#like oh no the book is missing the arc for its main character

[ravensvirginity]

Titans #15 Review

Oh my god. Where do I even begin.

To start with my one and only positive: the art is gorgeous. Lucas Meyer is the best artist the Titans have had in ages, and his new Raven design really delivered. I'm so sad that it appears that the artist who'll be taking over for him in #16 is undoing his design changes, I think it's a massive shame. I did appreciate the detail of Raven's white cloak design having rings on her index fingers, but it feels a little pointless without the lore of Azar's rings to back it up.

Now, the negatives: literally everything else about this comic. This comic fails to deliver on an eight issue arc in any kind of satisfying way, has a bizarre and out of character tone, and severely misunderstands the lore of its main villain. They literally defeated Trigon with the power of friendship. Maybe that could work in Teen Titans Go, but in a main timeline DC comic? What?

First, the demon Raven stuff. Gar saying that demon Raven and regular Raven aren't two different people--yeah, obviously. The severe degree of separation between demon Raven and regular Raven has been one of the big issues of this arc, and this conclusion is as unsatisfying as the rest of it. Raven and her demon side being able to talk face to face isn't new, but them being two separate people with separate physical bodies who can operate completely independently of each other--while there is some precident for this, to me it's a very strange writing choice and misses the point of a demon Raven arc.

The original idea of Raven and her demon side was that her demon side is her. It's all the worst instincts she inherited from Trigon locked up and carefully controlled. When Trigon takes control of her and turns her into her demon form, everything she's repressed, both good and bad, is released. Raven still having a soft spot for the Titans in her demon form makes sense; she's still Raven, just corrupted by Trigon into something she isn't. Raven deciding to stop being evil (not that she even really was) and going back to normal from one brief conversation with her teammate does not, and is really anticlimactic.

It's just such a waste of the story's potential. If you don't want to commit to Raven being the villain of the story, don't do a demon Raven arc! It's possible to do a Trigon story without Raven being evil, I don't get why they didn't just do that. None of the drama with Raven being evil was particularly well executed, and all it seemed to do was drag the comic on longer and longer with nothing actually happening, because they were unwilling to make Raven actually do anything villanous.

All that pales in comparison to how they defeated Trigon. I don't think I've ever seen such blatant disregard for previous canon. As Raven, powered up by the other Titans, fights Trigon, Gar narrates as follows:

"I doubt Trigon has ever been in a fight. An actual fight. With someone his own size and power level. Never had to face someone like Nightwing one-on-one. Never tried to stand while being pinned by the power of Donna Troy's will. Never been blasted... with a giant-sized Apokoliptian blast from Cyborg. And never, ever... felt the full force of a Tamaranean hit powered by the stars."

WHAT?

This comic canonically takes place in the same timeline as the New Teen Titans. There are many homages to the New Teen Titans. It has been made very clear that the team started as the New Teen Titans, and then after many, many years of crazy comic book history the team reformed as the Titans of this run.

The first ever Trigon arc that introduces him and Raven as characters takes place in the first six issues of the New Teen Titans, and culminates in Trigon being defeated by the Titans and thrown into an interdimensional prison. I can't stress this enough: literally every single one of the things Gar said have never happened to Trigon happen in that fight. Donna uses her lasso to dampen Trigon's will, in combination with Raven and Arella's empathic abilities. Wally rips a hole through the fabric of reality to throw Trigon into, and Kory and Vic connect their powers to amplify their blasts to throw Trigon into the interdimensional rift. The whole thing is coordinated and managed by Dick Grayson (who was still Robin at the time).

Gar was there when all this happened. There is no reason for him to not know that this happened. The only explanation is Tom Taylor doesn't know, or he doesn't care. This would be disappointing for any comic book run, but it leaves an especially sour taste in my mouth for this to happen in a run that's so built on NTT homages. It's clear that the writing could not care less about the comic it was inspired by.

And then Garth causes Trigon to have a heart attack. Okay, that was just stupid. Admittedly, I did think the page of Raven stabbing Trigon was cool (again, the art is really the only saving grace here), but her saying "Fuck you, Dad"? Seriously? An ongoing problem in this run has been the dialog feeling janky and too much like lines from a generic superhero movie, and this line embodies that very well. I'm not opposed to swearing in comic books, but to me, this is not the right time for it. It doesn't fit the moment, and I think it's quite out of character for Raven, even if the sentiment behind it isn't.

And then Trigon isn't even dead? What does "Demons don't die. They just fade away." even mean?? Is he dead or not? Will he come back tomorrow or in a thousand years? It's such a strange, confusing letdown of an ending.

I didn't have high hopes for this issue, but it was somehow worse than I could ever have imagined. I'm so glad that this run is getting a new writer. Here's hoping that the coming issues will actually feel like a team book, and that the decades of lore and characterization of these beloved characters will actually be considered during writing.

[heir-of-the-chair]

Lowkey hyperfixating now and I’ve come to the devastating conclusion that Jacob the main character of Water For Elephants… doesn’t really have a character arc

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

Other than catra/catradora, what problems do you have with the show?

oh boy, where do i even start? i'm just gonna try and keep it short because if i try to explain every single aspect in detail, this post could be turned into a book. so i'm just gonna list out all the problems i have with this show, both in terms of problematic elements and poor writing.

blatant ableism towards the autistic character

bullying and mistreatment of a young boy being played for laughs

war and desolation being used as an Aesthetic™ rather than a theme/message

rushed and poorly written character arcs (and no, it's not just catra)

amatonormativity and forced ships (the show is supposed to be representative of the LGBT community, yet almost all of the characters need to end up in a relationship, in order to have a happy ending)

boring and poorly written Final Boss™

too much fanservice (little snippets of fanservice is fine but when you ignore and disrespect canon just so you can make the viewers happy, that's a problem)

an entire kingdom is conquered and its people probably killed/seriously harmed, and its ruler is shown moping around in a bathtub and eating ice cream as if they got stood up by their date instead (this connects to my earlier point about war being trivialized)

the only non-binary representation being a shapeshifting lizard creature (look, i like double trouble as a character but you have to admit that they're not exactly good representation)

one of the most powerful female characters in OG she-ra being reduced to the "doting aunt" (for a show that claims to be about empowering women, they sure ignore the powerful women in canon)

weird pacing and inconsistencies (apparently two or three years passed within the five seasons, yet the characters haven't aged at all, especially frosta who supposedly went from 12 to 14, yet looks exactly the same)

the princesses are useless (they should have named the show 'Catra and the others' lmao)

overuse of character archetypes instead of making original characters (the peaceful vegan flower princess who sometimes loses her temper, the depressed emo girl™, the hyperactive child™)

stereotyping of certain communities (the high-functioning autistic genius, the angry latina, the predatory lesbian, etc)

bad comedy (this is probably subjective and i don't expect everyone to agree, but most of the comedic elements is SPOP was just.. corny. only scorpia worked well as a comic relief character imo)

the only polyamory representation being two bullies and their victim

death of the author™ (basically, confirming things outside of the series, instead of portraying them well in canon)

plot holes and unsatisfying conclusions (adora's origin was a huge plot point in s4 but they completely abandon it in the last season)

there may be a lot that i've missed because i have a goldfish brain and tend to forget stuff. but i'd say these are the main problems i have with the show. it did a few things right, but fucked up on a thousand others.

[thecncitygirls]

Happy 20th anniversary teen titans!

I missed it because I was celebrating ANOTHER nostalgic action show: Danny Phantom! I bought the new comic book (it's called A Glitch In Time and it is SO GOOD). I want to take the time to share my thoughts on the Show.

When I say Teen Titans was my childhood I mean it. Sure I have a LOT of salt towards TTG, but i do have to give it credit the show can be funny and it's clear to be it's own thing (when it's not making unnecessary digs at the OG fans). Every Saturday morning I would wake up just to watch Titans on Kids WB.

I remember watching TT first on CN but my parents cancelled our cable. Lucky it also aired on The WB so I didn't miss much. My favorite will always be Raven, Cyborg and Starfire, I just really loved them and their characters. Funny enough I didn't exactly care for BB and Robin, until later in the show.

My favorite arc will always be Terra. They handled her character much better in the show because she feels like an actual teenager instead of Evil Incarnate™. Oh and Red X too! I really live how thry didn't reveal his identity in the show (I'm holding on to the common theory that he might be Jason Todd). And HIVE! I feel like Hive is so underrated i know everyone talks about Jinx but the other students deserve love too! Brother Blood was cool (actually a lot of TT villains were lit even Mad Mod).

Funny enough I wasn't all that scared of Slade (I was scared of Father from KND). He was so cool on the show and one of my favorite villains. And much more bearable. I do wish the show touched on his backstory considering Jericho was also in it.

But my favorite part about TT is that it is a TEEN TITANS show. So they got focus. No shoving in the adult heroes ESPECIALLY a certain bat. The Titans were allowed to grow and explore by themselves, and I think that's a great message for kids and young adults. You CAN solve problems without always needing an adult. You CAN have a DC show without shoehorning Batman. Literally all the characters were likable, have a wonderful dynamic and there's a favorite titan for everyone. And I liked how other characters outside the main team also got a bit of attention.

To this day this show will always hold a special place in my heart. Even with its flaws I appreciate the show for what it can do for action animation and media geared for kids and teens as whole. Here's to twenty more years of TEEN TITANS.

[tableintheteacherslounge]

Abbott Elementary S03E07 thoughts

Melissa having a spare room baring in mind we’ve seen her house feels fake sorry - How will she have a room mate but noone look at her pictures and keep control of her kitchen. I get its gonna be for plot but i don’t buy it

I’m w ava that’s a woman who just found out she’s not pregnant - that’s a woman who’s been successfully slutting it up (how’s she gonna slut it up with a roommate)

Omg protective barb 🥺 (ALSO BARBS RIGHT BC MEL WOULDNT GIVE OUT HER ADDRESS WILLINGLY)

AS SOON AS SHE SAID NERD I THOUGHT JACOB

“I know its gods will but hes gotten awfully creative” 😭😭😭😭😭

I love it when Mr johnson lore gets unlocked

Manny and the beard whew 😮‍💨 I was literally wondering where he was so I’m glad they’re using him again

Janine ur SO SMART this is such a good idea and not like a janine unnecessarily fixing a problem like an actual good idea- good job babygirl

Not ava spilling the tea to the whole room

Ponytail melissa at home is so personal to me, I love that this continues from s2, this is just who she is, she throws her hair up when she’s at home. I like that she’s wearing the eagles hoodie we’ve seen before too. Love the hair, makeup & costume details on this show

“I only know how to cook for 12” 😭

Finally mel talking about her breakup! Damn maybe it really was “im not bringing this to school” this whole time

Also Gary being a dead ringer for her dad?? I’m not saying my headcanons are more correct than the show but I disagree with this statement. Gary is not schemmenti coded.

Omg the jacob melissa work momming work sonning ive been dreaming of

“And dont forget theres a 3 booked limit 😒” barb is PISSED and i LOVE IT

“Oh i know what a google doctor is 😤”

Barb really is the best character on tv im sorry noone can do it like sheryl lee ralph like they just cant Shes everything

Janine forgetting the key term (pottery wheel) in her analogy she is so me

“Jacob if u dont like my ziti just say so and i will heave myself out that window” 😭😭

“I went to find mr johnson but he was still crying” NO 😭💔 hes just a sensitive guy 😔

“Mrs howard i blew down the house” 🥺🤏🏻 I love the kids being so central in this ep, I’ve missed that recently, and the kindergarteners are soooo cute

“🐷 I am a pig 🐺 i am a wolf 😄 and im a librarian who thinks she can just change everything around here 👋” IJBOL no please give sheryl another emmy I beg

“This programme is more of a distraction than an improvement” that’s teaaa actually. Thats so often what councils etc do, distract with new flashy things rather than fix the real problems. Even though in this case it’s well meaning it does make u think how big a priority should the library actually be? But actually children reading is super important and what did they say last season? The librarian was an alexa in glasses? 🤣

“You okay? You look like raven having a vision” 😭 you don’t understand how often i say this

I have thoughts on Barbara’s intentions and my instinct is gregory needs to keep her name out his mouth. I do think it’s really important that Janine stood up to Barbara, just maybe gregory made barbara seem worse than she was

“It’s been a rough week I could use the pick me up” i just love mr johnson

My immediate reaction was this one of my favourite episodes of the season - lots of excellent Barb moments, the kids, more mr johnson, story arcs I enjoyed and felt completed.

Janine standing up to Barbara was a really big deal for her considering her hatred of conflict and worship of barbara as a mother figure. It made me really proud to see how far janine has come.

But the longer since watching the less I like it. And it’s two main things:

- the jacob melissa room mate situation feels like jumping the shark for plots sake and not something realistic for those characters. So as much as I enjoy them and their dynamic and their growth it just feels fake.

- I dont care about the librarian. The set up feels like she could stick around and I just don’t care for new characters, I like my main people. (But then the same apprehension was had w the district people and they’ve not seemed to be around much).

I do still really like this ep and it definitely ranks highly in the season, just idk, some eps I enjoy more over time but this has made me feel more confused as to what will happen next I guess.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Hello there! I've been thinking a lot about the parallels between Atsushi and Sigma lately(their clothes in their respective flashbacks looking the same,how they're both curled in similar positions with locked up,their faces looking alike when they panic,and Dazai openly saying Sigma reminds him if Atsushi).

With all these comparmemts I've been reminded of hoe Atsushi also apparently has a connection to the book like Sigma does,with Fitzgerald saying that Atsushi is the "tiger beetle" that he needs to find the book in the Guild arc.

I was wondering if you had any theories on what this could mean for Atsushi's character since its been something that's been relatively ignored for a while now which is odd considering Atsushi is the Mc and in other series this would have likely been addressed more but then again we don't really know much about Atsushi as protagonist,but aside from that,any thoughts?

Oh yeah, the parallels between Sigma and Atsushi are numerous to say the least.

About Atsushi: I’ve made a couple theories about him and his connection to the Book, namely

I think it’s possible him and Akutagawa have the capacity to create a singularity that is the only thing that could destroy it or its “seal”. (The tiger claws can cut through anything including abilities/Beast Dazai zeroing in on some kind of singularity they can make which will be necessary somehow, when the tiger claws can’t really be a singularity because there’s no inherent contradiction as far as I’m aware)

Atsushi has two abilities - one is the blue crystal from Dead Apple which is a latent power related to the Book that is “stored” within him for safekeeping. The tiger is a defensive ability specifically for the purpose of protecting it - the red crystal.

About Sigma, I don’t have as much but I did come up with a really weird concept that Sigma was the “main character” of his parallel world. This would explain

Why he has so many notable similarities with Atsushi.

Why his memories are missing - because without the protagonist, his fragile parallel timeline collapsed and now no longer exists.

To be clear I don’t think this is what actually is going to be revealed with Sigma (it’s far more likely he just had his memories written out or there’s some kind of failsafe to keep him from retrieving them - like the “no law enforcement will believe the agency” caveat) but it’s fun to theorize. I wrote up a big post on everything we know about the Book so far, including character connections; if you haven’t already seen that, you can check that out! I intended it as a helpful reference for theory making in the first place.

If you do think up an interesting theory about these two or notice something else cool, feel free to drop me another ask and explain it! :)

[rockybloo]

Thinking of writing a fanfic crossover where Jack and Nana end up in Decking city after a magical accident (Still fleshing out the details of how said accident worked).

If comfortable answering:

I'm curious about how you think Nana and Jack would react to such a such a big change in a new place like that, in a general sense. Especially if there's a bigger issue bringing them here and they realize they have to solve it to go home.

Thank you, and lovely day either way ପ(๑•ᴗ•๑)ଓ ♡

A fanfic of Jack and Nana would make me screech because they are the most ship ever for me and I'd be overjoyed. 😭💚❤️ The concept of anyone considering taking time out of their day and writing a fic about my OCs in general makes me happy.

and WOW my brain waves are powerful because I was literally thinking of an old Beanstalked plot point that basically dealt with the idea of how the main team get yeeted from Lore to Earth and have to figure out how to get back and how to tie it to Glitter and Guilt for a funny little crossover arc.

I won't go into detail about the ACTUAL events that cause it to potentially happen (bc I dunno if I'll do it...I mean I probably will but as a separate oneshot from the main storylines of both stories) BUT I can def answer how Jack and Nana would respond to a similar situation.

This will be a long one so buckle in

First thing to know is that Lore and Earth are two separate planets in the same solar system. Both are waaay closer than either think.

Lore occupants know about Earth, specifically they know it as "The World without Magic/Happy Endings/Fairy Tales/etc." It's kinda of mythicized.

Earth has no idea Lore is a thing because Lore has magic rings (kinda like Saturn's but cooler I dare say) that spin around it and make it invisible.

Bloopers are a glitch in reality in Lore where things from Earth often pop up there. Often old or lost objects.

Jack works part time for Baba, who tends to have a whole bunch of bloopers in his shop, which means he has very mild knowledge of Earth. Not a whole lot but if he winded up there-he would know "Oh! This is Earth!" and he'd be able to point out some stuff and name it. So he would know a car when he sees one-it's just a matter of actually being aware of how one works.

Hazel and Kettle have a TON of bloopers they hoard in their bedroom which serves as the attic for the inn Miss Castor is the keeper of. Specifically, they have the super fun bloopers like retro game consoles and comic books. Chances are, they even have some Sweetheart merch but are under the belief that she is merely fictional character.

So Jack is vaguely aware of Sweetheart. SPECIFICALLY as "The pink hero my little siblings thinks is cool".

Merch of villains is a whole lot more locked down with most being illegal save for what is made for the Decking City Park of Heroes AKA the Disney World/Universal Studios of Decking City entirely focusing on it's homegrown hero culture.

So Bitterbat is def not someone Jack is aware of.

When it comes to Nana, she doesn't really dabble much in bloopers or even learning about Earth. Unless it's from Jack's ramblings or mini adventures, she tends to limit herself to Lore and its shenanigans. She spent most her life living in a forest and is just now branching out to learn more about Briar Patch and Lore as a whole thanks to Jack making her realize "Oh hey the outside world is kinda fun".

She's taking baby steps and Earth is a very big jump she ain't trynna make yet.

So when it comes to them getting yeeted to Earth, SPECIFICALLY Decking City, Nana is def more reliant on Jack when it comes to knowledge. Where ever he is going, she is gonna be right there, hugging onto one of his arms for dear life because neither wants to lose the other.

Decking City is very interesting with how it's the least mundane setting for Jack and Nana to wind up in, which works perfectly because they come from a fantasy world. They will ironically feel a lot more comfortable when they see a giant monster attacking or some hero versus villain battle going on than dealing with crossing the street with a buncha traffic or even walking through a grocery store aka over stimulant central.

The biggest problem would be adapting to their temporary stay. Decking City is loud and busy and both would be overwhelmed quite easily from just the sights and sounds alone. A city is vastly more imposing than a kingdom when it comes to its buildings and even then, Jack and Nana spend most their time in Briar Patch which is a small humble town.

Nana would have the worse time because her keen Lupine hearing means every car honk, screech of tires, Kaiju alert siren, civilian yelling at another civilian, would lead to the biggest headache.

Protecting the other and making sure they're safe is their main priority. They care deeply about each other and seeing the constant look of discomfort on Nana's face and how nervous she is is enough to break Jack's heart. And the second anyone so much as breathes in the slightest bit of irritation at Jack seeming to not know where or what he's doing, under the belief he's a tourist, would lead to Nana snarling with her full set of chompers on display.

That's enough to cause anyone in the proximity to steer clear of them...or at least treat Jack very nicely because it's very obvious the two are traveling together.

ULTIMATELY, both would want some safe place so they can gather their thoughts, which are currently being scrambled by the city sights and sounds, calm down and figure out what they need to do to get back home.

Whatever they need to do, they are def willing to accomplish because they are used to being in some slice of hell situations. They've always figured their way out of them. Back on Lore, the gang adventures a bunch and have encountered a lot. Some of which I cannot share for spoilers but just know they are no strangers to dealing with the unknown.

It's just a big matter of figuring out exactly what unknown they are dealing with this time.

[so-bitya]

OK! I had some ideas for the plot and character arcs too i wanted to share. it felt like the show had some great concepts but didn't know where to go with them so..

–Main plot themes/changes

More focus more on the difficulties of growing up, being an adult, reality not being so simple as a child. What can't be easily solve as a precure, and what needs a precure attitude to solve it.

Oh and definitely all the girls are in contact with each other. Like we've been through Covid yall! you think they don't have discord or something?? and they're in contact with the boys too, more infrequently for sure, but they got Syrup, cmon!

–Angel

I think that rather than pollution and climate change, which doesn't really connect with main characters and rather feels too impersonal for the audience, human misery in the current age seems more appropriate. How people get wrapped up in their issues and find excuses to neglect others that it negatively impacts the town. Perhaps Angel was better taken care of in the past and something happened to her caretaker, or something else that's more personal, and she wants to reverse time before the tower is set for deconstruction?

A lot more focus on the passage of time and whether we cling to it too much, glamorize it through our nostalgia, instead of learning from it and moving into the future. I'd like if Angel was influencing the girl's transformations and her monsters were more time themed. (and obv something that saves Angel, because we can't have things too sad. Maybe they stop construction, or they don't stop it but the girls make something out of her memory? Like Komachi writes a book about the tower?)

–Nozomi

I think the first episode encapsulated what i wanted Nozomi's arc to be like. Nozomi became an adult, achieved her dream, and is great at her job! but she still misses being a precure, because the issues she faces as an adult aren't as easily solved back when she was a kid. Honestly, was hoping that the girls didn't transform so fast, or that there was more build up to it? Interesting concept if Nozomi was the last to transform, so she has to solve problems as the adult and feels distant from her friends that can transform.

–Rin

Rin's an adult now and she's got a lot on her plate! Between her demanding job, her hobbies, her family, she also wants to remain Nozomi's ideal best friend. She's genuinely bothered that she can't become a precure anymore, but doesn't even now if she wants to anymore! She and Nozomi have a great talk reexamining their relationship and despite how things change, they'll always care about each other.

–Urara

I thought her struggles were between deciding to be an actress or a singer. I think it would have been more interesting if the play was a musical to use both elements. perhaps Urara wants to emulate her mother too much (aka the actress) she neglects her own strengths (being a singer) keeping the same plot beat of Syrup saying he loves her singing but more involvement from the girls (and they all show up for her musical!!)

–Komachi

Pretty similar to her episode, but I'd like to go into her writing issues!! perhaps she's lost interest in writing fantasy that she was obsessed with when she was younger, so it's giving her both writer's block and a bit of an identity crisis. But after being so involved in the town and learning the townsfolk history, she wants to write about them and gets re-inspired to write more realistic fiction that's grounded and down to earth, that her audience appreciates for being more relatable.

–Karen

Stressed with her job, realizing that she can't simple treat people and expect them to get right back on their feet. She starts understanding some people lives will be permanently changed and can't be healed away (aka disabilities!) and thats okay! its just another matter of adaption. It would be a great mature topic for the show to have.

–Kurumi

Get that stinking manager out of there! Genuinely think workplace harassment should have been a bigger issue!! It would have been realistic issue that many people face, especially women, in the workplace. It would have been nice is Kurumi managed to get testimonies from her coworkers and got the guy fired. Or at least show that she doesn't have to put up with the constant disrespect and move on to a better job (i mean, not leave that for the finale).

–Coco

Cut the melodrama out lol. Honestly would have been fine with him showing up towards the finale so the girls could have some breathing room to revitalize their friendship, but well oh well. I think him having insecurities being king is interesting paralleled with the other girls insecurities after achieving their dreams. I could care less about the romance, but i think it would have been nice if he and nozomi worked on their issues with marriage on screen (like trying to live together for a while). It's nicer to think that they've been discussing it before and the big question during the show is whether they should take that one step further or to stop and move on with life (i don't even think nozomi thought about marriage in show, just being with coco).

–Nuts

idk man I just wanted to see more of him :( like interact with the girls or have a nice talk with komachi! i liked their editor writer relationship and it got him be more open with his feelings and relax more!! let me see it!!1

–Syrup

He's good actually (Except that outfit, throw the whole look out), but it would have been nice to reference his plot a bit, with cure flora and everything?

[daz4i]

your last line in the theory ask got me thinking (the "why else are we following his story like this?")

do you think there's a reason atsushi, the protagonist, is kept so passive (until recently, someone was pretty much always there to help/save him in different ways), and dazai, arguably a secondary protagonist, is kept at the center?

a theory i saw is that atsushi being in the spotlight/not in the spotlight aligns with when the book is in the spotlight/not in the spotlight, and he'll be the center piece to actually locating the book

it's always fascinated me how we're repeatedly being Told he's the protagonist, but very rarely shown it past the first chapters/first season of the anime. it's a relationship between story and protagonist i've not really seen anywhere else.

OH THIS IS SO INTERESTING TBH

so. i have a few thoughts abt this lemme number them bc it's just easier for me to organize them this way hehe

1. oooooooh love that theory abt atsushi being more in the spotlight for locating the book (and after it will be found i assume :?). it does make sense! but then it's still strange just how long it took to get there, given we're over 100 chapters, technically 5 seasons of the anime, and multiple light novels into the story and not there yet. i wonder if the story/its formatting will change to accommodate that somehow :0

2. this is more abt the last part of your ask, and this concept in general! i think something that changes bsd and the context and role of atsushi in it is to see him more as a narrator (albeit an active one) rather than the actual main character whom the story is about, like. i wanna say nick in the great gatsby (<- hasn't actually read it so don't take my word on that one specifically, but like. it's been done before is what i wanna say! just mainly in books. but that does work with bsd at the end of the day! if any manga would mimic the style of books it'd be bsd hehe), and then the main character is dazai

this does align with the light novels more, imo. while he's not the main character of most of them, he is definitely present and moving the story along, same as he is in the main story. despite that, we never see his thoughts or read anything from his pov (i've seen people describe him as "a force" bc of that before, which is interesting, but i find it sort of... dehumanizing? and therefore kinda missing the point of his arc, imo). reading bsd with this thought in mind - that the main character is actually dazai - changes the context of things a lot

[ok this next part is a very crackheaded theory on why that may be that i wrote with the expectation to later add another theory. and then i couldn't come up with another theory to fit the topic i was talking about. so i'm just gonna make it indented and if the grammar/syntax(?) doesn't make a lot of sense. this is why. sorry]

it might've been done as a vague sort of homage to no longer human and the way it's written - the novel opens and closes with the pov of another character, who found yozo's journals years after he wrote them, likely after his death too. right from the start, our view of yozo can be distorted by the way he's described by this unnamed character. in a way, they are the narrator of his story. yes, we read most of it from his own pov, but we step in and out of it through an external view of him. the way we approach him, and the way we leave him, is affected both by the "narrator" and the inn owner who knew him in his life.

if we consider dazai to be the main character of bsd, it's not that out of the question that elements of no longer human will affect it beyond dazai's character alone, and that it might slip into the meta level as well. we view dazai from an outsider's perspective - not just atsushi's, but in the light novels as well - like we technically do with yozo.

it is a bit of a stretch lol i don't know if i actually fully believe that, but it's interesting to think about it that way imo :3

3. it puts a bigger focus on the generational trauma theme of bsd. the story was dazai's, and we're just watching as atsushi "inherits" it. so the light novels describe the background of our current story - the past generation, in a sense - and the manga is the new generation, building upon what's laid out already. but, like in real life, non-metaphorical generations, just because there's a new one doesn't mean the previous gen is dead yet. you can view it as dazai being like a father and atsushi as a son, in a way. just because somehow has a kid doesn't mean their life or their own stories stop, so we get to see it. and since atsushi is like a metaphorical kid, he can't do that much yet, and still has to learn how the world works before he can

yeah i have no idea if that makes sense or if that analogy is clear or not askdjfglkh i'm sorry. this post also ended up being more messy than i thought. hope you enjoyed it anyway tho!

[magic-is-something-we-create]

15, 17, and 18 for the icebreaker ask game!! - @alesseia

ohmygod tumblr didnt show me that i had asks for almost two entire weeks i hate it here

Thanks for sending this in, @alesseia!!! (I really hope I'm referencing the correct ask game post,,,,)

15. Why does the story follow the protagonist, as opposed to another character in the story? I.e., what makes them so special?

Oh man, this one is a fun question that is,,,, a Lot more complicated for Millennium Saga than for Whispers.

For Whispers: The story follows Marika and Lorelei as narrators specifically because of their unique and drastically different interactions with and opinions of the Shadow (the antagonist). Marika, specifically, is way more similar to the Shadow than she wants to admit at the start, and honestly, I would not be surprised if she and the Shadow ever got romantic (or at the very least sexual, because dear god I gave them lots of tension there). Lorelei, on the other hand, is like the antithesis of the Shadow's whole deal, and that pisses them both off to no end. And I just thought their lenses were particularly fun to play with for the "henchman vs superhero POV" premise!!

For The Millennium Saga...

Well. There's actually two sets of multiple main characters in the series. And I chose Ember's crew (Gab, Annie, Andy, Isa, and Nimbus) because they've got a rather unique mix of people of all societal classes (pickpocket/manual laborer, whore/seasonal tourist attraction actor, seamstress, mechanic, literal grandchild of an immortal, and an apprentice under an outcast, respectively) that allowed me to explore a LOT of the world they're in and how it functions without forcing the narrative out of the way (ideal for the worldbuilding-heavy story the series focuses on).

And the SECOND set of main characters, for arc two, were chosen because they're the more extreme versions of the above, with bonus extra trauma and outsized impact than anyone should reasonably have. Which they acknowledge, and still abuse. Also it means I get to write a lot of darker things into what is an overall hopeful story without dragging the previous rein-holders through the mud <3

17. What’s the best character dynamic between two or more characters in your wip?

Whispers: Lorelei and the Shadow. I will not elaborate, but if you know, you know.

The Millennium Saga: This is entirely out of left field to people who only know the excerpts and nothing else, but Annie and Xavi are the DREAM TEAM gossip buddies who constantly get into Mega Trouble. If anyone other than me was writing this they'd be a couple but because its me Annie is aroace as hell and Xavi is so gay his dad invented homophobia in a queernormative setting

18. How do you want readers to feel while reading your story? after they finish reading it?

Whispers: constant (hopefully cathartic) pain with an added sobbing session afterwards.

Millennium Saga: awe and wonder with occasional moments of utter existential terror mixed in, with an ultimate hopeful and heartwarming conclusion. But lots of stops for pain between books because this series is monstrous

Thank you again for sending this in!!! If you'd like, I'll happily send you a few numbers as well (and the ask game if it has gone missing/been buried since then) <3

[tailsrevane]

my favorite queer relationships in media

this was another patreon-exclusive post that i'm posting here now because i'm not on patreon anymore. this one was a belated pride month post from july of 2022 where i listed my favorite queer relationships in media. i would probably list some of these in a different order today, but i'm just gonna share the post in its original form. enjoy!

what up, gay nerds!

today i’ll be talking about my favorite queer relationships in media. we’re talking couples, we’re talking throuples, we’re talking polycules, and we’re also talking non-romantic queer chosen family. this is obviously a topic that’s very near and dear to my heart, so i’m super excited to talk about it!

also, because of the relative dearth of queer relationships in mainstream media, i’m also going to talk about characters i ship. this will be in a separate section, though, so let’s start with the main event.

my favorite canon queer relationships

14. piper/alex (orange is the new black)

i’ve only seen the first few seasons, but yeah, at the time having actual gay relationships on a tv show i was watching was such a blessed relief.

there’s a line early in i think season 2? where piper and alex are being all domestic together and piper says, “this is so nice, and so gay!” and it more or less sums how i felt about the whole thing.

13. david/keith (six feet under)

six feet under is a very slice of life show, and the romantic relationships it depicts are accordingly presented with an aching realism. david and keith have their issues but they deal with them responsibly, engaging in couples counseling and doing their best to get better.

it’s a very healthy portrayal and it doesn’t seem like the show is going for brownie points or anything, they’re both just valued characters whose stories the show wanted to tell.

12. lady tohru/kobayashi (miss kobayashi’s dragon maid)

this would be higher, but tohru and kobayashi have never really been the main draw for me? i’m hella into the family vibes between the two of them and their adopted child kanna. kanna is just a gloriously adorable child and she’s so sweet and her family is so good and argh. feelings!

the show (and presumably the manga it’s based on) is so well-written, though. they always put kobayashi in a position to just be the sweetest butch mom and it’s so freaking good.

11. violet/allie (her story)

this was rather by the numbers, i get it, but seeing a trans girl in a healthy lesbian relationship helping escape from her abusive boyfriend was super life-affirming to me for… reasons.

actually, just seeing another trans person on screen was so what i needed at that exact moment in time, it actually helped light a fire under me to get started on hrt.

10. ivanova/talia (babylon 5)

literally the only thing holding this back from being higher on the list is that thanks to 90s homophobia it had to be largely implied, and that it ended tragically.

in her last appearance on the show, talia slept with ivanova, and in a later episode when everyone on the crew has to tell a deep, personal secret ivanova says that she loved talia. so it’s more than you might expect given the limits it had to work within. and ivanova is my favorite character on the whole show and always has been, so yeah, this meant a lot to me.

9. nomi/amanita (sense8)

the joy of seeing actual transgender people on screen in a mainstream streaming series directed by two trans people is matched only by the joy of that trans character getting absolutely railed by the best/prettiest doctor who companion with a strap-on in her first scene. fuck yeah.

and then their whole first arc is about nomi’s bodily autonomy being threatened and amanita coming to her rescue and she rescues her in the most emotionally satisfying scene ever and oh my gosh you guys it’s so good.

8. dev/lee (out of position) & volle/xiller (argaea)

at my first furry convention i discovered that there was a thriving small industry publishing specifically furry books. we’re not talking zines here (though those are also awesome in their own right), we’re talking novels, anthologies, short story collections, etc.

at the time i was still hella into sports, so i was immediately drawn to one that had a buff tiger in a football uniform hoisting a fox femboy onto his shoulder with one arm. ironically at the time i was a tiger (though certainly not the dumb jock musclegod dev is), and today i’m a fox femboy? funny how things work out.

anyway, turns out the author of that book is one of the most prolific (and definitely the most popular) furry writers, and i actually liked his argaea series even better than the football nerd one. argaea is set in a fanciful renaissance-ish world and full of palace intrigue and mystery and kidnappings and whatnot. very fun stuff there.

7. baz/simon (simon snow)

there’s been a harry potter-shaped hole in my heart for years now, so when i heard about this series i was immediately in.

the way magic works in this certainly doesn’t really square with how i think about it, but it’s definitely a creative approach. and i super approve of how these books handle the enemies-to-lovers romance of the two dumb gay boys, as well as how it depicts one of them having crippling depression and how they navigate the relationship difficulties this often results in. extremely good stuff here.

(also i’m almost done with the last book and i’m pretty sure there’s a couple of useless lesbians happening!!! exciting!!! there’s also one het couple in the last book if you’re into that kinda thing.)

6. galo/lio (promare)

what if we were a dumbass himbo and a powerful femboy and did an enemies to lovers thing to become an incredible anime power couple and just kicked all of the ass. all of it. what if that?

5. harley quinn/poison ivy (dc comics)

honestly the only reason this isn’t higher on the list is because i’ve seen very little of their actually in a relationship stuff, and that’s a me problem that i really need to fix asap. but i’ve shipped them forever, basically ever since that animated series episode. you know the one. so when i heard they were canon i squeed so loudly.

4. luz/amity (the owl house)

the owl house feels like it was made specifically for me. this show also saw the harry potter-shaped hole in my life and came along and was like “okay but what if we made something drastically better and more imaginative instead and also basically everyone was gay?” and uh, yeah! obviously!!

so obviously it’s being canceled because some dumbass homophobic executive had a problem with it and omfg disney is the fucking worst. can they please just stop.

but yeah i’m so glad kids get to grow up with stuff like this and she-ra and etc, but also i’m so glad i get to watch it too okay? witchy gay bullshit is entirely my jam.

but yeah amity and luz are the sweetest useless lesbians and i love how flustered they get around each other despite having no problem having badass magic fights and just ugh they’re so good i love them so much.

i also want to give a shout-out to lesbian wine aunt eda and her ex-enbyfriend/hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-ex-enbyfriend raine, i’m really rooting for them!!!

3. adora/catra (she-ra)

no big deal just the main hero and main villain of a science fantasy swashbuckling magical girls show who swordfight like literally all the time and are super blatantly gay for each other the whole time and have emotional turmoil over each other and constantly try to assert their dominance over each other.

also there’s a prom scene in the first season where the villain shows up in a messy tux and dances with the hero girl while verbally needling her and dips her really low and it’s so gay and i’m so jealous because i want a villain like that to be all homoerotic with.

and then in the last season of the show catra finally switches sides and apologizes to adora and then adora comes and rescues her and she has this badass transformation scene and it’s one of my favorite scenes in television history and ugh i am so gay and in the last episode they kiss and confess their feelings for each other and fuck i love these two and this show.

there’s also another canon lesbian relationship between netossa and spinnerella, and the series creator said rogelio, kyle, and lonnie are a polycule! and they’re all such good boys and one of them is a really hot lizard boy and aaaaaaa.

2. basically every relationship (dragon moms)

so uh yeah one of my partners is an author and basically all of her characters are queer (with a few exceptions) and a lot of them are trans or nonbinary and i love her writing so much, if you have similar tastes to me you’ll probably like it too. everything is just very emotionally satisfying and character-driven and just… she’s the best, guys. i’d be a fan of her writing even if i weren’t dating her.

anyway her most popular and probably best work is dragon moms which she serialized online but also published as an ebook with extra content and it’s so good and so gay and yeah, she also has a lot of other short stories and stuff on her website and a few other ebooks available and i unreservedly recommend anything she’s written she’s so good.

1. star trek: discovery’s queer chosen family

i’ve gushed about them a bunch in my discovery reviews so there really shouldn’t be any surprise here, but yeah. when lieutenant stamets and dr. culber were shown as a couple in season 1 of discovery it belatedly fulfilled an almost 31-year-old promise by gene rodenberry. in season 3 of the show, they also introduced gray (a trans guy) and adira (an enby) and made them gay for each other on top of that, and i love them so much, i would die for them. and on top of that they all came together as a surrogate family with stamets and culber just being amazing surrogate space dads and jet reno popping in every now and then as their weird butch lesbian aunt and i am so, so glad i lived long enough to see star trek get this gay, guys!!

while i’m talking about star trek i do want to mention that i didn’t forget about seven and rafi, and i do love them, but i don’t love that them getting together basically happened off screen? like they get plenty of screentime in season 2 but that was in full figuring their shit out mode and idk i just don’t like that all we got for them becoming a couple was them holding hands at the end of season 1 like it feels like you skipped the whole romantic part of their relationship and that kinda sucks?

queer relationships i ship

(cw: some of these characters will have canon age gaps and/or are minors in some canons, just assume there's an element of au-ification here. cool? cool.)

14. finn/poe (star wars)

look i don’t care about star wars anymore but wow how could you not make these guys gay come on.

13. bella/alice (twilight)

again i don’t really care but especially in the movies alice is literally the only person that seems right for bella like seriously their relationship is so much better than her relationship with either of the two boys.

12. kota ibushi/kenny omega (professional wrestling)

to be super clear this is very much about their characters, not them as a people, i don’t ship real people that’s creepy.

their characters have this amazing wrestling love story and i just want it to be even more explicitly gay than it already is, but also it’s already kinda explicitly gay??? and that’s amazing.

11. femshep/jack (mass effect 2) & pc/kaliyo (star wars: the old republic)

this one is moreso about two times bioware queerbaited me, like i met both of these characters while playing female characters and was immediately like “wow okay they are totally lesbian doms like you can tell me they’re bi and i’ll believe you” but i was just so sure they had to be romanceable for my female characters and then i found out they weren’t? and in both cases i was just like, what the fuck guys, this is cultural appropriation.

10. riker/worf (star trek: the next generation)

this started out as a joke but i’m kind of firmly committed to it at this point. there is at least as much reason to think that riker and worf are hooking up on the regular as there is that riker and deanna are, and riker and deanna got married later sooooo…

9. georgiou/burnham (star trek: discovery)

i mean, burnham has more feelings about georgiou than she does about any of her actual on-screen romantic partners, whether it’s for her gentle mommy domme prime universe georgiou or her badass mean domme mirror universe georgiou.

8. dick grayson/jason todd (dc universe)

i literally wrote fanfiction about these two when i read nightwing: year one and jason kept bratting the fuck out of dick to the point where dick literally tied him up.

jason is a bratty power bottom and dick is a service top. i will not be accepting questions or feedback at this time.

7. garak/bashir (star trek: deep space nine)

i don’t even give a shit about bashir when he isn’t interacting with garak. he might as well be a non-character.

i fucking love garak he is such an amazing bratty dom. i love watching him play with his food (his food being bashir).

6. legolas/gimli/aragorn (lord of the rings)

it’s that thing where you take a very homosocial book and add expanded roles for some of its female characters to make it less homosocial but you change exactly nothing about how emotionally intimate the homosocial relationships are and y’know whoops they’re clearly gay now, we decided.

5. bruce/clark (dc universe)

how is this not canon? there is so much blatant textual support for it, holy shit, look at literally any interaction they’ve ever had with each other.

4. neo/trin (the matrix)

yeah they’re on-screen canon, i just mean i headcanon both of them as enbies. so like. they aren’t actually queer in their portrayal onscreen (but like, come on, this is the gayest “straight” couple ever), but they are in my headcanon? if that makes sense.

3. tim drake/jon kent (dc universe)

yeah, they both have boyfriends who aren’t each other, but tell me you didn’t immediately think about these two cute superhero boys kissing the second you heard they were both openly bi. i don’t believe you.

2. flick/cj (animal crossing)

i actually questioned whether to put this as a canon relationship considering that the game frequently seems to stop just short of saying it and i’m reasonably certain that the creative team considers them an item. but i’ll leave it under this section because they don’t just come right out and say it. 

1. sonic/tails/knuckles/shadow

i mean, this is a pretty obvious one right? i mean okay polycule shipping is pretty rare, but like, sontails is obviously correct and sonshad is obviously correct and sonknux is obviously correct and knuxtails is obviously correct and shadtails is obviously correct and i’ll grant you there isn’t as much on-screen evidence for knuxshads but still just put it all together and there you go. like i said. obvious.

please don’t ship sonamy it’s so creepy she’s literally a stalker it’s not okay. i mean do what you want but i’m judging you. my favorite interpretation of amy’s feelings btw is a comic i saw on twitter once where amy is coming out as a lesbian and she apologizes to sonic for being all weird and overcompensating by being over the top into him and he’s super understanding because he’s gay and he gets it and idk it just feels so real and good to me.

anyway, yeah! happy belated pride! i love gays and being gay.

[andromedaexists]

Hell Followed With Us || Andrew Joseph White

★★★☆☆ ½

TW: BODY HORROR, TRANSPHOBIA, SACRILEGE, NO REALLY THERE'S A LOT OF BODY HORROR IT'S KINDA GROSS

Let me start off by saying that this book means a lot to someone who means a lot to me. By nature, this means that I have a soft spot for the book.

However, that does not stop me from forming an opinion on it.

Okay so first things first: I read this book in two days. It is a very captivating read. I was very easily sucked into the story and became intruiged by the character.

First one up is the main character: Benji. It is refreshing to see a trans masc main character especially in a horror book. As soon as he showed up in the text i felt protective over him. He is a newly out trans boy that is 16, I've adopted plenty of those in my run as the trans town elder (yes I'm only 23, that's what you get living where I do)

I also really liked that there were other types of gender identities shown. This book is a cesspit of diversity and representation: I love it!

However, there is one character that I have qualms with when it comes to his representation. One of the love interests: Nick. He is an autistic gay man, but as I said to my group chat last night, I just don't like the representation he's giving us.

I say this as an autistic trans gay man: I do not like the way he is portrayed. Autism is a spectrum, everyone reacts to things differently. However, he is written in a way that feels like every bad autistic trope from mass media mushed together. He very much reads the same as that one autistic doctor from the tv show that was always over logical and showed no emotion ever. The Good Doctor, that's what it's called.

Not only that, but he refers to Benji, a newly out trans man who is going through horrific body horror to the point of literally calling himself a monster, as Seraph and uses it/its pronouns for him. After Benji explicitly says he uses he/him. Now, as you all know, I have nothing against using it/its pronouns and will gladly do so, but doing it in this manner is misgendering and dehumanizing. There is a difference between wanting to use those pronouns and being called them behind your back after you explicitly state you do not want to be referred to using them.

And this whole this was Nick's redemption arc. His entire redemption arc was about calling Benji 'it' and then saying sorry. Then it's over and never mentioned again. Just like that.

And then, to make things worse, the other love interest (because, yes, this is in fact a love triangle) is Benji's abusive fiance. An abusive fiance that tries to kill him on more than one occasion. So you have to choose between that piece of garbage and someone who doesn't get redeemed.

As y'all can tell, I'm a little incensed at this book. "But Andi," I hear you say, "you gave the book 3.5 stars? It doesn't sound like you enjoyed it that much."

Well here's the thing: I actually really enjoyed it. I loved the story line, I loved the sacrilege and body horror, I loved how tense I was reading the entire story.

I think the writing was clumsy and too fast paced, but the plot line was there. I also loved how visceral the descriptions were. Like, this is Dead Dove: Do Not Eat levels of body horror and viscera.

It was great! I think it should have gone through a few more rounds of drafts and editing before it got published, and someone should have told Andrew that the love interests are both living pieces of human garbage, but all in all it was a good book. Oh, and the dust cover is beautiful.

I won't recommend it to anyone though.

I am planning on writing little things like this every time I read a book just to help me keep track of them. If I don’t write down my opinions and thoughts right away I am liable to forget them. I am hesitant to call these a review because i’m really just not comfy with that lol I will do my best to make sure I appropriately tag and warn about topics. If I miss any please let me know!

[coulsonlives]

Now that I got the vfx thing out of my system, I want to cry about ATSV a bit because I left the movie feeling kinda.. disappointed I guess?

I miss the focus of the first movie. It was nice to see more focus on Gwen, but there was wayy too much stretching between Gwen and Miles and like, drip-feeding of the other character's backgrounds and I ended up not really investing in any storyline, Gwen's resonated the most but aside from that I'm like?? Okay I guess.

In the first movie I was rooting for all the characters because I actually got a bit of their motivations/backstory/reason for being there. Here it was like.. okay, they're agents with different quirks from their own universes? But that's not new, we saw that in the first movie, it's not interesting anymore. It just felt like checking off boxes and it took time away from the main characters, where there could've been more foreshadowing about what was really going on with them and Miles. In that way: it felt like an MCU movie. Which isn't a good thing in my book.

I watched ITSV for Marvel, not the MCU. I watched ATSV for the same reason, but I didn't feel like I got that.

The story seemed super flabby, it wasn't anywhere near as tight as the first movie. ATSV lacked the 'charm' of ITSV for most of the movie. Also about the Spot, I could get behind him being in the movie because obviously he's a precipitating event for the movie, but tbh, I got Spider-Man 3 vibes near the end and I'm wondering if they just filled the third movie with too much.. stuff?

Because now you gotta deal with Spot, Spidey 2099, Mile's arc which includes saving his dad, his relationship with Gwen, his relationship with Peter, etc etc. I'm scared. And if some of this is also happening from Gwen's POV.. Or if Gwen also has an arc of her own.. That feels like a lot? There are gonna be two 'big bads' in the third movie, and I feel like they should've downed one of them in ATSV, so the third movie could narrow its focus more.

Gwen's dad's development all happened offscreen. Like, oh, Gwen is gone, now she's back, surprise I miss you <3 and I've missed you this whole time, hugsy time. It felt like a very contrived way to add some kind of resolution to the movie, because otherwise, nothing was gonna be resolved. The payoff just didn't feel earned at all. In ITSV, half the reason the 'What's up Danger' scene hit so hard is because it culminated Mile's development up to that point, we saw him working hard, we saw him struggling before it happened! There was nothing here though, Gwen's dad was in the beginning of the movie, then the end. He kinda just popped back in for an FYI lol, then Gwen was gone again.

That ending, too. I don't mind cliffhangers, but I went in not knowing about that, and wow was the presentation bad. It was like watching five mini endings and not knowing which fcking ending was actually going to cut to the credits, and I was getting whiplash. Cut to Gwen, I thought the movie was gonna end on her, then it cut to Miles thinking well duh the movie will end on him, then cut to Gwen or her dad again, then back to Miles, and omg the amount of face shots of Miles I thought the movie would end on lmfao idk, it didn't work for me at all. LOTR did way better of a job with this because you could tell the movie obviously wasn't gonna end yet because certain things hadn't been addressed yet.

Some of the animation was hard to follow too because there is so so much happening and no real point of focus in some of those shots. If you look away for a moment during certain scenes, you can't really follow what's going on anymore and it takes a few shots to catch up again. Spider-Punk was cool but his shots really suffered from this imo? Just too much janky, pieces-jumping-around shit going on.

Like okay, some parts were cool, I liked some of the shots and Spider-Puss/Cat/Feline had me howling when it hairballed the spiderweb in his face, and the Spideys were characterized pretty good, but idk.

[itsbooktimepeople]

In the Woods

★★★☆☆

Oh my god. The premise of In the Woods is interesting on its own: three children enter the forest, only one is ever seen again, his shoes are covered in blood and he has no memory of what happened. Then twenty years later another child from the same town is found dead on a Bronze-age sacrificial alter, and it appears the two cases might be connected.

This book completely freaked me out. Not that that's hard to do; I'm very easily scared and usually avoid thrillers for that reason; but holy smokes. Fear glued my eyes to the paper, which is why I finished this sucker in two days, and why I stayed awake all of last night, convinced someone would break in and murder me at any given moment. So, judging this book by the emotions it conjures, I'd give it four stars out of five.

And, for the first two thirds of the book, it could have become a five-star book. The beginning was a little shaky, but eventually I stopped thinking of the writing style as pretentious and started appreciating it instead. And, like I mentioned before, the mystery was spot on. I think I was actually shaking during a couple passages, and I loved guessing who was the murderer and what their motive could've been. Everything for the main mystery was set up and explained well, which made it even better.

Enter my issues with the book. Rob, the protagonist, and his best friend and partner, Cassie, were the starring duo of this book in the beginning. I loved their banter, their ease with each other, and their entire dynamic, and best of all there was no romance. But, two thirds in, (view spoiler), which sort of ruined everything. Not because of the romance itself, but because of the way it was handled. Cassie and Rob had felt unshakable before, but afterwords Rob pretty much shut down all Cassie's attempts to bridge the gap, and the worst part? There was no resolution! No apologies, no closure, no conclusion to anyone's character arc. And that was all very frustrating.

And speaking of lack of conclusions, the absolute worst part of this book is that the first mystery, the one where two children went missing, was never solved! Like, if it was just a background thing, that would've been understandable, but literally half the book is spent trying to figure out whether the two murders were related, and evidence suggesting that they could've been connected was found, but then there was no resolution at all. I understand that open ended stories have their literary purpose, but in a murder mystery you expect the detectives to, you know, solve the mystery.

All in all, this could've been a four star book, or even a five star one, had there been any conclusion whatsoever. But alas, In the Woods only leaves me with questions, and not even the good kind. I would not recommend.

[proofthatihaveaheart]

April 2023 Wrap-up

i had covid this month which was a terrible time EXCEPT that when i wasn’t miserable with fever watching chopped, i had a lot of time to read. and i read a lot of good stuff this month. bold + italics for faves

THINGS I READ:

Books:

Babel by R. F. Kuang - What a book!!! It’s one of my favorites from the year so far. The character arcs + relationships, especially Robin’s, are complicated and emotional and excellent. Pair that with the broader themes around the role of academia in colonization and student-led revolutions and the linguistics/history, and you’ve got an excellent reading experience. It’s not subtle in all its messages but it is utterly engrossing and it has a lot to say about violence. Also, the rich details of academia resonated with me - the love/hate relationship, the exam stress, the cohort camaraderie - it’s the most accurate depiction of what academia is like that I’ve read in fiction.

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon - I LOVED this book. One of my favorites (it was a good month for reading). Just the rich world-building, the amazing characters, the struggle between what is expected of you by others and your personal wants and how each main character fits into this greater theme, DRAGONS, it hits hard.

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong - Spectacular tour through animal sensory systems and worlds. I learned a lot of cool things that made me appreciate how different species perceive the world around them - and how much we still have yet to learn.

Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's by Tiffany Midge - humorous essay collection on politics, identity, and life written by a Native woman. overall, it was hit-or-miss for me - some were really fantastic and some fell flat

Die Vol. 2 Split the Party by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans - still very into this comic series. It’s got gorgeous art and messy characters and fun dynamics and really cool ideas playing with rpgs and fantasies and the things people do for their fantasies

Die Vol. 3 The Great Game by Kieron Gillen and Stepahnie Hans - really liked Izzy and Ash’s dynamic in this volume (and in general)

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline - I liked this book. Interesting premise that works well with the themes, good focus on family and tradition

Saga Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan - i can see why this is considered a classic. creative and funny with delightful characters. i’m excited to see where the story goes because these first six issues have done a great job setting things up

Fic (all for Arcane):

All the King’s Horses by paxbanana (Cait/Vi, 135k): All the walls come tumbling down. Jinx’s decision triggers catastrophic effects that leave Piltover reeling and Zaun on the brink of war. Vi is desperate to juggle all the broken pieces for Caitlyn and for Powder, but no matter how hard she tries, it’s not coming back together again. Or:  Jinx's attack on Council brings down the whole tower. Vi, Caitlyn, and Jinx struggle with the aftermath. Vi balances being there for Caitlyn and cleaning up some of her sister's mess with finding a way to save her sister. Meanwhile, interested parties from Topside and Bottom plot to take advantage of the situation. [Oh this fic my beloved, the CaitVi dynamic, the mystery, the dialogue, the sister dynamic, I truly love this fic with all my heart.]

THINGS I WATCHED

Movies:

Jurassic Park - my friends and i watched this because it’s the best one and not all of us had seen it. an excellent movie, holds up well

Jurassic World Dominion - and right after watching JP, without having planned it before, someone pitched watching the worst movie in the franchise... we had a lot of fun making fun of it but it was an awful movie

TV:

Chopped

The Last of Us (finished) - excellent adaptation of an excellent game

THINGS I PLAYED

Video games:

Alba: A Wildlife Adventure - charming, adorable, and chill. It’s simple but made for a nice few hours and I really liked all the real birds

Legends of Runeterra

[daisyachain]

Question 39. What comic plotline gives you brain worms? for the comics ask thing

Too many.

Shatterstar's origin story gives me worms of the my-brain-is-breaking-down-while-reading this variety. Mojoverse is something that I can't think of too often because if I go down that rabbit hole then I'll be thinking about how underused the setting is, a meta media satire planet going totally ignored in a day and age where franchise superhero media is the dominant cultural output (except for Leah Williams X-Factor in a really tasteless way) for the rest of the week.

Dani’s off-screen Asgard adventures, there’s plenty to dig into about joining the pantheon of a religion and a culture that isn’t yours. What did she do to get kicked out? How did it feel to reap souls for a few months as a teenager? How does that affect her connection to Illyana, always ambiguous and sometimes charged? The hellgirl and the taker of the dead? Also the idea that Dani is Cyclops’ chosen successor, she is and should be and it never ever gets picked up by anyone ever. Please. She’s the pragmatic tactician who can still follow Xavier’s dream.

Doug's storyline drives me both mad insane and mad angry because of how juicy it gets with his post-resurrection morality crisis and how Hickman stopped any and all of his development in its tracks. It's fun to have a resurrection gone wrong, where Doug-after is missing something and has to try and get it back. It's intriguing how lopsided his relationship with Warlock is; Doug both can't live without him and is eager to be rid of him, they're bffs and Doug resents him for causing his bad-future self, Doug can never truly be satisfied with his own existence once he's tasted technarchy, meaning that he'll never be truly satisfied as himself.

X-Men homoeroticism is its own category. Richly-sown fields of 'I'm sorry, what?' that make up a significant part of a character's plotline and are never ever addressed. 'Moira loves you and I....'. Sam saying he'd rather die with 'Berto if he has the choice. Kitty Pryde hanging out with Illyana the day she leaves her brother at the altar and then smooching a woman who looks exactly like her later on and having it never acknowledged again. Storm having Yukio be in the parade of love interests in her solo book but never being canonically in a relationship. 'I love you and you are breaking my heart.' No one does it like them.

That said--on to the main brainworms: Rictor's off-screen fight against his family. The guy wages a one-man war (well, two-man) on a gun-smuggling operation a) armed only with swords, b) against people who raised him. His cousins are as good as siblings to him, how on earth did he reckon with staring them in the face? How did he even manage to corral everyone with the mandatory X-Men non-fatal approach? How were his ideals tested, how close did he come to giving up, what did he think about in the long hours of the night? Apparently it's not for us to know!

Bonus mention for The Authority v4 balloon arc. The concept is great, the execution so-so, which is the perfect blend for remembering something forever. I don't think of it often but when I do, I do.

Postscript: the entirety of MTMTE/LL is brainwormfood for me, but I've posted about that proportionally far more than I've posted about other comics. Needless to say I'm obsessed with pre-war Cybertron + Megatron and Ratchet's arcs, Chromedome and Rewind's wonderful horrible toxic mutually beneficial and affirming romance, season 1 in general, and Issue 47, oh and also the way the ending sucks (in a good way) and makes you feel sick (in an effective way)