#its also a very emotional book i mostly look at it from an emotional perspective but ozian politics are very interesting

[iasmelaion]

I have been afflicted with a terrible curse: tearing through a book series, and upon finishing, seeking out the fandom only to find that most of that fandom appears to be reading an entirely different series than I am, lol. I brought this on myself, to be clear. I think a big part of the mismatch is that it's a genre I'm not that familiar with and that I don't care about/for in and of itself, so I'm coming at it from a different perspective. Also, maybe I'm reading into things too much! But what can I say, a girl needs enrichment in her enclosure, and there's enough meat on this bone that I will be occupied for a while.

All of which is to say, I read through all seven books of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series that are out to date (thanks, free Kindle Unlimited subscription!), and now I have a lot of thoughts and no one who cares about them ;____; I played myself ;_______;

This series is such a hard sell in general, because on the surface it looks like male power fantasy garbage, it's litRPG, and there's a decent amount of mildly obnoxious dude humor at first. But a) it's only slightly male power fantasy garbage, b) it's not tedious litRPG and in fact the genre evolves and shifts into more straightforward SFF the further in you get, which is clever on a meta level and also a relief, c) to the extent it is litRPG, it mostly isn't boring and annoying about it (no stat nonsense for the sake of stat nonsense), d) the mildly obnoxious dude humor is often genuinely funny and to the extent it is obnoxious, there's some in-universe reasoning for that.

Anyway, the premise is as follows: Earth is suddenly and devastatingly mined for its natural resources by aliens. This results in the death of billions: everyone who was indoors is instantly killed. Anyone who was outside gets a chance to enter the "dungeon", which offers a chance for the remaining humans to compete for an alleged chance at freedom and sovereignty if they reach the bottom floor, but it's basically The Hunger Games: a propaganda exercise that's meant to earn money for the aliens running it as a game show, only this is a dungeon crawling RPG rather than a Hunger Games/Battle Royale situation. No one has ever reached the bottom floor. The best result most achieve is to reach the tenth floor, where they can take a deal for some variety of indentured servitude.

Enter Carl, our hero, a former (late 20s? early 30s? don't recall his age, but somewhere around there) Coast Guard technician who is outside when it all happens because he chased after his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, a best in show tortie Persian cat. Carl and Donut enter the dungeon, Donut eats a magic treat and becomes a sapient talking cat, and the books follow their struggle to survive and fight back against the cruel and inhuman system they've found themselves in.

Tonally, the series is interesting in that it manages to balance a very bleak, dystopian premise with genuine hilarity and moments of legitimately heart-wrenching emotion. Also, this is not a "lone heroic super cool guy saves and fixes everything" kind of story. This series is interested in teamwork and community in dire circumstances, and the found family of it all is genuinely moving. As a whole, it's just bonkers entertaining. I love when I can tell the author is having a blast, and you can absolutely tell that Matt Dinniman is having an absolute blast.

Anyway, a list of things I enjoy about this series and/or a list of general thoughts, some of which include mild spoilers:

PRINCESS DONUT. i love her. this cat is amazing and hilarious. She's exactly like you'd imagine a prize-winning Persian cat named Princess Donut to be. also, to my delight, she gets to be a fully rounded character. like yes, she's hilarious and often comic relief, but she's also taken seriously, and Carl is absolutely Insane about this cat. He fuckin' loves this cat, and the cat loves him. Also, hilariously, she has higher stats than Carl at the beginning. (In fact, she mostly has higher stats than him throughout, so she's technically the party leader. Which is why their party is called the Royal Court of Princess Donut.)

Donut has A+++++ insulting skills. On multiple occasions, I have lol'd in horror and delight at her savagery. A favorite:

Rezan: Why does that cat always type in all caps?

Donut: WHY DIDN’T YOUR MOTHER DRIBBLE YOU BACK OUT ONTO THE TRUCK STOP BATHROOM FLOOR, REZAN?

lest this give you the wrong impression, Donut is a classy lady. She is a princess, after all. but also she is savage.

Carl! The books are mostly in first person POV, so we're in Carl's head for most of them, and he is a great example of an unreliable narrator. He'll seem fairly generic at first, but stick it out through, like, the first third of the first book and onward for the slow and steady reveal of his Tragic Backstory and also such exciting psychological and emotional issues as: Insane about Donut; claims he "doesn't like drama" while in actuality he is clearly Repressing Everything; secretly an idealist who wants to believe the best of people; deeply committed to protecting people; full of revolutionary, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian rage; holy abandonment issues batman; simply Does Not See It when various ladies basically throw themselves at him; generally Barely Holding It Together at all times.

people on reddit, mostly: Carl's stats!! blah blah blah power stuff. me: okay, but why is Carl Like This. let's deep discuss that. Also let Carl have a little breakdown. As a treat.

these books are so wildly, delightfully anti-capitalist, lol. I poked around Reddit and tumblr a bit, but didn't see anyone discussing this series' politics, but that aspect is super interesting to me. The series is very, very concerned with revolution and resistance and the form those things take when very few options are available to the oppressed, plus the ethics of revolutionary violence.

The dungeon AI! This thing is Way Too Online in a gross dudebro way, but frankly, it's still funny with it, and the evolution of the AI's character is fascinating. Also, I regret to inform you that I do find it extremely fucking funny that the AI has a thing for Carl and his feet. This is wholly hypocritical of me: if Carl was Carla, and the AI made the same comments, I'd have bounced. But what can I say, comedy is about subversion, I guess.

PREPOTENTE. MY PRECIOUS WEIRDO GOATMAN CHILD. Prepotente was a goat; upon entry into the dungeon and eating a magic pet treat, he becomes a goat man type thing, and he spends much of the series as one of the most dangerous and skilled dungeon crawlers, along with his "mother", the shepherdess Miriam Dom. he's a total fuckin weirdo who screams a lot for no reason and i love him. he better fucking survive the series, i swear to god.

one running theme of the series that I love so much is that Carl does not give up on people, and he does not write them off. He often runs into fellow crawlers who, if he was being bloodlessly practical about things, he should have bailed on. They're people who aren't prepared, who haven't leveled up enough, who aren't likely to survive much longer. But he doesn't abandon them, and he doesn't assume they can't get better. He sticks with them and helps them, and they help him. It's about found family ;____; they all love each other so much ;______;

MORDECAI!!! he's a changeling skyfowl and the team's game guide and later manager, and is a former crawler who took a deal. This is supposed to be his last season in the crawl, before he's free of his indentured servitude. he is Dad Shaped. automatic dad. there is in fact something quietly devastating about his Dad Shapedness.

There's a whole super interesting thing going on with the dungeon NPCs, and how we start out assuming most of them aren't "real". unsurprising spoiler alert: they may have been created by/for the dungeon, but many of them are very much real, and once they realize the position they've been put into, they're pissed.

i truly have no real idea where the series is going with its running theme about parents and children, and the protection or lack thereof of children. Our most heroic characters are consistently shown protecting and caring for the NPC children, even when it's at great cost to themselves.

everything to do with the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, the secret book with writing from prior crawlers that Carl is given, makes me Emotional. I'm honestly shocked the whole Cookbook was never planned, and that it was a result of Patreon votes. It's hugely important in the seventh book, not so much on a plot level--I can see how Dinniman could have gotten to some of these same plot beats without it--but on an emotional and thematic one. There's something so affecting here about the continuity of resistance, of finding hope and strength in the people who came before you, of planting seeds you water with blood and that you may never get to harvest, and the sheer, furious love of the whole thing.

so apparently Dinniman is a pantser when it comes to writing. Clearly, he's having fun, and it's more or less working out so far, but it does make me concerned about his ability to stick the dismount. I saw in an AMA that he likened it to building a spaceship with legos versus building it with a plan, and that he has fun writing himself out of corners. That's all well and good, but some of the things I'm most interested in this series are the overarching themes, and it makes me wary of those themes not getting a proper payoff. I guess I should just enjoy the ride, and accept that there will almost certainly be many loose ends.

On a meta level, I find it very funny and ironic that when I took a look at the reviews for the seventh book, I saw some people complaining about the absence of the more "entertainment" and "game" aspects of the series: no interviews with the outside, no "character sheets" for Carl, fewer big fights for Carl himself to take on, the AI taking on a more active 'deus-ex AI' role. Because in-universe, the dungeon crawl is no longer entertainment. At this point, the crawl has become an actual war, and the game genre it takes on--4x strategy--reflects that. Carl and the crawlers' choices have increasing ramifications outside the crawl, where actual war is breaking out at least in part as a result of their actions. The AI intervening more and more often to put its finger on the scale is part of the conflict; it's fighting this war as much as the other characters are, if with still inscrutable motivations.

This is in fact one of the central conflicts of the series: to what extent is this still a game? Has it ever only been a game? The crawlers and NPCs are in fact fighting for it to not be a game: they're saying "my life is real, my suffering is real, and if you won't acknowledge that, then you're coming in here with us to fight and die too. Not just a game anymore, is it?" And on another side of the conflict, you have the AI insisting that this stay a game, something with rules and a narrative and at least an attempt at fairness, however much the AI manipulates those things.

It seems like there's something of a genre shift going on with this series. As a reader who's not particularly interested in or invested in litRPG in and of itself, I'm fine with it shifting to being more straightforwardly SFF, and in fact, I think that's an interesting and fun choice on a meta level: the more the crawlers and the AI break and change the game, the more the genre of the series itself shifts.

[kaylee68]

Part 3: The Viper family, generational trauma

Okay we’re back and since I have nothing to add to the intro this time we’re just getting right into it.

It is mentioned in book 4 that Jamil’s family have been serving under the Asims for generations.

How long is unspecified, but this generational servitude is one of the most significant factors as to why Jamil can’t leave his position. He was literally born to serve having been groomed and conditioned into his position since birth.

I also assume this makes his sister Najma a servant too since he says this is the fate of those born a Viper.

As previously mentioned we don’t hear much about Jamil’s parents beyond his backstory and his birthday vignette, but we can clearly see that their own lives as servants and probably their own parents too have affected the way they treat Jamil.

They seem very obviously terrified when they talk to Jamil in his flashback about loosing to Kalim and when they hit him for his tone. When they talk to Kalim they are very formal and offer an apology that from an outsiders perspective seems completely over the top considering Jamil’s crime was asking Kalim if they could play a different game.

I mean if that doesn’t show how they are very obviously traumatised by their own life as servants then I don’t know what will.

And while I’m saying this I want to add that I don’t want to act like some people I’ve seen online who think his parents fears were completely unfounded. They are scared and for good reason considering the Asims are completely willing to throw their lives away without a second thought.

Honestly I think it’s downplayed just how much the generational servitude affects Jamil’s life. I mean if this has been going on for generations then I assume anyone he gets in a relationship with is also bound to lifelong servitude, not to mention if he wanted to have kids in the future then just like him they would essentially belong to the Asim household.

Also it’s probably due to how traumatised they are that his parents end up instilling this same fear and anxiety into Jamil from when he is a kid.

We see in the flashbacks that he was not bolder per se but definitely not as aware of the difference in power between him and Kalim.

And maybe I’m looking too deeply, but you decided to click on an analysis post so you’re gonna get analysis but I noticed when watching his backstory that prior to this conversation with his parents he talks to Kalim freely as though they are equals and then after in all the flashbacks with Kalim its him talking at Jamil and Jamil not speaking.

Which I think could be taken as symbolism of him being unable to voice his feelings and opinions.

It also leads to Jamil’s general anxiety around people in authority. Like when Malleus is unexpectedly invited along to the firelit sky event Jamil completely freaks out.

Mostly cause it’s him who’s gonna be in trouble if anything goes wrong, but also I think the fact that he didn’t expect it is another reason why it affected him so badly because his parents planted this idea that it’s his job to be constantly in control of everything.

Which is obviously impossible.

I also think the generational trauma aspect of his childhood adds a whole other layer of complexity onto Jamil’s backstory. His relationship with his parents. His relationship with Kalim.

I mean it’s part of the reason that I can’t fully hate his parents because generational trauma is such a nuanced situation. Never mind the fact that the Viper family are still being actively traumatised since they’re trapped under an oppressive class system with employers that don’t give a shit whether they live or die.

Like they mean it when they say they’re in a delicate position, considering how much power the Asims have over them but regardless they do still fail their son tremendously as I’ve mentioned before.

Obviously the physical abuse is not okay, but the emotional abuse and neglect is bad too, though I’m sure it was very normalised to them throughout their own childhoods. Hurt people hurt people and all that.

But even so the way they treat Jamil is not okay.

Then there’s the fact that when discussing Jamil’s relationship with Kalim I think you definitely need to note just how far back this conditioning goes.

I mean his family have been servants for decades which is another reason why Kalim’s position as Jamil’s master leads to several issues with consent and boundaries.

Though that can also be attributed to Kalim’s unintentional inconsideration of other people since he tends to assume that most people think in the same way he does, which leads to him ignoring and overlooking others wants and needs, because he assumes they are the same as his own.

This is shown to be a problem with Jamil on several occasions. Things such as Kalim volunteering Jamil’s time and labour without his knowledge or consent and then tending to force Jamil into it or brushing off his annoyance when he gets frustrated.

I imagine this has been happening since they were kids due to how normalised they both are to this behaviour, which means Jamil has had to live his entire life under the pretext that any boundaries he might have are meaningless if Kalim decides so and it also doesn’t matter if the orders he’s given make him uncomfortable or actively put him in harms way, because his consent or lack there of is also meaningless.

Of course it’s not ever malicious Kalim mostly does this when people come to him for help he himself cannot provide because Kalim really likes to help people, and although he himself can’t always provide them with what they need his position of power means he has a variety of tools at his disposal. Things like his wealth and connections and also Jamil.

And obviously I’m not trying to say Kalim thinks of Jamil as a tool, at least not consciously, but then you can’t really ignore that Kalim was also raised with the belief that Jamil was just inherently worth less than him which is probably why he so often and without much thought tends to use him as a tool which Jamil on the other hand is very aware of.

He’s honestly very aware of his position in general since he frequently goes on about his social status in comparison to other characters of a higher class.

I think this is probably a symptom of Jamil having spent a majority of his childhood and teenage years living in survival mode. He’s constantly aware of his position in the world because he has to be, because it’s a position that puts him in a very vulnerable spot and allows the Asim family to abuse him.

I mean he almost died as a child being used as a human shield so I think it’s safe to say Jamil has been aware from a very young age just how disposable he is.

And if I’m being honest I think his position as Kalim’s servant specifically makes what’s already a bad situation worse. Not just because Kalim’s carelessness tends to make his job harder, but also because Jamil’s wellbeing is completely dependent on Kalim.

Kalim’s importance within the palace means that the consequences Jamil would face if he were harmed are far worse than the consequences he might face if he were just a regular palace servant or even just an attendant to one of Kalim’s younger siblings.

Its also why I dislike how when people discuss a romantic relationship between Jamil and Kalim they often bring up the fact that were Kalim to take over as head of household he would be able to free Jamil and his family which I guess some people assume would make a potential romance between them less toxic.

Except I really don’t think it would.

At this point the Asims have done so much damage to Jamil, let alone the Viper family as a whole, I mean the poisoning thing alone is enough to saddle him and his parents with lifelong trauma which isn’t just going to go away if Kalim were to free them.

I don’t like how some people dismiss just how bad their situation is just for the sake of a romance between Jamil and Kalim, obviously not saying you can’t ship them, but I hate when people bend over backwards to pretend it’s not toxic.

The one aspect about Jamil’s whole family that honestly confuses me the most is Najma, because compared to her parents and brother she seems pretty well adjusted. She’s a lot more confident than Jamil, a lot less anxious and just a lot happier over all.

Of course she has like 3 minutes of screen time which isn’t really enough to psychoanalyse all her personal traumas but I assume the fact that she is not serving directly under the heir to the Asim household helps. Since the risk that comes along with caring for someone in Kalim’s position probably puts a lot of additional pressure on both Jamil and his parents.

My personal theory is that the Vipers are considered pretty low ranking servants and that Jamil being made Kalim’s personal attendant (probably due to them being close in age) was something his parents saw as an opportunity.

Which might be another reasons why they insisted on having Jamil be completely subservient and essentially guilt him into not speaking against Kalim in any meaningful way.

Jamil still speaks of them pretty highly. Though I think it’s interesting to note that he speaks more about what they do and their skills rather than who they are as people.

Still he doesn’t seem to hold any resentment towards them, certainly nowhere near the same hatred he shows towards Kalim in book 4 despite them having been objectively worse to him in every way from the little we’ve seen of them.

I personally see his parents actions as well meaning. They had good intentions even if those intentions were twisted by their own experiences. I also think that Jamil believes that they were doing their best to secure him a better position in life.

Though I don’t know if thinking that is enough to stop any resentment completely, because it still feels shitty to be abused no matter how traumatised your parents are.

And of course I’m sure Najma isn’t trauma free either, but it does make me curious for what exactly her position in the household is and how that affects her.

Okay that’s about it though if I’m honest I don’t think I organised my thoughts here particularly well, and I’m pretty sure there’s more I wanted to discuss except I forgot what it was so this is what you’re getting.

Might edit it later though.

Also as a side note I want to add that I just saw the book 7 Scarabia chapter (though I have yet to finish it at the time of posting) and I think Jamil’s dream is pretty good evidence for the theory that the Vipers are indentured servants.

Spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read it but Jamil’s dream is basically a role swap between him and Kalim and the in dream explanation for how this happened is that Kalim’s family business failed and Jamil’s family

(who I guess just got super rich somehow?)

essentially bought the Asim’s out of debt and then made them their servants.

Which if it’s a role swap implies that in reality Jamil’s family were at some point in the long distant past bought out of some generational debt (or something of that nature) by the Asim family and now, ages later their descendants are still repaying that debt by being forced to work under them.

Hence, indentured servants!

Which honestly makes sense because I read through the Tapis rouge event and it turns out Jamil can buy things which should mean the Vipers are paid, but I think their wages are probably not good and definitely not what they should be paid considering they work a full time very demanding job 24/7.

Which would then explain why Jamil is so tight with his spending, because that also confused me. He’s been a live in nanny to one of the richest families in the world for over a decade now and since he’s also a child whose living expenses are still being covered by their parents he would absolutely have stacks saved up in his account if he were paid fairly.

Which I doubt he is. Though I don’t think there’s a fair price in the world for being expected to die for a person.

Anyway using this for my new hc/theory that I might write into a fanfiction one day since I also think the reason that the Vipers have been employed for so long is because the Asims are exploitative as fuck when it comes to their contract.

The Viper’s live in a house, eat food and wear clothes that are all provided by the Asim family and I think all those costs probably get added to their contract (and also probably inflated) driving Jamil’s family deeper into debt, which then further traps them in a never ending forced labour contract.

I imagine the Asim’s do this because for one it means they can pay the Vipers way less than what they’d have to pay a normal employee, but also because it’s convenient to have people who are forced to do all the dangerous, undesirable jobs that no sane, willing person would ever choose to do.

Thanks for reading. As always sorry for the spelling mistakes.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

[mister-snape]

Severus Snape’s Speech Characteristics Across the Harry Potter Series (Part 6)

Evolution of Snape’s Speech Over the Series

Across the seven books, Snape’s core speaking style remains largely consistent – he is always the cold, sarcastic professor in the eyes of Harry and others. However, readers do observe some evolution or at least different facets of Snape’s speech as more of his character is revealed. In the earlier books (1–3), Snape’s dialogue is mostly confined to the classroom and short hostile exchanges. Here, he appears purely as an antagonistic teacher: deducting points with clipped comments, insulting students’ competence, and maintaining a frosty politeness with colleagues. For example, in Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets, his lines are typically along the lines of “Turn to page 394”, “I see no difference” (when mocking Hermione’s teeth in Goblet of Fire), or “Five points from Gryffindor.” These show a static cruelty and strictness. There isn’t much change because at this stage Snape is a somewhat flat figure of authority from Harry’s perspective. His speech serves to reinforce that image.

As the series progresses (Books 4–6), Snape gets more dialogue in varied situations – interactions with other professors, with the Order of the Phoenix, with Death Eaters – and we see subtle shifts. In Order of the Phoenix, for instance, Snape’s role expands due to Harry’s Occlumency lessons. In those lessons, Snape’s speech is even more personal and biting: he digs into Harry with psychologically taunting remarks (“Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions…”), which is a bit of a self-description as well as advice. Here we see Snape’s tone with an edge of frustration, not just routine sarcasm. We also witness a loss of composure when Harry peeks into Snape’s memories; Snape’s furious reaction (“Get out!” he bellowed) is far more emotionally charged than anything he’s said in earlier books. This indicates an evolution from controlled disdain to open anger when pushed. In Half-Blood Prince, Snape finally becomes Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and also has secret dealings (Spinner’s End, the Unbreakable Vow). In his conversation with Narcissa and Bellatrix (Spinner’s End, Book 6), Snape’s speech is at its most duplicitous and carefully measured – he’s convincing Bellatrix of his loyalty with smooth, calculated answers. The content is different (he’s not insulting anyone in that scene; he’s defending his own actions), but the style – smooth, calm, a touch of scorn towards Bellatrix’s doubts – remains very Snape. By the end of Half-Blood Prince, during the confrontation outside Hogwarts, Snape’s facade cracks again under extreme circumstances (Harry attacking him, calling him a coward). At that point, we hear him shouting, insulting James Potter (“your father would have…”) – a glimpse of old resentments surfacing. This progression shows Snape’s speech pattern expanding from a one-dimensional cruel teacher to a more complex figure whose anger and bitterness sometimes override his cool mask.

By Deathly Hallows, Snape is a more mysterious figure (for most of the book he’s seen from afar as Hogwarts Headmaster), so we have less direct dialogue until “The Prince’s Tale” memories. In those final memories, spanning years, we hear Snape in various moods – desperate, devastated, determined. Notably, his speech with Dumbledore in the memories is different from his classroom snark: he’s frank and even vulnerable. The famous one-word “Always.” is emblematic of how much his tone changed when talking about Lily – it’s heartfelt, devoid of sarcasm. His very last spoken words in life – “Look at me.” – said to Harry as Snape is dying, are soft, pleading and utterly devoid of the usual bite. This is a dramatic departure from the Snape who barked orders at Harry in earlier books. It suggests that in his final moments, Snape’s true voice (stripped of bitterness) emerges, however briefly. In conclusion, while Snape’s public persona and speech style remain steady (formal, caustic, controlled) throughout the series, readers witness layers peeling back in extraordinary moments. We come to understand that the consistent harshness of his speech was, in part, a front – and in rare instances, his words could be genuinely earnest and laden with hidden emotion.

to be continued...

[rinayeas]

puking out some mercs drawing hcs bc i have nowhere to put them mwak

Best artist to worst real quick: scout, medic, demo, spy, engie, sniper, pyro, heavy, and solly

Scout is self explanatory, he's loved drawing since he was very young and his love for comic books only served as fuel. Is the only one with a well developed, intentional style. That style obviously being 2004 cartoon network, sans the fact they live in the 70s

medic had to learn lots about drawing anatomy to make diagrams while he was in med school so he has an uncannily realistic style and is very good at portaits (skeleton portraits are also a specialty of his). He hasn't bothered to experiment with this skill surprisingly, he likes drawing things as he sees them

Demo and engie make their own schematics for their work so they got that down but engie doesn't have an artistic bone in his body sans playing guitar, he can draw a sentry and all its parts perfectly but still draws stick figures. Demo has dabbled in drawing and doodling on the corner of his schematics so he has a bit more range (more than he gives himself credit for)

Spy is crazy good at painting, his use of color is incredible and can capture light and moods perfectly. But he is absolutely fucking terrible at actually drawing things. His anatomy is all fucked up and he is REALLY bad at perspective. Insists that it's his artistic vision but on the inside he is fuming.

One time Scout gave him the idea to 'collab' and he begrudgingly accepted. But the end result of one of Scout's cartoons combined with his coloring made him a bit more emotional than he wanted to admit.

Sniper can only draw animals. He doesn't see the point in drawing but one time on a trip he saw a really cute dog and he hadn't bought a camera yet nor could he take it back home so he just drew it and showed it to his mom as soon as he got back. He got better over the years but doesn't know how to draw anything else

Pyro draws like a kid but they put the most passion and love to her drawings so they look particularly cute and colorful. He and scout have drawing sessions in the mess hall where whoever is in there w them chooses the theme and each of them draws their version, they surprisingly learn a lot from eachother.

Heavy is a man of words. Mostly because he loves them but also bc he finds drawing absurdly hard. Resorts to drawing stick figures all the time but he's very competent at making his point while using the bare minimum

Solly's drawing are just a mess of scribbles with the ocassional color, nobody knows if he's an abstract genius or just a terrible artist. Exclusively uses the american flag colors. One time Spy jokingly asked him why was he using the french flag colors and after choking the shit out of him Soldier stared at the wall for a good two hours in contemplation.

[beigetiger]

My brain is fucking overanalyzing a two-page phone call scene in Resurrection so now I’m just gonna spill my thoughts, probably pretty skin-deep analysis but I’m doing it anyway

Needless to say, spoilers ahead

This entire scene does a really good job highlighting how unbelievably not normal Skulduggery and Valkyrie are about each other, even after five years apart.

First off, the book never actually says who started the phone call, and the dialogue is vague enough that you can’t really guess. I actually really agree with this choice, because making it clear which person called the other could have made the weird dynamic going on in this book seem much more one-sided, as opposed to the mutual obsessiveness shown in this scene. The chapter shows nothing of the beforehand of the call (how Valkyrie got to the hospital, etc) and shows nothing of it afterwards, ending the chapter when the conversation seems to reach its natural conclusion and Valkyrie hangs up.

There’s also barely any description of the setting that Valkyrie is in. Valkyrie basically spends one or two sentences describing the clinic and stating that she’s in an empty room, and then that’s it. It doesn’t go into any sort of detail into where in the clinic she is or why she’s there, so the viewers have to guess. The scene also barely shows Valkyrie’s inner thoughts, so the scene is mostly just the dialogue between the two characters, which adds a feeling of objectivity and also makes the scene feel more closed-in, which is probably a good representation of what Valkyrie was feeling at the moment (due to the shock factor of abruptly losing someone and then talking to weird version of them a few hours later).

In fact, Valkyrie’s inner dialogue is mostly just used at the very start, where she mentally notes his voice. This on top of only starting off using pronouns instead of their names shows a repeated familiarity between the characters that immediately tells us who’s perspective we’re looking at, no names necessary. Showcasing the familiarity between the characters is also important to do here because they’ve recently been apart for five years and it’s reassuring to the audience to know that they’re still freakishly close.

Also, Valkyrie being so desperate to hear Skulduggery talk that she’s willing to sit there and listen to him talk about how he’s going to literally murder her. There is so much going on there, from Valkyrie’s current shitty mental state (it’s already shown in the book that she puts up with a lot of bullshit, this just adds to it) to her borderline denial that anything is wrong with her partner (like how in the next chapter she just repeats to herself that Skulduggery is fine and everything will be alright).

Skulduggery, of course, is calling her out by claiming that some part of her does understand the direness of the situation at hand, even if she doesn’t want to. He also does it in an almost taunting “there is nothing wrong with me, I’m not trying to fight this corruption at all way”, which MIGHT be true at that moment, or might be a bare-faced lie that he’s trying to make Valkyrie convinced of in order to also convince himself. After all, he does later manage to fight off Smoke’s corruption TWICE, and you cannot convince me that some part of him wasn’t trying to beforehand.

Adding to my previous point about the familiarity between the characters, Skulduggery is quite willingly (and gleefully) open to Valkyrie about his emotional state, how he’s coming to his current moral conclusions, how it feels from his perspective, and so on. While he’s definitely more generally emotionally open when he’s corrupted, he never quite goes into the same detail about it with other people as he happily gives to Valkyrie, which is a trend across the books (and again, reinforces to the audience that these two are still close).

He also acts incredibly exhilarated at Valkyrie’s knowledge of how his mind and motives work (as shown by “do you think I’m gonna kill your family”), since it shows him (as well as the audience) that Valkyrie still knows him really, really, well. It also adds a sort of serial killer vibe to the dynamic that makes it more interesting to consume for the readers.

And not really related to the scene, but the transitions between chapters in this book (including this particular chapter) are really smooth and make for some very funny moments, such as subtly calling the in-series stand-in for Trump an idiot, or talking about “the most beautiful woman in the world” only for the next chapter to immediately cut to talking about China. Also, the repeated chapter transitions between Sebastian and Omen were REALLY subtle foreshadowing for the twist in Until the End, which really shows how much Landry planned out phase 2 before writing it.

There are more words in here than there are in the actual chapter.

[beevean]

Honestly, as someone who wasn't a huge fan of Frontiers from a gameplay or story perspective, I couldn't help but feel alienated from the fanbase for a while. People seem to praise it up the ass, and I honestly don't see what their seeing in the game. And often times when you point out criticism, you get responses like "It's a step in the right direction, we should praise it" or "You're not a real Sonic fan if you don't like this"

Are you me? :^)

After all the shit we endured with IDW and its endless, vitriolic discourse about its writing and take on Sonic and Eggman and its "deep" morality (which stopped being deep once Flynn got tired of the discourse, then it became "a book for kids")... Frontiers broke me. Again, I must stress: it's not about the game, because I haven't played it and videos don't make it justice. I can believe it's a fun experience. But the writing is honestly '06 level of bad, mostly for how boring and pretentious the story is.

Where are all these deep, emotional character moments? Where are all these compelling character arcs (that are totally not rehashes of past games)? Where is Sage's depth? Why are we praising Eggman sitting on his ass for 90% of the game and then suddenly developing fatherly feelings when past games made clear that he's only proud of his creations when they make him look good and he's more than willing to abuse them for the slightest transgressions (which Sage has made)?

Then you add the forced references (some of them straight up wrong, like the Neo Metal one), the meta jokes, the completely unnecessary lore that to this day I still don't understand, the underwhelming villain, the wasted conflict of Sonic getting corrupted, the lackluster finale, and the fact that literally nothing happens - which would be fine if this game had a tone more like Heroes or Generations, which were aware that story was their lowest priority, but no, this game wants to be DEEP, a step in the right direction after the EVIL PONTAFF! (I still find very... unprofessional? that Flynn wrote a jab at Baldy McNosehair in one of the Egg Memos. It's not even the first time he does that, he also did it in IDW. I get it man, you think your writing is so much better, "thanks for putting the chili back on my dog" :^) )

So anyway. It got to the point where the praise genuinely made me feel like there was something wrong with me. I don't like IDW, I don't like Frontiers, now I don't see anything promising in Prime - am I a bad Sonic fan? Am I being stripped of something that gave me joy since I was 8? I had to distance myself. I had to keep my few friends close and think about the parts I still enjoy.

It's not the first time I took a "break" from Sonic - the period from 2013 to 2017 was... bad. But everyone else agreed that it was! That's the thing. It's one thing to disagree that SA2 is a masterpiece, because fine, whatever, you can't always agree with the majority. But when it comes to modern material, the majority is so vitriolic and nasty, and I can't deal with it anymore. I'll make my own fandom :\

[thedreadvampy]

Midcentury American novels update:

Finished Farenheit 451 on Thursday and it didn't hit me to the degree Catcher in the Rye did but I do completely get the sense of despair and the hunt for something to cling to. Umm also there's an actual nuclear apocalypse in this book which I. Did not know through my general cultural osmosis. And it made a lot of the stuff that initially read a bit as 'you can't say ANYTHING now cause of 50s Woke' less irritating in hindsight, cause the looming presence of nuclear war gives some real crunch to the overall theme of looking away from the discomfort of acknowledging what's wrong. Still not 100% comfortable with 'well we started burning books lest minorities become offended' as a midpoint comment but like I read this when I was 12 or 13 and very much came away with the sense that it was a shallow What If TV But Too Much kind of story that was very pleased with its own intellectualism. and I don't really think that's what it is I think it's a primal scream of WON'T ANYONE DO ANYTHING????? CAUSE I AM TOO SMALL AND TOO STUPID AND TOO COMPLICIT BUT NOBODY ELSE IS MOVING EITHER???? which you know. I can connect with at this time.

anyway then I reread One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest yesterday. That one I actually have read as an adult, like 10 years ago, and what I remembered mostly from it was the degree to which either the characters, the author, or both, truly despise women. On reread I don't think that's entirely fair, although it's hard to tell inside one character's very limited and metaphorical perspective - I don't think Ken Kesey hates women, I think that Candy and Sandy are relatively whole people and the other women in the story are avatars of the system abusing the men on the ward, so Chief Brogden sees them as such. Getting over the general 60s misogyny miasma, though, I really really liked it and stayed up very late last night finishing it, I think it has a lot of very coherent things to say about trauma, power and marginalisation and I think it's all a bit Foucault. It's odd that I remembered it as being very het-white-American-male in tone because this time around it felt very interested in how people are artificially marginalised in order to preserve power, and specifically in the violent assimilation of Indigenous communities, so I truly don't know why I went away last time feeling it was so tone-deaf. It's really good, is the thing.

(As a side note, cause Sam's copy is an 80s film tie in copy - there's no fucking way that film is good, right? Cause I actively cannot imagine how you would make a film adaptation of a book that exists so much in one mostly-silent character's head, kind of unmoored from time and moving between reality, metaphor and hallucinations, and with a fairly distant relationship to the literal events, and have it not be shit. Animation could maybe do it and you could potentially do it with a really good effects department to establish early on that this isn't a neutral, literal depiction, but even so it feels like doing this in a visual medium would undercut the fact that most of the book's story involves stuff that isn't really happening on a visual or audible level.

Like about a tenth of the text is Chief Brogden drawing connections, conclusions, describing the emotional and sensory experiences of things like dissociation, anxiety and electrocution, and generally explaining why the things that he and the other patients do that seem random make sense to him. And even with heavy voiceover it seems to me that a) a film would mostly be us watching mental patients act the way we expect mental patients to act, without the insight we get through his eyes, and b) it would inevitably need to be about what a guy McMurphy is, either positively or negatively, which to be entirely honest is kind of not what the book is about even though that's the plot of the book?)

The book isn't about McMurphy, it's about people realising they've not only had their agency taken away, but given it up themselves, and how they react to that and what it would mean to reclaim that. McMurphy's one of several people going through that arc, and he's going through it in an opposite direction to the people around him, but it's not more about him than about Chief Brogden or Billy or Harding or even Nurse Ratched. But I feel like because of how film language works, it would be very hard to make a film of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest where McMurphy wasn't the main character. And he's not. Chief Bromden is the main character as well as the narrator - his life is defined by people collapsing under unbearable pressure and giving up their freedom and agency, which is how his tribe lost their land and how he lost his agency and his power of speech, and watching McMurphy force the people in power to subdue him by force rather than him caving in, the Chief makes actual choices about how he wants to respond to power that don't involve him falling out of reality or becoming invisible. and I think like halfway through I was like 'ehhh don't really get why Kesey went with a specifically Native protagonist' and by the back end of the book it is extremely clear to me why.

Cause his arc has a lot to do with the violence against indigenous communities and while I don't think that the book is primarily a metaphor, per se, because it very much is literally about institutionalisation and the stigmatisation of inconvenient Madness, I do think it's also saying things it wants us to apply to other relationships of power and assimilation, starting with the forced assimilation and land theft of Native Americans, and touching in on class, politics, race and sexuality more generally. Not much on gender, mind - I don't think that it does actually despise women, but it also isn't very interested in interrogating anything about them other than the impacts they have on men, which 🤷‍♀️ 60s innit.

idk I liked it a lot. I liked Farenheit 451 pretty well and better than I expected to, but Catcher and One Flew have both got me in this kind of rambly post-read mode where I'm just turning them over and over in my head to look at them, you know?

[galadhir]

So I bought the latest Murderbot book, System Collapse as soon as it came out, on both audiobook and ebook, and I have to say that I was ever so slightly disappointed. It is a really good example of a Murderbot novella, just like the other ones in the series, but my problem is that with it coming after Network Effect I was hoping for other things.

When Network Effect finished with ART excitedly cleaning its interior because Dr. Mensah would be coming aboard, I was excited to be able to read about ART and Mensah meeting and learning to appreciate each other.

When we got the blurb for System Collapse and it became obvious that SecUnit was having something of a breakdown due to accumulated trauma, while Barish Estranza was up to its corporate worst, I was excited at the thought that Three might have to take over some of SecUnit's more running-about-and-murdering-people duties, while SecUnit had to take the trauma treatment.

I wanted to see how the Preservation humans and ART's crew got along. Which I guess happened with Ratthi and Tarik. But I suppose I had got used to the extra space and slightly more leisurely pace of the novel, and was not prepared to go back to the tight focus of a novella.

This is all entirely my fault for having expectations, rather than just trying to enjoy what I got for its own sake. And in fact I remember feeling a little disappointed with Network Effect when that came out, while now it is my favourite in the series. So I'm sure after a few more reads and listens I will also learn to appreciate System Collapse for what it is, instead of what it isn't.

And let's face it, SecUnit was due a collapse! And now I'm eager to find out if Three gets a starship of its own with Holism. I like the fact that they are the serious non-fiction nerds of the series, while Perihelion and SecUnit are the sci-fi geeks. Bless!

~

Also I'm excited (and a little nervous) at the thought of a Murderbot TV series.

I'm excited because

you can do so much with a series in which a SecUnit is the pov character - think about how you could tell a story from the perspective of a being who is regularly experiencing life through security cameras and flying drones and

I'm not sure I can think of another series with a protag like SecUnit, who avoids eye contact, expresses emotional discomfort by turning and facing the wall, is extremely touch averse, and above all is agender and asexual and quite vocal about that.

When have we ever had a tv series where the main character's pronouns are 'it'? If they only keep that, the series will be revolutionary.

But I'm nervous because

Look at the guy they cast as SecUnit. Did he have to be so white? MB lives in a universe where most of the important characters are black or various shades of brown. It kind of defeats the importance of having so many important characters of colour if they're mostly there in order to be rescued by a white main character.

The show runners are both male. It would be so easy for a pair of straight cis male writers to ignore the widespread queerness of the setting and all the things most queer/non-neurotypical readers find so endearing about SecUnit and turn it into yet another male power fantasy where a heavily armed and deadly cyborg solves everyone's problems with ultra-violence.

It would be so easy for them to call SecUnit 'he' and churn out something like Robocop or Judge Dredd where the uncommunicative white guy with a heart of gold and a big gun gets to be the hero again. That would make it more marketable. It would make it more relatable to the straight cis white guys who make up the desired audience for SF shows (or so I've heard.) And it would take away from this agender asexual person someone who was very rare and precious to them.

Honestly listening to cis people talking about Murderbot is painful enough now when they must have read the book and they must have been bombarded for thousands of words with instances of it being called 'it' and insisting that gender was inapplicable to it and it found sex distasteful. Somehow even after all of that they will insist on calling it 'he' or 'she.' God knows how much worse it could get if the TV series did it too.

[lilareviewsbooks]

Dallergut Dream Department Store: 2.5/5

2.5/5 stars 243 pages contains: cozy vibes and dream magic!!

As some of you may know, I make the São Paulo – Boston trip quite frequently! I'm a college student in the US but live in Brazil, and so that makes for very long plane rides. We're talking 14 hours here. So, to keep sane, I usually download a couple books into my Kindle, pray they're interesting enough to keep me interested, buckle down, and read. 

I've just made the trek once more to spend the summer holidays at home, and I decided to download some books I'm reading for r/Fantasy's Bingo Challenge. One of them was The Dallergut Dream Department Store, by Lee Mi-ye, which clears my "alliterative title" square! Of course, because I can't make anything easy on myself, I read this Korean book in its French translation. Because of this, I feel like it's fully possible I didn't grasp the story in all of its complexity. I'm kind of bad at French. And I might have also been high on sleeping pills for half the book. So, take this review with a grain of salt.

In general, I thought this was a 2.5 star read. For me, that means it's decent. Like getting a C in school — you passed, but your work is far from stellar. What I did enjoy was the concept: the story follows Penny as she begins to work at a magical store people visit in their sleep, and where they "buy" their dreams for the night. And for the most part, the book is a world-building exercise in the concept of the store. It researches how every situation would work, from nightmares to people who day-dream, to animal dreams. Personally, I love a good deep dive into a world, so I was having fun, especially during the first half.

But after a while, it gets repetitive. The chapters are mostly loose stories that don't circle back to a particular theme or event. Penny is almost always there, though, I guess, but I'll get to my problems with Penny later. Although the stories are well-written, very easy to read and can sometimes be quite compelling, they don't make a novel when they're put together. They make up a collection of episodes with the same vague amalgamation of characters. The gimmick gets old pretty fast, and I was quickly looking for some emotional stakes, an overarching plot, anything. And although I am a fan of a good plotless, vibes-only fantasy, the lack of connection I felt with our main character and the fact that she and her friends do not change at all throughout the stories made it a very stale reading experience.

And Penny? Oh, Penny. My question became, quite simply, why are we following her? She's not a particularly interesting character, with no defining traits, nothing she needs or wants (besides working at the store, which she achieves in chapter 1)... Meanwhile, other characters in the novel have more personality, more interesting backgrounds, and they barely get to shine. They're buried behind an overabundance of Penny doing not much of anything, and being a self-insert/audience for Mr. Dallagoot's sermons. I kept wondering if it wouldn't be more interesting to follow any one of them. 

And I think Ms. Lee wondered this too, since she includes two epilogues which are, in my opinion, completely unnecessary, and are told entirely from the perspectives of two other characters. They just prove to the audience that Penny is a dreadful character by abandoning her at the end, leaving two random anecdotes about side-characters, which could've been anywhere in the book, to finish the novel off.

Although the vibes are good, the world is interesting and the book reads very cozy, there's a lot that you're left wanting, here. I think what this book needed was an editor, or a workshop session. It has so much potential, and if some crucial changes had been made, then I think Ms. Lee would have a wonderful final product on her hands.

[gigismodernlife]

2023: Finally the End of the Covid Era; Surpassing the Aftermath

For me (and I’m sure many can relate) this year sure feels like reaching the end of a series of very overwhelming chapters in a book that put life into perspective but ultimately redeemed itself by giving the reader a glimpse of hope. I like the way Chad simplified it: “2020:covid 2021:covid 2022:covid ending 2023:covid aftermath, this year was weird, besides the Economy still sucking, 2024 should be a good year” The impact of the last four years was seriously hard on me, as it was for many others. After a lot of reflection, I can say that the best thing to come out of it for me was helping me open my eyes and see things clearly through my glass lenses lol. Some call it a Spiritual Awakening, an Epiphany, "finding yourself" or "Accepting God into your life" I've discovered that in its essence it is all very similar. To each their own, as long as whatever they believe in leads them to do good in the world. For me, I am mostly subscribing to Modern Christianity, the one that accepts all people, but I am also hungry for knowledge and still absorb other things too. Jay Shetty and Joe Dispenza have some great YouTube interviewers that people of my generation like. Anyway, the lyrics from Amazing Grace "I once, was lost, but now, i'm found, was blind, but now I see" have never rang more true. And, I cant forget to mention that I also met the true love of my life and got engaged. Look who's not dying alone after all lol! 

So, I had forgotten, but I wrote a Blog, I think it was at the end of 2020 called "Developing Depression During A Global Pandemic & Black Lives Matter Movement" I doubt anyone has ever read it but its there if anyone wants to read it. For those who arent familiar, depression can be situational or a chemical imbalance in the brain. Some people with depression experience it every few years, some completely overcome it, and others sadly never overcome it. Mine tends to be situational. Im assuming I get depressed because I am a highly sensitive, emotional and empathetic person. I realized all of this because I fell so deep into depression this last time that I became desperate enough to finally try medication, which I tend to avoid. It was a nightmare to say the least, I am personally better without medication, but I know it works for some people. The point is, I don't think I have a serious chemical imbalance, I just have trouble handling some hard situations that life has thrown at me, and based on my history, I have gotten much better at recognizing when I feel it and I can thankfully help myself out of it. This time though, I did'nt even remember how I had overcome depression in the past because from October of 2022 to about September of 2023 I was depressed AGAIN and much worse this time. If I would have gone back and read that blog I wrote, I really could have helped myself. I sincerely hate to say this, especially because I had already learned that money does not buy happiness, but the truth is, I messed up and I should've believed in myself more. My biggest fear was losing my income and having to go back home to San Diego after I worked so hard to branch out of there. I was so loyal to this job because I reached middle class financial independence working there but NONE OF THAT MATTERS! It's all a social construct. Middle class doesn't even mean much anymore these days, specifically in this economy (I'll write more about that another time). I should've quit my job so long ago, I tried, but the fear consumed me, as if it was worth the suffering, but it definitely was not. I mean, I ended up being affected by one of many mass lay offs across the country anyway, so I don't necessarily think I am a failure by any means, I learned a lot there, but it was definitely not the company for someone like me. That is life, and most people don't stick to one single job their entire life anymore. All of my worst fears ended up happening. I lost my job, I went back home to San Diego, which for me, holds some very bad memories. It didnt even end up being a bad thing, I ended up re-building my relationship with my family, I took a real estate course, I made memories with my nieces. It felt like God just helped me pick up my broken pieces and now I am whole again. I also set the right intention for my relationship and luckily now I have a Fiance and we are happier than ever in Oregon! I had been operating in constant fear and anxiety of becoming poor or homeless, I am so sorry to myself for doing that, I did not deserve that and neither did my cats. So basically, this year was about forgiving myself, TRULY forgiving myself. 

It's my first Christmas here in Oregon. Im sitting here in my pajamas, looking out the window at trees, surrounded by a cloudy sky, the temperature is in the high 40 degrees. I can't help but cry happy tears and reflect on life (I cry a lot, not just when I'm sad, but when im overwhelmingly happy too lol). My new boss called a few hours into the shift yesterday. No questions about performance, just a simple "Everyone go home! Spend Christmas Eve with your families" what a culture shock. At my old job, I hardly took days off. I asked to leave "on time" instead of staying later to make my flight to New Mexico at 8pm on Christmas Eve to be with family. I felt full of guilt and shame being asked about my performance, as if they needed to know whether or not I deserved to not stay later. I couldn't even enjoy it fully, because I was stressed that I did'nt do well enough. I am so glad those days are over. Today I really get to relax, and enjoy life. Everything is actually going to be okay.

What a whirl wind, this Covid Era was. The world was sick with Covid then the nice media outlets helped spread the encouragement of thanking your “Essential Workers” but really, a lot of the big companies approached it wrong and many of these workers mental health started to deteriorate from being overworked. Followed by consistent mass layoffs, even when profits were higher than usual. Then of course other media outlets spread nothing but fear. Oh! AND then we got frustrated because we got to see how other countries were smarter and more caring about the stimulus packages for their people. I realized that some other countries have a leadership team that relates more to their people and in tough times can show how they genuinely they care about their well being, rather than profit. (It's funny to me how this parallels my experience with Corporate America). I think many people realized that our country is not just physically sick, it's actually mentally struggling. Thank goodness for Millenials and Gen Z who started making mindfulness become what we call viral, or popular or "Woke". This is how many of us got back to religion, or even if they are not part of a religion, they still see things much more clearly and want to do better for themselves and make the world a better place. I still choose to believe that the majority of people are good, even though I've experienced some awful people in my lifetime.

For me, things are finally okay now, physically and emotionally. Im living a humble life, learning and growing and surrounded by much nicer people now, I mean this in the nicest way, but it feels almost shocking that here, people have morals, and they care about women being treated, "special" for lack of a better word. L.A. was definitely not my home and I hope it will never be again. Here, I see forests and mountains everywhere I look, I get greeted by cute squirrels outside all of the time, and lastly the rivers and lakes are beautiful. Even my cats are showing significant signs of healthier and happier lives. Im in the outskirts, but Downtown Portland is beautiful too. It is small compared to L.A. and San Diego, but exceptionally clean and pretty, friendliness is everywhere. The best part is that it has preserved some really nice historical buildings. It holds the largest book store in the world! It feels a little like a ghost town because the riots during the Black Lives Matter movement drove out a lot of businesses, therefore there are a lot of empty places, but none the less, it is a very nice experience to walk through it. Homelessness is also an issue here just like it is in California. The people out here though, the majority all seem so nice, it gives off a small town feel where everyone is just trying to live their best life and spread positive vibes. It's not about the car you drive, the way you dress, the neighborhood you live in, they just want to be good people, and honestly, they are some of the most good looking people I've come across. They're not rushing from place to place because "time is money" its just simple and chill. I haven't experienced the angry honking, or rude interactions I am used to. Im just minding my own business, smiling at everyone and taking it all in. I love it here.

I think I feel what a lot of immigrants feel when they first come to America, except I just didn't leave the country, I only migrated to another state. I feel like a kid experiencing life for the first time. The excitement, the knowledge I am consuming, the culture shocks in the most positive way. Im just open minded and learning and growing and appreciating every moment with my whole heart. It feels like God gave me a warm hug this year. He not only helped me out of depression, he helped me see that I have a bigger purpose, and helped me find a state that suits me and my personality better. Thank You infinitely to God and to Oregon for welcoming me.

[theship-thewalrus]

For the event!!

'This belonged to my mother- etc etc' with Tywin please???

No worries if not <3

Hi Hi!! Thank you so much for the request :) I hope you enjoy it and it is what you were looking for <3

tywin lannister x female! reader

pretty much the ask!! also this is for the 100 follower event

word count: 616 words reading time: about 4 minutes warnings: none prompt: ❛ this belonged to my mother i want you to have it ❜

Tywin was not known to be one to give you many, believing his words and actions are enough to show his affection. Yet on very special occasions, your husband gave you a small gift. Mostly jewels, necklaces or rings, to help show your wealth, help solidify in others mine the power you held over them. As you were to their equal but their better.

Your name day was fast approaching, something Tywin made sure to never forget. It was one of the occasions you were ever given a gift, something to commemorate your time in this world. But the man needs to give you something of meaning, of importance. As you have all the jewels, necklaces and rings a woman could ask for. You had many horses and dresses, many hair pieces and shoes. What was there to give a woman who has it all?

Sitting by the window of your room with a book in hand, you took little notice of who entered. Too engrossed by the words on a page to simply look up and greet someone. Only when a hand lays on your shoulder you are pulled from your thoughts. Your head turns before your eyes as you try to finish the page before committing to talking to the person. Finally, your eyes land on your husband, Tywin, the man standing tall and proud above you.

A small smile forms on your face, it was only a few moons before your name day. But your husband always gave you a gift beforehand and by the hand behind his back you guessed he came bearing gifts. Your husband knew you were an observant and logically person, making it hard to hide things from you at times. Though over the years he had grown good at it when he needed to.

"It is such a lovely day and yet you are chained to this room," Tywin says with some jest, looking down at you. Shrugging your shoulders you mark the page in your book before closing it, giving the man your full attention. Something which made the smile on his face grow slightly. In the privacy of your company, Tywin allowed some of his walls to lower, to show some emotions to you.

"There will be more lovely days to come. No issue if I spend a single one in my room," you say with a small smile, eyes moving to look out the window. "I believe you have brought me something, less you simply enjoy having your hand behind your back." Tywin laughs slightly, enjoying your forward nature. You were never one to dance around your points, seeing through others' flowery words and identifying underlying points.

"Also so perspective, my dear. But I yield, this is for you." Taking his hand from behind his back you look back over to him, wondering what the gift could possibly be. In his open palm sat a small ring, a gold band, in craved with the Lannister house word, a ruby sat in the centre. It was an elegant ring, something you had not seen before. For a moment you thought that maybe he had made it recently, something just for you. Yet the ring seemed worn despite its perfections.

"What a lovely ring." You hum, taking it from his open palm and inspecting it. "This belonged to my mother I want you to have it," Tywin's voice broke you from concentration on the ring, making your eyes drift to him. A large smile on your face, as well as his.

Gifts were never something you sort out, nor Tywin frequently gave. But when gifts were exchanged they were meaningful to each of them.

[scarlet--wiccan]

what did you think about issue #3 of Scarlet Witch?

I haven't really shared my thoughts on the the series yet, so I guess this is a good time to check in. Issue #3 definitely highlighted all of Scarlet Witch's strengths, but I think it also brought some of its weaknesses, and directions that I wouldn't personally choose, into focus.

First of all, the artwork was the real star of this issue, and I have to say that Pichelli, D'Amico, and Wilson are doing amazing work. Going into this series, I was worried that the artistic sensibility was going to be a little too "superhero" for my taste, but this issue blew me away. Pichelli's fluid lines are complimented perfectly by the painterly, organic finish that D'Amico and Wilson bring to the colors and inks. This journey through the fantasy world of Subatomica was a great showcase, compared #1 and #2. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this vivid magic as we enter into the Bacchae storyline.

Composing an issue almost entirely out of montage can be tricky, but Orlando took advantage of the extra page space to tell a story while also delivering his thesis on Wanda's character. This issue nails down who Wanda is, where she's at, and what she wants moving forward. Orlando has really imbued her with grace and wisdom from all of her experiences, but he also allows her to be vulnerable, and arrive at these moments with a very human touch. I think that's important, and it's something I've been a little worried about, because it would be easy to overcorrect with Wanda and make her too infallible. I appreciate that she has really complex emotions and personal reactions, which is something I find missing in a lot of comics these days.

I've said it before, but Wanda's affinity for chosen family is a core aspect of her character, and I think it was smart to illustrate this with Viv and Lorna in the opening arc, because those two are the least obvious choices. Bringing Tommy or Billy in would be great, but it wouldn't necessarily allow Orlando to say anything new. I appreciate that Viv challenges Wanda and creates a sort of tension, just as much as I appreciate Lorna for accepting Wanda as a sister in a way that she hasn't done much before, showing that Wanda is more well supported now and her family is stronger than in has been in years.

Having said all of that, there are some things that I am struggling with.

As I've said, I don't love Orlando's approach to writing magic. Previous Scarlet Witch stories have made the effort to distinguish witchcraft from other forms of magic, and the current developments with Agatha are promising to expand its role in the Marvel world. So far, Orlando has ignored all of that, and is just defaulting to a very Doctor Strange sensibility-- mostly invocations of fictional entities and whimsically named artifacts. That's annoying, but I'm more frustrated by the lack of internal thought and effort behind Wanda's spellcasting. This is her book, and she's the POV character, so I think there needs to be more detail and intentionality with her powers.

I really liked the scene where Wanda and Lorna forge that sword together-- Wanda didn't just conjure a sword, there was thought and detail put into how it came together-- and I just wish we were seeing more of that.

Issue #3, for me, also called attention to the glaring lack of Romani perspective. I love the way Wanda and Pietro are being drawn, and I love the inclusion of cultural food in #2, but this is surface-level representation, and it's not enough to balance the decades of flawed material. Don't get me wrong, these changes are huge, and they're going to make a difference, and there's just no excuse at this point for the lack of Romani contributors. I literally know people who would take the offer, myself included.

Anyways, I was thinking about it a lot when Mardj was describing hte nomadic marauders that have invaded her home. I was uncomfortable with the language Orlando used in that scene, and I just don't think that very many Romani writers would choose to characterize a displaced people as unquestionably evil.

This lack of authenticity comes up a lot in Wanda's language, too. Orlando's research is still faulty at best, and again, there are a lot of people who could've been paid as a consultant. Mostly, though I'm just disappointed by the fact that Wanda is a small occult business owner, and there's been no acknowledgement of the complicated history Romani people have with magic/fortunetelling as businesses and cultural trade work-- or the very real discriminatory laws and policing of fortune teller businesses and "scam artists," which are designed to target and profile Romani families.

[asoiaf-essays-collector]

*Mic check* I'd like to add a few words, thank you!

This ending sucks not because it's tragic and ironic but because it doesn't make any sense. It adds absolutely nothing but pointless tragedy and irony.

Let's look at it from different perspectives, shall we?

First - why is the Night's Watch even there in the end? It has two purposes - to guard 7 kingdoms from the others and to guard it from wildlings. And last several thousands years it served mostly the second purpose. So the others are eliminated and wildlings are North's "friends" or allies or subordinates thanks to Jon - so why would the Night's Watch still be there? What they gonna do - just hang out? Chill on top of the destroyed Wall?

But okay, let's say the Night's Watch stands - although now they lack any purpose and lack people (most of them are just killed in the battles against the others, very little people are gonna arrive because, you know, years of devastating wars and Daenerys's war crimes and westerosi population is pretty much decreased). For whatever reasons - maybe they stay there just in case or because they don't want dissolve ancient and dying on its own order.

Show Jon went there for what? For queenslaying? Well, show Daenerys wasn't crowned yet, official queen of Westeros at that point was Cersei and little Hitler speech after her death still didn't mean that Daenerys was an official queen, there were ought to be some ceremonies, blessing of church and etc. Oathbreaking is not punishable, as far as I can remember, lawbreaking is. And after what she did to King's Landing I don't think there are gonna be debates on whether he broke the law or it was the lesser evil or whatever. Jaime didn't go to the Night's Watch, and in his case no one knew about Mad King's evil plans. Sure, there gonna be some displeased people - in show they were Greyjoys and Daenerys's army. Like yeah, let's pass a sentence for Stark-Targaryen (show)-legitimate heir - the most noble man in whole damn Westeros - based on Greyjoy's complaints and accusations of some former slaves.

But sure, let's say that it's all me rambling about the show. Let's say that GRRM will do it differently - the way that his "punishment" does make sense. Maybe even the Night's Watch will make some sense, idk.

So let's get a look on some themes.

My biggest issue with the Night's Watch ending is about Jon's death. He died, his watch had ended - that's it. He fulfilled his purpose on the Wall, he kept his ridiculous vows. Returning back to the Night Watch in this case is not ironic or tragic - it just cancels out the whole his Night's Watch arc. Like, what's the meaning of words "My watch has ended" (and I think that phrase is gonna make it to TWOW) if Jon gonna return? It has no weight.

It also cancels out some foreshadowing from the first books. Like - remember how Catelyn said that she was glad Jon joining the Night's watch and having no children to mess up with her grandkids birthrights? What's the irony in that? Everybody was happy Jon went to the celibacy order being sorta exiled and 7 books later he is exiled and stays in said order? You know what it sounds like? It sounds like another failed character arc in the show - Jaime's. You know, how he started with loving Cersei unconditionally, had his own emotional journey of trying to un-love her and still ended up loving her unconditionally in the end.

No, it's not how GRRM writes irony.

Let's take a look on yet another character arc, shall we?

Sansa Stark.

I think we all can agree she will end up as Queen in the North, no doubts here (forshadowing + political arc + show and stuff). So we got ourselves a pretty finished character arc.

She starts in Winterfell wanting to go south, wanting to marry some noble handsome southerner, to see tournaments and to be a part of royal court. Along her journey she does all that in the most twisted way and understands that there's no place like home aka Winterfell. So she returns there and stays for good. What's the irony in that, you ask? Well the irony is that if things went the way they were supposed to she wouldn't enjoy staying in Winterfell for the rest of her life I think. A girl with southern looks who likes stories about knights and tournaments, who loves songs and minstrels wanted to go away from Winterfell where there is no tournaments and no minstrels. She enjoyed her staying in King's Landing until Robert's death. She didn't complained about the heat and she didn't express any home sickness. She wouldn't want to go back to Winterfell so much if things didn't go wrong.

See - that is this kind of irony and tragedy we can expect from GRRM for his main characters that will make it to the very end. Yes, the character ends up in the geographical position she was in the beginning - but in this case it completes her journey, not cancels it out.

I wish we can look into some other characters, but we know almost nothing - because none of the endings in the show (aside Sansa's) makes sense and I don't want to give the show too much trust). Some of them are just ridiculous (like Jaime's) and some we just don't have enough information about (like Bran's) - but still we can make some assumptions about Jon.

I think the kind of irony they were looking for is not "Jon thought he was good for nothing but the Night's watch and he ends up just like he and everybody around him always thought - good for nothing but the Night's watch". I think the appropriate amount of irony is "Jon always wanted a lady wife, children and Winterfell for himself even though he had no chances to gain all of that, and against all odds he ended up in Winterfell but for impossible price of Robb's life and knowledge that his whole life was nothing but a bunch of lies".

After all, ASoIaF is not about senseless tragedies. It is about hope. Yes, our favourite characters sometimes die or end up not being somewhere they would prefer. But also the tragedies happen to them not because of some evil fate but because of the mistakes they made (and killing the totalitarian Daenerys just doesn't look like one). ASoIaF is actually very hopeful. Villains are dying the most ironic way possible, they do not escape the westerosi karma. Heroes are still kind and hopeful - even after all of her courting and marriage failures Sansa still hopes to find love and some sort of happiness in her future marriage. Jon still hopes to reconnect with his family after all the times people said he should forget about them. After all those years living in dishonor Jaime finally has a hope to be a little bit honorable about his oath to Catelyn (even through Brienne). Azor Ahai is supposed to bring everlasting summer. The Night King is supposed to die so that he can't proceed with Long Night 2.0. The Winter is coming but after it came it is spring on the way. Goddamit - the last book in series is called A Dream of Spring - and it sounds hopeful af to me!

See that?

ASoIaF starts with tragedies. But it doesn't have to end with one.

At least I'm hoping so.

Sure, GRRM still can write whatever end he wants to. Jon still can end up in the Night's Watch. GRRM still can write his ending the way that it will make sense. But at this point it sure as hell doesn't - neither in show nor in books.

Case closed.

Martin loves circular endings and irony though and endings where history rhymes. So Jon back at the wall makes a ton of sense thematically. I remember watching the show before even reading the books and when we we found out that Aemon, the maester at the wall, was a Targ and came to the wall/became a maester almost in a self-sacrificial way to not cause any problems re future claims to the Iron Throne my first thought was 'Yeah, this is gonna be Jon's endgame. Aemon is his mirror character and he will end up back at the wall repeating history.' Low and behold 8 years later I was right lmao. A lot of Jon fans don't like his ending because they think he's a hero and good guy so he doesn't deserve to go back to the wall. The nature of tragic or ironic endings are not about what characters deserve, half the characters in the books didn't deserve what happened to them, that's what makes it tragic and ironic.

Aemon, the maester at the wall, was a Targ and came to the wall/became a maester almost in a self-sacrificial way to not cause any problems re future claims to the Iron Throne

Why must you hurt me this way?

'Yeah, this is gonna be Jon's endgame. Aemon is his mirror character and he will end up back at the wall repeating history.'

Stop, I beg.

Low and behold 8 years later I was right lmao.

Listen here, you smug bastard! 😂

A lot of Jon fans

I am of the variety

don't like his ending

it fucking sucks, but go on

because they think he's a hero

wishing that some hero would throw him down and cut off his head --> Longclaw descended

and good guy so he doesn't deserve to go back to the wall

NO ONE DESERVES TO BE AT THE WALL IT IS A CORRUPT INSTITUTION USED TO UNJUSTLY PUNISH BOYS! FORCED VOWS OF CELIBACY ARE WRONG! THE IDEA OF PREVENTING SOMEONE FROM FEELING LOVE IS STUPID AND TAKING THEIR FUTURE FROM THEM IS VILE! (*screams for 17 minutes*) AND ANOTHER THING-- (*slaps myself*) —I'm not overly fond of the Watch, now that you mention it.

The nature of tragic or ironic endings are not about what characters deserve, half the characters in the books didn't deserve what happened to them

Oh. I guess I could have read the whole ask before gnawing on my dresser.

that's what makes it tragic and ironic.

*gasps* You smart ass! Lmaooo. I did not see that coming from the beginning, I'm so impressed you called it that early on! And before you knew he was a Targ? Or had you clocked that by then too? That had to be the best feeling that while the rest of us were bitching and moaning you were like, tell me something I didn't know from s1. My gosh. The people you watched it with must have been so annoyed with you! Wait, if you knew Jon was Aemon-ing, who did you think would rule in the end?

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 1/17/23

this was written under some duress bc my cat refused the sacrificial animal cracker and wanted The Whole Box. no, these are mine, go eat your camel on the coffee table. i have always hated the "pet parent" stuff but mother DOES want a cocktail and some benzos, run along now

listening

peel me a grape, anita o'day's version. this popped up on a premade jazz standards spotify playlist

this is going to pop up on my spotify wrapped bc i am trying to memorize the lyrics, which include

Send out for scotch, boil me a crab Cut me a rose, make my tea with the petals Just hang around to pick up the tab Never out think me, just mink me Polar bear rug me, don't bug me New Thunderbird me, you heard me I'm getting hungry, peel me a grape

MWAH. love it. ideal.

-

reading

Dreamships by Melissa Scott. i don't like ragging on an alive, queer author, but this one did not grab me. let's talk about why!

the premise:

now, i'm not in the publishing industry. but maybe consider. if the jacket copy tells you "and this is the issue upon which the novel turns!" and then tells you the next two twists. maybe don't include that in the jacket copy. i have a bad habit of only reading the first half of jacket copy and didn't see this until i took these photos but i am retroactively annoyed on scott's behalf.

character work: i bought this bc i was very excited for a grouchy misanthropic lady pilot. reverdy jian isn't that. i still don’t know much about her from reading a third of the book. she is remarkably incurious and while this is an excellent trait if you are a freelancer or doing any sort of client work, it would have been nice to care about the protagonist of the book or feel like she has emotional or monetary stakes in taking/not taking this job.

pacing/structure: this book is like looking out over top of a layer of fog and i’m making it sound more exciting or appealing than it is. it’s very even in both pacing and emotion. the first hundred pages take places over about thirty six hours, bc there’s a rush pilot job, but it’s very laid back and relaxed. there’s no real sense of urgency or mystery, despite the author trying her hardest to set up a mystery about the almost complete lack of information about this ship. when the characters can’t find any info they just kind of shrug and move on. it’s also just a little obtuse, despite being very polished in all its tenses and word choices. i wonder if it maybe needed one more clarity pass. i had a lot of trouble figuring out who a whole extra character was bc there were too many men in one room.

where the pacing/structure/character work collide: this book reads like a travelogue, and i do not mean that as a compliment. again, we don't get much of reverdy's perspective--things simply happen to her or she sees things and just kind of absorbs them without much commentary. things happen one by one like beads on a string without really tying into a bigger picture of the city or her goals. the main premise (huge mostly underground city on a planet being stripmined) was not presented interestingly enough to make up for the lack of character work. for me. in my opinion. i'm not a writer (or at least not a serious/professional/one who puts a great deal of thought and planning into her writing)

i have a limited amount of time on this earth, i gave it a solid hundred pages, this does not earn a place on my shelf. back to the thrift store it goes. sorry ms scott i hope you're having a good day anyway

-

watching

still rewatching adventure time. s3 is full of solid bangers, i think this is the season i remember best bc it was one of the first Appointment Television things with my siblings the year we got cable. this is when they start drip-feeding you more of the stuff about the great mushroom war

i really really love when a post-post apoc setting thinks about the impact of a nuclear war on playground culture, like this hide and seek variant you see in s3e21:Marceline's Closet.

Over the mountain, the ominous cloud Coming to cover the land in a shroud Hide in a bushel, a basement, a cave But when cloud comes a-huntin No one's a save… no, safe!

how i found this: this show ran from 2010-2018, and was absolutely impossible to escape as a cultural juggernaut, especially during the peak le epic bacon style times when i was in high school. it also had a limited series in 2020-2021 and a spinoff is supposed to happen next year, which i am cautiously optimistic about.

-

playing

there will be light spoilers for the first two acts of wolfenstein the new order, a game that came out in 2014. i do not feel the need to rot13 early spoilers for an nine year old game.

despite enjoying the soundtrack for many years, i have never previously made into the castle in the first level of wolfenstein: the new order bc i always got bored and wandered off irl. i do want to get to a part (again not sure which one) where it will let me dual wield shotguns. why can't i find a second shotgun. i'm out of the asylum, they made me give the chainsaw back, and im about to murk some 1960s fascists at this checkpoint. one of these fuckers better have another shotgun.

blazkowicz is an enormous slab of unseasoned american beef. this man is SO large holy shit. i wish i cared about this big man. something about a dead female love interest? this nurse i kidnapped is going catch a bad case of the plot and be dead at the end of this level i think.

as previously mentioned this game was released in 2014 and boy does it look it, right down to the stupid macho gamer difficulty and exit screens. it's a pretty competent shooter. do wish ppl would stop shooting at me for five seconds so i can wander around and read all the propaganda and signage. why put it all up if you don't want me to look at it????

this was recently free on the epic store and the soundtrack came up on my walk today, which made me go "let me try this again". stay tuned.

-

making

made some quiche and fucked it up in a different way from last jan's quiche fuckup. still looking for hearty vegetarian soups, made some soup, which is very good but very texture. aash-e jow, a persian rice/bean/lentil/barley soup, is a soup you gotta chew. "kay isn't that a stew-" no. come to my house and eat this soup and i will show you.

other notable notes: doesn't really taste like much which could be continuing post-covid weirdness, and i think i should at minimum triple the amount of spices. fuck of a lot of prep. lot of chopping. hands hurty. called for a bunch of things i do not normally keep as pantry staples. i think it would be far easier to buy a block of frozen chopped spinach and refloof it in a saucepan like i did for the quiche, but i had some arugula/spinach mix that was about to go.

the caramelized onions really make this soup imo but i do not always have the fortitude to caramelize onions. i don't think this soup will stay an acceptable texture when frozen, so next weekend i have to make another giant batch of the red lentil soup to freeze for lunches.

you're correct i really don't want to do dishes

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update !

friends. lovers. clowns. I'm going to be real with you: I am going the fuck through it. the schoolyear has started at the shit tier midwestern university that I call home, and that means I am once again up to my eyes in students having problems. this is the best job I've ever had and I think it's going to kill me.

none of that is your problem, of course, but it does feel like a necessary preface to explain why the list is a little on the short side this month and also why it's just. really all over the place.

what have I been reading?

Thirsty Sword Lesbians (April Kit Walsh, 2021) - I swear to god and jesus it's a ttrpg guide and not Locked Tomb erotica. I was gifted this for my birthday by my boss and his spouse (mostly the spouse, who spotted this at a farmers market in Kansas City and thought of me, bless her), and I'm really looking forward to getting to run some sessions! Walsh has put together a fun-loving, emotion-heavy system that's RIPE for creating dyke drama in every imaginable genre. the playbooks manage to cover a lot of archetypes - the Spooky Witch is a standout for me, I'd love to play one! - while leaving lots of room for customization and making the characters your own, and I like the way the mechanics prioritize the characters' feelings and arcs while also leaving options to be more action-based. the book can get a little precious about The Magical Power of Love Against the Evil Forces Capitalism and Oppression, but it's a sweet system that's obviously been with a lot of love, and the art if absolutely killer. I can't wait to report back on my adventures with my own band of thirsty sword lesbians.

Paper Girls Vol. 5-6 (Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, 2019) - that's right, I finally finished it! and when I got to the end of the last volume I had to sit there very quietly staring at the wall and say "oh" to myself. I was delighted when all the twisty time travel bullshit was finally explained and the story still managed to feel very personal and intimate to the twelve year old girls at the story's heart - at the end of the day, this is a story about four friends doing their best to get home against all odds. I really appreciated that Vaughan could make the question of "will we still be friends?" feel so urgent when the question of apocalypse hangs so heavy in the series, and the ending was a bittersweet question mark on that front. it felt right - Paper Girls was never the kind of series that could be wrapped up too neatly. you should go read it yourself - and, I cannot emphasize enough, I do mean read it, not watch the amazon series.

Nona the Ninth (Tamysn Muir, 2022) - Nona the Ninth is a wildly jarring change of pace for the series that is, I think, wholly and hugely necessary to stop and provide better perspective on the world. I frequently see people commenting that previous protagonists Gideon Nav and Harrowhark Nonagesimus don't really "feel" like teenagers, and that there's no good reason they shouldn't be aged up except that Muir is trying to appeal to a YA audience. with all due respect, these people are very bad at reading comprehension and quite possibly piss on the poor. the personal tragedies of the Locked Tomb's characters are numerous, but one of the greatest injustices of the series takes place almost in the background, so deeply woven into the culture of the Houses that the characters hardly think to comment on it: the way the Empire feasts upon its youth, grinding them up in positions of leadership or shipping them off to the front lines when they're children and teens. and you see that so sharply in Nona! I'm not going to say anything spoilery but GOD, getting to see a main character who's just... a kid? just a really sweet kid with an extremely limited perspective who loves her family and kids from school and dogs and the beach and has no idea how truly, hideously awful the world around her is? it was so STRANGE to see a teenager being young and largely untroubled in this world, especially next to younger kids who are already concerned with selling drugs and killing necromancers. and that's so goddamn sad, and this whole world is a tragedy, and I love so much that some of the characters in this series are still trying to find ways to care for one another. I hope at least some of them manage to survive Alecto.

Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution [Revised Edition] (Susan Stryker, 2008) - a short and sweet read, and one that I like a lot for its ability to talk about the history of trans and gender-nonconformity without getting too hung up on, for lack of a better term, black and whiting. I understand the urge to project very contemporary ideas of gender and sexuality backwards to find commonality with the past, but it's so crucial to be able to understand how much ideas of gender and sexuality can change over very little time - even the relatively short span between Stonewall and now! Stryker, herself a trans woman, does a remarkably respectful job honoring the work of past pioneers for the trans community without attempting to tidy up or sanitize any individuals to make them more palatable for 21st century readers. a quick and informative read, with a solid place in my growing personal library of queer history.

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America [Revised Edition] (Kiese Laymon, 2020) - it's fitting that Laymon is perhaps best known for his acclaimed memoir Heavy, because everything this man writes is heavy as hell in the most gripping way. I'd say Laymon passes being a challenging writer to be an outright confrontational one, by which I don't intend to perpetuate stereotypes about the "angry Black man" so much as applaud the way Laymon takes the reader firmly by the shoulder, sits them down, and says the quiet part out loud. Laymon is deeply interested in the uncomfortable truths that America runs on, and he demands that we all join in his examination. he's a relentlessly thorough thinker and writer, turning his gaze on a broad variety of topics: the disproportionate focus placed on "fixing" Black boys to make them more respectable, the way Black girls are seldom institutionally addressed at all, what it means for Black student athletes to labor for universities that still proudly sport imagery of the Confederacy, the overlooking of Black Southerners as a potential source of art and brilliance, the expectations placed on Black writers to pander to white audiences' limited ideas of Blackness. Kiese Laymon's nonfiction writing really is like nobody else's, tonally; he's so stubborn and ruminative and I love the way he talks about masculinity and love. there's a chapter that consists of five letters, written between Laymon and four other Black men, reflecting on all manner of things - Blackness, masculinity, queerness, incarceration, and more than anything else, the way Black men love each other. it's really something special.

Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service (Tajja Isen, 2022) - one early review that I saw of this book is that it's too topical for its own good, and that surely within a year everyone will have forgotten what Isen is even referencing in her essays. with all due respect this is absolutely bullshit and implies that the reviewer possibly only skimmed the book, or perhaps read a blurb and decided that Isen has only bothered collecting essays dissecting various flash in the pan subjects of Twitter discourse. in fact, what Isen as done is written brilliantly about various areas she knows well - voice acting and animation, university admissions and law school, personal essays and the publishing industry, the entirety of Canada - and neatly examines the ways in which those institutions overwhelmingly fail to engage in any meaningful way with the notion of racial equity, while putting on a show - the titular "lip service" - to give the illusion of doing otherwise. she's an excellent writer, and I particularly love the way she writes about literature. I'd strongly recommend this excerpt from a chapter on the publishing industry's new trend towards publishing stories that decry the stiflingly white nature of major publishers while doing absolutely not a damn thing to actually change their whiteness.

Run, Riddler, Run (Gerard Jones and Mark Badger, 1992) - before anyone feels the need to inform me of this, yes: I am aware that in 2018 Jones was convicted of possession of sexually explicit images of children and sentenced to six years in prison. I found out immediately after finishing this zany little comic, at which point I did an innocent little google search to see what the guys who made it have been up to in the 30 years since publication. turns out nothing good, in Gerard Jones' case. and I have no idea what to do with that information; it doesn't really change my opinion on this story but it does cast sort of a yucky shadow over what's otherwise a pretty alright story.

our boy Brucie learns that gentrification is pretty bad, actually, and that poor people have feelings that should be listened to rather than just bulldozing all their yucky old neighborhoods because you think you know what's best for them. like many of the best Batman comics, Bruce's isn't the most interesting part by a longshot; the real star here is Roberta "Bob" Cifuentes, a queer grassroots organizer who scares the everloving shit out of Gotham's wealthy with her militant efforts to save her neighborhood. comic books being comic books, things naturally get pretty zany - there's a team of robocops led by a guy still mad that the Berlin Wall came down who frame Batman for murder after he starts siding with the poors and that's like, probably because writer and noted sex criminal Jones didn't want to commit to just making straight up regular cops an unambiguous tool of oppression that Batman has to fight, which is some weenie-ass bullshit, but DC still probably couldn't publish this story today without getting screamed at for being pro-antifa. I'd say it's a solidly b-tier Very Special Episode if not for the almost entirely arbitrary inclusion of the Riddler, whose presence could be totally excised from the story really easily but also makes the story INFINITELY more fun. according to various DC sources that I won't be bothering to fact check this is the first miniseries to prominently feature the Riddler, which makes this a great idea from a truly reprehensible human being. he's in peak Riddler form - pissing off Batman, his boss, his own parole officer, and the Joker by being just absolutely fucking insufferable and frequently incomprehensible, contributing very little to the overall story, and visibly having a blast doing it. love that for him.

[ulalumewitch]

I’ve had this Elucien fic rolling around my brain for a while and decided to put it out there. No warnings with this one. Just angst and bits of hope for possible futures (I swear I write things other than angst all the time - haha).

Happy Sunday everyone!

Word count: 2,807

Themes: Angst/Hope

Choices

Lucien couldn’t believe it. He could not believe that another Winter Solstice ended in utter ruins because of his mate. Because of his godsdamned mate and he’d had enough. He would end it, and end it now.

“Elain!” He shouted at her retreating figure.

But she pulled the ruby red cloak tighter around her shoulders and quickened her steps. Fresh snow remained mostly untouched on small front lawns and sidewalks of Velaris as he ran from the front door of the Riverside Estate after Elain. Most families and friends likely hunkered down in their homes enjoying fires and brandies and gifts and laughter with no cause to go out walking as the last hours of Solstice crept by entering the darkest hours of night before the dawn.

The longest night of the year. The longest three years of his life. Three years of being both rejected and not rejected by his mate. And he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Would you stop,” he growled as they reached the gate, “You owe me one conversation.”

Elain stopped. Her spine snapped straight. She turned and glared at him, her eyes molten with pure hatred.

Lucien had chosen his words carefully. Tempers he could handle, he’d had enough practice over the centuries with a hot headed High Lord. He could handle master manipulators and sweet talkers. He could handle battle worn generals and courtiers of the most delicate constitution. He could handle gossipers and those genuinely interested in friendship.

But what he could not handle was nothing. He could not handle the looks that went right through him. The unanswered questions. The blank stares. The Solstice presents delicately placed to the side and left alone as if they didn’t exist at all.

“I owe you nothing. Leave me alone.”

“I won’t. You are my mate -“

“I don’t want to be your mate!”

“Then reject me and reject he bond!” Lucien yelled, his voice echoing through the silent night.

The stars glittered in the black sky, now completely clear after the fast moving snow clouds from earlier in the evening had dissipated. It brought just enough snow to coat the city white before moving on. As if the Mother heard every prayer from the younglings of Night Court for a white Solstice, and then granted their wish.

Elain’s nostrils flared and for a moment, the briefest moment, her eyes flashed an emotion he couldn’t quite place but had seen before. And it hit him. She’d possessed the same look of bewilderment when she’d still been sopping wet from the Cauldron’s waters, Nesta clawing at her sobbing. The look of knowing but not knowing.

“Reject it,” he rasped, the fight and fire receding slightly, “Reject it so that I can move on. You think I enjoy this? You think that any of this has made me feel good over the last three years?”

“I didn’t choose you. I didn’t choose any of this. I didn’t want any of this,” she cried.

Lucien took a breath. It was rare he lost control like this. He’d spent centuries honing his reactions and temperament to be the Fox and mold his features and behaviors into whatever he’d needed in order to ferret out information, or to keep his own secrets safe. But he couldn’t do that around her, his mate.

“I didn’t choose you either,” Lucien said.

She flinched, and looked away down the street. She crossed her arms and shivered. Her cheeks flushed a pink as if kissed by two rose petals and once again her beauty struck him like a slap across the face.

“I know you were in love with another male -“

“Stop it -“

“I know you hate being Fae. I know what you did to try and turn yourself human again -“

“I said stop it,” Elain growled through clenched teeth, “Stop it. Why are you doing this?”

“Because I can’t take it anymore,” Lucien stated, willing himself to be calm, to stop shouting.

He needed this conversation. They both did.

“You wouldn’t know this because you refuse to ever speak to me but I was in love once too,” Lucien said and took a step closer to her, “I was in love with a female and planned to marry her. And my - And the High Lord of Autumn had her killed in front of me and I couldn’t save her.”

Elain’s lips parted in a silent gasp. Her brow furrowed. For a moment he thought she might ask a question, but instead she closed her lips and looked down at he ground.

“I didn’t choose to live without her. I didn’t choose to run away to another Court and make a home there. I didn’t choose a life of intelligence work, books, sparring, warring, and everything in between. But we don’t always get a choice, Elain. What we can choose is what we do with the things that happen to us.”

Lucien paused but she remained silent. Because of course she would stay silent. Fine. Maybe it would be easier this way.

“I chose to deepen my friendship with Tamlin and to truly be a part of his Court and I made the best of it. I chose to continue my education of Courts and history and everything in between so that I could help keep the peace as much as possible. I chose to become trained as a warrior so that I could be as strong and prepared as possible for any situation. I chose those things to make the best of my life. I chose not to wallow in the what-could-have-beens for centuries because no one can survive that way.”

Lucien took another step towards her so that they were only a few inches apart. He could see Elain’s breathing had increased slightly. Her arms tightened across her chest. But she did not move away.

“I did not choose to be your mate, no one gets that choice,” Lucien whispered, “But we can choose, together, whether we want to reject this mating bond to try to lessen its effects as much as possible. It will never go away completely, but if we officially reject it then we can at least bury it and move on separately and away from each other.”

“Is that what you want?” Elain whispered, and she glanced up at him, her eyes somehow still sparkling as if the sun reflected in them.

Lucien’s heart ached. It was the first question she’d asked him since asking if he could hear her beat those years ago. And she’d been so broken then, he could barely breathe around the memory of seeing her in such a state. So he told her the truth.

“What I want is for you to talk with me and be honest with me,” he began carefully, “I want to know why the Cauldron and Mother saw fit to pair us together. Do you know that mates are equally matched and often so is their magic, their power?”

Elain glanced away and nodded. She shifted on her feet slightly.

“I’ve done some research on it.”

Lucien leaned closer to her and clasped his hands behind his back. He didn’t need her or those obnoxious bats, whom he knew lurked in the shadows, to think he would touch her. Overbearing babysitters the lot of them, even if their hearts were in the right place.

“No one knows what I’m about to tell you Elain. You could use the information against me and spread it to the Inner Circle, or anyone who might wish me harm, or you could tuck it away for private reflection. But I have much more magic and power than anyone thinks. I only let a very little bit show in the company of others. And since we are mates, I have a theory that you are the same. You only show a small bit of what you are actually capable of and have hidden the rest away. Your sisters are powerful, Elain, and I find it very hard to believe that you would be different. I also think that one of the reasons you are so unhappy is because it scares you. I could help you discover what you’re capable of - learn about it, grow with it, strengthen it, control it, and use it. You were not given a choice to become Fae and I am sorry that neither Tamlin nor I realized what was happening until it was too late. You have no idea how sorry I am. And I am sorry that you lost the love of your life in the process. I’m sorry.”

Elain stared at him. Stared and stared.

Lucien could scarcely breathe. His heart lurched forward in his chest, begging him to tug on the bond, to bring her nearer. To touch her. Kiss her. Love her.

But he forced the instinct down. Even though every beat of his heart echoed, my mate, he shut all of it down.

“There are options other than rejection,” he began slowly, “If you would like, Elain, we could discuss it, but it can’t only be me talking. And if I’m being honest, it kills me that I don’t know you. Feyre used to talk about you all the time at Spring Court when she lived there. And over the past three years I’ve gotten bits from her and Nesta, on the rare occasion I speak with her. But those are their perspectives. I would like to know first hand, about you.”

Elain looked away and cleared her throat, “What is it you want to know?”

Hope sparked in Lucien’s chest. He tightened his hands behind his back. Carefully. He had to tread so, so carefully.

“Well, for starters, I’ve always wondered if there is anything other than gardening you enjoy? What do you like? What are your passions? Your dreams? What makes you happy? Upset? Do you have any religious or spiritual beliefs? Do you enjoy sports? Do you have a favorite season? Hobbies? Preferred genre of music? Books? I want to know about you, Elain, and not from anyone else. I want to experience you. I want to know why the godsdamned universe decided why you and I should be together.”

Elain let out a breath that could have been a laugh or a huff of annoyance. He wasn’t sure which, and it killed him that he didn’t know his mate well enough to know which it was.

“I hate winter,” she whispered and looked up at the sky, “I hate the cold. I never want to be cold again. I’ve had enough of it after living in that godforsaken hovel all those years. Spring has always been my favorite season. Is … how is it there?”

Lucien frowned slightly, “Improving at a glacial pace.”

“I remember the night Azriel and Feyre came to rescue me at Hybern’s camp,” she whispered, her arms tightening around her, “And I remember Azriel holding on to me as I held on to that poor girl and watching in horror as those beast things closed in on my sister. I thought she was dead. And then Tamlin came out of no where and saved her. Saved us. I think of that quite a bit actually.”

Lucien stared at her. What the hell was he supposed to say to that?

“If he needs assistance with his gardens, I could help. I’m bored to tears in winter here and I don’t think the High Lord of Spring should have flagging gardens, do you?” Elain asked and met his eyes then.

Strength shone in them. Her chin tipped up slightly and Lucien lost his breath. A shiver ran along his spine as he realized his assumption on her untapped and hidden power had likely been correct. He did not stare into the eyes of a doe but a Wolf. Of course a godsdamned Wolf would would lurk under her skin. She was an Archeron sister after all.

“No, I don’t think so either. It might help Tam, to have his estate restored a bit,” Lucien suggested carefully, “If you ever wanted to get away from the cold of Velaris during winter, I could arrange it.”

Elain looked away again and whispered, “I’ve been so lonely. I don’t know what to do.”

Lucien frowned as pain wrapped around his heart, and realized with utter horror, it was not his pain but hers. Gods, had she been living with this?

“Elain,” Lucien murmured, “All I’m asking for is to share one meal. One conversation. I’m not suggesting we get mated or married or any of it. Hell, I’m not even asking for a date. I’m only asking for one conversation so that we can both maybe decide if rejecting the bond really is the best thing or if maybe, maybe, there might be something here worth exploring, growing, tending like one of your gardens. No expectations. Just …”

“Just time to decide what kind of choice we want to make with what the Cauldron gave us?” Elain offered quietly.

A breath he didn’t know he’d been holding rasped through his lips. His gold eye whirred. He blinked and golden light swirled around Elain hedged with blush pink and warm vermillion. She looked like a goddess inside the sun, and gods did he want to worship her. But was she worth worshiping? He desperately wanted to find out.

He blinked and his eye showed her as any one would see her once again. Lucien nodded his agreement.

Elain cleared her throat and looked down the street, “I didn’t eat. Did you?”

“Not much, those fools love their drink on holidays,” Lucien offered with a small laugh, “They’re a happy lot though aren’t they?”

Elain shrugged, “I suppose. Are you hungry?”

Warmth spread through his chest. Lucien allowed a smile to touch his lips.

“I could eat.”

“Do you think any of the restaurants are open?” Elain asked.

“You want to have this conversation now?” Lucien asked incredulously.

A smile bloomed across her face. Her rosy cheeks pinked further and he’d never wanted to kiss anyone so badly in his life before.

Elain released her arms and crooked an elbow to him. He stared at the offered arm. Was he dreaming?

“Well, Fox?” Elain asked, “Shall we?”

Lucien’s heart leapt in his chest. He closed the last few inches between them and looped his arm through hers. Suddenly, the weight of a thousand stones of grief and dejection lifted from his shoulders. His heart felt so light he could have wept.

“I know of one restaurant that will be open. It’s not the best, but it’s decent and within walking distance,” Lucien began, “And after this conversation, if you would like to have another - if we would both like to have another - then I can take you to my favorite restaurant. It is in the middle of the largest botanical gardens in all of Prythian.”

Elain raised an eyebrow, “In the middle of winter?”

Lucien grinned at her and winked, “It’s in Summer Court.”

She nodded, “I would like that, if,” and softly cleared her throat, “If we both decide we would like another conversation after tonight that is.”

Lucien nodded, “Very well, Lady Light. Are you cold?”

A small smile. An even smaller snicker.

“A little.”

“Give me your hand,” Lucien offered his free hand to her, palm up.

Elain stared at his open palm. Lucien felt a small lick of pride at how still she became, like a true Immortal creature, she’d mastered the art of preternatural stillness.

Then, she lightly rested her hand against his. Lucien maintained eye contact with her as he closed his fingers around her hand and touched the spark of fire within him. Elain gasped and her eyes widened.

“How did you do that?” She murmured, and a small laugh escaped her, “I’m positively toasty.”

Lucien’s heart fluttered but kept his tone airy, almost bored, “A small bit of magic for me. It’s a gift not everyone possesses. Not many know I can do it. Shall we eat? I’m rather hungry myself.”

Elain nodded, “I would like that, thank you.”

Lucien nodded and let go of her hand but tightened his arm still hooked around hers slightly. He didn’t bother to hide the widening of his smile as she gently squeezed back.

He sent a silent prayer of thanks to the Mother as they walked arm in arm down the street, their tracks the only pair as they made their way away from the High Lord and Lady’s Riverside estate and into Velaris.

Lucien didn’t know what choice she would make in the end. He didn’t know what choice he would make in the end. But at least, for now, there was a sun dawning to end the longest night of the year. And he’d never been happier to see its light.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~