#its just baller the book is just . so good

[undercoverangell]

i think that part of the reason i love the penelopiad so much is it gives me so much to work w for penelope in terms of nonhuman/odd features. like. mother is a water nymph so she can have pointier ears, and on top of that her mom is also described as having sharp pointy teeth so she can have little fangs if i want !!! like !!! its great !!! waiter!! more naiad penelope please!!!

[tobiasdrake]

Do you think that optimistic stories are gonna be needed more than ever in these incoming dark times?

Probably. Art tends to reflect culture and also, to some degree, shape it.

It will be interesting to see what sort of media this new political landscape produces. I'm expecting a lot of "Fascism bad" that gets derided as preachy. "Do we really need to be told for the eleven billionth time that Nazis are evil?" people will ask aggravatedly while literal Nazis march in the streets behind them.

There are a lot of people who are shocked, scared, and horrified about what the right has become. Who were maybe willing to give it a pass when Americans elected Trump the first time, that maybe they just didn't know better, but saw the writing on the wall when Americans eagerly rushed back to Trump for a second serving of racism, violence, and misogyny.

And I'd expect to see that shock and fear reflected in the art that the evolving culture produces moving forward.

But I'm also expecting a lot of "Jack and Jill have different political beliefs, but it's important that they be able to come together as family and community." Because Americans think politics are as inconsequential as which set of jerseys wins the Super Bowl. A lot of people really are just out there to win it for the Home Team and don't think policy actually shapes our lives in any meaningful way.

To many Americans, being upset about the election is worse than electing the wrong guy. The problem is you for taking it so seriously, for actually caring about the consequences. They see themselves as enlightened for thinking that the government does nothing, all politicians are the same, and who you support says nothing about you personally. Why let something so trivial as voting MAGA break up a friendship? Or a family? Or a marriage?

And I'd expect to see that centrist condescension and "Why So Serious" trivialization reflected in the art that the evolving culture produces as well.

What I don't expect to see is a lot of pro-fascism stuff. The Right's cornered the market on news punditry but have never been very successful at mainstreaming their fiction. Because.

Well.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Alt-Right fiction sucks. They've written books and produced movies and TV shows, and it all sucks. Because it isn't made creatively. It's created in anger. The Alt-Right is just angry. Fascists are just angry. They don't want to participate in culture. They're mad at culture and want to shoot it with verbal guns.

And that gets reflected in their media, which is too often more focused on trying to dunk on somebody than on telling the story that they're ostensibly here to tell.

There is good conservative media out there. Hell, live-action Sonic the Hedgehog is surprisingly conservative. It's a story about a cop learning to appreciate small-town rural living and stop yearning for the glamour of the big city, while being harassed by Big Government Overreach. There's a lot of conservative values in their interpretation of the video game.

But there isn't any good Alt-Right media out there, because they're too angry to write. Lady Ballers is an offensive piece of shit, but it's also a bad movie. Its story is flat and self-defeating, its characters are uninteresting and fail to grow or change in any meaningful way, and its comedy wildly misses the mark.

Because that's what happens when the only thing you're interested in as a creator is, "How many people can I offend with this?" You end up writing a protest sign stretched out to the length of a novel. The audience for Ben Shapiro's "teen girl goes Die Hard against a school shooter and proves the merits of gun ownership" action movie is very niche.

So the Alt-Right will be encouraged to keep producing furious dogshit, and it will continue failing to gain any real ground among the mainstream entertainment market. But we can probably look forward to a lot of antifascism and a lot of condescending centrist finger-wagging in media to come.

That's my prediction, anyway.

[intertexts-moving]

still thinking abt what happens next. its such a good dissection of blame + morality+ perpetuation of cruel cycles. however i have to admit i don't particularly subscribe to the main body of commentators ' "everyone is scheming and has awful intention" take. i mean. hanlon's razor.-- milo obviously dismembered a dead body. which frankly in no world sounds better than saying he killed her. like, he is obviously culpable of that + incapable of processing that culpability but it's jarring to see everyone immediately locking onto gage as some kind of evil and actively manipulating from the start mastermind. they seem pretty obviously to me to be a preexisting Type Of Guy: isolated, miserable, (obsessive) parasocial relationship w/ people who Do, in fact, Exist, and aren't fake characters in a story (haha). his treatment of milo seems way more in line w/ that kind of "genuinely ignorant of how normal friendships and relationships work" than "secretly plotting your demise "-- the weed & crossbow thing read as familiar to me. pressuring, yes, but not actively so. thats just like... the way people are? the way u act when you're kind of awkwardly acquaintances/frienfs w someone and u invite them 2 partake in ur hobbies. just sucks that gage's hobbies are literally only stalking murderers + getting high w the nastiest bong u havr ever seen + shooting white monster cans in the woods with a crossbow. the effect is negative, obviously, because milo is a fucking basket case on a ton of medications with a criminal record for sawing off a girl's arms and the looming threat of inpatient if he doesnt behave over his head. not downplaying the other thing btw that's in a different category imo & while the kiss itself wasnt inherently a Bad Thing to Do imo their reaction & justification absolutely was.. still kind of weird 2 me that it appears like there's a bigger sympathy for claire (dealt with the trauma by becoming a transphobic turning point usa girlie who uses her sister's notoriety to advocate for punishing minors in the justice system even worse & treating her gf like shit) than gage (obviously fucked in the head minimum wage worker with no bar for what a normal interaction or relationship looks like at all.) OR vikki (trans woman of color whos career! is to stir up shit! even if she was kind of a cunt!) anyway the milo / claire parallels are baller i love when people fucking hate each other but are so similar... girl its been nine years stop sticking your fingers in your own bloody wounds stop it stop it stop it! when will u stop reliving the trauma ever day for its own sake. (claire's self harming actions here are obviously infinitely worse because she is like,,, Actively Hurting So Many People. and for what! so she can wear awful dresses and get hit on by oily white senators and drag the bleeding dead weight of her sisters body around everywhere she goes?) ahhh what ever. good book i have to pack now.

[doyouevenshipbr0]

10 strongest earthbenders

i did this with waterbenders a little while ago and while i dont feel AS passionately about earthbending as i do waterbending, i still wanna give my thoughts bc i love atla and i love yapping duhhhh

rules: not including avatars and not including anything from yangchen or kiyoshi (havent read those) and honestlyyyyyy i cant think of a character from the comics in general that would make this list but im not gonna include ppl we meet in the comics either bc to be so honest 1 i havent read the lok comics and 2 i have only read the atla comics once and i read them as they came out so it was years ago. STRICTLY GOING OFF THE SHOWS!

realizing i def shouldve made this list right after my most recent lok rewatch (its been a couple months atp)

ANYWAYS lets go

honorable mentions: tbh the only one i wanna say here is the dai li. they probably could be like number 8/9 but idrk how to rank a whole group of ppl? but the way they use earthbending is super cool. in general, im realizing there are not nearly as many overwhelming earthbending forces as there are in waterbending? so this list starts a little shaky.

10. xin fu/master yu- so like. not sure what to say/how i would even differentiate. they are both masters. duh. we didn’t see much of them but we know they are easily outclassed by the rest of this list soooo… sorry! moving on

9. general fong- alright u might be wondering “who is this” so its the guy in the episode where they try to force aang into the avatar state in the beginning of book 2 to try and make him fight the firelord sooner. literally nothing of interest to note EXCEPT when he does that super baller move where he makes katara sink into the earth?!?!!?!?! logistically i dont think this makes much sense bc how tf did she not get crushed and i think this method would make earthbending kinda super broken lmfao so they literally only ever used it this one time (from what i remember) but it is suchhhh a cool move and it is SCARY! so props to this guy for being the only earthbender we see do this super sick move!

8. wei and wing- HEAR ME OUT!!!!!! they are soooo much more useful than u remember them being. they always are holding their own with their mom and aunt and all the other amazing earthbenders around them. theyre nothing super spectacular and are not given much time to shine since theyre such minor characters, but if u pay attention to the screen time they do have, they are really really good. the fact that they can earthbend so easily alongside their mom and keep up with her is really all u need to know. they WILL pull up!!!!!!!

7. bolin- so like. its tricky right bc he is THEE earth bender in the legend of korra but honestly he really is not THAT great. obviously he is great and that’s why he makes this list but yknow what i mean. he has lavabending!!!!!! which is super sick. he also has tonsssss of raw strength and agility which is probably his biggest strength. but honestly i think what keeps him low is his lack of skill, finesse, and honestly meaningful fight scenes that go in his favor. feels like his character maybe suffers from a littttttle bit of being sidelined bending wise bc he was SUCH the comedic relief. its almost like the writers didnt have time to make him a super fleshed out earthbender because they were too busy trying to make him funny?? idk im rambling but bolin is just a tricky one. still amazing! just not as amazing as the rest of the list.

6. lin- dont fight me istg. i can FULLY admit that my biases are coming into play here but im still gonna defend my point. here are the facts: i kind of cant stand lin and i LOVE su yin. i do understand that realistically, the fact that lin is the chief of police and has dedicated pretty much her entire life to it would make her crazy strong, and it does! shes the chief of republic city police for a reason. she has a fuck ton of combat experience which helps her to be as strong as she is. i just cannot, in good faith, have her any higher. from what i have seen from numbers 5-1, they seem better than lin.

5. su yin- ah su yin. i love su yin. and if im being logical, lin would be a stronger earthbender because she has (from what we know) farrrrrrrrrrr more direct combat experience. but if im being honest, when i look at them earthbend, su yin’s earthbending looks better. its more interesting, she looks like she uses more skill, shes more creative, she seems more resourceful, and she seems more adaptable as well. she killed p’li!!! also she was kicking lin’s ass in their 1 v 1 but it feels wrong to count that bc lin was like on her deathbed lmfao. still, although lin seems like she has more experience and probably a greater battle IQ, su yin just seems better. maybe its the bias! (it def is)

4. ghazan- lava bending. he is the best at it. just everyone in the red lotus is scary strong. i rly dont need to tell u why he’s this high. it is so obvious.

3. bumi- mf took back omashu all by himselffffff. i feel like bumi is by far the earthbender we see across both shows that has the most raw strength. hes also wise and shit!!! absolute beast. i know a handful of people think hes number 1, and i know MOST people think hes at least number 2, but he’s just not in my opinion. obviously still one of the best of the best.

2. kuvira- i just. wow. i feel like on my most recent rewatch i realllllyyyyyy saw how EXCELLENT of an earthbender she is. like ok first of all yes she was the villain of this season so she was definitely going to be strong but she is literally just beating the shit out of everyone for the entire season. like no one, not even korra until the last couple eps, can even compete on the same playing field. (i know korra was dealing with a lot of personal beef but STILL). the amount of skill and precision and effectiveness she has is the best we see in earthbending in legend of korra. she genuinely seems like she isnt even giving it her all in most of her fights and she is still just mopping the floor with everyone. she was a dictator for a reason ok like who is beating my girl?!?!?!? (other than thee mother of all of earthbending ofc).

1. toph- i mean. i dont want to even explain. no earthbender has a better connection, understanding, and natural ability with earth like toph. her bending is an extension of herself to the very fullest. invented metalbending. cultivated metalbending into the martial art it is today. was (kind of) a self taught master by 12. and the stuff that she DID learn she learned when she was practically a toddler from the original benders, the badger moles. i feel like some people try to argue her spot bc she isnt always as flashy as other earthbenders (bumi, ghazan, kuvira) but she is by FAR the most effective. and not just in a day to day basis, but in fights too. hence why shes the strongest. i dont think many would argue this position but yeah. GOAT.

[crystallizedday]

You know

Fusionfall’s universe is actually kinda flexible when it comes to what different types of games you could theoretically make for it.

I know that sounds weird, but like

Imagine Fusionfall but as like a sort of

Chao garden style game where you’re assigned by Dexter during the war effort to take care of nanos that are left at the nano stations

Basically just as a way to keep them stimulated & prepared for battle when the time is right.

Like

You have all these different virtual environments & snacks & doohickeys to make very specific nano happy

Like maybe you can give a bone to a Courage nano to keep him content, or give a Bubbles nano a stuffed animal to play with.

Obviously, not all these nanos are gonna act like lil bbies since you’ll have like

Maybe Dexter & Mandark’s nanos just wanting to keep themselves stimulated with work or puzzles

Or maybe do very specific activities with them like helping them train for battle or just chilling out with em.

& if you do a good enough job, Dexlabs allows you to create your own nano as a permanent companion to help you tend to the other nanos, & THIS nano will follow you around.

I like to think your relationship with your companion nano influences its behaviors around you & the other nanos

Like if you treat them & play with them & keep them fed, they’ll wanna stick by your side.

But if you neglect them, they’ll either keep their distance or wander off.

Y’all know me. I would LOVE to have a Demongo nano as my lil companion, feeding him lil snacks & giving him all the affection he deserves…

The idea made me draw these shitty doodles on my phone one day & I love them so much OWMWOSMSODM

Bro can float, but he still wants uppies just cause KANAOSMOSMXOSMX

I love him so much…

… but uh

This post isn’t JUST to pitch a chao garden style fangame.

Cause like I said

Fusionfall’s universe is HUGE

& you could make a variety of different games out of it.

For instance

Ya know how the Book of Bill has people binging GF recently

& some fans are re-experiencing the silly lil Grunkle dating sim made forever ago?

…

Don’t judge me, cause I know some of you would LOVE that idea.

Obviously, the selection of who you could grow closer to would be kinda small since well

Most of the cast are teenagers, & I ain’t about that…

The Ace situation in the og game still pisses me off, & I’m so glad Retro retconned the shit out of it…

But you still have very notable characters like

Ya know

Professor Utonium, Him, Father, Mojo, Demongo, Hoss Delgado, Grim, Grandpa Max, Demongo, Samurai Jack, Vilgax, the Scotsman, Demongo

Look

I may be biased, but it’s at LEAST for a good reason, cause bro is like one of the VERY FEW VILLAINS I’ve seen where a redemption arc could GENUINELY work & feel SATISFYING with how he’s written in Fusionfall!

& I’m JUST saying

It would be REALLY sweet to see that unfold & YOU be the one to help him get to that point, ya know??

It may be incredibly self serving, but come on. I just wanna see this man be genuinely happy for once in his life KAKWOSNSODMDOCMDOFK

But ya get what I mean now though, right???

With such a huge crossover of characters in a universe where everyone just

Coexists with each other

& their backgrounds & history have been most likely altered in ORDER to co-exist,

You get this EXTREMELY unique universe that stands out from ANYTHING that’s EVER been done by Cartoon Network, let alone other big companies.

& regardless of if you factor in the fusion war into the story or not

You can create some BALLER content using this universe as a template.

& I’d LOVE to see how creative people can get with it!

Also

If any of y’all seeing this have any cute lil hypothetical fangame ideas of your own

I wanna hear em!!

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

Betrayer (HH Vol. 24)

I completly understand now how people keep this specific author in such high regard. This must have been one of my fastest reads throughout the Heresy so far. My only complaint, really, as always with Heresy books, is the bullshit style-choice for the cover:

You would think this book is about Lorgar and Angron going totally ham on Ultramarines, and yeah that does happen, but this is not what its about. Like, I get it, the mace-swing makes for a nice composition, but all these covers feel like such low-effort shovelware.

Notice the dude on the bottom right. He's not even LOOKING AT THE TWO GUYS ABOUT TO KILL HIM. The Heresy covers in general always feel like such low effort, when a smart stylized image could have captured the book as a whole much better. Anyways, this book is definetly not about who murders who, it's about Angron, a broken man, and the potentially only family-member that might give a shit about him, which is Lorgar - and mirroring those two brothers, it's also about Kharn (not yet named Betrayer) and Argel Tal, a World Eater and a Word Bearer respectively.

Angron is dieing. The nails are slowly killing him, and Lorgar attempts to save him along with his original mission, which is "shroud Ultramar into a man-made warpstorm fueled by the genocide of dozens of worlds to cut the Ultramarines off for the Siege of Terra". The way he managed to combine these goals however is... well... Lorgar might really, from the bottom of his heart, genuinely care for his brutish brother. But Lorgar is also of the "I will manipulate you for your own good" type of person, who is absolutely hardcountered by Angron's thick skull which takes ages of working on the man to get him even remotely walking into the direction you want him to. Their dynamic is quite entertaining, Lorgar's frustration is just so understandable.

Angron on his own is a broken mess of a person. There's not much to say about it, and he's essentially a force of nature that brings murder and mindless rage wherever he goes - by his own words he is already dead. Whatever is here now is essentially the world's longest suicide note that, much to his own dismay, will drag on for at least another 10.000 years. He has his moments in the book, as he is definetly not a mindless animal and still capable of some seriously baller lines, but he's definetly not the star among the cast.

Lorgar meanwhile is a much more interesting character in the book, mostly for the fact how you realize that there is a difference between "serving Chaos" and "serving the Gods". Those two things CAN go together, but they do not have to. What's interesting is that he and Erebus do definetly not see eye-to-eye. He even tried to have the guy killed by Kharn in the end by just giving the World Eater a tiny information that just made the man go into absolute murder-mode.

Which is interesting, because Kharn might be one of the least murder-y World Eaters there is. Note that I said "World Eaters" here and not "War Hounds" (the old name). That distinction is quite relevant in this story. Just like Angron on his own he does not exactly carry the narrative, he's not as absolutely insane or reckless as someone like Sevatar (and that guy manages it without the nails even). He is more of a calm observer that finds his legion-brothers generally less interesting than hanging out with Argel Tal.

Oh and Argel Tal... we met him in "The First Heretic", but I'd like to avoid spoilers here. Let's just say that his bickering dynamic with Kharn is a smaller mirror to their Primarchs' interaction. They are essentially a married couple at that point if you ask me, except none of them has realized it yet.

There's also the support cast around the Legion Audax and Lotara, but they are not the focus here. They are nice to have around however, and none of their segment feels like weird filler. Overall a great book, and I hope there's more of ADB in the Heresy as I go to the next volumes.

[holytrohmanempire]

Oh! Oh! I volunteer! What's your all time favorite vampire media and do you have links?

Thank you anon I'm so delighted you took the bait!

It is with deep bemusement and slight dismay that I inform you and the world at large that the best vampire story I have ever read is called "temperance" and reader, "temperance" is an NSYNC fanfiction.

Yeah you read that right this is a fanfiction about the men in the boyband nsync (and the backstreet boys, and elvis' manager? for some reason?????) and it's 64,000 words long with two short sequels and listen. I don't want this to be the best piece of vampire media ever any more than you do. But my god, it is. The vampire rules are well thought out. The world is built richly but without Dune-style infodumps - you just learn to understand what the universe is like so organically as the story progresses. The romance is sweet, the debate regarding the souls of vampires is explored thoughtfully. The prose is beautiful and it's easy to sink your teeth into. It's equal parts beautiful and horrifying, the way vampire media should be, but the beauty is of a southern gothic cottagecore nature and the horror is feral and toothsome, as opposed to the genteel nature of most vampire stories. I genuinely believe you don't have to give a shit about NSYNC to enjoy it, either. Cannot sing its praises enough - link to the first story is here: http://www.nopseud.org/nsa/fic/temperance.html

My second fave piece of vampire media is the Carmilla webseries. Picture it: the year is 2014 and you have come to terms with being a bit of a lesbian and someone takes The sapphic vampire story of all time and turns it into a college au romcom (ft some gorgeous leads, by the way.) Laura only drinks from a tardis mug. Carmilla eats cereal with blood in it. Black cat/golden retriever dynamics. It made my cry. The theme song ("Love Will Have Its Sacrifices") is baller and I've put it on every playlist for THWTH I've ever made. I have, to be fair, only finished season one, but god, I fucking love Carmilla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uPd3g5wi1A

My third fave piece of vampire media is a little more traditional and it is the book "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown" by Holly Black. Holly Black as in author of grimdark fae novels for teenagers, yes. "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown" is excellent and on my list because it is, in spite of being written for teens, probably the sexiest piece of vampire fiction I have ever read. Gavriel is such a hot lead and we finally get an author unafraid to make the blood drinking sexy as well as gory and alarming. 10/10 would recommend this book to literally anyone, and it has shockingly good trans rep for being released in like 2013: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-coldest-girl-in-coldtown-holly-black/110465?ean=9780316213097

Lastly, I think the Fright Night remake from 2011 is amazing. Like, look. I know it's not "good" as in well-written or anything, but like. It's funny, it's sexy, they play into the ridiculousness. I fully believe Fright Night walked so that Renfield could run. It's star studded for literally no reason. The CGI is terrible. The vampires are ridiculous. The soundtrack to this one is also way better than it had any right to be. It comes in fourth because it is kind of sexist and I think we should have had more characters fully soaked in blood a la Evil Dead Rise, but c'est la vie. Please please please note that I do mean the 2011 remake the one from the 80s was, like, fine, but the 2011 one was camp: https://letterboxd.com/film/fright-night-2011/

[ilikereadingactually]

The Imperial Radch Trilogy

hoooo boy, do my mismatched covers annoy me! so much that i ordered lightly used copies of each book with its other cover also, and will soon have a full set of each, because i am one of those people.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

picking up a book that's as exquisitely written as this is like slipping into a warm bath. like i can just relax, because i'm in skilled hands. the amount of trust that precise, compelling prose can win from me in just a few pages is astonishing, and has rarely been misplaced.

and this is one that requires a little bit of trust! like many of my favorite speculative books, there's no soulless infodumping about the world here--background is given when it fits and serves the narrative, and otherwise you learn the world by experience. through the distinct and fascinating experience of Breq, in fact, who used to be the AI of a military spaceship with many ancillary bodies (human bodies that house its consciousness and crew the ship) and now exists as only one lone ancillary on a revenge mission. i love Breq's very specific and unusual perspective; i love jumping back and forth in time to see the past and the present and wonder how they're going to collide; i love weird space politics and religion and the exploration of emotion as a part of sentience. also!! i love many of the side characters!! Breq is really the focus, but everyone else who enters the story, even briefly, is clear and interesting, and some of them made me cry.

and i love the way gender is presented in this book SO MUCH. Breq comes from a society that doesn't distinguish gender, and uses "she" as the default pronoun, which i already love. and the book doesn't give many clear visual descriptions of anyone--so we're fully inside that perspective. Breq does take some notice of class, through accents and clothing, but just isn't at all concerned with markers of gender, and actively has difficulty identifying gender in other languages and cultures she encounters. i think this takes a lot of skill to write, and it's frankly baller to read.

also! i fucking love that the standard of not only beauty but high class and privilege in this society is dark skin!!!!!!!! dark is fashionable! dark is aristocratic!! i mean im never gonna be like "this fantasy imperialist classism is actually the good kind" because that's missing the whole point of the books, but it's so REFRESHING to visualize.

a line i really liked: AI to AI communication

"You still had your ancillaries," said Mercy of Kalr. "Yes." "I like my soldiers, but I miss having ancillaries." That reminded me. "They aren't doing maintenance as they should. The hinges on the airlock door were very sticky." "I'm sorry." "It doesn't matter now," I said, and it struck me that something similar might have delayed Anaander Mianaai's attempts to open the lock on her side. "But you'll want to have your officers get after them."

books 2 and 3 under the cut!

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

LOVE a second book in a series that delights me just as much as the first but in new and different ways!! Leckie's prose is still gorgeous, that's a given. but this book, as with many good speculative series, heightens the stakes and broadens the world. where the first book was a somewhat more intimate story about a few connected characters and the pursuit of a personal goal, the second book brings in more complex political intrigue, addresses more widespread injustices, and introduces an array of excellent new characters. the first book held on to its tension by moving back and forth in time; this book takes advantage of the wider spread and Breq's particular kind of perception to tell multiple stories happening simultaneously, through glimpses at what other characters are doing "offscreen." it's a fantastic tactic!!

it's also clearer in this book how unreliable Breq's narration is, specifically about her own state of being. she thinks of herself as not human, and so as less important--she doesn't take the time to narrate or even notice her own physical state or emotional needs until she's totally overwhelmed, at which point we start to get little flashes of what everyone around her sees: a person of incredible kindness and integrity and intelligence, beloved by those under her care. there's a specific kind of intimacy between characters in these books that fascinates me, i love every acts of service bitch in this bar.

a line i really liked: why is every book series i love actually about grief

"Citizen, I am in mourning." I had not had time to clean the white stripe off my face for the night. And she could not possibly have forgotten the reason for it. "But surely, Fleet Captain," she replied sweetly, "that's all for show." "It's always for show, Citizen. It is entirely possible to grieve with no outward sign. These things are meant to let others know about it."

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

wow. ok. so. i drafted the section on Ancillary Justice above after finishing just that book; wrote the section on Ancillary Sword after reading all three books and listening to the first two audiobooks; here i am to write about Ancillary Mercy after reading the series once and listening to all the audiobooks twice. so...my descent into obsession will be palpable.

i'm actually a little mad that i didn't have these books on my radar before, but i was deeply embedded in the children's lit world at the time they were coming out, and maybe would not have enjoyed them as much as i did. which is something i loved in this series--the persistent idea that people not only change over time, but that in each moment, all the choices you have made up to that moment have created you specifically, and if you had made different choices, you would be a different person. i'm not the person i was then, five years out of grad school, busting my ass for $10/hour in children's bookstores, reading mostly middle grade because middle grade reliably is not romantic and i did not yet know i was aroace. so, overall, i'm grateful these books have come to me now (thanks to my best friend, who sent me Ancillary Justice for my birthday and kept telling me i would love it).

but let me talk a little about this third book in particular. once again, the stakes are incrementally raised: threats that were at a little distance before finally arrive in a bigger way, or come back again after a tense reprieve; the question of who is a person, what a "person" even is, becomes both more muddied and more crucial than ever. through it all, Breq continues to move doggedly forward with stubborn compassion for everyone but herself, keeps throwing herself in front of danger, and makes a more enormous impact on the world around her than i ever expected. this book is like everything i ever loved about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (the best Trek don't come at me) but with oodles more gender fuckery.

it's also the really beautiful culmination of my other favorite theme of these books: that you can't know what effects your choices will have, and maybe you'll never know, but the chain of those effects will go farther than you imagine. it's so wild, on a second and third read, to see both the ripples of ruthless and self-centered choices, and the ripples of choices that come from an ethic of care. Even inside a terrible, imperialist system doing terrible, imperialist things, a single compassionate person persistently doing what she feels is right can change the course of someone else's life, and in doing so change the course of the universe.

a line i really liked: everything happening here is a blessing

"Thank all the gods," said Sphene. "I was afraid you were going to suggest we sing that song about the thousand eggs." "A thousand eggs all nice and warm," I sang. "Crack, crack, crack, a little chick is born. Peep peep peep peep! Peep peep peep peep!" "Why, Fleet Captain," Translator Zeiat exclaimed, "that's a charming song! Why haven't I heard you sing it before now?" I took a breath. "Nine hundred ninety-nine eggs all nice and warm..." "Crack, crack, crack," Translator Zeiat joined me, her voice a bit breathy but otherwise quite pleasant, "a little chick is born. Peep peep peep peep! What fun! Are there more verses?" "Nine hundred and ninety-eight of them, Translator," I said. "We're not cousins anymore," said Sphene.

the combo deets

how i read them: i read the first as a physical book (thanks B <3), started the second as an ebook, happened to be at a bookstore and picked up the second and third, and so read them all physical in the end. also, highly rec the audiobooks!! i don't know how they'd go as a first read, but they're extremely fun as a reread. lots of great accents and really interesting tonal choices.

try these if you: dig hard SF and examinations of artificial intelligence and personhood, are weak for self-sacrificing main characters, want that sweet aspec rep, or fuck with gender! or, and this may sound weird, love people bonding with dragons in your fantasy books--there are a lot of relationships here that feel similar to me.

maybe not for you if: you really need to avoid depression/suicidality, drug addiction, or genocide in stories. none of these things are here in a degree that i found too difficult to handle, but i like an uncomfortable read, so ymmv.

i'm reading Provenance, the next book set in this universe, right now! so more Imperial Radch reviews to come.

[wandringaesthetic]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love❤

The Dark Blade - this is a fic about my headcanons regarding FFIV Dark Knights and is a little window into Kain and Cecil's youths. It also serves as a preview for my larger FFIV fic novelization

Servant and Served - this is IMO the best writing I've done in a fic. I set out to do something. I did it well IMO, and I made up some cool stuff to flesh out the universe and used some cool turns of phrase on the way. Unfortunately, it's for a tiny fandom (Jupiter Ascending) and not even the most popular characters or pairing in that fandom

Reassurance - Trephacard OT3, aftermath of trauma, blood-drinking. It's sweet, I swear. This is my most kudos'd fic and while that's mostly because of timing (I dashed it off directly after Castlevania season 3 in a fit of high spirits), it's pretty good and serves as opening for a longer piece that is these 3 idiots having feelings in a castle. I would have to turn it into my own personal rewrite of season 4 if I continued it, but idk maybe I will one day

Four Things That Didn't Happen on the Day of Guts' Departure (and one that did) : this is an exploration of imo every possible outcome of Guts' and Griffith's duel on the hill, a moment which fascinates me because IMO it's the last time Griffith had a real choice in what happens. One is self-indulgent, one is bittersweet, and in the others I murder them. Berserk is, as always, its own content warning.

Sing the Azures : I wrote this for an Animorphs big bang and it has the slightly depressing honor of being the longest piece I've ever finished. It is an AU regarding The Ellimist/Toomin, so it is WAY OUT IN THE WEEDS of Animorphs fandom, which is already a bit in the weeds. If you haven't read Animorphs and want to read this, you could just read The Ellimist Chronicles and get it 100%. Or not read anything and get it 90%. Also, the title is baller and from a beautiful passage from the book.

[ramshacklefey]

Oh yes, and in general, these books are an excellent example of "if your characters act like the world is normal, the audience is probably just gonna roll with it."

There's a lot to be said about how/why to make that work, but it mostly boils down to, "Is this something the average reader of this genre is familiar with?" and/or "Is it similar enough to real-world concepts that they'll get the point?"

Governor Module... Hm don't know that one, but 1) it was hacked, so it must be a computer thing and 2) its purpose is pretty obvious from the name and what the character said it can do once it's hacked.

The feed? That's a new word, but okay, it says "entertainment feed" and you can watch shows and stuff with it. That sounds like a kind of internet thing, I know how internet thing works.

Streaming media at work? Everyone knows this! Oh, we can stream media directly in our brains here? Baller.

Giant sand worm? Everyone knows giant sand worm!

There's that feed thing again. Oh we can also send messages using it! Definitely an internet thing.

Laser guns? We fuck with laser guns. Laser guns in arms? Gotcha, character is either a robot or a cyborg, let's keep reading and find out which.

Hopper? New word but obviously a flying vehicle based on what they're doing with it.

Etc.

And really, we see this all over in fantasy and science fiction writing!

Star Trek didn't get around to explaining how warp drive works until TNG, but it's clear from the beginning that it's how spaceships go fast (and remember, this was a pretty new idea at the time).

Teleporter? Ok we've seen stuff where people disappear from one place and reappear somewhere else, now we have a device that does it.

Light saber? No idea how that works, but I know sword and I know light and it's glowing so ok cool.

If something is really new and really strange and really important to the plot, you can go back and give more explanation later. But you can get a loooong way by just. Showing characters using and interacting with things to explain what they are and how they work.

And if you really do need to explain something, a couple sentences will often do, and we can discover more about it as the story goes on.

Jedi?? No idea, but everyone knows knights. Yep and these are good knights, got it. Ohhh, there are evil knights too.

The force? Oh, it gives these Jedi people "powers," so like. Makes them superheroes or wizards. Some kinda magic field. That's neat!

Ah ok, this Darth Vader guy is one of the magic knights. Oh shit he just choked a dude out from across the room! So that's one of the "powers" the Jedi have.

(Martha Wells takes this to an extreme, but also by almost never explaining exactly how anything works, she leaves herself open to just go, "Oh yeah it does this too, but it can't do that" later on in the story.)

An important writing lesson I'm taking away from Murderbot is that you don't always have to ease your readers into the world and the characters and speculative concepts. Sometimes you can just start with the fun part where there's a sandworm trying to eat someone and that's fine too.

[sapphirecrook]

Having run a session of Slugblasters, I can safely say it lives up to the hype. It's a game conscious of itself and its theme and hams it up with some good dev commentary/sidebars instead of trying to be a dry ass heap of lies.

Like, I still love this shit from Ironclaw, it's top tier "we know what you're doing" and it shows you care.

Although Ironclaw 3e better get out of that shitty rut it's clearly unhappy with an adopt more of Urban Jungle's mindset. Because that D&D mechanical flair ain't working. The setting needs support for overly dramatic systems and political intrigue hooha it so clearly daydreams of.

Overconfidence is a really good sign of what the system can be if it just goes there already instead of having several pages of weapon tables or 3 Gifts that are Just Weapon Finesse for different Traits.

Like, I get it, ironclaw 1e is a different beast from a different time, and Ironclaw 1e? Kinda fucking baller. It's daring, it's bold. But 2e has a shift I want to see continued. Preferably with an actual editor and a guy who helps with keywording shit and a glossary cuz, oof.

OOF.

I didn't write Ironclaw into my own person SRD cuz the core book's good. (the 2021 update added bookmarks to the PDF at least)

Anyway, Slugblaster is great. Give it a go. It has fillable PDFs for all the things and done in a good way like we're actually living in the 2020s, even if I don't mind the project of making my own Google Sheets version.

[sphericalbee]

bro if either of my irls see this i will look crazy pahtetic idk maybe ill delete iti should probably just leaves this ini the drafts

im pretty pathetic irl anyway i think lol wo who carse

im thinking ab my middle school best friend and i miss her so much it isnt even funny

idk if i was her best friend but i always loved her so much and i think about her almost every day even 2 years later

ik she wasnt doing well and she didnt come from a good home and was awful at managing her emotions and didnt talk to anyone and she would sh (i only know ab bc of some complicated secret poetry thing but she never knew i had seen that but i think she meant me to) and i think she cared about me? i kinda hope not bc i want her to be happy

but i would genuinely give anything to go back in time and talk to her again for just a few hours

i want to text her and tell her everything but idk its too weird after 2 years

i think she deserves to know how much i care about her,, right?

i had to pause twice writing this bc i was crying too hard i worry about her so much

its good im godo at crying silently lol no one can even tell so sneaky

i saw a girl with the same hair as her last week and i teared up in the middle of the hallway because it hit me how much i dont know what shes doing or if shes even alive bc i KNOW hse wasnt fucknig donig well

my cat was trying to comfort me but i think he got bored and left he's so cute lmfoa my brain made it into a very angsty analogy b4 i had the chance to stop it 💀

im this close to cracking and spam texting her

i googled her just now and found her linkedin profile of fucking course shes on linkedin thats so inc harecetr where she says she wants to go to medical school and she uses fucking stupid old words like candor and idk i hope she gets into her dream college

im sure she can she was always so smart i thknk shell do rly well and maybe one day shell perform open heart surgery on me lol that would be baller

"I believe in honesty because it creates an environment that permits integrity. Allowing for candor leads to an honorable work space. Integrity is an essential value to have as it holds all to a high ethical standard. Integrity adds trust, which is necessary for professionalism. I plan to enroll in a four-year college for a master's degree to study biochemistry. I then intend to go to medical school and earn a doctorate."

she fucking talked like that even at 13 yeah and she liked running and read all the time and she loved gamed of thrones and i still own one of her shitty books and we met when she was challenging classmates to race and she was so tall and had pretty hair

sophia im sorry for crying i think it would make her uncomfortable haha

i have fucking snot on my face now shed forsure be uncomfortable lmfaoo

ill go watch some tv show and try not to burst into tears again in 10 minutes ugh maybe it would be better if i had stayed depressed having this many feelings is driving me crazy why r u here bro : /

i should make a secret vent account LMFAO my followers r here for ohshc and mq not sob stories sorry sorry

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 How You Get the Girl Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD If you could get a tattoo today, what would you get (and what's the meaning behind it)? ❓

[ Find my review below. ]

🦇 While coaching East Nashville High's girl's basketball teen, Coach Julie Parker expects passionate players and quick springs; not for the star of her fantasies, ex-WNBA baller Elle F*CKING Cochrane, to show up with the niece she's fostering. Despite being all heart-eyed and tongue-tied, Julie convinces Elle to become her assistant coach, allowing Elle to keep an eye on her niece. Neither expects sparks to fly along with basketballs shooting across the court, even as Elle helps Julie navigate the unfamiliar terrain of dating. Will they continue sitting on the sidelines of their own lives, or finally take a shot?

💜 Dear Anita Kelly. Thank you. Thank you for a story about two beautifully, vulnerably queer women who are so real and authentic and layered. What easily could have been a trope-filled sapphic sports romance is instead a stunning exploration of identity, mental health, and personal growth. Bear with me, bookish bats, as I try to find my words. This story started with Julie's megawatt heart-eyed celebrity crush and a little forced proximity, but it became so much more. Between her queer twin and best friend, Julie always thought she was a little behind in defining her queerness, but there's no timeline, no deadline. She always struggled to find her label, her place (only to realize they're just...whatever!), and it's not until Elle steps into her life and throws her out of her comfort zone that Julie gets the chance to grow into herself. I also adored that Jules couldn't fully pick one label ("15 percent general queer, 10 percent lesbian stereotype. 20 percent ace, 55 percent dumbass.") because identity is in fact a spectrum. She does mention the possibility of being demisexual at one point, which my gf identifies as, and honestly...I don't think I've ever seen a character recognize that as an option before. To say it brought tears to my eyes is an understatement.

💜 In a way, Elle has been stuck in a comfort zone, too, until she starts fostering her niece and coaching alongside Jules. Elle is so patient with Jules, so willing to step back and give Jules the chance to process her own thoughts, recognize her own needs. There's a give and take to their relationship--when one falters, the other steps in to help them find their balance again. There are so many layers to this story--"There's this idea embedded into our culture of getting over things," "Maybe all love is a surprise, followed by practice," "You can be happy and still feel like you don't really know what you're doing."--so much to appreciate in the little lessons these women learned. Together. (If we're keeping track, I cried three times while reading this book: when seeing "demi," at the news clipping, and during Jule's speech. I need more tissues now, thank you.)

💙 There is one topic I wish received a little more attention, namely because it isn't discussed often enough. Elle meets with the school's weights guy, who assumes all the players on the team are girls: "the ingrained hierarchy and immovable binary of most sports." Elle and Julie made a "space for any player who wanted to put in the work, regardless of their identity." Kelly mentions fighting for equality in sports within her acknowledgments, but I do wish we'd seen a little of that fight as a source of conflict within the book.

💙 The story is a bit slow at the beginning, but once it finds its momentum, it GOES. I will say I wasn't aware this was a duology when I grabbed this ARC, but the references to the previous story weren't so heavy that you can't enjoy this one as a stand-alone.

��� Recommended to all readers, whether you're looking for a sports romance, sapphic romance, or simply a good book with lots of mental health love. This one is going to stay with me for a long while.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🌈 Sapphic Ship - Lesbian/Demi 💞 Fake/Practice Dating 🏀 Sports / Workplace / Forced Prox Romance 🏆 Mental Health Rep 📚 Part of the Nashville Series 🏆 Contemporary Romance 🏀 Dual POV 💞 Smut 🌈 Queer Main & Side Cast

🦇 Major thanks to the author @anitakellywrites and publisher @readforeverpub for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

💬 Quotes

❝ Any relationship that’s worthwhile, whether it’s friendship or romantic or sexual, only really works when you try. ❞

❝ But that when it came to identity, when it came to queerness, the whole point was that there were no tryouts. If you were even thinking about it, you were already on the team. That labels weren’t meant to confine, only to bring comfort to those for whom they were useful. That Julie didn’t need to ascribe to any of them, if she didn’t want to. ❞

❝ “You’re not behind on anything...There’s nothing, and no one, you have to track your own life by.” ❞

❝ Maybe all love was a surprise, followed by practice. A step out of comfort zones, followed by hard work. Lurking in all the places you didn’t expect, places that become a forever part of you. ❞

[talenlee]

3e: The Epic Level Handbook's Monsters

3e: The Epic Level Handbook's Monsters

I’ve spoken about the Epic Level Handbook in the past, as a sort of ‘pull the corpse open and look at its insides,’ sort of way. Y’know, look, here’s where the liver is all weird and this bone connects to that bone and now you can see how all these parts in a broad way relate to one another and also why the patient is stone dead. It’s a good article, I recommend you read it because it’s about big, overarching problems the book had. I also have written about the problems of challenge ratings, the black box of imbalance that 3rd edition D&D has going on, a black box that gets worse and worse over time, all building on the impossible fundamental error of D&D 3e’s design philosophy, in that it’s intentional for players to be able to be bad at it.

But I didn’t come here to talk about that.

That’s not why I busted out the Epic Level Handbook, to drag the ugliest system rolled with worst dice through the streets again. Nor is to delve into the misshapen balance parameters presented by treating a single level of a class as equal across all classes when representing characters built well and characters built badly. A level 21 fighter is meant to be an equal challenge for a party to a level 21 wizard, even though one of those is essentially a tough guy with a sword and the other is a tough guy with a sword and the power to stop time.

Instead, I want to talk about the monsters of the Epic Level Handbook.

Because I think a bunch of them are cool, even if their execution is stupid.

First of all, the book introduces the idea of the Abominations. This is a great category and it’s honestly the strongest thing in the whole book. 3e was already a system populated by th eidea of categorical monsters, where multiple things with linked attributes were grouped together. For example, Dragons and Demons and Devils all have broad groupings of traits, and then the individuals in that group represent those shared abilities. In that case, those things are linked by a common heritage, and the Abominations are linked by the common trait of being misbegotten offspring of gods.

Now, there’s a bag of powerful nonsense, which is largely a bunch of immunities, and sure, there’s a lesson there in how the stupid rules of the game mean that cool and powerful abilities have to be rendered useless otherwise they cause problems. But set that aside and just consider these monsters for what they are. A child of the god of the forge, an enormous, ineffable machine constantly whirring and clicking, with an incomprehensible need to enact. Every evil of a demon, magnified to the heroic scope of a Hercules. The strange, pre-god things that is the hundred-handed one. A glacier, the very surface of the world, getting up and walking, with dragons flitting about on its shoulders. A monster of time itself, that can chase you into different time streams. A stillborn god, a creature of such entitlement it demands to live a poisonous life despite everything of what it is being inimical to living.

These are baller concepts for a persistent, evil, dangerous threat that defines the very nature of the story you’re in. Each of these monsters, and the way they see the world could be a defining, constant, enduring threat, a monster that follows you from place to place and oh uhm well, I guess the book does also treat them as things you can fight on the way to other things.

Well that’s cool too I guess.

Minor nitpick while we’re here, though, there’s this monster from later in the book, a Hunefer, which is a mummified god. And it’s not an Abomination, possibly because it was behind the door when that grouping got sorted out.

The Behemoths are … weird. They’re animals. Really big, very scary, very dangerous animals. But they’re outsiders, so their stats are better, and druids can’t shapeshift into them, and… that’s it! And like so many of the things in the book, their reason for being is inscrutable, which is a bad thing. It means that instead of being given a collection of ideas you’re being given a pile of pieces, and they don’t work to explain what they are on their own. There’s nothing in the mechanical block of the Behemoth that’s explained by saying ‘well, it looks like a hawk,’ nothing that makes it different to just using a hawk, except for the under-the-hood limitations meant to keep druids from doing something busto with them. It’s not like you can’t just use the Magical Beast option like there is for the Tayellah and Sirrush, two other interesting epic-level beasts.

Moving on from there we get the Colossi. Hey, golems are already dumb as hell, but we can’t just keep calling them ‘golems,’ can we? Note that the change away from golems is in no way an attack of particular mythical sensitivity towards Jewish myths about the golem, it’s just that they ran out of good names. Also, no lies, it’s absolutely cowardly that the Iron Colossus is immune to rust powers, like you’re pre-empting the one clever thing a player might do. Just like with the Abominations, a lot of monster design in Epic is saying ‘you know those obvious things a player might do other than just whaling on this thing? all the broken spellcaster stuff? well, you can’t do that.’

And don’t worry, then we get Golems later on. They’re like Colossi but smaller. A Colossus is like a golem but bigger.

In the category of dragons, we expand from the ordinary colours to the types of dragon that only show up in epic levels, Prismatic and Force. Prismatic dragons’ breath weapons have a random effect, because what you want is area effect random tables. Force dragons have the much more reasonable category of ignoring hardness and resistance, meaning that a force dragon blowing a breath weapon down onto a group is also going to dig a five-meter deep pit they’re all already standing in. They get Todd Lockwood to illustrate them and they look great, but they’re also just Dragons; however you use dragons in your setting, you’ll use these the same way.

The Leshay are the first thing that feels like they can form the base of a campaign, with these progenitor pre-elf elves able to show up and demonstrate that even their mundane members are enormous threats to the players, and yet also signal an entire culture behind them that can Here’s a big component of worldbuilding, a progenitor heritage for the elves that ties them to the fey world, and if you want to make elves that important to your setting, that’s great! Basically, here’s the first thing that both implies a story and presents a variety of potential encounters. It’s a good thing to include in this kind of resource, instead of the multiple unique threats the book presents with the Forgotten Realms numbers filed off (like the Uvaduum and Shadow of The Void). There’s a similar depth to the Neh-Thalggu, which feels to me like the third form on an evolution chart of an Elder Brain from a Mind Flayer campaign.

Finally, as far as specific mentions go, the Vermiurges are cool ideas that you can introduce into the world as a new thing without having challenges explaining where they came from. They’re the gods of bugs – and once one appears, it’s probably really easy for that Vemiurge to convince the bugs around them to keep spreading the word. You can have entire doctrinal wars between bug gods that don’t know about or care about people at all.

There are a few monsters that get further treatments in Elder Evils, particularly the Genius Loci and The Worm That Walks. Both of these are good ideas, but neither make good ‘monster manual’ content because you can’t just grab them and slap them into an encounter without making them seem far less prestigious than they really are.

I think a big part of the problem with these monsters is that their sheer scope means there’s no variety to combat, but rather these things that imply a narrative that they cannot back up. So many of them stumble at the question ‘okay, but what the fuck is this thing?’

There’s a shocking amount of stuff in this book that presents what I call a ‘skeleton archer’ problem. What’s a skeleton archer? Well it’s a skeleton that’s an archer. The entire concept of the thing is encapsulated in its description. The result is in the book there are Elder Elementals (elementals, but older), devastation vermin (bugs, but bigger), gibbering orbs (they’re orbs, you see, and they gibber), the lava wight (it’s this wight, right, and it’s covered in lava), and the winter wight (it’s this wight, right, but it’s covered in ice), the living vault (it’s a vault, and it’s living), and in this category we can also throw the Gloom, which is like, this guy? And he kills people. While we’re also accounting for nothings, though, there’s the Mercane, a CR3 monster person that exists so you can build your own character on top of it, Legendary Animals (animals, but bigger), and the demilich, which is a lich, but moreso, with a bunch of extra abilities that don’t really do anything per se.

See, one of the problems with epic monsters is their relationship to the action economy of 3rd edition. It doesn’t matter how good your turn is if you don’t do something to fix the economy of giving at least three people a chance to mess you up in between those actions. In later editions, monsters in this rarified atmosphere get multiple initiatives, meaning that they’re less likely to just wait for multiple actions getting beaten up before they respond to anything. Without a big structural change, what you get instead is every individual monster in this space either being weirdly weak, or capable of getting lucky and killing an entire party.

It’s a shame, too, because, well, some of these are fun ideas. Some of these monsters, the ones that aren’t Skeleton Archers, they’re some interesting escalations of scale and concept that don’t necessarily exist in the same landscape of Goblins In A Keep.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#DungeonsDragons #Games #DnD3E

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

*checks the author*

So a short-story only type of deal... Those are usually talentless hacks from my experience with the Heresy Omnibus Volumes. Like, don't get me wrong, short stories as a concept can totally slap, but they are so, so, so much harder to get right.

Short story done by an author who also got full-lenght releases in the Heresy? High chance to be an absolute baller, you will have a great time - and if not, quality will still be fine and it will not overstay its welcome. Author you only see pop up for a short story and then never again? Good chance it will be a slog to get through and just ruin your reading pace by killing your motivation to even open the book.

So yeah, probably going to skip that one - currently busy with starting Vulcan Lives anyways...

Do not read Longshot, it has the nasty Tau @askrobouteguilliman40k talked about it.

What the hell is a "Longshot"?

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 10/11/22

in which i read a book but completely fail to discuss it

listening Bloody! Bloody! by Junie & TheHutfriends. self-described indie pop, incredibly fun chorus! the same sort of frantic plinky..banjo? undertones that i liked so much in my absolute favorite song of hers, The Consequence of Imagination Is Fear.

very good spooky halloween song. i truly do love this band so much for how fucking Weird it is.

And you’re driving with your hands, not believing all the bleeding, and they’re calling you- Bloody! And the knife sits gleaming in the red back seating, and they’re calling you- Bloody! And they’re all still screaming in your head, and their lips dead, calling you- Bloody!

there are a couple creatives where i'm like "yes i WOULD like a new Frog Detective/twine novel/something every year, where i have a marvelous time for forty minutes and it's a little self-contained experience". this band goes in the same brain bucket, bc it feels like it is as much an excuse to collage and make felt puppets as it is to release a new single once every few months. now i am projecting bc i do not know this lady or her process, but i would like more people to be able to make art where i the art enjoyer get a little thing every once in a while, without the artist feeling the crushing need to be a professional artist hitting it big in order to make the art and any sort of living also.

-

reading The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick.

i had to think really fucking hard about if i wanted to talk about this book, bc like a lot of older scifi it critiques the problems of its time but is also very much a product of its time. and i then i remembered that i'm going to do what i want forever until i die :) and then i didn't really have time to even discuss this book much at all :)

let's yoink the description straight off wiki

The Man in the High Castle (1962), by Philip K. Dick, is an alternative history novel wherein the Axis Powers won World War II. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1947, and depicts the political intrigues between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany as they rule the partitioned United States. The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is a novel-within-the-novel which is an alternative history of the war in which the Allies defeat the Axis.

i do enjoy how scifi, especially older scifi, often refuses to resolve neatly or at all. this one left me unsettled. this is not a bad thing! it is unsettled in a way that is un-fan-ficcable. it is unsettled in a way that even though Philip K. Dick planned a sequel, he couldn't bring himself to write one bc the research for this book was so depressing. i do think i gotta let this one percolate in the back of my brain a bit, bc i don't have any useful thoughts aside from "wow yeah this series of events is totally plausible and plays out in a very 'yup i can see that happening' way". this entry is more setting down a marker to myself that i can in fact read full length books. maybe even do it again

how did i find it: this entry came about through a perfect confluence of events: i read this all in one sitting (rare) after seeing it in a thrift store earlier that day (also rare) and thinking "this probably isn't a book i'll reread, does my library have it" (near-miraculous).

-

watching Ōtomo Katsuhiro, director of Akira, has done three...whatever the animated version of a book of short stories is. is it just an anthology also??? anyway i watched Memories (1995) back in july, adored it, half the soundtrack is on my regular roulette wheel of data entry music, and i finally looped back around and watched the other three anthologies he was part of this week.

didn't like them as much! it is eleven forty three pm as i write this so i will not be going into great detail. overall impressions only.

robot carnival (1987) i did not care for very much at all. i think it is the weakest overall of the four both in animation and in story. it did give me this baller screenshot.

neo tokyo (1987) absolutely off the fucking chain with animation flexes. stories overall were not as strong as memories (i am going to be thinking about the first short in memories until i die probably). i have never seen such a perfectly animated cat that nobody seems to have really giffed? unrelated in a different short, i have never seen fire animated like that and now all other animated fire looks wrong.

short peace (2013) i liked much more both on strength of animation and strength of storytelling. "possessions", wherein a wandering samurai takes shelter from a storm in a shrine to...discarded objects? charmed me the most.

-

playing Card Cowboy by a large assortment of people and published by Luckshot. available PWYW on itch and it's like three american bucks on steam. you're out seeking "Revenge against the Gunman who killed your dad, wooed your mom, and kicked your dog" in a procgen fashion gathering cards board-game-style to progress along a web of little location options. and the little opening animatic has the best royalty-free morricone i've ever heard

this is a very polished game with all the quality of life features and smooth art one expects from a card game. it wants to be a phone game really badly.

this is not a moral judgement or a dig at how fun it is, bc it's very fun, but the whole time i played it i thought about how much fun it would be to play on my phone.

at one point i had three bandits, a wife, a baby, a baby horse (the game did not call it a foal don't @ me), and a gold lasso. the next turn i got Blood Money from sending the foal off to compete in the rodeo.

the below is how i got a baby

the below is how i lost the baby

this game is very easy to tell stories about like "oh yeah did you get the blood money from sending the foal off to the rodeo???" which is always super fucking helpful in both game discovery and selling the damn thing. extremely streamable bc it is procgen. i hope it sells a billion copies.

-

making having a fancy bathroom makes me feel like a rich bitch so i got a new shower head. the shower head of course did not fix the abysmal water pressure in this house but it does have an additional detachable head so possibly i will actually clean my bathtub more often. got to use a big fuckoff pipe wrench to take the old showerhead off which was fun. other than recaulking the little escutcheon to the shower wall (annoying) this was a fairly quick and painless process. suspicious. shower head here except i did not spend seventy five dollars on it, that’s ludicrous, i found a new in box one on eBay for thirty bucks.

in other news, acquired the Perfect double breasted trench coat in the Perfect length, it’s got the belt, the wool lining is intact, it’s in decent shape except for the horrible stain on the front. so it’s at the dry cleaners to see if anything happens. the armscyes are just a hair too tight for me in a thin tshirt to lift my arms over shoulder height without looking stupid as fuck so i may find a tailor if i ever want to wear it with a sweater or something. i cannot stress enough how much it is the perfect cut and the perfect length for me. i am willing to invest some dollars in a good classic trench coat i will hopefully have for the next twenty years.