#its kinda wild being in both communities as an older teenager

[locusfandomtime]

you can really tell the different audience demographics of Lifesteal vs Hermitcraft by the comment sections because the average spokeishere or whatever comment is like “LIKE THIS if you are a real Spoke fan!!! ❤️👊😎 if this comment gets 100 LIKES ill tell my mom to subscribe 🤪 who else is watching in 2028❓❓😂” whilst the average ethoslab comment is like “my wife is giving birth but this is more important”

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Do you think quintessence exposure prolonged Allura’s life and she would’ve lived an unnaturally long life for even an Altean if she’d lived? I think about this question a lot because this girl got blasted by and was exposed to insane amounts of it.

Hi, asennnaa. Ah, those are good questions! I’m not sure I have a perfect answer because I’m still grappling with how to handle some of the holes or contradictions in this show. I do think VLD’s entire universe confirms that infusions of quintessence into a body, as you suggest, can unnaturally prolong a life. But what counts as “enough” quintessence exposure to really make one immortal? Just “how immortal” can Allura get? Because other characters are shown to require multiple infusions of quintessence in order to remain even marginally immortal.

It looks like Zarkon was still aging, even with quintessence infusion. Here is a fresh Zark:

And here he is again ~10,000 years later with the wrinkly lips, sunken-in cheeks, and big eye baggies that are all standard signs of aging.

Old zarkturtle status achieved.

So despite standard access to quintessence infusions, and even being overcome with quintessence in the rift itself, both he and Haggar seem like they’re fighting a battle with the clock and still losing. Could their lack of immortality and constant need to infuse with quintessence be because they were accosted by rift creatures (so not experiencing “pure” quintessence infusion in the rift)? I suppose it’s possible.

And a lack of ongoing access to pure quintessence might also be part of the entire Galra Empire’s continuous desire to get to purer and larger amounts of quintessence. Because it’s not just power on the line.

Zarkon himself confirms what he hopes to achieve through quintessence in s3:

Desire for immortality is a huge motivator for the entire empire harvesting quintessence in the first place. Zarkon wants to live forever with his friends and family. But oh nu, he’s still aging. And even Lotor?? What is ten or one-hundred-thousand years in the face of a universe that is billions of years old? Is anyone technically immortal in this show? How long can anyone actually live?

An “imperfect-immortality” would also explain the strange reality of Lotor. He is a beautiful boi and is also 10,000 years old as well. Executive Producers Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos suggest in a Season 5 AfterbuzzTV interview that Lotor’s infusion with quintessence in utero results in him aging very, very slowly.

(Here’s the dialogue from the interview if you want it, from around the 13:30 mark:

JDS: It’s pretty safe to say that Lotor’s kind got that Daywalker kind of thing going on.

Interview: —Little vampire—

LM: Being in…in her womb, as [Honerva] was being exposed to all of this quintessence—it’s part of his DNA. It almost puts him on a level with Allura, pretty much who her quintessence is a part of her DNA. So it’s interesting to see.

JDS: And it’s allowed him to stay so beautifully young.

LM: He’s aged at a much slower rate than your average Galra.

Interviewer: So he IS a vampire.

LM: I think all Galra are kinda space vampires.

JDS: They’re kinda space vampires, yeah. Safe to say. You’re getting instead of blood, you’re getting like…planet juice.)

And it just so happens that, in the active plot of VLD, we’re introduced to Lotor at a point in time where he’s aged physically and mentally to the point of, what, maybe early twenties? The canon’s not clear about it. Despite the lack of a canon-backed “mental-to-physical human-age equivalent,” Lotor appears to careen between a tricky mastermind and a boi who’s still a bit embarrassed about his nanny:

(While I tend to think he’s early 20s in physical and mental agility, you could probably even argue Lotor acts like an older teenager still sometimes, lol. Quality eye-roll and pout right here. Does anyone else get, “Mom, shut up” vibes from this gif? And even his idealism, his unshakable belief that simply giving the empire what it wants will result in peace--it lacks a critical foresight about other people experiencing quintessence madness, dangers from within the rift, and the inevitable wars to “control the gates” and such technology. And there’s some things to be said about humans obtaining full brain development around age 25, as the prefrontal cortex, which inhibits impulses and assists with critical decision-making, is the last section to develop in full. So it makes me think, for all his intelligence and schemes, that he’s mentally a bit younger than he’d like to appear. And obviously doesn’t want to appear, considering how embarrassed he is about his nanny in front of his new-found friends, lol.)

But I digress. So just based on the evidence and the extra-canon commentary from EPs, it seems that if we panned out 20,000 years in the future, we might see a significantly aged Lotor, with the deep face lines and lip wrinkles and gaunt cheeks. Because he’s never stopped aging. His body clock is just totally and utterly creeping along, lucky boy.

If you want to trust the extra-canon text, then you might be able to extrapolate that like Lotor’s DNA, Allura’s DNA gives her an extended life. Although unlike slow-age Lotor, Allura appears to have had a more accelerated childhood. She can’t be more than Kova’s 28 decaphoebs (years), given that the season 3 finale shows Allura was born after Kova’s introduction. And yet, unlike Lotor’s strange history of taking forever to grow up, Allura presents as physically mature within a fairly normal timeline.

This would actually suggest that something is a bit weird about Allura’s DNA. And its something that makes her quintessence more intense than even Lotor’s own quintessence signature, if you want to go by the interviews where LM says, “It almost puts him on a level with Allura.”  

So what was this mysterious event?

Allura certainly could still infuse herself or be infused with quintessence to prolong her life, but that wouldn’t prolong her life indefinitely or put her even within range of what’s naturally going on with Lotor’s DNA.

Is there something inherently unique about Allura’s lineage or species, then, that could answer this?

Let’s look at Alteans first. The canon seems oddly contradictory about the natural age of Alteans. Coran is at least 600 years old because he was alive with the Castle of Lions was being built. But yet executive producer LM states that there’s something inherent in Allura’s DNA that makes her even more special than the average person, and even more strangely…Allura’s father, Alfor, doesn’t seem to fall into either of these two categories.

??

Despite Alfor understanding the deep secrets of the universe via Oriande, and having personal direct exposure with unlimited pure quintessence through building and even fighting in Voltron, he ages. Hard.

Here’s Alfor as a young man:

Here’s Alfor, only decaphoebs later, not long before he died.

So here we have an aging Alfor. And oof, in less than 28 decaphoebs, with no explanation as to why Coran would be doing so well in comparison. (Feel free to speculate!)

So whatever is wrong with Alfor’s life cycle, it would seem to be an isolated incident that not even exposure to Voltron or to the rift could undo. In which case, it’s hard to know if Allura’s DNA would naturally have the same weaknesses from her lineage. If not, then she should at least be able to reach 1,000 years naturally, if the spunky Coran is any measure to go by.

But Alfor did do something that I think places Allura as entirely unnatural and probably the most likely candidate to have a form of true immortality in this entire show:

So right in season 1, episode 1, Coran admits that Alfor has done some pretty wild alchemy. He physically connected Allura’s essence with the essence of Voltron—the single source of self-regenerating, infinite quintessence throughout the whole of the entire universe.

I’m not sure if this alchemical forge-bond would protect Allura from physically aging, but it would suggest that Voltron’s life force and Allura’s life force are intimately tied on the material plane. There is no other canonically shown bond like this in a living person, in the VLD universe. It makes Allura entirely unique as a character and likely helps to explain why she is so consistently over-powered compared to even Haggar/Honerva.

Because unlike ANY other Altean, including Honerva, Allura has an infinite, massive battery of pure quintessence to pull from at will. And it’s tied to her very life force.

I don’t know if a person’s life force being personally connected to Voltron would confer physical immortality, but I do think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that as long as Voltron exists, Allura’s essence would be preserved within it. And as we saw in season 6, Shiro was capable of interacting with other paladins despite his physical death, because Black Lion had preserved his essence.

So I guess all of this is to say, it seems there would be a lot of reasons for why Allura could live a very long life. It does seem that if she infused herself with quintessence in an ongoing fashion, and she quite often has, then her already long Altean lifespan would become longer. And even in physical death, Allura could still “exist” like s6 Shiro to communicate and interact with the living, in a way that not even her father could.

(Which makes you wonder about that s8 ending with the Lions mysteriously flying off for an unknown reason and Lance’s Altean marks lighting up like a homing beacon, but oof, that’s perhaps another topic.)

Thank you so much for the ask! I hope my winding ramblings help to answer your question or encourage further thought about the possibilities!

[moistwithgender]

Monthly Media Roundup (April 2019)

April was a bit of a disaster month for me, and as such I didn’t get much of anything finished. Old wounds got reopened, I was sick all month, I had an unavoidably bad birthday, and a lifelong pet died. I didn’t engage with a lot of things, and mostly slept. I did play a lot of Breath of the Wild, but seeing as I didn’t finish that, I’m not including it yet. Here’s the things I did finish:

Games:

Blaster Master Zero (Switch): I actually first bought and finished this two years ago, and since the sequel has come out I decided to replay it with the Shovel Knight DLC character. While I genuinely like this game (I 100%’d it both times), I was not really in a good spot to enjoy this playthrough, and just kinda mindlessly pushed through it for nine consecutive hours, beating it in that single sitting. Playing as a DLC character removes the story, which is fine since they’re intended for replays, though I wonder if it added to my emotional disconnect. SK doesn’t receive fall damage, and so the precariousness of navigating the world outside of the highly-mobile tank doesn’t exist nearly as much, though the trade-off is that SK’s combat abilities in dungeons are hindered by an overall lack of range. The game is still rather easy, though, so I can’t say any particular level cadences or combat scenarios carved their way into my memory.

To the game’s credit, though, the things that are good about it are still good. If you have an attachment to the original NES game, or an interest in retro properties, or just want a nice, breezy platformer, it’s very good. It’s interesting in how it repurposes the altered plot of the US version of the original game (where it was its most popular), including even the plot of the little novelization that came out because Gotta Get Those Video Game Kids to Read Something. It has a fake out ending, and if you 100% the maps it unlocks a final map that is genuinely surreal enough to be the highlight of the game. Despite my sighing, it is a genuinely good time, and I’m very curious to play the new game, somewhat hilariously titled Blaster Master Zero 2.

Anime:

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: I chewed through the last four episodes of this so that I could say I finally finished the season. I didn’t watch the post-season recap episode. TenSura (the abbreviation of the Japanese title, which I will use to refer to it because satisfyingly abbreviating the english title is impossible) is not a very good show, but for about half the length of the 24-episode first season, it fascinates due to how it functions at all. TenSura is an isekai show, much like the other isekai shows, where a person dissatisfied with their life is brutally murdered (usually by a truck. USUALLY by a truck) and is reborn in a fantasy world that coincidentally gives them an absurd advantage over other people, allowing them to live out all the decadence they felt they deserved in the real world. If this sounds like the most boring kind of wish fulfillment possible to you, that’s because it is. It’s also extremely popular with consumers. Which is interesting! I think the isekai boom is indicative of how late-stage capitalism everyday people the world over, that we envision or escape to worlds where your efforts actually return appropriate reward. A bonkers concept, to be sure.

In TenSura, the formula doesn’t stray much. The main character is a man in his 30s (?) who has never fucked and gets knifed to death while HEROICALLY saving a coworker from a plot-irrelevant stabber dude who was running down the sidewalk with his knife out for no reason besides Main Character Needs an Inciting Incident Now. It’s actually pretty weirdly violent for the start to a show that is almost entirely light-hearted. Dude dies, his coworker dumps his hard drive in the bath out of respect (lol), and he wakes up in a fantasy world that works on videogame logic, including loot, skill trees, and class upgrades. He is reborn as an adorable slime a la Dragon Quest, but the personality traits he had in his previous life (and I guess his choice of dying words) scan to obscenely convenient passive abilities that ensure he’s not only invincible, but will never stop experiencing exponential power growth. Also he immediately makes friends with a final boss-level dragon and then eats him. That’s how he makes friends in this sometimes.

I’m being very cynical here, but the core narrative loop (and it IS a loop) of the series kept my interest for longer than I expected. Rimuru (the name of the reborn protagonist) goes somewhere he hasn’t been, astonishes the nearby (sometimes violent) inhabitants with his overpowered abilities, makes friends with them, and then improves their lives with community. Goblins, direwolves, orcs, demon lords. It stacks and builds upon itself to absurd degrees but it’s interesting that in a genre loaded with very problematic stories of disenchanted dudes finally getting the underage harem they’ve always wanted (aaaaAAAAAAAAA) that the main concept of this series is improving the lives of others and giving them closure for the ways life has hurt them. Even if. Sometimes that hurt was the main character’s doing? Like Rimuru absolutely decapitates a direwolf leader and then adopts the pack who from then on absolutely LOVE the dude. Also one of Rimuru’s abilities is that if he gives a monster a name, it class upgrades, which is generally and reasonably seen as a life improvement. Though, these class upgrades are almost always decidedly “less-tribal” or outright human, which smacks of some imperialist thinking. It’s also something I’m sure I never questioned in old videogames growing up. Meanwhile, there’s also a bit with a woman who came from Japan during that one really bad war, you know the one, and the closure she’s given as she’s dying is handled with actual delicacy. It’s a weird series! It’s only a shame to me that after most of the first season, there was less to talk about. Sometime after the halfway mark, you realize the show is never going to maintain tension for more than half an episode, that all problems are solvable (yes, even terminally ill children), and that the show isn’t going anywhere you can’t predict. It’s a checklist show, and the plot points are a list of achievements being checked off one episode at a time.

I don’t think I would actually recommend the show to most people, despite how popular it is. It’s not a great show, but it does weird enough things for a while that it generates conversations. Which is honestly pretty okay. It’s a pretty okay show. Also, Rimuru is effectively nonbinary (with he pronouns), and that’s… somethin’! (24 episodes, finished 4/17/19, Crunchyroll (Funimation also now has the dub I think? Clips I saw were pretty weird, Rimuru seemed to be characterized differently.))

Manga:

Nejimaki Kagyu Vol 1: You would think a manga that immediately starts with a reference to Phantom Blood would be, well, at least interesting.

Okay maybe invoking a beloved work doesn’t actually mean anything. I just wanted to share this blatant callback. Nejimaki Kagyu is a seinen manga about a highschool teacher whose tragically cursed to, uh, have all teenage girls fall in love with him. And the highschool-age childhood friend of his who has spent her whole life obsessed with him and learning super martial arts to defend his chastity. Her supers make her clothes explode.

…

I take no joy in this travesty.

Anyway, uh. The biggest tragedy here is that the art is actually really good, though the paneling is regularly squished around to hilarious degree. Let’s look at some pages and then forget this manga exists forever.

That horror face is how I feel the entire series should be portraying itself. The manga has a distinct lack of self-awareness.

The fan translation for this series appears to have dropped off halfway through and hasn’t been picked up for years, and based on reviews I saw on MAL talking about the directionlessness of the later volumes, I wonder if the translator got fed up with the series. Oh well!

Kyou no Asuka Show Vol 1: Oh god damn it I just got done with talking about a series about ogling the youth.

BLEASE STOP

Okay so. Kyou no Asuka Show, or “Today’s Asuka Show” is an older slice of life manga by the same author I mentioned previously who is doing an edutainment series about people working in a condom factory. Innocently-minded women in comedically lewdish situations appears to be his whole bag. I think Asuka is pretty charming, but I also know she’s designed to appeal to my monkey male gaze. Obliviously sexy is very much a mood, and in a more adult context I would be all for it. There have been a few chapters where I find myself at odds with the wisdom the author is attempting to impart, sometimes through Asuka’s father, who works as an adult photographer, and doesn’t want his daughter involved in anything that could cause her to be ogled. Like, that’s already something that requires a lot of unpacking in the modern day. Aforementioned wisdom sometimes takes the form of Asuka doing something stupid and innocent and ripe for objectifying, like wearing a school swimsuit in a rainstorm. Or she’ll work a job as a cute girl courier and inadvertently turn a shut-ins life around. Situations where, if it were in real life, I’d think “wow that’s weird and charming,” but by being a work of intentional authorship, it inherently loses some of that innocence, and becomes something well-meaning but problematic. Is that the second time I’ve used the word “problematic” in this post? Is this 2014?

I may continue reading this, but I really can’t recommend it to most people I know in 2019 without several disclaimers and also without probably getting some side eye. I think it’s worth a couple chapters to feel out what its doing before you decide whether you can siphon the charm from it, or would rather move on to something else.

Me enjoying myself when this manga tries to suddenly get up to some shit.

Blue Period Vol 1: This is the last thing on my list, because I don’t want to expand this list beyond the three mediums I’ve already assigned to it. Also, I actually finished this May 1st, but I wanted to talk about it now.

If I had the power to actually get people to engage with a specific work once per month, Blue Period would easily be the one I pick. That doesn’t mean as much when all the other things I finished this month were conflicted experiences, but I really think everyone would benefit from this series. Or at least anyone with even a passing interest in visual arts.

Blue Period (named for Picasso’s Blue Period) is about a highschool delinquent who has a knack for studying, a safe social life, and no interests in pretty much anything. He’s on the road to do fine in his life, and he doesn’t question it much, but that’s it, until he discovers art and realizes it’s the only way he’s ever been able to truly communicate his feelings. It changes everything about him, for more emotionally satisfying reasons, but also riskier ones. He only has one year of highschool to go to decide what he’s doing with his life, and Japan has a very strict education system. You’re not really allowed to just “get around” to things.

Apologies in advance if you’re tired of me spamming full pages but I really do wanna show this off. This is another series with an educational angle to it, though the emphasis is definitely more rooted in a personal narrative of growth. The explanations of art practice and the functionality of exercises and tools are both very informative and relevant to the characters, never feeling like the story is taking a backseat to explain. The characters are, hilariously, everyone I’ve ever met in an art class. There’s the kid who would rather exclusively draw the things they like, there’s the kid who likes art as a hobby but haaaates being given a project, etc etc. There are students who have an innate grasp on how to draw but haven’t internalized the Why of the exercises, and students who are receptive to the lessons but don’t have the ability to match. The narrative is extremely even-handed towards all of these different levels of skills, and places a lot more importance on why, emotionally, you should totally care about drawing apples and water pitchers for five hours at a time. It’s GREAT and I want to force it on every creative I’ve ever known.

Another thing I appreciate about this series so far is that while there has been something resembling sexual/romantic tension, it’s kind of not like that at all? In the first volume I haven’t been able to pinpoint where a potential relationship subplot would go, if at all. Two possibilities are this girl:

...who is a very likable character but surprisingly doesn’t fit into that box of “standard love interest”. The protag’s interactions with her have been exclusively respectful and admiring, which doesn’t even necessarily imply a romantic subplot, but would be pretty cool if it did? And the other girl:

...who is featured in decidedly more sexual tension-y contexts, is actually TRANS. The manga actually portrays them so uncompromisingly feminine that I didn’t realize they were crossdressing (the term used in the text) until the author’s notes at the end of the volume. I will partially blame this on me being out of it this month, since I just went back to their introduction and yep, they got misgendered and contested it. Given how the character is regularly framed (confident, attractive, skilled, nonstereotypical), I’m… pretty okay with this! If a romance blooms between a delinquent boy and a trans girl, that’s amazing.

I hope y’all understand where I’m coming from in expecting a shoehorned romantic subplot. I’m not hoping for one, I just know the product by now. And if it happens, the options are considerably more interesting than usual.

These are pretty good kids.

Manga licensing is a lot better nowadays than it ever was before, with lots of obscure series being picked up, old series getting re-localized, and translations being better than ever. I really really want this series to get licensed so someone can be compensated for it, and so more people might read it. Until then, I think you should look up the fan work.

---

So that’s all for April. If these posts included live-action movies, I’d have talked about Endgame, but I also don’t want to go spoiling anything for someone who still wants to go see that (it’s probably one of my favorite MCU movies, though). I read most of 1970-71 in Marvel comics, or at least most of the issues on my reading list, but I semi-liveblog about those, so you can just search my “curry reads comics” tag for that. Here’s hoping I have more interesting, more positive things to say about May in a month. I expect to finish Breath of the Wild by then, so I’ll finally talk about that. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far! Go check out Blue Period.

[gaming-grandma]

Skyrim and Breath of the Wild: My Two Favorite Open World Games

While botw doesn’t really qualify as an RPG, it still has many elements similar to one that I feel like this comparison is fair. Even though a large gap of time, graphical style, aesthetics, music, and story splits the two in feel and theme, I still feel like both games plucked the same heartstrings for myself, albeit in different ways. This is a long, long essay type post with no pictures. I wrote this instead of doing a reading assignment, so enjoy.

Both of these games came to me at opportune times in my life. Skyrim came to me right in the middle of my ‘golden-days’ of highschool, where I had the absolute most amount of free time and no responsibilities. I delved into the game and devoured it whole, and when my brother would take it to uni with him I would spend hours into the night until 2, 3 AM pouring over the guidebook and analyzing tactics and build ideas and roleplay elements I could incorporate into it the second I got my hands on it again. I almost convinced my dad to buy me the game so I could play it while my brother was away, but for my own good and those of my grades I failed. I would play Skyrim until sunrise, and then until sunset again, and I would go on to make probably actually hundreds of characters, each with different back stories and approaches and methods of play and skills. They would all feel unique and I would treat each one like an experience and go new places, or even go to places I knew well on purpose to see if I could put new spins on it. The world was so open and ready to manipulate and bend to your will that I, the moldable teenager I was, was utterly bent on feeling every square inch of this game hundreds of times, like a baby given a new toy they have to shove in their mouth for hours. I’m not proud of the amount of time I spent on Skyrim, but I am glad I got to, and I’m proud of some of my accomplishments. I invented this method of infinite Magicka regeneration as long as you were in a circle of a certain spell by making myself a vampire Breton with 100% magicka absorb (which involved using a glitch allowing you to use the same constellation stone twice) and casting a banishment spell on myself with the perk that makes restoration affect vampires. I spent days perfecting this until the final product: I could walk into a dungeon and cast a circle of light on the floor, walk into it, and unleash untamed power and destruction and anything I wanted anywhere until the circle wore off, and I’d cast it again. When my brother walked in on my working on this his jaw kinda dropped.

 Similarly, I would go on to invent all sorts of my own clever elements to the game as I mold it to my will, like one of those shake lights you have to break in a bunch of places to get it to light up. I would play the game dry over and over. Graduation came, and I slowed down. Other things came into my life and I had other games to play, new experiences to mull over. New worlds to bend. I would always go back to Skyrim for a few days, trying to pick it up again and feel the same awe and excitement and pure wonder I did when it first came upon me, but I would eventually realize “I’ve done this exact same thing too many times now” whether it be the character, route, skills, or style, I’d done it already. To this day, it’s the only game I’ll actually pull out and play sometimes when I’m truly lost or have nothing to do or feel depressed or broken. It’ll always remind me of my youth and make me have something to look forward to again. I’ve still already done it all, but that doesn’t really matter sometimes does it? Sometimes it’s just about remembering and being a totally different and older person sitting in front of the screen that gives you the same experience and joy no matter what you’ve been through.

I don’t trust Bethesda with TES6 anymore. I don’t think it’ll work for me, and I don’t think it’ll be a great game. I’m excited for it, as I’m naturally inclined to be and I won’t shut myself up over it, but it won’t be the next Skyrim for me. It won’t make me a wide-eyed 14 year old again, nothing can do that. That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it, I’m sure I will. But I don’t trust Bethesda’s methods as a company, and I don’t know if they’ll ever achieve what they did in my eyes when I was a kid. I’ll sit and listen to the music sometimes, and it’ll hit me in waves; the world, the awe, the excitement. The memories of coming home from big life events like finals or job interviews or trips and being able to relax and play it again. It almost sounds like an addiction at this point, and my brother would joke that I was, but it didn’t harm my social/professional life in any way, so I don’t think it was a true addiction.

Then I realize they don’t even have the same guy on music for TES6 as they did for morrowind/skyrim again and I remind myself it won’t be the one.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a gullible hope that TES6 will do all those things to me again, though. But when it comes down to it, Skyrim was the biggest and most influential game on my life as a teenager. It was just a great game. I loved it, everything about it. That’s all there is to it. It’s one of those games I wish I could erase my memory of and do all over again.

And you’re wondering why the hell this essay is titled with BOTW, and here’s the connection; the only other game I truly would like to erase my memory for and experience again is Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But this is for a totally different reason.

BOTW came into my life at a similarly critical point of my life in young adulthood; I was at the end of my community college career, having only 2 classes for the entire semester. I had a job, but I hated it and was depressed over it. I felt like I was going nowhere fast, and BOTW came out with the switch and I decided to buy into the hype and see what it was like. BOTW is an untamed love letter to everything that made Skyrim amazing to me, and yet it was totally new and unseen and alien. It was huge in scope, the awe and wonder it hit me with was the same as when I first realized how huge the province of Skyrim truly was; this was even bigger. The immersion and aesthetics were beautiful and appealed to me in ways skyrim never did, but I still fell in love with it and played this game up and down and inside out. I just checked and it’s still my #1 most played game on the switch nearly 2 years later at 120 hours. That’s not even 1/10th of how long I played Skyrim, and yet it managed to have that insane appeal to it that drove my young eyes wide in pure thrilling excitement. The minimalist music accompanied by beautiful sounds of nature reminded me of the frozen tundra of the mountain sides watching sunrises in the Throat of the World, or exploring the sun glazed Rift. None of this was actively in my mind as I played it, but I knew that the same heartstrings that Skyrim tugged on were being tangled with by this amazing game. As a Zelda game it blew me out of the water, and if I devoured Skyrim whole, then Breath of the Wild ate ME whole, because I was not in control of this world; I was merely a spectator trying to survive and watch it for as long as I could.

My biggest gripe once I finished the game to pieces that fall was that there was “nothing to do”. “There’s nothing to do!” I whine as I sit on my 120 shrine, 600 korok seed save file that had a full inventory of every best weapon and nearly every side quest completed save file. The DLC would then come out but I never felt compelled to play it or finish it. I’m tempted to today and that’s why I’m writing this. I did everything the game had to offer, or at least I thought, as I would late learn of lots of different activities I never got to finish, but I enjoyed it and I wouldn’t trade that time for any skyrim experience.

BOTW struggles to stand up to Skyrim’s depth, but its scope is ambitious and accomplishes its own voice without relying on anything ever created besides the actual Zelda franchise characters and lore. Skyrim, on the other hand, is an achievement of a long struggle as a gaming studio, the ultimate pinnacle of what Bethesda has learned in creating open world games. BOTW is most certainly an easily accessible game, and is not nearly as dated as the launch graphics of Skyrim, but I still have to give Skyrim the title of my favorite open world game, not purely because of the nostalgia, but because of the depth and variety you could get out of multiple playthroughs. BOTW only has 1 link, and link only has so many skills. You can use them to screw with the environment and do some crazy cool stuff, but nothing will top the pure blank canvas that was a new Skyrim file in my eyes. BOTW doubtlessly takes a hard 2nd place.

[fucking-hell-marvel]

Lacuna - Chapter Two

Dr Ada Ross Set Tuesday, February 1st, 1870 ~~~~~~~~~~

After sixteen days of long travel, the train pulled into the station of my new home. Ganado Springs, New Mexico.

The lovely station master was shocked to see me unloaded my trunks and promised to have them brought over the boarding house where I was temporarily staying. Uncle Bruce had sent instructions on how to find the doctor’s office in his last letter.  

The town had every kind of store you might need. I could see why it was a famous town on the railroad and cattle drives. It also seemed like the place that you’d never leave. I knew enough of the ‘wild west’ to know that things were more relaxed than they were in the city. From what uncle Bruce had told me; the pastor was a man of colour, compared to the rest of the world women were treated equally, and there was some openly queer folk too, yet everybody got along. The most crucial thing Bruce had told me to remember was that the community stuck together no matter what.  

As I walked down the main street of town, I was glad to see that I wouldn't stick out. All the women I could see wore simple and practical clothes. No unnecessary bows or frills in horrid colours, just sturdy dresses or a skirt and blouse.

I saw the church up ahead and followed the road to the right, just as Bruce instructed. Around the corner of the boarding house was the new doctor's office. It was an older building, but you could see that it had refurbished recently. The windows were scrubbed clean, and I could see a new sign hanging off the porch. Dr Banner was seeing a patient out of his practice when I approached the office bags in hand. When Bruce finally spotted me his face split into a wide grin.

“Ada! Look at you.”

I dropped my bags and launched myself at my uncle. “Bruce! I have missed you.”

“Three years is far too long.” He offered me his arm and led me upstairs to his private apartment.

“Oh uncle, it is. I have missed you terribly.  You're getting more grey each time I see you."

It was true; noticeable silver streaks were running through his dark waves.

“It’s dealing with you all these years.” He picked up my bags and led me into the clinic. I noticed the metal plaque engraved with both our names and space for more to be added. “Everything is brand new. You’ll have to help me set everything up.”

Inside the clinic, you could smell the freshly cut wood. As soon as you walked in the door, there was a single waiting area with a nurses desk. On the left of the waiting area were two small rooms for examining a patient or treating minor illnesses. On the right were three much larger patient rooms with beds, if a patient were brought to the clinic and needed to stay they would be placed there. Outback was two medium-sized operating theatres; essential for minor or significant surgical and the more complicated childbirths.

Opposite the theatres and behind the office was a moderately sized clinical room full of shelves to house medicines, cupboards to accommodate equipment and a decent sized sink with an indoor pump to clean ourselves and anything else.

The office was spacious but bare, and Bruce had done the minimal amount of work to set it up. One table with the chair tucked under was pushed against the back wall and used for storing the more delicate items.  Bruce had set up a beautiful partners desk up for me, along with a revolving chair, the worn leather was a deep rich brown.

The last desk other Bruce was using himself and was slightly cluttered. He had never been an overly organised person. There were lots of boxes and crates stacked against the walls no doubt full of all the equipment he had ordered.

Bruce left me to grab the other desk chair while he used a small wood burning stove in the corner of the room to make tea. The wood stove would also be used for heating and to boil water for medical use, cleaning wounds and the clinic. There was a large copper pot on the floor beside the stove. I recognised it as one from my father’s clinic, the dent was in the same place, and one handle was slightly out of shape. I knew that Bruce had gotten on with his brother in law extraordinarily well.

I managed to find a sealed crate that wasn’t too dusty, on which to place my bags. I took off my bonnet perching it on Bruce’s lamp and stuffing my gloves into my carpet bag. I happily sat in the comfy desk chair, compared to the hard and cramped quarters of a train the chair felt like a cloud in heaven.

As I looked around the baren office, I noticed the large packing crate in the corner, already opened. “Did the shipment come already?”

“Yes thank you. I was running short of some supplies.” He placed the tea tray on the table and took a seat.

I poured tea for the two of us while he got comfortable in his armchair. “Before I left Boston I made sure that we’d get a regular shipment every month, so we never run out of anything.”

“You are an angel. So how was your trip?”

I almost snorted into my cup. “Almost three weeks moving from train to train, I’m surprised I didn’t resort to murder.”

“Did you have second thoughts?”

I placed my hand over his. “I would travel the world to be with you. You are my only family left Bruce. It was a long, trying journey but I knew that at the end we’d be together again.”

He smiled back at me. “I can’t wait till you get settled. This kinda place won’t care that you’re a woman doctor and they won’t care that you’d be my practise partner.”

“I'm glad. I was getting fed up at the hospital.”

“Well, this will be a welcome change. There are some things in the diary, people who need to be seen daily, scheduled health checks. Helen is in charge of that.”

“Helen?”

“She’s a nurse. Wanted a change in life and replied to my nurse wanted ad.”

“Well, it’s good that she can deal with the smaller issues on her own and help out with surgery.”

Bruce nodded. “She’s an impeccable surgical nurse. She’s a Godsend; I don’t even know if we would have been able to open the clinic if it wasn’t for her.”

I smiled at him. “Someone would think you’re sweet on Helen.”

Bruce spluttered. “No! Of course not. She’s far too young for me. I think young Mr Pietro Maximoff is sweet on her.”

“Mr Maximoff?”

“The undertaker's son,” he explained.

“Ahh and I suppose he visits often.”

“He does.” Bruce laughs. “I think that he still believes he’s somewhere that follows the proper ways.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand why two people of different cultures can’t marry.”

“Pietro’s family come from Sokovia and Helen is of Chinese heritage.”

“Ah, I understand. But I suppose it doesn't matter in this town. Love is love.” I noticed a familiar dent on the edge of Bruce's desk. "That belonged to Betty."

Bruce noticed the damage I was pointing too.  "Ah yes, it is. I had it shipped out here when I settled. I bought the things I couldn't part with the rest I sold.  I'm afraid it's too small for me, my knees hit the top. When I knew you were coming, I set it up for you."

I felt this warmth yet sadness in my chest. I knew that Bruce still kept a few things belonging to his late wife. I felt blessed and honoured to now be responsible for it.

"Thank you, Bruce. I've arrived in a new place to find a piece of home waiting for me. I remember when it sat in the corner of her room."

"We both miss her." He gave me a sad smile.  

I watched as a note pinned to the board catch his interest.

“Ah, before I forget. I don't know what we're going to do about a more permanent home for you. The repair work in the apartment upstairs is complete, all it needs is cleaning, painting and furniture.”

“I have enough savings to stay in the boarding house for a while and order the things I'll need to fix it up.”

“I'll help with anything you need.”

“Oh Bruce, you can sew up a wound perfectly, but cleaning and fixing stuff was never your good side.”

He chuckled. “That's true.”

“So where are you living?”

He shifted in his chair and rubbed his earlobe. A tell that he's hiding something. “Still living with Selvig. It's easier two bachelors together.”

“Well as long as he’s tidier than you.”

He snorted then looked at his messy desk. “We survive.”

There was a knock at the door, and we both looked up to see a teenage girl quite flustered.

“Dr Banner. Helen is having trouble with mama, she asked for your help.”

Bruce jumped up and gathered the things he would need. I swore I heard him mutter something about Thor, poor Jane and his baby having its father’s broad shoulders. With a kiss on the top of my head, he was out the door. I followed and stopped in the doorway, watching as he followed the girl on a dirt path beyond the schoolhouse. I racked my brain to remember who this Thor was.

To pass the time I decided to begin to unpack the newly delivered create that I had ordered. I knew that the supplies would have no order to them if Bruce had anything to do with it, I’m sure Helen would thank me if she could find things with ease. It was a productive way to spend most of the day. Bruce hadn’t come back, so I guessed the delivery was taking longer than he thought but I didn’t mind. Being a doctor, you got used to being late for things.

It was growing later in the afternoon when there was a commotion out front followed by the sound of boots on the wooden floor. I turned to see a young man in the doorway looking flustered.

“Hey Doc, Dernier had an accident…” he froze slightly upon seeing me not the person who he was expecting. “You’re not Doctor Banner.”

“No I'm Dr Ross, Dr Banner just left to see a patient. Is there anything I can help with?”

“I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself, miss. Everyone calls me Junior.”

“Pleasure to meet you.”

“Uhh, Dernier had an accident at the ranch needs a Doc.”

“Very well let me grab my bag, and you can tell me about it on the way.”

He tipped his hat and went back outside. I left Bruce a note where he would easily see it. I grabbed my carpet bag and doctor’s bag, if the injury were critical, I would have to stay overnight to keep watch on the patient. Outside the clinic, the wagon was ready and waiting. I placed my bags in the back before hoisting myself into the seat beside Junior.

I waited for him to manoeuvre the wagon onto the south road out of town before I spoke. “So what happened?”

“Well Dernier, he’s the farm hand and cook, was up in the orchard and fell off the ladder, caught his boot on it. He was still out when the boss sent me off. ”

“Just his war wound playing up? A bit of whiskey and sleep then he’d be fine?”

Junior looked at me surprised. “Yeah… how did you know?”

“I know men. Was it a normal 6-foot ladder?”

“MmHm. It shouldn’t take long to get there, roughly an hour.”

“That’s okay. Did you move Mr Dernier at all?”

“Nah, we ‘membered from the last fall. He’s in the shade, and everyone was with him when I left.”

“Good.”

Junior and I made small talk on the straight ride to the ranch. There were only two ranches out this way. Clint Barton and his family who bred horses and the boy’s cattle ranch. We passed by a lovely looking house down a long drive on the right, this belonged to the Barton’s and was the marker for half way.

We turned off the road, passing under a sign that read Black Oak Ranch. The long rolling drive was shaded by an occasional oak tree, most likely where the ranch got its name. I could see more trees further back. It was strange seeing oak trees growing in New Mexico; it was like an oasis in the desert. A the end of the drive was a large ranch house with a wrap around porch. Just like the town and the other buildings the had only been built a few years ago, but due to the harsh conditions, they were slightly worn in.

The cart pulled to a stop in front of what looked like the stables. A tall man with a thin, tidy moustache came out to meet us. I knew from Juniors rambling that it would be Falsworth who looked after the horses.

“Miss.” He tipped his hat to me. “Doctor Banner not working?”

“He was busy. " He gestured to me, "This is Miss Ross. She’s a lady doctor.”

He offered a hand to me to help me down. “Dr Ross. I’m to be Dr Banner’s business partner.”

He took the rains from Junior. I grabbed my bags from the back then followed Junior round behind the beautiful grey ranch house with a wrap around porch. There was a large produce garden behind the house, but I was lead away from it before I could get a better look.

Past the large produce garden, the orchard came into view, just as Junior had said everyone surrounded the patient. They all turned in our direction at the sound of our footsteps.

“Where’s Dr Banner?” a tall blonde asked.

“Dr Banner was called out to another patient. I’m Dr Ross.”

The blonde held out his hand towards me. “Steve Rogers. A pleasure to meet you. I guess Junior told you everything.”

I nodded. “Junior did. Would it be possible to have some water put on the boil? I’ll need it once we get him inside.”

Junior turned back to the house while Mr Rogers guided me over to an older gentleman laying in the shade of the tree. He had his eyes closed, but you could see the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“Dernier. Docs here.”

He opened his eyes as I knelt beside him. “Bonjour mademoiselle.”

To my surprise his French was perfect. “Bonjour. Je m'appelle Docteur Ross.”

He laughed and clutched his ribs. “Hello, doctor. I did tell them I’m fine, but they won’t let me move.”

“Dr Banner told us not to move anyone that fell. You know that.” A tall man with long brunet hair tied back was leaning against the tree.

“And he is right.” I turned back to the patient, “So what’s the worst.”

“My leg, it hurts too much to move.”

I nodded and began to roll up both his pant legs. After removing his left boot, you could see the swelling. Luckily it didn’t look disfigured.

“I do not think it is completely broken. You may have a small break or fracture or even just a bad sprain, but I won’t know until the swelling goes down. Anything else?”

“I landed on my hip and shoulder, and I hit my head on the floor.”

I checked his head. Someone had used his handkerchief to steam the small bleed. There was a little bump, and the skin had split. It had already begun to clot, so it was not a worry. Thankfully he had landed on the side opposite to his sore leg. Both his shoulder and hip moved freely in the joint, with only pain from the bruising

“We can move him. I can give you something for the pain, but I'll need to get you inside the house first. If two of you support him, he can walk on his good leg.”

Mr Rogers nodded to the tall brunet. “We’ll put him in the house. Easier than the bunks.”

They two of them helped him up. A bulky man with ginger moustache offered his hand to me. I took it with a smile.

“Dugan. At your service.”

We made slow progress to the house. I noticed that he wobbled a fraction when he was walking, but I wasn’t sure if it was walking on one leg or the head injury. I followed the two men as they helped Dernier hopped on his uninjured leg. We entered the back of the house into the kitchen. Junior was there hovering over a large pot full of water. The men disappeared into a small bedroom.

I stopped in the kitchen. “Is it alright if I wash my hands?”

Dugan pointed me in the direction of the sink. I untied my bonnet and left it on the table, unbuttoning my jacket I placed it on the back of a chair. I grabbed the apron from my carpet bag tying it over my skirt and blouse. Using my small box of soap, I scrubbed my hands. Junior offered my a clean linen square to dry my hands. Dugan carried my doctor's bag, and I followed him to the bedroom.

The small bedroom was almost bare just a single bed, chair and a small dresser. The two men had propped him upright so I could tend to his head wound.

“We use this a sick room. We live in the bunkhouse.” Dugan informed me putting my bags on the dresser

“It's a good idea. Stops the spread of sickness.”

He nodded his head. Everyone moved out of my way yet hovered in the doorway. Junior had placed a bowl of warm on top of the dresser. They all watched as I meticulously cleaned his head wound and further examined him just in case I missed anything.

“I know you’re head will hurt but do you feel sick at all? Any double vision?”

“Just sick but my eyes are beautiful.

“Mr Dernier this might be uncomfortable, but I need to see if you can still move your foot. After I'll give you something for the pain.”

He nodded.

“Mr Rogers could I trouble you for a small glass of water.”

He nodded and left the room. Dernier was a good patient. He just gritted his teeth while I made him move his foot and toes. Happy that it was a sprain or a tiny fracture I gave him a dose of laudanum in the water to help with the pain. Once settled down on the bed with a pillow under his bad leg, he was soon sound asleep. We all crept out of the room; I collected my bags along the way. Junior very generously tidied up the dirty rags and water. We gathered in the kitchen.

Mr Rogers turned to me, “Will he be alright?”

“Yes. I want to keep an eye on him tonight. You should always keep an eye on someone with a head injury. He needs to stay off the leg for a few weeks at least. If it is a fracture, then weight bearing can do more damage.”

“Not to sound funny doc but what's a fracture?” The tall brunet asked.

“A fracture is still a break, but the bone hasn't broken all the way through. Similar to try to snap a green twig.”

He nodded. “Still a break just doesn't need resetting.”

“Yes. As the patient needs monitoring will it be alright with you gentlemen if I stayed?”

They all looked at each other, and I swear Mr Rogers had a faint blush on his face.

The brunet broke the silence. “It won't be a problem. We can make up the spare bed.”

“Oh, there's no need Mr..?”

“Barnes. James Barnes but everyone calls me Bucky.”

“Mr Barnes. I don't need a bed, a chair in the parlour is fine. I won’t be sleeping much, Mr Dernier will need to be checked a few times during the night.”

Mr Rogers turned to me, “Well we need to finish up the days work. Will you be alright here?”

“I can stay. If Dernier is off his feet, I'll need to make something for supper.” A stocky man with dark skin fiddled with his hat.

I smiled to ease his worry. “I don't see the problem. I'm sure we can both make something edible.”

He smiled at me. “You don't mind miss? Even with a man such as me?”

“I don't have a problem with what colour God made us. I trust you all can behave like gentlemen and I'm tougher than I look.”

“Won't doctor Banner mind? He knows us, but you're not a married lady.” Junior enquired.

“I left Bruce a note. He knows I can take care of myself and to expect me back tomorrow before midday.”

The men slowly trickled out of the house. Gabe Jones introduced himself before we headed into the kitchen to start on supper. I swapped my medical apron for one that was hanging from a nail in the pantry door.

“Dernier had been soaking salt pork since this morning.” he lifted a cover off a large bowl.

I opened the pantry door. “That will work nicely. We’ll manage to feed the army yet.”

[andhumanslovedstories]

What I’ve Read (Books 1-6)

in the name of 1) public accountability to actually read 150 books in 2017 and 2) to remember what the hell I read, I’m recapping/reviewing the books I finish.

The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters

Circle of Magic: Sandry’s Book, Tamora Pierce

Circle of Magic: Daja’s Book, Tamora Pierce

Flawed, Cecelia Ahern

The Treasure Map of Boys, E. Lockhart

Real Live Boyfriends, E. Lockhart 

Fiction: The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters (1/02/2017)

Waters was on my radar for years (which is the cultured way of saying, “In high I used to watch clips of kissing scenes from her tv adaptations to Feel Things”) but I didn’t read her until last year. I expected an eat-your-vegetables-this-is-good-for-you type of literature with beautiful prose and a turgid plot where women exchange meaningful glances of a love they dare not speak, for they’ve only heard gayness whispered about if they’ve heard anything at all. Instead, I got hardcore bonetown. I got high drama, intrigue, suspense, communities of openly queer women in historical time periods, and just. so. much. boning. the. hell. down. The Paying Guests continues the trend of baroque drama lesbians, this time in the 1920s when a genteel but newly poor mother and her spinster daughter must take in a young couple as lodgers. I’d recommend Tipping the Velvet as your intro to Waters’ wet and wild work, but The Paying Guests is a solid romance turned crime novel, as Frances and Lillian fall in love and struggle against Victorian, Edwardian, and Jazz Age expectations of what a women should be. Also murder. They struggle against some murder too, which does cut into the deeply literary boning. 

Fiction: Circle of Magic: Sandry’s Book and Circle of Magic: Daja’s Books, by Tamora Pierce (1/04, 1/10)

Are there cliques in the Tamora Pierce fandom? Are there Tortall versus Circle of Magic kids? If there aren’t, let’s start them now, because I was always a Tortall kid. (Except Daine, who I never like. Sorry, Daine. It’s nothing personal, mostly because I can’t remember why.) But I did read the Circle of Magic books, specifically because in eighth grade someone told me there was a gay romance in The Will of the Empress, a later book in the universe. (Me reading over this post so far: “I did not realize the extent to which I was always super gay.”) Since I’ve decided I want to reread Empress, I’ve likewise decided to haphazardly reread the earlier books as well. In December of last year I read Tris’s Book, the second in the series. This January, I read Sandry (book one) and Daja (book three).

Sandry’s Book unfortunately isn’t a strong start to the series. The necessary assembling of all the characters lasts the first half of the book, the magic feels likewise over introduced and underdeveloped, and Sandry has little emphasis in the book named after her. I wish I could talk more in detail about this book, but looking back on it from two months later, I can’t remember much of anything except Sandry’s introduction (locked in a tower while everyone around her dies of illness, which is one of those backstories my disclaimer-adult-ass-in-no-way-the-intended-audience-age self thinks is wasted on junior fiction when you can hardly linger on the horror; maybe the YA The Circle Opens series deals more with that).

Daja’s Book improves the series thus far, mostly thanks to Daja. She’s always been my favorite of the original circle, a reserved, strong, hardworking grieving girl with metal and fire magic, who is excommunicated and shunned by her people who consider her bad luck after she is the sole survivor of her family’s shipwreck. She’s also black. Did I mention she is black? Because the book does, a lot, a weird amount, in places you really wouldn’t think it was necessary. Like, “‘Let’s talk about magic,’ said the black girl whose name we definitely know.” But that dubious choice aside (and I don’t remember it being present in later books in the series I’ve read), everything about Daja is my favorite part of this first series. Daja mourns the loss of her family through disaster and the loss of her people through custom while building a new family with her fellow mages and trying to reconcile that she would not be able to do the work she loves, blacksmithing, if she hadn’t been cast out.

If you’re interested in the characters (who are very good, they do develop well) or the magic (which I came to love, and felt organic and unique thanks to a combination of Pierce’s emphasis on hard, unglamorous labor as the basis of her heroes’ lives and the elemental astral projection that the mages do in this world), and if you, like me, don’t enjoy junior fiction, I’d recommend starting with The Circle Opens series instead. The books in this universe are connected but standalone, and it’s easy to jump in wherever. (I’m still gonna read somewhat in order before I get to The Will of the Empress, though. It’s who I am.)

  Fiction: Flawed, by Cecelia Ahern (1/13)

There are books that, before I returned them to the library, I want to slap a sticker on the front that says, “Warning: this book is fine but it is also secretly the first book in a series. Beware the ending.” The most recent such book, Flawed, is a YA dystopia where separate from the legal court is the Flawed court, which with absolute power can judge you defective as a person. Once deemed Flawed, you are branded in a symbolically suitable location as befits your crime, publically shamed, unable to assemble with other Flawed in large groups, shunned, hated, subject to a curfew, subject to constant surveillance, forever. Celestine North, who was named by her parents with the knowledge she would be the hero of a YA dystopian novel, dates the son of the court’s high judge and supports the system unquestioningly until she sees a Flawed man dying on the bus in front of her with no one willing to help. Her intercession sends her to the Flawed court herself, and gets her in a girl on fire situation as she inadvertently becomes the figurehead of a revolution much bigger and older than her. With Flawed as the first book in the series, its limited viewpoint feels myopic, determined to keep Celestine’s point of view relatively narrow. She suffers thoroughly and compellingly throughout the book, but when it ended on a cliffhanger, I couldn’t see myself waiting eagerly to see what happened next.  

Plus, the book has an unfortunate case of YA Bad Boy Syndrome, i.e. there is a troubled, scowling teenage boy who dominates a disproportionate amount of narrative focus as compared to his narrative interest. In contrast, the most compelling relationship in the book, that of Celestine who always supported the system until she saw evidence of its abuse and her sister who rails against the system but stays quiet in the face of the same abuse that makes Celestine act, is introduced as a central element and then gets minimal page time. Kill your darlings, authors. Cut the bad boys.

Fiction: The Treasure Map of Boys and Real Live Boyfriends, by E. Lockhart (1/12, 1/13)

E. Lockhart writes the most exquisitely uncomfortable YA. When I read Dramarama—a title, by the way, I only picked up because I already trusted the author—I spent so much time wincing that it read the book twice as slow as normal because not only did I recognize the characters, I both didn’t like them and utterly understood them. It was agony, but very specific “creative kids from a small town who go to a theater camp, discover they might have been friends by default, discover they might not be as talented as they think, discover that everything good changes and there’s nothing you can do about it” kind of way. The Ruby Oliver books (of which The Treasure Map of Boys and Real Live Boyfriends are books three and four) are similarly specific in their discomfort, except the discomfort lasts for four books instead of one.

I say discomfort instead of something like awkward because awkward implies a kind of charm, and while plenty of the characters in the books are charming and the writing is charming and many of the ideas are charming (too charming even, occasionally bordering twee), the situations of the books aren’t charming. They just kinda suck. These books aren’t a slog through misery and woe, not by a long shot, but they offer few if any pat resolutions. The characters hurt each other on accident and on purpose, and while some get better and trying not to, they don’t stop. Friendships end and it’s kinda everyone’s fault. Relationships are continually undercut by flaws that never go away, or even get addressed. Ruby is accused by her former best friend of trying to steal her boyfriend (who used to be Ruby’s boyfriend) and Ruby didn’t try to except she sorta did, or she at least wanted to, or she flirted back with him when she knew he was dating someone else, or the whole idea of “stealing” someone is ridiculous because you can’t steal a person, except Ruby’s best friend did kinda steal Ruby’s boyfriend. Even when characters are in the right, they don’t always act their best. Ruby never gets the apologies I spent the books hoping she’d get, and she never changes in the ways I hoped she’d change. But she is in a better place when the books end than when they began, and she is a better person too. It’s just that she still kinda sucks sometimes, and so does everyone around her. 

While I struggled now and then with the preciousness of the writing style, the characters provoked a satisfying frustration that made me read all four books in two weeks. If you’ve never read anything by E. Lockhart, I’d recommend The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks as your first, since it’s got a complete story in one book as opposed to the Ruby Oliver books which are more episodic, but this is a satisfying series if you’re looking for slice of life, low plot, nuanced relationship explorations that are zippy as hell to read.