#morbid curiousity about things i know i won't like controls me.

[ccarrot]

an undirected rant time! \(^ヮ^)/ made a few sweeping generalizations based on stuff i see too much of in bsdfics and genuinely do not like. don't take any of this to heart

idk i don't like dazai angst of most flavors. don't take this from a soukoku perspective (bc everyone is skkpilled, me included), just a dazai angst on it's own. I honestly HATE most angst with Mori even mentioned, I really resent the narrative that Mori abused him physically or sexually(?!) or like in a human experiment way (derivative much....) bc like. Mori is supposed complex, toxic and manipulative and all but he was also a supporting figure for him and like reducing him to being this power mad creep obsessed with making Dazai his mafia heir and killing his employees or whatever bullshit is like. Genuinely an insult. I don't even know how you're supposed to respond to that interpretation of Mori. I just hate when relationships and character dynamics get warped around to make Dazai seem so.... helpless? pathetic?? OK THIS IS A BIG THING THAT BOTHERS ME this huuuge thing in this fandom of Dazai being sooooo "pathetic" (o_o') it's all over the place! "He's such a looooooser!" I HATE it, i can't be the only one who hates it, right? I can't be the only one who doesn't like this fandomwide joke about the canonically self-described suicidal man right...? Even when this entire pathetic helpless suicide boy thing is played straight, there's so many things that put me.. off. On one hand people feel this need to justify his depression? Like if he didn't have some horrible traumatic backstory (which i'm really sure he does, though more grounded in reality) there's not reason for him to be depressed, as if that ISN'T such a shallow way to think about it. On the other hand it just.... hmmmmmmmmmmmm idk how to put this I think I simply got triggered. On the other hand I feel like mental illness and being suicidal get romanticised a lot and that makes me feel so icky. I actually don't want to elaborate too much more on that point. but hm. I feel like this aspect -> glamorizing of mental illness <- is actually enabled a lot by Asagiri and Harukawa's work itself -- not as an overt endorsement or anything but like. there's undertones of that and I feel a little crazy bc I think I'm the only one who thinks so.

[waldensblog]

I finally read 50 Shades of Grey

I was in my late teens when it was new, and everyone was talking about it. At the time, I wasn't interested, because all I knew was that it was "bad."

So over a decade later, my morbid curiousity decided: Let's see what all the fuss was about!

My review is below the cut, but the TL;DR is: It was thoroughly mediocre. I expected worse, actually. 3/5, won't be continuing the series but I can now say I have read it.

Initial Impressions So I definitely see the twilight origins of this. Ana likes classic lit, Christian talks like an old man, he saves her from a cyclist, he's rich, they have the dinner/tea in Portland, the "Stay Away from me" followed up with constantly showing up/giving gifts and overall mixed messages before they finally just get together, etc.

On that note, I can't help but laugh that Ana comments that Paul (Mike Newton) is a boy-next-door but that he's no literary hero, which is apparently her only type. She would definitely be on AO3 all the time if she wasn't oddly computer illiterate for a 2011 character.

And of course, I can't believe she did José (Jacob) dirty like that. My poor boy was assassinated in this. Has anyone addressed the author taking an Indigenous character and making him Latino btw?

The Smut

This is erotica, so obviously, there's a fair bit of smut in it. It is graphic, but it's probably a testament to how much published romance I read that I didn't find it nearly as graphic as everyone said. Or maybe things have just gotten more graphic in published works since 2011? I don't know.

Now... the quality of the smut. I laughed at some, and had questions for others:

"Aargh!" Yes. Yes. That is indeed the sound I would expect everyone to make when... when their virginity is being ripped through (?!?!?!?!)

Christian spills inside her (via condom) and then like 20 seconds later they're at it again. I know this is common in fantasy romances especially but most mortal men cannot just keep going lol.

How much water is in that bathtub for her to be giving him a BJ?!?!? ANA. ANA ARE YOU OKAY?! CAN YOU BREATHE ANA?

I'm not going to address the rest like the feet or the tampon, because I think I would spend way too long writing it all.

Overall? Yep, a lot of smut. But personally, this was a miss for me, partly because of the vocabulary choices, and partly because I just didn't ship it. I'm also thinking maybe the erotica genre isn't for me because I don't really enjoy smut if I don't ship the characters, and I tend to like slow-burn ships. Oh, and I know that it wasn't a proper depiction of BDSM btw.

The Relationship/Characters

Ana as a character was alright. I didn't love her, I wanted good things for her, but I wasn't attached to her. I did like that she acknowledged Christian was controlling, and questioned whether the relationship was right for her. I liked that she walked away at the end, because despite her feelings for him, she didn't want the kind of relationship he did. I like that she decided she didn't want to "fix him" after all. I had expected a very weak gets-dragged-around-by-plot character, so I was happy to see she had some agency (I know that's not where the story ends because there's 2 more books.)

Christian as a character was not it for me. Don't get me wrong: I didn't hate him, but I didn't particularly like him either. I did feel bad for him when I learned about his biological mother, and the whole Mrs. Robinson thing (and I 100% agreed with Ana on that, despite how Christian himself felt about the situation.) Obviously, he is controlling, but I again, expected him to be much worse than he was based on how much vitriol was directed at this book.

Overall thoughts

Well, I finished it. And it wasn't the worst thing I've ever read, nor was it the best. It was mediocre. It was overall, a 3-star book for me (out of 5). I won't be continuing the series, but I can say I've read it.

Perhaps to a 2011 audience this was shocking. And perhaps for others it was their first smutty book. But for me, this was actually quite tame. I have no idea if that's a testament to times changing, or perhaps reflective of how much I've read. Perhaps it's both.