilogy. The atmosphere is amazing, the cast of characters is extremely well developed. Also frost demons are better than men.

The Binding by Bridget Collins: historical fantasy, but with very minimal fantasy elements. It’s set in a world vaguely reminiscent of 19th century England. I’d say this book is about humans and self discovery. It’s about cowardice and the lies we tell ourselves and those we wish we could tell ourselves. Gay rep. (TW: abuse, sexual assault, pretty graphic suicide scene).

The Divine Cities trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett: starting with City of Stairs, it follows a female diplomat and spymaster(!!). The whole trilogy features an interesting discussion about godhood, religion, fanatism, politics, without ever being boring or preachy. It has complex and rich world building and a pretty compelling mystery.

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett: heist fantasy following a thief as she’s hired to steal a powerful artifact that may change magical technology as she knows it. Set in a Venice-like merchant city. Also, slow burn f/f romance.

Jade City by Fonda Lee: sort of a gangster urban fantasy, heavily inspired by wuxia and set in an Asian-inspired metropolis. It follows a pretty big cast of characters, each with their own journey and development. It features nuanced family dynamics and a lot of political and economical subplots. Not extremely prominent, but book 2 features m/m side rep.

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse: inspired by Native American culture and specifically by the idea of subsequent worlds. It has a kickass MC and a good mix of original elements and typical UF tropes. TW: the book isn’t extremely violent but there is death and some gore.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine: space opera inspired by the Mexica and middle period Byzantium. It focuses on topics like colonialism and the power of narratives and language. It has one of the best descriptions of what it’s like to live in between spaces I’ve ever read. Also very interesting political intrigue and has a slow burn f/f romance (and a poly relationship recalled through flashbacks). I ranted a lot about it already.

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee: a Korean-inspired space opera with a magic system based on math. It’s honestly quite convoluted and difficult to follow, but it also features some of the best political intrigue I’ve ever read. Plenty of lying, backstabbing and mind games. It also features lesbian and bisexual rep and an aroace side character (TW: mass shooting, sexual assault, abuse). I also really recommend Yoon Ha Lee’s short-story collection Conservation of Shadows.

The long way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers: character driven space opera featuring a found family journeying through space. A fun read, that also deals with topics such as sexuality and race. Quite easy to go through, as the world building and plot aren’t particularly complex themselves. f/f romance.  

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo: an Asian-inspired fantasy novella that gives a voice to people usually silenced by history. It follows a cleric (non binary rep) as they chronicle the story of the late empress, retold through objects that she used in her life. It focuses on bonds between women and the power that lies in being unnoticed. f/f side rep.

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark: an urban fantasy novella, based on Orisha mythology and set in an alternate, sort of steampunk, New Orleans. I really like how creative Clark’s worlds are and how good he is at writing female characters (which rarely happens with male authors).

The haunting of tram car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark: novella set in an alternate steampunk Cairo populated by supernatural entities. It’s set in the same world of a Dead Djinn in Cairo, which is a short story you can read for free.

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: epistolary novella set during a time-travel war. It has gorgeous writing and an amazing f/f romance. As a novella, it’s quite short but it’s beautifully crafted and so complex for such a short book!

The Citadel of Weeping Pearls by Aliette de Bodard: a novella set in the Xuya universe (a series of novellas/short stories set in a timeline where Asia became dominant, and where the space age has empires of Vietnamese and Chinese inspiration), but can be read as a standalone. It’s a space opera featuring a disappeared citadel and the complex relationship between the empress and her daughter as war threatens her empire.

One for My Enemy by Olivie Blake: self-published urban fantasy following two rival families in New York. Sort of a Romeo and Juliette retelling but with gangster families and magic. Honestly recommend all of her books, I love how Olivie writes and especially how she writes female characters.

[berryscaryskies]

the lil sweet pea herself!

-Perdita Boudreaux is a little bit of an Airhead, she spends most of her time with her head in a book and fantasizing about love. And she's pretty much always been like this! having her head in the clouds and the unescapable infamy of her father (and her mother's family too tbh) made it kinda hard to make friends for a really long time. After her dad scaring off one too many potential friends Perdita, not having a ton of common sense, decided the only option was to run away to somewhere far from her family legacy. So obvi she moved to an old family vacation home in Copperdale that her dad once took her too while hiding out during the divorce.

-Not story related, but I had actually considered having a mini rags to riches thing going on for 9th gen, but by the time Perdita was a fleshed out character it just didn't seem like something she'd do. It made more sense to me that she'd "run away" but go somewhere cozy and luxurious that her dad actually still has full access too. In fact I found Adriel coming over constantly without invitation to be rather funny. In Perdita's mind she's run away and is now having to fend for herself somewhere far away, but in reality her parents are fully aware of where she is and generally helping her stay afloat even if they aren't communicating with her much atm.

-Copperdale is one of Perdita's favorite places in the world, she loves the small town energy and the peer is generally one of her favorite places to people watch and just sit down to write and work on her novels, she also loves the library. She has all her dates there because Thrift Tea is too popular and she doesn't like the crowds. She actually had a bunch of fun romance shenanigans.

-so you see Perdita to start off with trying to make as many possible friends as she could upon entering Copperdale high, finally away from the family name she thought it was the perfect chance for people to get to know her. The core friend group though consisted of Pierce, Cora, Anne, and Keon. Keon and Cora are a year above the rest of them and as such age out of high school a bit sooner. Anne for most of high school is fairly distant due to depression. Cora has feelings for Anne but Anne honestly doesn't even really talk to Cora much or know about this until she's already gotten with Perdita. Perdita and Anne start as friends but eventually start developing feelings for each other, this is slow and takes the entirety of high school to work out.

-The you've got the boys, Keon is Perdita's first boyfriend, they actually met at the library rather than at school and because of this Perdita was absolutely smitten with him. He's sweetheart, but she was always way more into him than he was into her. Plus the slight age gap and this difference in how invested they each were in the relationship is what eventually led to their break up right before prom. Meanwhile you've got Pierce! Pierce has been Perdita's very best friend since the first day of school, she became incredibly close to him very quick and views him as a bit of a brother to her. He was the only one who knew she was living by herself at first. Little did she know that Pierce actually had developed feelings for her and was utterly heartbroken when she first got with Keon. And, ya know, not willing to admit to his crush to anyone he wound up developing a sort of one-sided disdain for Keon. It certainly didn't help matters that it was Pierce she'd go to whenever Keon would stand her up on dates or reject her advances. 

-Pierce eventually got over his crush on Perdita, and is the only one that her and Anne remain close to outside of High School. Seeing as Perdita doesn't want much to do with Keon anymore and Cora skeeved Anne out from asking her out multiple times after she got with Perdita. He even helped with the conception of Lovely once the two were looking towards having another kid(Minks counts as their first one imo).

-Speaking of Anne she is so interesting, cuz literally throughout all of high school she was sad because her PARENTS DIED, and they left her with a toddler to take care of!!!! And to make it worse even way later once Anne moves in with Perdita she is constantly getting new notifications about someone having died, whether that be an aunt or uncle or some older person she was friends with for some reason. Its honestly nonstop deaths for Anne, to the point where despite only being a Young Adult she has a fear of death!! poor girl, Perdita's always there for support.

-Perdita and Anne pretty much raised Minks together, she's trans and honestly kind of emo, but she's also a very warm person and surprisingly takes after Perdita quite a bit with her love of books. Unlike Perdita though she loves being outside and is a little scared of the dark so really enjoys sitting outside in the sunlight all day. I adore Minks she's such a pretty sim.

-It was actually growing closer to Anne and Minks early into their relationship that convinced Perdita to reach back out to her dad. Leandro was a bit sad to have seen the ways his darling daughter had grown up without him during this period of time, but more than that he's happy to be able to be in her and Lovely's lives. He even gets along rather well with Minks and appreciates Anne for having brought them back together.

Perdita, Anne, and Minks

[mermaidsirennikita]

So if I understand correctly, Bridgerton S2 had 444M hours viewed in its first 10ish days. I was confused initially because I thought it was 251M cumulatively as was widely reported today, but the Netflix site says 251M for the week of March 28-April 3. I’m not sure why Netflix isn’t circulating the 400M+ total hours number more. Unless I’m mistaken? Which is possible. But if not, that is wildly impressive for the show losing its star, and not debuting over a holiday during peak pandemic.

Do you think this will finally induce other streamers to get on HR adaptions? The interest is there!! I think these numbers are especially important since the show can exist beyond one person (RJP) - it’s the genre itself that has an audience. And save for the couple, S2 was super mediocre TV (versus S1 imo), so people are clearly hungry for *any* romance. Honestly I feel like there could be a separate streamer just for romance lol. There’s so much material.

I think both seasons were kinda messy TV, but you don't need to be *good* to be successful. In a lot of ways, I preferred s1 to s2. In a lot of ways, I preferred s2 to s1. I can say that I *do* understand why s2 has people in a chokehold online, even if I'm not a slow burn fan myself. The internet loves something being dragged out. They react more on social when their hopes and dreams are frustrated. It makes sense.

I've read 400+ as well, so I do think those are the actual total hours, but for the purposes of killing the record they're advertising it as killing, the 251 million hours is what matters.

The thing is that I do think.... Idk. I think there's a bar that constantly gets raised for romance adaptations, for a variety of reasons. And if the next bar is "an even bigger s3" when the main romance is probably Polin? Lol... we'll see. I know Polin has its diehards. I don't know any Polin diehards in real life. I am beginning to think they're industry plants. (I kid! But also--do I?)

But like, obviously there's a demand for romance adaptations in general, and HR adaptations for sure. Romance novels sell a fuckton. They're the financial backbone of publishing. Y'all get to read snoozers about the common man and poorly-conceived YA dystopians because Beverly Jenkins, Sarah MacLean, whoever else, is getting those $$$.

There is actually a streamer for romance movies and in turn romance novel adaptations--PassionFlix. It is not.... good.... from what I've seen thus far. I wish it was! But alas.

I think one thing that makes romance kind of scary for those in TV is that, in a lot of ways, it is repetitive. A lot of the plots run kind of similar. (Sex lessons! Sex clubs! Arranged marriage!). There's always a happy ending. There's this idea that you need to be reinventing the wheel in today's landscape... Unless you're doing the millionth action movie or superhero flick in a row. So what's the (main) difference? Action movies and superhero flicks are identified with a male audience, how ever many of us ladies watch them. Romance novels are associated with a female audience. The female audience is still very much *not* trusted by those in film and TV.

So I'm not holding my breath, but I'm hoping that someday, maybe there will be another HR adaptation. And that it's adapting something legit super good this time.

Edit: oh, also, wanted to make this clear. I DO think it was key for the show’s success that the first season starred RJP. He got people to try something they hadn’t before. He got people in the seats. They realized they actually liked it and weren’t above romance novel adaptations, and stuck around.

[if-one-of-us-falls]

Cytonic liveblog, part 1

spoilers ahead

I read Starsight like a year ago and I don't remember shit but I decided to be normal about this so I'm going in without a reread and we'll see how it goes

also I haven't read any of the skyward flight novellas, idk i'm nervous about them, are they good? I mean I definitely miss the characters but I'm always a little worried when a new author comes in

the way m-bot feels a little like a spren and the nowhere feels a tiny bit like shadesmar :) idk it's fun to see different takes on similar concepts. (or maybe i'm making this all up)

right off the bat i'm a little annoyed about how much jorgen comes up. don't get me wrong! i love this nerd! but ffs spensa

i do really enjoy spensa as a character though <3 you go girl. you WOULD make a great queen of the apes

I don't trust this Chet(?) interdimensional galactic explorer guy. he's too cool and nice

"i was glad i was in a jumpsuit because otherwise Chet would have fallen to his death with a pair of women's trousers" not to be gross but it's very sweet of spensa that that's what she's thinking about with a 50 y/o man clinging to her leg

the interlude is giving me so many feels i decided i'm actually ok with the excessive jorgen mentions

i mean spensa getting emotional about him worrying about her because she was used to people wanting to get away from her...!!

"it's hard to focus when your ship is haunted by the ghost of your not dead girlfriend" hehe

"i learned to never bet against you" im a big softie for them and im melting

OK I'm done with part 1! fun, overall, but not quite as gripping as the last book's opening (that one was really a masterclass in pacing imo).

I don't think Chet is actually M-Bot's old pilot, but the fact that Spensa is reasonably suspicious of him makes me think he isn't necessarily a bad guy either, just because i'm expecting a twist...

Also, if he has that Spears badge, isn't that his own reality icon? Why does he need Spensa to trade him ashes? Something is very suspicious there, I think he must be lying about *something*.

In general it's a bit of a weird choice to have the main supporting character in your YA novel be a 50 something year old man

more to come when I finish part 2