#my attempt for a book cover fan art

[rustingcat]

Does it make sense to make fanart for a book that does not yet exist? Yes. I think yes.

I may have spent all night drawing it in a haze, but when I found out @jazzfordshire small town au is turning into a book, the whole thing was beyond my control.

I'm just so excited and proud of Jazz! I can't wait to read all about Dani and Eleanor and to have this book proudly sit on my shelf!

[thankskenpenders]

The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings review

The day has finally come. Many, understandably, thought we'd never get here. Maybe we shouldn't have gotten here. We've been through so much. Lawsuits, reboots, redesigns, unreleased NFTs, empty legal threats over the fact that movie Knuckles has a dad, an attempt to license out Scourge the Hedgehog to fans that immediately got canceled (in both meanings of the term), and many, MANY idiotic Twitter controversies. But now, here we are.

Thirteen years after first announcing it in the middle of his legal battles with Archie and Sega that changed the American Sonic comics forever, former writer Ken Penders has released the first part of his new series: The Lara-Su Chronicles.

Yes. I had to buy the book. I had to take one for the team. Look at the fucking URL of this blog, a blog I've been using to talk about the American Sonic comics for nearly a decade while the specter of this book loomed in the distance. The one time I've actually been paid to write an article about anything in any professional capacity, it was an article about the Penders lawsuits. I'm cited on his Wikipedia page. There was no way I was going to skip reviewing this, and there was no guarantee that scans would ever turn up online given the incredibly small audience for this trash. (Only 166 people preordered this, and even that number feels way higher than it should be.) No, I had to preorder it to ensure I could get a copy and cover it for the blog... even if that meant my name would be forever immortalized in the list of "supporters" in the back of the book. These are the sacrifices I must make as a woman who stumbled ass backwards into being an amateur Archie Sonic historian.

So, what exactly is in this book? How much of it is new? How bad is it? How did we even get here in the first place? How can this exist without Sega pursuing legal action? What happens next? And, most importantly... why are there multiple depictions of an Archie Sonic character breastfeeding in this book?

I'm here to answer those questions as best I can, and in agonizing detail.

First, for those just tuning in to this decades-long saga or those who maybe don't know the full story, here's a refresher on the background info.

"What the hell is this?"

The Lara-Su Chronicles is Ken Penders' long-dreaded long-awaited continuation of his 1994-2006 run on Archie Sonic, ignoring everything written after he left by other writers like Ian Flynn. In particular, it picks up from the cliffhanger ending of the 2003-2004 arc "Mobius: 25 Years Later," which was set in what Ken considers the definitive canonical future of the series. It stars Knuckles' daughter from that future era, Lara-Su, among other new and returning characters. The project was first announced near the start of Ken's legal battle with Archie in 2011, and he's been posting WIP previews online for about a decade. Now, after all this time, a Lara-Su Chronicles book finally exists.

We'll get to the actual contents of that book in a bit.

"He can do that without getting in trouble with Sega?"

Believe it or not, yes, he can.

Thanks to the outcome of Archie Comics' woefully mismanaged lawsuits against Ken (yes, they sued him after he started filing for copyrights, not the other way around), he now has full legal ownership of every story he wrote for Archie Sonic and every character he created for the series. This was explicitly granted to him in the terms of the settlement between him and Archie (acting on behalf of Sega). He can even reprint his old Sonic material as-is to his heart's content. The main catch is just that he can't write new stories featuring Sega characters or trademarks, and his new stories also have to be distinct from Sonic at a glance to avoid confusing readers. As such, reprints can't use Sonic iconography on the cover, a few Sega characters (mainly Knuckles) have been renamed and slightly redesigned in the new stories, and the art style has been changed to less closely resemble Sonic. But otherwise, he can do whatever he wants with his own characters.

All of this is because Archie lost the original copy of Ken's work-for-hire contract that signed over the rights to his work. Without that (or any alternative that was considered permissible in court), his comics and characters are the property of their creator by default. Yes, those old comics are full of Sega stuff, but Sega doesn't automatically own the copyright for every drawing of Sonic in existence. And Sega put their stamp of approval all over those comics and let them get sold at retail for decades, even though (in the eyes of the court) there was no legal paperwork granting them ownership of any of it. It's almost like they were unwittingly distributing a fan comic for years and declaring it a fair use of their property, and now there's no takesies backsies. It's a strange and unique copyright situation. Again, they worked all this out in the settlement. And, yes, fans have long speculated that Ken stole and destroyed his own contract to regain the rights to his work, but frankly Archie was so incompetent throughout the lawsuit (it went so bad that they had to fire and replace their lawyers midway through) that I completely buy the idea of them just losing important legal documents.

Also, in case it needs to be spelled out: while Ken's a weirdo, it's ultimately a good thing for creatives everywhere that Archie lost their lawsuit against Ken. We do not want to live in a world where corporations can claim ownership of peoples' work without the contracts to back it up. That would be an incredibly dangerous legal precedent to set. And more comic creators, and artists in general, should own their own work! Corporations are not your friend! They'll delete your work for a tax write-off in a heartbeat! It's just bewildering that this guy, of all people, was the creator who ended up successfully getting his shit back, and that this is what he's doing with it.

"What about his old collaborators? Are they involved? Is he paying them?"

Ken is mostly doing The Lara-Su Chronicles solo, though he has, in fact, talked about compensating the artists involved in any material he's reprinting. The ones who give enough of a shit to get paid for a small scale reprint of something they did 20 years ago, anyway.

On the subject of his collaborators, it's also worth pointing out that Ken's wasn't the only contract that was lost. Most of the early Archie Sonic writers from before Ian Flynn's time seem to be in the same boat as Ken, with the ownership of their stories and characters defaulting back to them. Again, Archie fucked up big time. But like I said, most of them don't really seem to give a shit. For most of them, Sonic was just a random temporary gig they took to pay the bills while Marvel was busy going bankrupt in the '90s, not the thing that defined their entire careers.

The only other Archie Sonic contributor who's tried to do anything on the level of what Ken is doing was writer and editor Scott Fulop. In 2016 he attempted to sue Archie for the unauthorized use of what are now retroactively considered his copyrighted characters and stories, and he even announced a standalone comic about his most famous Sonic character, the recurring villain Mammoth Mogul (sort of a pastiche of DC's Vandal Savage and Marvel's Kingpin, with wizard powers added for spice). However, Fulop lost his lawsuit because he didn't put together a particularly compelling case. Since then he seems to have wiped all traces of his ill-advised Mammoth Mogul comic and his company, Narrative Ark Entertainment, from the internet. For now, this leaves The Lara-Su Chronicles the only project of its kind.

"What about those other Archie Sonic reprints he just announced?"

At the time of writing, Ken is once again claiming that he's trying to get the band back together to reprint all of Archie Sonic, now under the bad new banner "Floating Island Productions: MOBIAN LINE" that I can't imagine he consulted literally anyone else on.

So, like, look. As we've established, Ken can reprint his own stories. And if he can work something out with the other contributors whose contracts were lost, he can print their work, too. But there is no fucking way he's getting his hands on Ian Flynn's run, which Sega undoubtedly holds the copyright for. Even if they don't, Ian needs to maintain a good working relationship with both Sega and IDW if he's to keep his job, so he'd never go for this. Not to mention that Ian and Ken just... don't get along! Ken's whole plan here seems to be predicated on IDW going out of business (a thing he REALLY wants to happen) and freeing up the Sonic comic license, after which he knocks on Sega's door and goes "hey I've still got dirt on you guys," blackmailing them into giving him the Sonic license back so that he can reprint the later comics. Every step of this plan is ludicrous. It's never gonna happen.

He's been saying he wants to reprint the whole series for a few years now, though. This isn't really anything new. And despite his lofty plans that set Sonic Twitter ablaze, he quickly backpedaled. The only specific things in the works right now are a "two-volume omnibus" of all of his Knuckles stories and a collection of artist Scott Shaw's work on the very early Archie Sonic issues, since they're on good terms with each other. I have no idea how Ken plans on packaging these when he can't put any Sega characters or the Freedom Fighters on the covers, but these projects are small enough in scale that there's a decent chance they'll see the light of day. Scott Shaw only did like five issues. But anything beyond that? I'll believe it when I see it.

Or, y'know, this could've all just been a publicity stunt for his new book. I wouldn't put it past him. Let's just focus on the book that actually exists.

"So he finally did it? He made a whole Lara-Su book? It's out? He finished it??"

Yes and no.

The book that's out now is The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings, a prologue for the series of seven graphic novels Ken somehow plans on making, even though it's taken him 13 years to put out literally anything new. I don't know whether or not this counts as book one of seven, because it only features 30 pages of new comics. 30.5 if I'm being generous.

Most of the book is actually just a reprint of his infamous Archie Sonic storyline "Mobius: 25 Years Later", which ran from issue #131 to #144 in 2003-2004. (Again, yes, he can reprint this, he just can't put Sonic on the cover.) Why's it infamous? Well, Ken had been building anticipation for this future era of the series for basically his entire run. We kept seeing King Sonic and Queen Sally from the future. Knuckles' entire backstory hinges on his dad having a vision of this future. Several years before Silver the Hedgehog was created, it was Lara-Su who was Sonic's equivalent to Future Trunks, the cool-looking child of one of the main characters who traveled back in time to try and prevent a dark future. Believe it or not, yes, there was hype for Lara-Su. And then we finally got M25YL, and none of that cool stuff happened. Instead it really ended up being about how unbearably boring the middle aged Sonic, Knuckles, Sally, and co. are in this peaceful future where Robotnik is dead and they're all married with kids, forced into traditional nuclear family gender roles. Lara-Su is present, but she mostly just does generic teen girl stuff and complains about how Knuckles won't let her do anything even though she REALLY wants to be the new Guardian of Angel Island, like, super bad! Come on, dad!!!

In its original printing, this meandering arc ended on an abrupt time travel cliffhanger that Ken was never able to follow up on before he left Archie in 2006. This new printing slightly changes that ending, using the unresolved timey-wimey shenanigans as a convenient excuse to alter the entire timeline. This creates the slightly different world of The Lara-Su Chronicles, where the few relevant Sega-owned characters have been replaced and everyone is ten times uglier.

After this, we finally get two short new stories picking up where M25YL left off: "The Storm," starring Acorn Kingdom super-spy and known creep Geoffrey St. John, and an early release of the first chapter of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows, the first full TLSC graphic novel.

And now that we're all on the same page about what we're looking at, let's actually talk about the book!

The cover

Let's start by beating a dead horse. The cover art: it's still bad! But why is it bad?

The cover is, of course, based on Patrick Spaziante's cover from Archie Sonic #131, the start of the "Mobius: 25 Years Later" arc. (Ken did the layout for that cover, though, so in the eyes of the law he's the original creator who owns that cover.) That cover was, itself, a tribute to the iconic cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, the issue that introduced the version of the team with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, etc.

Ken seems to have forgotten that the point of both these covers was to hype up the arrival of a new cast of characters. The new guys are supposed to make a dramatic entrance front and center. That's the focal point. Meanwhile, the cover for Beginnings has the old timeline versions of the cast from Archie Sonic dramatically bursting out of a shattered crystal ball, while their new counterparts look on in mild bemusement - if they're even bothering to look at all, since most of the characters here are just copied and pasted from their profile pages. That's just not how you do this particular homage! The point is supposed to be "out with the old, in with the new." And why are they using a crystal ball to view the past? Hell, why are they even using a crystal ball at all? The original arc was presented as a magical vision of the future courtesy of Tails' uncle Merlin (don't ask), but the new story leans all the way into being futuristic sci-fi.

Of course, there is no real artistic intent at play here. The old versions of the characters are placed front and center in the crystal ball simply because Ken traced over Spaziante's original art of Lara-Su and Julie-Su (the only two characters on the Sonic cover he owns) and threw out the rest, ruining the composition in the process. Look at the awkward empty space where Sonic, Sally, and Rotor once were, and the new drawing of The Character Formerly Known As Knuckles who's no longer properly centered between his wife and daughter. Even if Ken can claim ownership of the cover because he did the original layout, this all just feels scummy and lame.

And, yeah, if it needs to be said, the new characters and Ken's new rendering style look like absolute fucking dogshit. Putting new Lara-Su directly next to old Lara-Su does her no favors. The shattered glass effect looks absolutely atrocious. I could go on, but we'll have plenty of time to talk about the art style when we see how bad the stories inside look.

Changes to "Mobius: 25 Years Later"

Overall, 99% of M25YL is presented identically to its original printing. Sonic, Sally, Knuckles, et al. are still present with no changes to their names and no tweaks to the art. Even the original cover for issue #131 is included only a few pages into this book with its Archie, Sonic, and Sega logos still intact and everything. Again, because of the weird copyright situation described above, these preexisting comics can be released without any changes.

There is exactly one bizarre change to the art, though, where a hand drawn shot of Angel Island is replaced with an unfitting photo background and the ugly Floating Island photobash that Ken has been using as his personal logo for decades. I think he only did this as part of a test for his motion comic app that nobody asked for. I don't know why this had to make it into the print version. It's like the book is firing a warning shot for what's to come if you keep reading.

The new content begins on the final page of M25YL. In the original wet fart of a cliffhanger ending, Sonic and co. accidentally alter the timeline with an old time machine of Robotnik's and Lara-Su begins to fade away. Then, after everything goes white, we just cut to the present day heroes going "gee, you ever think about the future?" In this new printing, that last bit has been cut, and the rest of the page has been awkwardly shrunk down so that Ken can fit in a new panel. We now see the hands of an off-screen villain, seemingly named "Override," proclaiming that "the Praetorian" (Knuckles) has messed up the timeline again and that they'll finally get their revenge.

Who is this Override? I have no fucking clue. The new stories in this book make no mention of them. You have to buy the next book to find out.

My confusion over the identity of this villain overlaps with another big problem: name changes. So many names and nouns have been arbitrarily changed in The Lara-Su Chronicles, even ones Ken didn't have to change for copyright reasons, and I only know what half of them are replacing because Ken's been tweeting about this shit for years.

The echidnas are now a totally original alien race called "the Echyd'nya." Even in flashbacks to events from M25YL attempting to mimic the old art style, if it's on a new comic page, they're gonna call themselves "Echyd'nya." Evil echidna faction the Dark Legion is now the "Cyberdark Dominion," hailing from the "Cyberdark Colony." The Brotherhood of Guardians is still the Brotherhood of Guardians, but now the main guardian is called "The Praetorian." Angel Island is still called "The Floating Island," like it was in the older Archie comics, but it's ALSO sometimes called "Avion"? When I read this I wasn't sure if he had randomly renamed Albion, the other echidna city from the Archie comics. But no. Now we have an Albion AND an Avion. Sally is mentioned simply as "Princess Acorn," while Sonic is referenced once as an unnamed "blue-spined Erinaceinae," using the scientific name for hedgehog to make it sound more sci-fi. In an incredibly ballsy move, Ken even mentions Robotnik as "the Insurrectionist Kintobor," retaining his original surname from the Archie comics that's just "Robotnik" backwards. Guess Sega never trademarked that one.

Aside from every name change being a downgrade, this leads to confusion when you're not sure if something is supposed to be new, or if it's just an Archie thing you're supposed to recognize despite having a new name and design. Is "Override" someone I'm supposed to know already? Am I just supposed to have read a fucking tweet from Ken where he said he changed the name of some existing villain to "Override"? The answer is no, but I had to term search his Twitter just to verify this.

Moving on!

New story #1: "The Storm"

If you've been following the WIPs, this is that story about Geoffrey St. John that Ken's been posting previews of for almost a decade. The title page copyright dates it to 2015, and that absurdly long gestation is probably why the art is so inconsistent here. Even the style of speech bubbles and the font change between pages two and three.

This is a problem when there's supposed to be a deliberate and noticeable change in art style here signaling the moment where the time travel stuff alters the timeline, replacing the Archie Sonic world with the Lara-Su Chronicles world. If you don't already know that's what's going on, the idea isn't conveyed clearly at all. It just goes from one hideous art style to a slightly different one with no explanation.

The main problem here is that Ken has hitched his wagon to a franchise about anthropomorphic animals when he can't draw furries to save his life. (Though a bit later in the book we'll also begin to wonder if he can even still draw humans.) He's shifted away from the cartooniness of the original designs and given them more human proportions and facial features, but this just ends up making them look incredibly uncanny and lumpy and gross. With some designs he's trying to lean into more of a Star Trek alien vibe, but then he still insists upon retaining the giant Sonic eyes on most characters even though he has no idea how to make them emote.

The rendering of these godawful designs doesn't do them any favors, either. Ken's going for more of a painterly look now, but it almost seems as though he's shading everything with Photoshop's burn and dodge tools that are designed to darken and lighten select areas of a photo. The result is a muddy, smudgy look that makes it feel like the color layer has been smeared in vaseline. And it only looks worse after coming off of 14 chapters of M25YL that have way more palatable art.

The backgrounds, too, are a complete mess, a jumble of low res jpeg photo elements (sometimes with extremely noticeable pixelation), stock textures, and smooth digital gradients. There's no real sense of place here, and it gives everything a surreal, dreamlike quality when you can't really tell where anything is supposed to take place. This first story is seemingly set in a high-tech stronghold below Castle Acorn called "the Bunker," but it could just as easily be confused for the bridge of a spaceship. This whole story features characters speaking to each other over floating video displays and hologram projectors from three different locations, but without a hologram effect and without a clear sense of where the characters are it often feels like they're just in the same room as each other. Characters will be in one location on one photo background, and then the camera angle changes and they're in a completely different place, because Ken just uses mismatched photos off of the internet. It's been like 25 years since he first tried using photo backgrounds in the Archie comics and he hasn't gotten any better at it.

When I had my boyfriend read the book to see if it made literally any sense to him (it didn't), Anthony said this: "This is the kind of shit I'd see linked on a Second Life world that hasn't been touched since 2004." I think he really hit the nail on the head. Now, there's actually a contrarian part of me that thinks that might theoretically almost be kind of cool, in sort of a messy counterculture way. I love weird indie shit. I was a Homestuck reader! But this isn't a scrappy mixed media zine, or experimental outsider art from someone just messing around with Photoshop, or a loving throwback to weird old internet art, or even something intentionally bizarre and offputting like Xavier: Renegade Angel or a PilotRedSun video or whatever where the fact that it's weird and ugly is part of the humor. This is supposed to be a sincere sci-fi epic drawing on Star Trek and Jack Kirby comics, made by a guy who's been drawing comics professionally since the '80s. This is supposed to look good. This is supposed to compete with mainstream comics that are on sale right now. He thinks any day now IDW's gonna go out of business and Sega will come crawling back to him so that he can stamp the Sonic logo on shit like this. It just doesn't work.

But, okay. It's ugly. We knew it would be ugly. But that ugliness would be much easier to accept if it was in service of an otherwise genuinely good story. So what about the writing? After all this time, how does Ken choose to kick off this new saga? Well, credit where credit's due. "The Storm" feels like a proper continuation of Ken's writing style from M25YL.

Because it's eleven pages of characters standing around and talking while nothing fucking happens.

Here's the synopsis: A dog woman named Brownie, an ensign in the Royal Secret Service fresh out of training and the only character who's almost cute, walks up to Geoffrey to deliver a report. He's immediately suspicious of her, asking who let her in and if she's a spy for Elias (Sally's brother, if you're new here) or Alicia (Sally's mom). The art style suddenly shifts when the timeline is altered, but the scene continues uninterrupted. Geoffrey points a gun at Brownie when she won't say whose spy she is. Geoffrey is distracted by a call and proceeds to have a conversation via a mix of holograms and video screens with Remington (head of Echidnaopolis security), Spectre (Knuckles' great great great great great grandpa, the one with the helmet who always looks evil), and a new scientist character named Dr. Zephyr/Zephur. (The spelling of this character's name changes multiple times throughout the 11-page story, because I guess nine years wasn't enough time to spellcheck this shit.) They say a bunch of made up technobabble nonsense about how it looks like the timeline was just altered and Knuckles and co. seem to be involved. It's complete drivel that I'm not even going to try to make sense of. Everyone decides to investigate further, and the conversation ends. Brownie tells Geoffrey she's his spy, then walks out and implies she's actually Alicia's spy in her inner monologue.

To be continued!!!

Yes, that's it. It's really just a bunch of technobabble where some characters talk about how it seems like the timeline has been fucked with. That's it. The whole time Geoffrey doesn't even get up out of his damn chair, which he's of course sitting in backwards to show how cool he is. It's just 11 pages of Geoffrey sitting in a chair and talking to people and looking uglier than he's ever looked. Nothing happens. Nine years for this.

I'm also struck by how meaningless all of this is to anyone who hasn't read Archie Sonic. The added context from M25YL may help a little, but "The Storm" focuses on characters who weren't in that arc, and the story does very little to introduce who any of them are. Brownie could've been super useful as an inexperienced point of view character who's only meeting the others for the first time here, but instead she's really just a passive observer who's here as part of some kind of 4D chess game between Geoffrey and Alicia, an off-screen character whose motivations in this era of the story are completely unknown to even returning readers. Who are the good guys and bad guys here? What are the conflicts and the stakes of the story moving forward? What do these characters want? Basic questions like this aren't really answered. I can't imagine a new reader being able to make heads or tails of this. Hell, I can't really imagine a returning reader who hasn't been following the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets about this story making heads or tails of it, either.

...Maybe more will happen in the next story?

New story #2: Shattered Tomorrows preview chapter

After another message from Ken, the story of The Lara-Su Chronicles proper begins with the redesigned Lara-Su walking along a jpeg photograph beach at sunset and crying while thinking about how Knuckles - sorry, his name is K'Nox now - is dead.

Yep! Straight into the dad stuff!

Look, I'm the last person to complain about writers getting super personal and drawing from their own baggage in their writing, but Ken's just no fucking good at it. There's no nuance, nothing interesting to say. He just keeps writing mediocre-to-horrible dads whose misdeeds are always justified by their "good intentions," and then sometimes they die and their kids are like "we may have fought but actually you were the bestest dad ever and I'll miss you forever, I'll never be able to fill your shoes!"

This is the only part of the new material here that feels like it has any heart behind it, because I know how much his complex relationship with his late deadbeat father means to Ken (there's an author's note in this outright saying as much). But the guy died 42 years ago, and it doesn't feel like Ken has had any new thoughts about this part of his life in those four decades. He's just not an introspective or self-aware enough artist to actually mine his personal baggage for anything beyond "father knows best."

Anyway, so then it jumps forward in time(?) and now we're following this human guy who looks like this.

Previously, Ken got a lot of shit for literally just using the likeness of Anthony Mackie for this guy, based on his IMDB profile photo. Ken has thus redesigned the character... and by that I mean I think he looks more like Ernie Hudson now? Ken's clearly just working off of photo references (if not straight up tracing), given his face is the most detailed and realistic-looking thing on any page where he's present.

But you may be wondering: who is this, and why is he here? Well, for one, he's here to run around in front of some low res space photos while making trite references to things like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek. Haha, he makes a joke about red shirts! Original!! But beyond that, Commander Mykhal Taelor (yes, that's really how he chose to spell it) is a human... from Earth! Archie Sonic readers are probably confused, because in those comics Mobius is Earth in the distant post-apocalyptic future. Well, despite being a Planet of the Apes fan, Ken always hated that particular worldbuilding decision from Karl Bollers, always preferring to think of Mobius as a separate alien planet. And now he gets to make that canon in his own stories and throw out Karl's ideas. So Mobius is basically just, like, a Star Trek planet now, with its own alien creatures that sometimes just so happen to look like anthropomorphic Earth animals.

Also, at one point Taelor wonders if the inhabitants of the dead Mobius might have been human, and the alien ally he's talking to over the radio says it's unlikely. "I don't understand why your kind has a problem understanding you're a minority within a minority." Perhaps poor wording for a line said to the only Black character in the story.

Anyway, Commander Taelor here seems to have discovered the uninhabited husk of Mobius after the vague time-space cataclysm everyone was worried about in M25YL has come to pass, and he finds an audio log from Lara-Su that I presume will explain what happened. I guess those are the titular Lara-Su Chronicles. In theory this flash forward establishes some sense of pressing danger, but when the threat to the planet is so unclear and technobabble-y it just kind of lands with a thud.

It doesn't take long before we get back to Lara-Su being sad about her dad. A good little chunk of the chapter is spent with this new timeline's Lara-Su recalling moments in her life, including echoes of the original Lara-Su's memories from M25YL, which feels redundant coming hot off the heels of a straight reprint of that entire arc. And boy, for anyone who read the later Archie Sonic comics, the protagonist having vague memories of the old version of the series from before a lawsuit-related timeline reboot sure does sound familiar, huh?

The art inconsistency somehow becomes even worse in this story, with Ken flip-flopping on whether or not he wants to use outlines, with the no-outline art managing to look even worse by relying entirely on Ken's awful rendering. By this point in the book, readers are also likely to start noticing how often Ken reuses art from previous panels. This is a shortcut that tons of comic artists use, of course. Invincible famously did a joke about this. It's often understandable. But, again... it sure does stand out in a book that took 13 years to make with only 30 pages of new art. Amusingly, Ken even manages to combine his inconsistency and recycling problems by reusing the same art with and without outlines. And, of course, any time Ken tries to draw the Archie era designs it's just... the worst.

And, yes, it's in this dreamlike montage sequence of Lara-Su's life that we get...

The uncomfortable family nudity scene, followed by the dual timeline Julie-Su breastfeeding scene.

Yeah, you might have heard about this one already. If this incredibly eerie presentation of Lara-Su's hazy memories of the two different timelines make it hard to tell what's going on, don't worry. There's another, clearer version later in the book as part of Julie-Su's character profile, because I guess Ken was just so proud of it.

(I censored these myself because I'm not playing Russian roulette with Tumblr's inconsistent nudity rules and risking getting banned lmao)

Like, okay. Is a mother breastfeeding her child really that shocking of a thing to see in a story? No, not at all. But, like... when it's two characters who you previously created for an officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comic for 7-year-olds... and some of those officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comics for 7-year-olds are reprinted in the same book... and when it's drawn like this... yeah, it's kind of a shocker.

It just looks so unnatural. Julie-Su is posed very deliberately so that you'll see both of her breasts, and in the new timeline version she's barely even holding Lara-Su so you can really get a good look at her supermodel body, showing zero physical signs that she just gave birth. Most people will immediately jump to this being Ken putting his fetishes in his work (a type of criticism that I'm incredibly tired of - it's 2024, all the cool artists are blatantly putting their fetishes in their work now). And my immediate response is that, no, this is probably just Ken trying to come off as really mature on a surface level, a thing he's been obsessed with since the Archie days. Free from the shackles of writing a licensed children's comic, of course he's going to jump immediately into depicting some nonsexual, artistic nudity to try and prove he's A Real Mature Artist For Grown-Ups who just thinks the human body is beautiful and breastfeeding shouldn't be a taboo etc. etc.

But then, like. You look at some of the other character designs. Like Espio's daughter Salma, who's now this horrifying alien lizard person who's always nude, and her scale pattern puts scales exactly where her nipples should be. Or you look at his comments about the Echyd'nya age of consent. Or you look at how he keeps drawing Lara-Su in this. Like, does the shuttle really need this, like... reverse chaise lounge thing in the cockpit? So that we can keep getting these shots of the 16-year-old Lara-Su lying on her stomach and posing with one of her legs kicked up, her naked ass in plain view?

The vibe isn't great, is what I'm saying!

I'm not going to try to ascribe authorial intent here. I don't know. I'm not a psychic. Given his very blatant reliance on photo references elsewhere in the book, it's entirely possible he just referenced some figure drawing photos that were maybe just a little too sexy. And also, he's an American comic book artist, and a boomer one at that. Those guys tend to draw women a certain way, even when it's not supposed to be sexual. I don't fucking know. It just sucks. I'm not gonna make some hyperbolic statement about how this makes him a literal pedophile who should be in jail, but it is deeply offputting and objectifying.

But if you already knew about the nursing scenes and were hoping there was some other really shocking stuff in there for me to talk about in this review, sorry to disappoint, but nope. That's the only shockingly weird new thing in here. Once again, not a lot happens in this story, and what does happen is pretty boring.

Once we get past the recap stuff and the human guy, the plot developments boil down to this: The timeline was altered at the end of M25YL... but not as much as you might think. In the new timeline, Knuckles ("K'Nox"), Cobar (now looking significantly younger), and Rotor (now a rhino just called "The Emissary") still traveled via shuttle to go find a time machine in the Badlands and fix the time-space continuum, like in the climax of the original arc. This time, though, Sonic wasn't there, and Lara-Su came along without having to stow away. Lara-Su watches the ship while the grown ups go deal with the time machine, and then after a couple panels Not Rotor comes back with Cobar and is like "Hey, Cobar got hurt, we gotta leave. Dunno what happened to your dad." And then they just, like. Presume that Knuckles must have died. Even though we have no idea what happened to him. And then they just fly away. And then Lara-Su is sad that her dad died.

And that's pretty much it!

This is supposed to be a really emotional sequence - it's literally the scene where Lara-Su learns that Knuckles is dead - but instead it comes off as unintentionally funny because of how poorly it's portrayed. Not showing Knuckles' actual disappearance is a huge misstep, for one, making his uncertain fate more confusing and anticlimactic than dramatic. But also, Ken keeps just using the same two drawings of Rotor for two pages, so he doesn't really seem to be emoting at all, and he's in this spacey hazmat suit that honestly just makes him look like fucking Moltar from Space Ghost. So the whole time I'm just reading his dialogue in Moltar's deadpan voice as he's like "I dunno. We did what we could. Anyway, let's leave."

After this, we get a two-page spread previewing the rest of the story from Shattered Tomorrows. It's basically like a trailer in comic form. It has one of the most mystifying layouts I've ever seen in a comic book. I have no idea what order I'm supposed to read this in.

Yeah, I kinda have a feeling this is the full extent of what Ken has drawn for the rest of that book. I'd love to be wrong, but I fear that I'm right.

Bonus material: Data files

These are mostly very dull, recapping a lot of events shared between Ken's Archie run and the new Lara-Su Chronicles timeline. It seems like almost his entire run is still considered canon to the backstory of the new timeline, just with some names changed, and things only really diverge at the climax of M25YL. But I'll share the interesting stuff here.

Lara-Su

The main thing you'll notice in Lara-Su's profile is the massive, unreadable wall of text where Ken felt the need to list the entire Knuckles family tree, split across both pages.

This is literally so long that Lara-Su's personal history has to awkwardly cut off mid-sentence and be continued on the final page of the book, after the rest of the data files.

Also, please note that this list gives Julie-Su's mom's full name as Mari-Su of the House of Atrades. Incredible on all levels.

There's also a reference to the dark timeline Lara-Su was originally supposed to come from. You know, the one where Julie-Su is the leader of a rebel movement fighting against a Knuckles who had gone mad with power? The timeline that would have been way more interesting than the one in M25YL? Here it seems to have been written off as the result of another "timeline disruption." Lara-Su allegedly has vague memories of this timeline, in the same way that she has vague memories of the M25YL timeline.

Geoffrey

Geoffrey's bio mostly recaps events from the Archie comics, which means the Sonic/Sally/Geoffrey love triangle has to be alluded to. His rivalry with Sonic is described like this:

"He would later resurface when Kintobor was transporting his latest hi-tech weapon, the Dynamac-3000. It was during that mission he discovered a rival for the Princess' affections. Whereas the Princess would be one of a line of conquests where St. John was concerned, the blue-spined Erinaceinae who protested doth a bit too much regarding his affections for the Princess for St. John's taste would prove to be a source of great sport and amusement."

Yes. It's gross. Saying that Geoffrey saw Sally as "one of a line of conquests" is gross. Ken writing this and then still treating Geoffrey as the coolest badass ever is gross. The "Princess Acorn" is also first on the list of Geoffrey's "female relationships" elsewhere in his bio, though I suppose how much of a "relationship" they had is left vague. Honestly, at this point the fact that Ken didn't explicitly confirm that Geoffrey took the underage Sally's virginity in the book comes off as a display of restraint. The bar couldn't be any lower, I know.

Remington

His bio is, frankly, shockingly long for such a minor character, though I guess he does get a large portion of the word salad dialogue in "The Storm." There's a lot of stuff here about how the identities of his biological parents are shrouded in mystery, a plot point that fans have long speculated Ken just straight up forgot about in his time at Archie. (Ian confirmed that Kragok from the Dark Legion was Remington's dad, though, so this isn't really much of a mystery.)

Lien-Da

She gets a bio even though she's not present in the two new stories, just so we get to look at her awful new design and compare it to how Steven Butler drew her earlier in the book:

Commander Taelor

We get to see two drawings of him with the same exact Ernie Hudson face side by side! That's fun.

Julie-Su

She gets a list of "known friends," but the only character listed is Knuckles' mom. Poor Julie-Su.

Also, Ken feels the need to reiterate that Knuckles and Julie-Su are still distant cousins. He made a whole new timeline where he can change whatever details he wants, but THAT had to remain canon. Thanks, Ken.

And then after the data files we get the special thanks page, listing everyone who preordered the book and/or bought TLSC merch from Ken.

With my name on the list. Because I had to buy a copy to cover it for the blog.

My name is on the very next page right after the breastfeeding panel in Julie-Su's data file.

Yep. He got me.

Is it at least a well put together book? Like, in terms of manufacturing quality?

Its physical quality is... fine. It's a nice, sturdy hardcover. The print quality seems fine, though mine does have a bit of smudging from some sort of printing error on one page. The pages don't seem like they'll fall out on me. The image quality is crisp. The colors are vibrant. This is a low bar, but this is one of the few places where I'm able to give this book anything resembling praise.

The formatting and graphic design work, on the other hand...

(I didn't crumple those page corners, it came like that.)

For one, the placement and sizes of the M25YL pages is inconsistent, largely due to the fact that the book doesn't actually match the proportions of a comic. A lot of pages aren't properly centered vertically. Some pages go all the way up to the top edge of the paper, while others leave a visible gap of about half a centimeter. Every page has a 1cm gap to its left and right, which is sometimes filled in with a solid color or gradient that doesn't quite match the page it's surrounding. I have to assume Ken didn't have any sort of source files or original artwork to work off of, as those ideally would've had more generous bleed to account for slight shifts in printing. It kind of seems like he just got the highest resolution versions he could find of the digital releases online and printed those. The colors are a dead ringer for the digital versions, which have always looked slightly more saturated and pastel than they did in print.

I can't say this bodes well for his further plans for Archie Sonic reprints - sorry, Mobian Line reprints. If they ever come out, please, for the love of god, do not buy those. I don't care how much you love Archie Sonic, they aren't going to be good reprints. For comparison, IDW's similarly priced hardcover Sonic collections have none of these formatting problems, because they're made by people who know what they're doing with access to the actual source files.

The book also has its fair share of text-focused pages, split between the data files and messages directly from Ken about the history of his career and this project, and these are formatted in the most amateurish way possible. Just massive walls of Arial text over either plain white backgrounds, simple gradients, or faded photos. I've seen school yearbooks with better graphic design. Even ignoring my subjective feelings about the art and stories within, this book does not feel like it's worth $36 USD.

It's frankly shocking how shabby he let this thing look considering it's supposed to be his baby. And doesn't that really sum it all up?

Closing thoughts

Obviously, I did not expect this to be any good. But I'm still left kind of dumbfounded by it.

I think what really strikes me about it is that Ken had a blank check to do whatever he wanted here. He got an opportunity many writers would kill for when he gained complete ownership of his most famous work. He's free from the limitations of a monthly licensed comic book for children, free to make whatever creative decisions he wants without editors or other writers or Sega to worry about, free to completely reinvent the series to his heart's content and finally tell the story of his dreams. And with that opportunity and 13 years of his time, he made... this. A direct continuation of "Mobius: 25 Years Later" that barely changes anything about the characters or world beyond their awful new designs, even though much of the word count is spent rambling about how the timeline has changed. A story that makes zero concessions for new readers, or even returning readers who don't already have the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets explaining his creative decisions burned into their memory. 30 pages where nothing really happens and the story barely moves forward an inch despite the decades-long wait - but maybe something will happen if you buy the next book!

Who is this for? Maybe this really is a project for no one but Ken. Maybe he just really, really wants to finish the story he started, a story that's personal to him due to the family history it evokes, and the number of people who enjoy it or buy it beyond that is irrelevant. I think that many of the best artists are incredibly self-indulgent ones working with that exact mindset, artists whose enthusiasm for their own work jumps off the page or screen. So, if that's the case, then why the fuck isn't he telling the damn story? What's stopping him? Why is he still spinning his wheels? Where is that passion for his own work? Because it sure as hell isn't there on the page. There's a huge part of me that really wishes I could say "Man, what a weirdo, but you do you, Ken. You tell your weird little story." But there's barely any story here. It's like he loves styling himself as a storyteller, but he's terrified of finally having to actually tell a story after all this time. He's still stuck in the exact same mode of writing he was in almost 30 years ago when he was doing 6-page backup stories about Knuckles, just killing time and stringing readers along until he's eventually able to truly realize his vision. If not now, then when, Ken?

Even the back cover blurb is mostly just a dry recap of the history of this thing. It was a Sonic comic, the original arc was published in these issues, it went unfinished, Ken left Archie, the lawsuits happened, now he's continuing the story. There's nothing about why anyone should give a shit about this as its own story, even though Ken has spent years trying in vain to convince people TLSC is its own beast that shouldn't be judged as a Sonic story. I think deep down he knows that there's no pitch for this beyond the novelty of it originating from Sonic. And that's why, despite declaring that he'd leave the site, he's still on Twitter riling up Sonic fans. It's the only attention he gets at this point.

Maybe this is too harsh when those 30 pages of new comics are just intended as a preview for the "real" book. But the elephant in the room is that we have no idea if that "real" book will ever actually come out, let alone the entire series of seven graphic novels that will supposedly complete this saga.

Ken is undeniably a complete jackass and all around unpleasant, vindictive person who's rightly become an industry pariah. He's a self-proclaimed paragon of progressive values who'll send Comicsgaters after his successors for the crime of not worshiping the ground he walks on, and then turn around and announce he's going to reprint their work without even consulting them. He's a sore winner who already won his copyright battle on a level most comic writers would never dare to dream of, and yet still won't truly be satisfied until he sees an entire major comic publisher go out of business, putting god knows how many people out of work, because he thinks this would get him back the license to a video game franchise he doesn't even like.

But I still have to pity him.

As an artist, the trajectory of his life is my nightmare. I think all of us fear dying before we can tell all the stories we want to tell. There's simply never enough time to do everything. And here's Ken in his 60s, talking about how he's still planning on making his magnum opus all by himself out of stubbornness and pride, despite demonstrably proving he can't handle the workload, and also talking about how if he dies before the project can be finished he'll have to pass the torch on to his kids and get them to finish it for him. It's so grim. Even just typing that sends a shiver down my spine. It took nine years of his limited time on Earth to finish and release an 11-page comic about Geoffrey St. John sitting backwards in a chair.

This is a purgatory of his own creation. And yet... I'm not sure he's ever been prouder. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I guess if I want people to take anything away from this review, it's this:

Lesson one: If you're an artist or writer of some kind, or an aspiring creator, don't wait around. No one else is going to tell your story for you. Start writing that novel. Start drawing that webcomic. Start making that game. If Penders can put out this damn book that no one asked for after 13 years of work, then proudly proclaim that he's still going to make six or seven more books and also reprint hundreds of comics he doesn't have all of the rights to, then show up to cons with that foul Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows banner and sit in front of it beaming with pride, fully aware of his critics but saying "fuck 'em, I know I'm hot shit," then you can do fucking anything. Tell the weird, sincere, cringe story of your dreams. If Ken Penders doesn't have imposter syndrome, then nobody should.

And lesson two: Don't buy Ken's books.

[magicalella]

Hi all!! For those of you who don’t know me, My name is Ella Griffin, I’m a 24 year old trans woman based in south florida. For the last four years, I’ve been working on a super special project that I’m beyond thrilled to share with you all: my debut novel, The White Liar. As a big fan of fantasy books, I’ve felt for a long time that there’s a serious lack of authentic trans representation in the genre. For years, I yearned for even just one iconic transfem hero in a high fantasy setting. The White Liar is my attempt to fill that gap in the literary canon.

As a bit of background, I am a massive fan of hard fantasy books with an epic scope and in-depth magic systems; such as Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere books or Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series. I’m also a big fan of gothic literature and character-driven classics like Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and Anna Karenina, all of which have played an influence on this book. The White Liar’s setting is heavily inspired by celtic folklore, mythology and history with a feminist twist.

It’s a world where fae creatures range from tiny glowing insectoids to massive flying mounts and even humanoid beings. Yet, even the tiniest of these has the potential to unlock unfathomable magical potential through the art of Serimancy! Serimancy, the primary magic system of the book, gives users the ability to transmute or ‘spin’ the silk made by fae creatures into supernatural strength, telekinetic threads, and twelve other distinctive powers. Think Rumplestiltskin spinning straw into gold, but more vaporwave.

Without giving too much away, the book features a diverse cast of characters from all different backgrounds, including transfem, transmasc, nonbinary, aspec and disabled characters, although those aspects don’t always define their motives or character arcs. Mainly, The White Liar is a book about the nature of truth and identity; the ways in which our environment affects how we perceive those things, and the friction that creates with our own perception.

I would also characterize the book as a gaslamp fantasy like the Mistborn series or the video game Lies of P, with a baroque/art nouveau-meets-Bridgerton 19th century aesthetic. I’m a 100% independent author with a summary $0 budget publishing through kindle direct, and flat broke, so I would highly appreciate any and all support with this project, be it word of mouth or otherwise. The cover art is a digital painting created entirely by me and is canon to the book!

Thank you so, so much for giving me your time and attention. This book is my love letter to the queer community and I truly hope someone somewhere finds it hopeful or inspiring like I’ve found with the works that inspire me.

The White Liar is available now on E-book here:

[2plottwist]

A Fabled End

Summary: You end up with a magical, impossible to decipher book. Before you know it, you and Astarion are literally sucked into the story, having to play your parts in order to escape. The catch? You have to play star-crossed lovers.

Pairing: Astarion x Reader, referred to with she/her pronouns

Characters: Astarion, various made-up fairytale creatures, super brief Gale and Shadowheart appearance

Warnings: absolute tooth-rotting fluff, the f word (scary!)

Author: Emma:)

Word Count: 7.8k

A/N: this is definitely a longer read, but oh my god, do I think it is worth it. This is my favorite thing I have probably ever written. I hope you enjoy it as much as Kenna and I do. (p.s. fan art is appreciated)

Your brows furrowed in confusion as you glanced over the text again. Wyll and Karlach had gone out looking for supplies nearby your camp and had found little to nothing- besides a very large, very magical book. It had been offered to Gale first, who kindly declined to prepare everyone dinner. So it was given to the next best option- you.

After the enormous tiefling plopped it in your hands, you took a second to examine it before revealing its contents. Though it was cast in worn leather, swirls of purple emitted from beneath the cover, beckoning you closer. At first. 

Encoding it had been a rather infuriating task. Every time you looked at it, the tangled mess of runes seemed to change, spelling out some ancient, or made-up, language. No matter how hard you concentrated, the meaning eluded you, as if the book was mocking your attempts.

“Why in the hells could Gale not busy himself with this?” you grumble to yourself, pricking up the pointy ears of one of your nearby companions. 

“Having a hard time, darling?” Astarion drawled, sauntering towards where you were sitting in front of your tent. “I knew you struggled with finding me good bits of reading, but you appear to be illiterate.”

You rolled your eyes at the words despite the fact that your undead companion was probably right. You'd pored over various dusty tomes for years, but you couldn’t make anything out of the book. 

“Hey.. it’s not my fault you don’t appreciate ‘The World According to Bumpo’,” you shot back, referencing the fictitious tale you had brought back to him from the goblin camp. “It’s got layers.. You’ve got to actually use your mind to discover them.”

The vampire let out a dry laugh before lounging on a pillow that was laid against the wall of your tent. “Well, in that case, I guess neither of us know what it’s really about, hmm?”

Though his words were pointed, you recognized the playful lilt of his speech. It was a delicate balance, Astarion’s personality, and you couldn’t tell if it was by design or by accident. 

You groaned, dropping the heavy text in between the two of you. “Before you embarrass yourself by belittling me further, why don’t you have a go?” you say, motioning your hand toward the discarded book. 

“Hmm,” Astarion considers the proposition, tilting his head and smirking. “Alright. I suppose I have nothing else to do during the precious hours I have to myself.” 

He picked up the book, giving it a once-over before carefully flipping through the dry parchment. His brows furrowed, and he muttered something to himself before laughing.

“Oh, this is interesting,” he said casually, as if discussing the weather.

“What? What is?” you ask excitedly, attempting to peer over the cover and see what he was seeing. 

“You really are illiterate, aren’t you?” Astarion continued, shooting you a devilish grin. “There’s text right here, as common as drows in the underdark.” 

You narrowed your eyes, unable to believe what the elf had just told you. You had stared at the book for so long, the indecipherable runes were practically burnt into your eyes. 

“What does it say?” you ask, tilting your head.

“Hmm, well,” Astarion starts before clearing his throat and adjusting his voice to a mockingly low one. “The path to freedom lies in truth. Only when you embrace what you have discovered can you leave this place.” He chuckled again, meeting your gaze. “A bit ominous, isn’t it?”

“You’re full of rubbish,” you shoot back, shaking your head out of frustration. “You can read it, just like that? After I spent all that time trying to decipher it?”

Astarion grinned, clearly enjoying the surprise on your face. “What, you don’t think I have any skills beyond my charming wit and dashing good looks?” 

You cross your arms, looks mirroring the dejection you felt within yourself. 

“I assure you, darling, I’m not making it up. But, if you’re still so inclined to doubt me, why don’t you come and see for yourself?”

You frowned at the elf before reaching out to take the book from him, but Astarion didn’t release his hold. Your fingers brushed against each other, and for a moment, the two of you hesitated, locked in a brief standoff. Then, the pages of the tome began to glow with a soft, ethereal light. 

“What in the Hells-” you began but were cut off when the light flared, engulfing both of you. The world around you blurred and twisted sharply, and you were suddenly yanked from your camp with a force that left you breathless. 

When the light finally faded, you found yourself thrown onto a cobble path- right in the middle of a picturesque village, the kind that belonged in a fairy tale.

As you stood, you noticed blooming flowers lining the cobbled roads, their sweet scent filling the air. The roofs were thatched in all colors of shingles. Nearby, a baker had opened his window, the smell of freshly baked bread wafting into the street.

You blink in confusion before realizing you were no longer in your clothes- you were dressed in a flowing, ethereal gown that shimmered like starlight. Beside you, Astarion looked equally stunned, his usual dark attire replaced with a fine, tailored getup that made him look every bit the nobleman.

He glanced around, then down at the book, which was still in his hand, now glowing with a faint, pulsing light. 

“Well,” he mused, his tone a mix of amusement and annoyance. “It appears we’ve been… transported.”

You shot him a look, your frustration bubbling up again. “Transported? Where? Was it the book?”

Astarion held the suspect up, smirking. “Hmm. It seems our little tug-of-war triggered some sort of enchantment.”

Before you could respond, the two of you were approached by a plump woman, her bright pink cheeks and exaggeratedly twinkling eyes making her look like a character from a children’s story. 

“Oh, my darlings!” the woman exclaimed, her voice as melodious as a jingle. “You two are just the most perfect couple I’ve ever seen!” 

Before you could protest, she was pushing you towards an intricately decorated cottage at the edge of the village. A sign hung above the door; it depicted two cartoonish dragons curving into a heart. Below it, you could make out “Enchanted Encounters by Madame Delphine” in a deep purple, delicate handwriting.

With a flourish, she gestured at the building. It was just as cartoonish as the sign, if not more, with its heart-shaped windows, a thatched roof adorned with twinkling lights, and a garden bursting with oversized, colorful roses.  

“Welcome, welcome to Enchanted Encounters, where love is our specialty!”

As she ushered you deeper inside, the air was filled with the scent of lavender and roses, and the walls were lined with love-themed trinkets and framed, exaggeratedly romantic artwork. Despite the overwhelming theme, the atmosphere was warm and inviting. Soft, fluffy cushions and plush armchairs were scattered around, and a fireplace crackled.

The woman motioned for you and Astarion to sit. You exchanged a wary glance with Astarion before he gestured to an armchair. “Ladies first,” he purred, flashing you a devilish smirk. 

The woman plopped down into a chair opposite you. “I have so much to tell you! First things first-”

“Now wait just a second,” you interrupted, shifting uncomfortably in your dress. 

“What in the hells is going on? Who are you?”

The woman smiled softly, the expression on her face as if you had just asked her the most mundane question.

“I am Madame Delphine, matchmaker extraordinaire! And you, my lovelies, are here to discover the magic of true love.”

Astarion raised an eyebrow, glancing around the room with a mix of curiosity and skepticism. “We’ve been trapped in a book, for the gods sakes. You know that, don’t you?”

Madame Delphine’s eyes widened with a touch of drama, as if she had known all along. “Ah, that’s the crux of the matter! The village of Fable’s End is a place where destinies intertwine. The magic here seeks out those who are at a crossroads, those who might benefit from a little extra push in discovering their true feelings,” she mimed pushing the air as to add emphasis. 

“Well, that’s just lovely, but we had important matters to attend to,” Astarion retorted, motioning to his head. 

Madame Delphine chuckled softly, her laugh a melodious sound that seemed to resonate with the whimsical surroundings. “But that’s just it! The magic doesn’t always wait for the perfect timing. You see, the enchantment isn’t about disrupting your lives but about giving you a unique opportunity to reflect.. And connect,” she added, wiggling her eyebrows in a suggestive manner. 

“Madame Delphine,” you start, your tone firm but respectful, “you’ve made a mistake. You brought us here under the impression that we are lovers. But that’s simply not true. We are not in love.”

Astarion, his arms crossed, added, “Oh, indeed. This whole scenario feels rather contrived.”

Madame Delphine’s eyes softened with a mix of sympathy and understanding. “I see. Well, if you truly believe that, then perhaps it’s best to explore what the village has in store for you with open minds and hearts. The journey might reveal more than you expect.”

As Madame Delphine spoke, an unexpected, shimmering light began to swirl around you and Astarion. The colors shifted, and the cottage’s walls seemed to dissolve into an ethereal mist. The light took on the shape of a heart, and the air was filled with a gentle, melodious hum.

You and Astarion exchanged puzzled glances as the enchantment’s glow enveloped you. Suddenly, scenes from your past adventures began to play out around you, projected in vivid, heartwarming detail.

You saw shared glances, instances of unspoken support and subtle gestures of care. The images revealed how your bond had deepened over time, showing you moments that had seemed insignificant but were actually filled with unspoken affection.

The scenes began to shift to more intimate moments. You saw yourselves laughing together by the campfire, comforting each other after a battle, and sharing quiet conversations. 

When the light finally faded, Astarion’s eyes met yours, his usual aloofness softened by a vulnerable gaze. “I didn’t realize… We’ve been through so much together, haven’t we?”

Your cheeks flushed with a blend of surprise and embarrassment, and you nodded slowly. “Yes, we have. And when I think back on everything…”

Madame Delphine, who had been quietly observing, smiled warmly. “Sometimes, it takes a little magic to help us see what’s been there all along. Your journey here has allowed you to confront your true feelings and understand them more deeply.”

You stared at each other for a moment longer before the matchmaker interrupted your thoughts.

“Now, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, shall we? You see, my dears, this isn’t just a simple matchmaking service. This is a story, and every story has its rules.”

You raise an eyebrow, your curiosity piqued. “Rules? What kind of rules?”

Madame Delphine leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with a mischievous glint. “You’re not the first couple to find yourselves in this delightful predicament. This village, and indeed, my matchmaking services, have seen many a pair before you.”

Astarion looked intrigued, his usual smirk replaced by genuine interest. “What happened to them?”

“Ah, well,” Madame Delphine said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “some found true love, others simply discovered something about themselves they never knew. But all of them played their parts—quite literally. You see, in this story, you must embrace your roles as lovers. The more convincingly you play your parts, the closer you’ll come to breaking the enchantment.”

You frown slightly. “And if we refuse to play along?”

Madame Delphine’s face became somber, though her cartoonish eyes still held a glimmer of mischief. “Oh, I wouldn’t recommend that. The enchantment is quite persistent, and resisting only prolongs the tale.”

Astarion leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. “And what exactly are these roles we’re supposed to play?”

Madame Delphine clapped her hands together, her cheery demeanor returning. “Oh, nothing too difficult! Simply be the star-crossed lovers you’re meant to be. The village will do the rest, guiding you through various trials and encounters. Just remember, the more authentic your feelings, the smoother the journey.”

You glance at Astarion. “Well, it seems we don’t have much choice.”

Astarion, with a dramatic sigh, offered her a small smile. “I suppose so. I do love a good drama.”

Madame Delphine clapped her hands with delight. “Splendid! Now, off you go, darlings. The story awaits, and I’m sure it will be a most enchanting one!”

The two of you stood, walking out of the cottage. As the door closed behind you, you sank to your knees, head in your hands. “Gods, why is there never any fine print on enchanted objects?”

Astarion, standing beside you with an amused smirk, glanced over. “And here I thought you liked surprises, darling. Isn’t this all just a bit of unexpected fun?”

You shot him a look, your tone dripping with sarcasm. “Oh yes, so much fun. Being trapped in a magical book, forced to play the part of lovers—absolute delight.”

Your bickering was abruptly interrupted by a clanging sound and the appearance of a rather comical figure. 

A paladin, clad in ridiculously oversized armor that made him look like a walking castle, emerged from behind a heart-shaped archway. His helmet was so large that it wobbled precariously with every step he took, and his lance looked more like a toothpick in his gloved hands. 

“Ho there, fair maiden afar! A beautiful thing, a shining star!” he shouted, voice vibrating throughout his suit of armor. “How I cherish Lathander, my guiding light, for blessing me with such a sight.”

“Is he.. Rhyming?” You questioned, sharing a quizzical look with your companion. 

“I think one weirdo is enough to deal with today,” Astarion stated before pushing on your waist, ushering you to walk away. 

“Halt, pale fellow! Leave her be, so kind, so mellow,” the knight declared with exaggerated bravado, his voice echoing through his oversized helmet. 

Astarion raised an eyebrow, turning back to the paladin. “Oh, and who are you to address this.. Maiden?” he asked.

“I am Lord Reginald, in the flesh. And her heart.. With mine, I’d like to mesh.” 

Astarion’s wariness gave way to amusement. “Her? Are you sure? She’s rather unpleasant in the morning.”

You reach out and hit him on the arm. 

“You dare insult her, a rose, a petal?” Lord Reginald boomed back, attempting to lift his helm from his eyes. It clanked back into place. “For your sake, sir, I hope you have the mettle.”

“Are you threatening me now, Lord?” Astarion shot back, then turned to you. “I’m growing rather bored.” Realizing he had unintentionally rhymed, he muttered “Shit” under his breath.

“A duel it will be then, for the lady’s heart!” Lord Reginald said, raising his lance. “Come forth then, sparrow fart!” 

Astarion narrowed his eyes, shooting the lord a steely look. “Sparrowfa-” you hit his arm again, a laugh threatening to spill out of your mouth. “Alright then, a duel, you say? And what weapon do you propose we use, lordling?”

Lord Reginald puffed out his chest, though it seemed more a result of his armor's bulk than his own physical prowess. “Not with swords, not with steel! We shall engage in a battle of words in which the lady must feel!”

You, caught between laughter and astonishment, looked at Astarion with a teasing grin. “I think he wants to duel it out over.. Romantic poetry. Seems like you may have a rather shit hand.”

“Perish the thought,” Astarion said. “How could I refuse such a challenge?”

He smirked, stepping forward with a flourish. “I suppose if it’s a duel of words, I should rise to the occasion.”

Lord Reginald straightened his oversized helmet with a flourish. “Let us begin the duel of melodies and verses, for the heart of the lovely Y/N calls me across universes.” 

The knight stepped back and cleared his throat, preparing for his performance. He launched into a grandiose ballad with exaggerated gestures and a booming voice:

“From distant lands, both far and wide,

I’ve ventured forth with armor’s pride.

To win the heart of one so rare,

I sing my love with tender care.”

You smiled at the heartfelt, if not somewhat over-the-top, performance. 

When Lord Reginald finished his verse with a flourish, he took a deep, exaggerated bow, his armor clanking with every movement. “My heart, my weapon. My words, my shield. Now, pale one.. Do you yield?”

Astarion stepped forward, his demeanor calm and confident. With a playful glint in his eye, he began.

“Beneath the moon’s enchanting light, In shadowed depths, where stars ignite, Our journey’s path has led us here, With every step, my heart grows clear.”

His verses felt tender and sincere, and you blushed as he took a bow, looking at you with a smirk as he did so. The village seemed to respond to his melody with a soft, shimmering light. 

“You think that’s all? I’m not impressed,” Lord Reginald boomed. “Let’s see if you can handle this new test.”

He cleared his throat again before continuing. 

“In twilight’s glow and morning’s dew,

My heart beats only, dear, for you.

Your laughter rings like sweetest chime,

A melody that transcends time.”

You raised your eyebrow at the lord before looking back at Astarion, who seemed unimpressed. “That one was pretty solid, Star. I’m not sure if you can do better than “a melody that transcends time.”

Astarion huffed before turning back to the knight. 

“Through battles fierce and nights so long,

It’s with you, Y/N, where I belong.

In every glance and every sigh,

You’re the reason why I fly.”

As Astarion finished his verse and took another bow, you looked at him with admiration. Lord Reginald gave a respectful nod.

“Your performance was most admirable, Astarion,” Lord Reginald said, his voice filled with respect, and thankfully, no more rhymes. “I concede that the heart of the fair Y/N is yours, though I shall continue to admire her from afar.”

You stepped forward, your eyes sparkling with appreciation. “Thank you, Lord Reginald. That was quite an entertaining duel.” 

Without another rhyme, Lord Reginald turned, clanking down the path and out of the village.

The two of you watched him walk away for a moment before you turned to him, smirking. “The reason that you fly, eh?”

Astarion frowned, facing you. “Oh, don’t you dare. Did you see what I was up against? The bastard was, unfortunately, rather well-spoken, if not annoying. Like Gale,” he spat.

You laugh. “I’m just teasing you. Your ballad was quite charming.”

He rolled his eyes, smirking. “Well, you weren’t exactly against embracing your role as a muse.”

Your exchange was interrupted by a burst of joyful laughter and the sound of rustling leaves. In the center of the village square stood an enormous, exuberant tree. Its branches swayed with an upbeat rhythm, and its bark seemed to be drawn on. The tree had eyes, large and twinkling with excitement, that were set in knots in the wood. 

“Oh, oh! They’re coming!” the tree’s voice rang out in a sing-song tone. “Hey, over here! It’s Arboris! I’m a talking tree!”

You looked at each other, brows furrowed, before approaching the odd sight. 

“Hello, there! I’m Arboris!” the tree repeated, looking at the two of you expectantly. You hesitated before giving it your names. “Hello, Arboris. I’m Y/N, and this is Astarion.”

The tree’s branches shook again. “Oh, I am so absolutely thrilled to meet you! Yes, I am! What fun we shall have!” 

You crossed your arms. “Gods, please don’t burst out into rhymes,” Astarion quipped under his breath. 

“To continue your delightful journey, you must solve my riddles. Oh, but you two are such pleasant company, I almost don’t want to tell them to you! Oh, what a dilemma!” they cried, casting their eyes to the ground. 

You and Astarion exchanged another glance- you’d hardly said a thing. In fact, the pair of you likely came off as stand-offish. Pleasant company wasn’t the first thing that came to your mind. 

“Riddles, you say?” he asked, his tone curious. 

Arboris clapped their branches together in delight, shaking deep green leaves onto the ground, seemingly forgetting about being upset. 

“Oh, yes, yes! And with such a splendid theme at that! I’m positively giddy! Here comes the first one!”

They continued clapping for a moment longer before they stilled completely, eyes turning a deep shade of purple. In an ominous voice, they declared:

“I am a bond that binds hearts tight, 

A feeling that makes everything right.

I’m often whispered, sometimes declared,

In moments of joy or when hearts are bared.

What am I?”

Arboris began waving again happily, as if nothing had changed about them. “Come on, come on, what is it?” they squealed. 

You turn to Astarion as you contemplate the riddle. 

“Do you think they ever run out of rhymes here?” he groaned.

You ignored him. “Let’s see.. If I was the optimistic type.. Hmm. It sounds like ‘love’ itself!”

Astarion nodded, grinning. “Yes, it has to be love.”

With a smile, you spoke aloud, “The answer is love!”

Arboris became even more animated, branches swaying in a celebratory dance. “Brilliant! Oh, how wonderful! You’re so clever! Now, onto the second riddle!”

They grew still again, eyes turning the same shade of purple:

“I am a gesture that’s sweet and dear, Often given when loved ones are near. I can be soft or full of fire, I’m a sign of affection and desire. What am I?”

Astarion’s face lit up with recognition. “Why, it’s a kiss!”

You nod in agreement. “Yes, it’s definitely a kiss.”

You answer in unison, “A kiss!”

Arboris practically danced with joy, their branches moving in a jubilant swirl. “Oh, how splendid! You’re doing marvelously! I can hardly believe it! Now for the final riddle!”

The tree stilled once more:

“I am a bond that ties two hearts, A connection that never departs. Though time may pass and distance grow, Our feelings for each other always show. What am I?”

You and Astarion looked at each other. After a moment, you speak up with a smile.

“It’s a promise. It’s the bond between hearts that remains strong.. despite time and distance.”

Astarion nodded in agreement. “Yes, it’s definitely a promise.”

Arboris’ branches erupted in a cascade of sparkling leaves and squealed. “Bravo! Oh goodness me! You’ve answered all my riddles with such flair and insight! What a delightful pair you are indeed!” 

The two of you smiled at each other, despite the barrage of rhymes. 

“Oh, carry on now, on your adventure! But do remember our time together, when you met Arboris, the talking tree!” They waved a branch at you in goodbye. 

You and Astarion turned and walked down another cobbled path, laughing to yourselves about the encounter. 

“That creature was something else, wasn’t it?” Astarion remarked, a smirk tugging at his lips. “I think Arboris might have been a bit too cheerful for my taste.”

You chuckle. “You know, I think Arboris and Halsin would get along famously. Imagine the two of them together- enjoying the freedom of nature’s gifts,” you said, mocking your druid companion’s deep tone. 

Astarion let out a sharp laugh, before mocking the tree. “Oh, Halsin, pick my leaves! And Halsin would be like, 'very well, if the Oakfather sees fit'.”

The two of you laughed, shaking your head. Turning a corner, a grand mansion adorned with opulent decorations came into view. It was certainly out of place in the sleepy village; the mansion’s splendor was undeniable, with intricate carvings and luxurious tapestries giving it an air of aristocracy. 

Standing at the entrance was a striking noblewoman. Her gown, a flowing ensemble of crimson and gold, was adorned with sparkling jewels that caught the light with every subtle movement. 

The woman spotted the two of you, and her eyes lit up with an unmistakable glint of interest. Her gaze lingered on Astarion. 

“Well, well! What a delightful surprise!” the woman exclaimed, her voice rich and melodious. “I am Lady Seraphina, and I must say, it is a pleasure to meet such.. Intriguing individuals.”

Astarion, ever the epitome of charm, inclined his head in polite greeting. “The pleasure is all ours, Lady Seraphina. I am Astarion, and this is Y/N.”

You offered a courteous nod, but you couldn’t help but feel a twinge of discomfort as Lady Seraphina’s gaze became increasingly fixed on Astarion. The noblewoman’s approach was not merely cordial; it was laden with flirtation. 

“Ah, Astarion,” Lady Seraphina purred, her voice dripping with exaggerated affection. “You’re quite the striking adventurer, aren’t you? I’d love to hear more about your travels. Perhaps you’d care to join me for a private chat inside? I’m sure we could find many… fascinating topics to discuss.”

As she spoke, Lady Seraphina’s hand brushed against Astarion’s arm, lingering a moment longer than necessary. Her eyes were wide with an artful blend of admiration and seduction. For you, the sight was a jarring contrast to the polite distance you were accustomed to. Your heart raced with a blend of irritation and something deeper- an emotion you hadn’t expected to feel so intensely.

You had always prided yourself on your composure and self-control. Yet seeing Lady Seraphina made your chest tighten with a pang of jealousy. The way her eyes sparkled as she looked at Astarion, the subtle but unmistakable way she attempted to draw him away from you- it all seemed to chip away at your usually steadfast resolve. 

You had been trying to ignore the way Astarion’s charm seemed to attract attention from all quarters, but this was different. The noblewoman’s words were brazen and direct, and the unspoken challenge was impossible to miss. You felt a surge of uncharacteristic possessiveness; it was clear Lady Seraphina was trying to seduce Astarion, and the sight stung. 

Taking a deep breath, you stepped forward. “Lady Seraphina, while your offer is generous, Astarion and I have our own plans. We prefer to explore the village together.”

Your tone was steady, but there was an edge to your words that surprised even you. Lady Seraphina’s eyes widened slightly, her practiced charm faltering for a moment as she processed your unexpected intervention. 

“Oh?” she replied, her voice carrying a note of barely concealed irritation. “It’ll only be a moment, I’m sure.” 

You look at your companion who seemed to be smitten with the fact he was being flirted with. He glanced at you, devilish smirk gracing his features. You felt a tug from the tadpole burrowed in your head.

‘Just playing my part.. Like you did so graciously with Lord Reginald.’

With that, the lady tugged him into the mansion, the loud thud of the wooden doors closing in front of you making you jump.

“You bastard!” you shouted, hoping he could hear you despite the thickness of the door. 

You shake your head before becoming lost in thought. ‘Is he trying to make me.. Jealous?’ you thought to yourself. Because dammit all, it was working. 

What in the hells had come over you? When Madame Delphine had forced you to reflect on your relationship with the vampire, you realized something that you had tried to suppress deep down. With the weight of the entire realm on your shoulders, feeling anything for anyone was selfish, would deter you from the task.

Oh, but the way Astarion made you feel. He made you feel alive. Like you could do anything, be anything. And you could only hope you made him feel the same way.

After a minute or two, you couldn’t help but be drawn back to reality, or whatever it was, by the heaviness of the situation. You had to go get Astarion.

You pushed the door open quietly and stepped in, being greeted by an equally lavish hallway. What appeared to be hundreds of other hallways branched off of it, all lined with doors. 

“Oh, hells,” you murmured to yourself. You took off down one hallway, picking up the ends of your dress to ensure you didn’t trip over it. Slowly, you had managed to make your way down the entire branch, pressing an ear to each door and hearing nothing. 

Feeling defeated, you turned to walk back down to the main hallway, when suddenly, a shrill scream rang out. A door burst open, and there Astarion stood, gasping for breath. He caught your eye in an instant. 

“Oh gods, Y/N, you have to hear this- Lady Seraphina was trying to-” His eyes were wide, and his cheeks slightly flushed as he struggled to find the right words. “I didn’t think she would actually, well, you know..” You stared at him in confusion, and right before the realization dawned, Astarion shouted it out.

“Gods, Y/N, she was trying to fuck me!”

“Are you always this stupid, or are you making a special effort to torment me?” you shot back. “I could’ve told you that at the front door!”

You couldn’t help but burst into laughter at the sight of the visibly flustered vampire. He rolled his eyes as you reached your arm out to him. He linked his in yours, and the two of you began to run out of the mansion. You leaned in, your laughter mingling with his as you navigated the lavish hallways.  

As you exited the mansion, Astarion leaned against the door, finally having a moment to catch his breath. 

“Now, before you say anything,” he panted, “I didn’t go in with the intention of that happening.” You placed a hand on your hip. “Oh? And what intention did you go in with? Playing a friendly game of lanceboard and having a glass of wine?”

He glanced sideways at you, and hesitated. For a moment you thought he wasn’t going to speak at all, but then he continued. “I thought it might be a bit… amusing to see if I could make you a little jealous.”

You raised an eyebrow, a sense of relief washing over you. “And what in the hells made you think that was a good idea?”

Astarion shrugged. “Well.. you made me endure Lord Reginald’s attempts to make you swoon. I thought I might return the favor with a little.. Strategic distraction.” You laugh. “That’s rather bold of you.”

Astarion’s lips curved into a grin, exposing his pearly fangs. “Ah, but there’s something rather intriguing about seeing you flustered. And I must say, it worked better than I expected.”

Just as you went to respond, Madame Delphine appeared, her arrival marked by a swirl of colorful mist and an air of dramatic flair. She had changed into an extravagant gown of deep purple and red, and her face was covered by a mask resembling a cat.

“Voila!” she stated, twirling around before meeting the expectant gaze of you and Astarion. “Impressive, hmm? Weren’t expecting that, were you? Then again, you two have done all sorts of things I haven’t expected.” She paused for a second and looked at Astarion. “Lovely rhymes, by the way.”

Astarion scoffed as she pulled out a letter from her corset. “Why does everyone act so surprised by that?”

Madame Delphine gingerly handed you the parchment. “I have a final challenge for you- one that is both grand and delightful.”

Astarion turned to face her fully. “And what might that be?”

Madame Delphine’s smile widened as you opened the letter. “You are cordially invited to the Enchanted Revelry! Oh, it will be a wonderful time. It will be the final challenge of your journey here in Fable’s End. A chance to showcase not just your charming features, but your true feelings for one another in the most enchanting of settings.”

“The- what?” you ask, tilting your head.

“Why, a masquerade ball, lovey! Simply attend, I’ll do the rest. I’ll be just like your Faerie Godmother, eh?”

Astarion raised an eyebrow and turned to you. “Well, it seems we’re in for quite the evening.”

You grinned, nudging him playfully. “I’m sure the revelry will be just the thing to top off our adventure. I mean, we’ve already faced the barrage of ballads- a ball should be a piece of cake.”

Madame Delphine clapped her hands together with glee. “Excellent! I shall see you both at the ball.” In her usual burst of theatrical flair, she conjured a majestic castle right before your eyes. The building seemed to rise from the very heart of the village, its walls sparkling. 

With a final, enthusiastic wave, she disappeared.

The grand entrance of the castle loomed before you, adorned with cascading banners and glittering lights. From beyond the doors, you could hear elegant music playing, and the scent of delectable treats wafted through open windows. You couldn’t help but feel excited- despite your predicament, whether it was inside a book or out in the real realm, attempting to keep mind flayers at bay, you were still a girl, enchanted by dancing and big dresses. 

As you entered the castle, the doors closed behind you with a soft, resonant thud. The ballroom was an exquisite spectacle, with crystal chandeliers casting a soft glow over an elaborate dance floor. Couples swirled elegantly in their masks and gowns, their laughter mingling with the melodious strains of the distant orchestra.

However, as you and Astarion stepped into the ballroom, you were separated by an unexpected enchantment. A gust of wind swept through the hall, and you found yourself alone on one side of the grand space. 

“Wait!” you called out, your voice tinged with urgency. “Astarion!”

But your call was swallowed by the crowd, and Astarion was soon lost among the masked revelers. Frustration and concern mingled in your chest as you scanned the ballroom, trying to catch a glimpse of him.

As you struggled to find your way through the throng of masked guests, Madame Delphine appeared beside you once again. With a wave of her wand, she conjured a resplendent gown for you.

The gown shimmered with hues of deep emerald and silver, its fabric flowing like liquid moonlight. Accompanying the gown was an intricately designed mask, shaped like a graceful fox with delicate filigree patterns.

“There you are!” Madame Delphine said, her voice filled with delight. “You look enchanting! Now, to find Astarion, you must let your heart guide you.”

Before you could respond, Madame Delphine vanished in a swirl of sparkling mist, leaving you alone in your magnificent new attire. Taking a deep breath, you steeled yourself and stepped into the ballroom.

The grandeur of the castle was breathtaking, with its high ceilings and sweeping staircases leading to ornate balconies. The guests, all adorned in their own elaborate masks and gowns, danced and mingled beneath the glittering chandeliers. You felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation as you moved through the crowd, your eyes scanning each masked gentleman with hopeful anticipation.

Every masked face you encountered seemed to carry an air of mystery, and the enchantment of the night made it difficult to distinguish one from another. Despite your frustration, you found yourself caught up in the rhythm of the event, letting the music and the atmosphere guide you.

On the other side of the ballroom, Astarion wandered about, half blinded by his own mask. The dance floor was a swirling sea of masked figures, their costumes and masks creating a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. To the casual observer, Astarion might have seemed like just another guest, but his every movement betrayed a focused intent. His eyes, sharp and alert, scanned the crowd with a keen determination. This hunt was different from any he had known before—it was not for prey, but for the one person who had captured his heart.

Astarion’s movements were smooth and calculated, each step and turn a testament to his skill in navigating both physical and social landscapes. He slipped through the crowd with the ease of a shadow, his gaze shifting and darting as he searched for you. The ballroom's ambiance—the swirling music, the laughter, and the gentle clinking of glasses—seemed to fade into the background as he honed in on his target.

His mind raced with thoughts of you, each memory a vivid reminder of why this search was so crucial. You, with your grace and warmth, had become the center of his world. The way you moved, the way you spoke, and even the way you challenged him—it was all part of what drew him to you. This hunt was driven by an emotional urgency, a longing to find you and be with you.

The thrill of the hunt, so familiar to him, was now tinged with a new, profound significance. It was no longer the thrill of the chase for its own sake, but rather the pursuit of something far more precious. Each masked face he passed seemed to blend into the next, a sea of anonymity that only heightened his determination. His heart pounded not just with the excitement of the chase, but with a deeper, more intimate anticipation.

He maneuvered through the crowd, his senses attuned to every subtle shift in the atmosphere. Astarion's eyes, narrowed in focus, finally caught sight of a familiar figure amidst the revelry. His heart quickened as he recognized your elegant silhouette, your back turned to him.

As he approached you, the world seemed to narrow to just the space between you. The masks and costumes of the other guests fell away, leaving only you in his field of vision. He moved with a purposeful elegance, closing the distance with a sense of anticipation that was both thrilling and a bit terrifying.

You spun around, seeing Astarion standing several paces away. Behind his mask, his gaze locked onto yours with an intensity that spoke of both relief and adoration.

Astarion, with his predatory grace now softened by his genuine feelings, bowed before reaching out and offering a hand. The search had led him to the person he had come to love, and the fulfillment of that pursuit was more satisfying than he could have ever imagined.

As the music shifted to a softer, more melodic tune, the ballroom seemed to clear slightly, allowing you and Astarion to draw closer. For a moment, time seemed to stand still. You hurried towards each other, weaving through the remaining dancers.

Finally, you met in the center of the ballroom, where the music swelled, filling the space with a sweeping, romantic melody. Astarion’s eyes were alight with joy as he took your hands in his.

“There you are,” he said softly. “I was beginning to think I’d never find you.”

You smiled, your eyes shining as you looked up at him. “I was searching for you, too. However, I knew I would find you.”

The orchestra’s music swirled around you, and as if by design, the dancers around you fell away, leaving you and Astarion alone in your own world. Astarion held you close, his hands resting gently on your waist as he guided you through the dance. 

Your heart was racing. The way Astarion’s gaze lingered on you, the warmth of his touch, and the rhythm of your dance all combined to create a profound sense of connection. You felt as if the entire evening had led to this singular, perfect moment.

As the waltz reached its crescendo, the dance seemed to slow, drawing you closer. The music swirled around you, and as you moved together in the final, lingering steps, your faces drew near. Gently, Astarion pulled up his mask, then yours. You could feel his cool breath fanning against your face. 

“Well, my dear,” he began, voice barely above a whisper. “It seems we’ve survived this.. Masquerade of madness. But before the curtain falls on our little performance, there’s one last thing I’d like to do. 

You raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the intimacy of the moment. By him. “Oh? And what might that be?”

“I was wondering… since we’ve managed to breeze our way through every other challenge, would it be terribly forward of me to ask if I might kiss you?”

You felt your heart skip a beat at his words, but you quickly regained your composure, matching his playful tone. “Terribly forward? Perhaps,” you replied with a smirk, “but then again, when has that ever stopped you?”

Astarion chuckled softly. “Touché. But I’d rather not assume. After all, I’ve been trying to behave myself… most of the time.”

You tilted your head slightly, your smile softening as you looked at him. “Well, since you’ve been so well-behaved, I suppose I can grant you this one request.”

Astarion’s expression shifted, a mixture of genuine affection and delight replacing the earlier teasing. “In that case, I shall take this rare opportunity and make the most of it.”

With a gentleness that belied his usual bravado, Astarion leaned in and pressed his lips to yours in a tender, lingering kiss. It was a kiss filled with unspoken words and emotions that had been building between them for so long. It was a revelation, a silent admission of everything you had been too guarded or too afraid to say. His hand, cold and steady, cradled the back of your neck, drawing you even closer. 

As you slowly pulled away, the lingering sensation of the kiss remained, a sweet ache that left both of you breathless. Your foreheads pressed together, and the quiet after the kiss was filled with a newfound understanding. It was as if the kiss had woven a thread between your hearts, something strong and unbreakable, a promise of what was to come. “Thank you, Y/N. For the dance, for the adventure… and for this.”

You smiled, your heart full as you looked into his eyes. “The pleasure was mine, Astarion.”

Before you could fully savor the moment, a sudden shift in the air signaled a change.

The grand ballroom began to dissolve around you, the enchanting lights and sounds fading away. As you felt yourselves being transported back to your world, the figures of Madame Delphine, Arboris, Lady Seraphina, and Lord Reginald became visible once more. 

Madame Delphine waved energetically, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “Farewell, my dear adventurers! Until our paths cross again!”

Arboris, despite being clearly uprooted, was placed on a velvet chaise lounge, a tablecloth draped over them. They gave a jovial wave, their branches and leaves rustling with the movement. “Bye bye, dear friends! Oh, do be good!”

Lady Seraphina, now dressed in an elegant gown that matched her haughty demeanor, offered a graceful nod. Though her expression was one of polite interest rather than warmth, there was a hint of amusement in her eyes. “It seems you managed quite well… despite our little disagreement.”

Lord Reginald, wearing an oversized blazer, gave a flourish with his lance, his voice carrying a hint of good-natured pride. “Bravo! Your performance was most impressive. Until we meet, I’ll hope you’ll be-” he turned to Lady Seraphina. “Damn it all! What rhymes with impressive?”

With a final burst of magical light, you found yourselves back in your own world, sitting right where you had first touched the book. Gale was the first thing you saw, his hand waving in front of your face with a look of mild concern. 

“Ah, there you are! Welcome back to the land of the living,” he said, his voice tinged with relief. “You’ve been out for over an hour. We were starting to get worried.”

Before either of you could respond, Shadowheart’s voice echoed from within her tent. “Hold on, Gale! I finally found the spell!”

Gale waved a hand dismissively in the direction of Shadowheart's tent, clearly more interested in ensuring you and Astarion were alright. But Astarion, with a rare, contented smile, simply waved him off. “We’re fine, Gale. We just… had a bit of an adventure.”

Gale raised an eyebrow, clearly curious but perhaps wisely choosing not to pry. “Well, as long as you’re both alright,” he said, stepping back to give you some space. With a final glance between the two of you, he turned and walked away, leaving you and Astarion alone.

You sat there in the fading light, the camp bustling quietly around you, but it all seemed distant, unimportant. What mattered now was the shared experience that had shifted something fundamental between you. Astarion’s hand still held yours, and as he looked at you, his usual teasing smirk softened into something more sincere.

“Y/N,” he began, his voice low and thoughtful, “I know we’ve been through a lot together, but what we just experienced… it felt different, didn’t it?”

You nodded, your eyes meeting his with a mix of understanding and affection. “It did. It was like everything we’ve been avoiding or denying just came to the surface. And now… now I can’t imagine not having you in my life.”

Astarion’s grip on your hand tightened slightly, as if anchoring himself to the moment. “I feel the same. I’ve spent so long not trusting, not letting anyone get too close… but with you, it’s different. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know one thing—I want you in it. I want to be a part of your life, whatever that looks like.”

Your heart swelled at his words, and you smiled, a soft, genuine smile that reached your eyes. “I want that too, Astarion. Whatever happens, we’ll face it together.”

As if drawn together by an invisible force, you leaned in, sharing a kiss that was both a reaffirmation of your bond and a vow for the future. This kiss was slower, more deliberate, filled with the understanding that you were stepping into something new, something lasting.

When you finally pulled apart, the world around you came back into focus. The camp, the fire, the distant sounds of your companions—it was all still there, but now it felt different, brighter, as if the future you had just spoken of was already beginning to unfold.

You leaned your head on Astarion's shoulder, a small smile playing on your lips. “You know,” you murmured, “I think we make a pretty good team, even when we’re thrown into ridiculous situations.”

Astarion chuckled, gently resting his cheek against the top of your head. “Ridiculous is an understatement, my dear. But yes, I suppose we do make a rather formidable duo, don’t we?”

You nodded, your smile growing as you closed your eyes, savoring the closeness between you. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Neither would I,” he whispered.

You sat there in silence, the night wrapping around you like a cozy blanket. And as Astarion glanced over at Gale, a mischievous glint in his eyes, he couldn’t help but add, “But I really do look forward to calling him Lord Reginald.”

You burst into a fit of giggles, and Astarion grinned, his heart lighter than it had been in centuries. The adventure was far from over, but for now, you had found something even more precious—each other.

[libraford]

We are having a rough 2023 and it's about to get rougher.

Our attempt to buy a home fell through, our attempt to move to a cheaper apartment fell through, my car needed over 1k$ in emergency repairs, stuff keeps breaking, and this month (july) our roommates are moving into their own house, which means my rent is doubled until my fiancée can find a job and/or we can get a roommate to replace them. I can make just barely enough to cover rent at my job, but it leaves very little room for food and utilities. I'm looking into subsistence programs.

Roommates were the owners of a lot of the furniture, kitchen gadgets, electronics, etc. We're getting a lot of furniture from relatives, garage sales, and buy nothing groups, but there's a handful of items that will be difficult to obtain or that are little things that add up.

Here's how you can help.

We have an Amazon wishlist, which is mostly kitchen things that we need, plus a few things that would be nice to have. We will be adding some things to the list as our roommates pack their stuff and we take inventory of our shared spaces.

I have written a lot of things. Here's a book about pretending to be a god in rural Appalachia for money, and its sequel about how many ways a wedding can go awry. Or are you nostalgic for pre-covid problems? The Glue Famine chronicles my journey through a retail trend that baffled everyone involved. Buying a book encourages authors to write more books and that is a threat!

I have two excellent cartomancy decks. The Sweeney Tarot is 10 years old and it's still a fan favorite. I just released a 10 year anniversary edition with better quality print and a nicer box.

There is also my new, experimental oracle: The Motif Deck. You can read more about this deck and what sets it apart from other decks here.

Here is my etsy, which is where you can get some cool iron on patches.

Here is my redbubble where you can get some cool stickers and other stuff, especially if you like moths or weird animals. Lots of queer things there, too! Redbubble stickers are strong enough to hold up as bumper stickers- I have noticed, if that sweetens the deal.

Here's where you can order prints of my erasure art paintings.

Also if you like some of my photos from @photo-critter some of the nature and animal ones are available for prints as well.

And if you just want to help out without getting anything in return, there is always sending a donation via Kofi.

There is absolutely no obligation to contribute, but if you've enjoyed my stories or seen something you like and needed an excuse to buy it, or if you just want to help, really we appreciate anything that comes our way.

Thank you, once again, to everyone that has offered to help. Even if its just the tiniest bit of a commission from a sticker- it helps.

[bingusbongu]

A/n: whoa!!!!! I didnt expect my sun and moon post to blow up in a day! Seriously yall- you guys are amazing- as a bew tumblr writer, it makes me really happy and want to continue! So, as a treat, i present to you......

SUN AND MOON IMAGINES!!!!!

May you enjoy your feast my children

IMAGINE you coming in early to work, clocking in just to see your favorite animatronic jester. You two were very close, and you found yourself wanting to spend more and more time with him

When you open the door to the daycare and call out to the jester, its almost immediate a response of 'SUNSHINE?!' and a happy 8ft tall robot sprinting towards you

He scoops you up into a hug, giggling and smiling with pure happiness, after you allowed Sun pick up hugs, he now picked you up every time you enter the daycare, and hugging you tightly, before letting lose and excitedly babbling how excited he is to see you, while not putting you back down on the ground. And you just listen to him list every idea he had for today and the little ones.

IMAGINE when the daycare opens, and the kids are playing and running around playing games and doing weird macaroni art. Sun couldnt keep his eyes off of you.

He would watch you tend to an argument that sparked between two kids and a toy. He would watch as you gently calm the situation down abd find a solution to make both kids happy. He dosnt even realize his rays spinning and his fans whirring until a kid points it out, and he is a flustered mess.

IMAGINE a kid walking up to you and Sun. You asked what the kid needed, and he just points up at Sun and flat out tells you that 'Mr Sun has a crush on you'

Sun becoming a stuttering mess as his fans kick in attempt to cool his system as he quickly tries to deny what the kid said, covering his mouth with his big robotic hand, as he giggles nervously

You couldnt help but giggle at the display of Sun frantically trying to get the kids from telling you that he had a huge crush on you. So, to make matters worse, you said 'oh i know, i like him too' before walking away to go deal with a macaroni art misshap

Sun standing there completely stunned as he watches you walk away. Feeling as if he completely had overheated, as his gears hummed loudly in his body and his sunrays spinning in an constamt speed

The kids wouldnt stop singing about Sun and You sitting in a tree

IMAGINE when naptime roles around, and the kids had grown tired of running around and teasing the poor daycare attendant. As they crawl into their little comfy cots in the napping corner, all snuggled into their blankets after you tucked each and one of them comfortably

as the lights flickered off, and the nightlights flickering on, Moon emerges ingo the corner with a hum. As he tries to settle the rest of the kids to bed, they beg him for a story. Moon, having no choice, grabs a childrens book from the little shelf they had and began to read to the kids

He would flip the book around so the kids could see the illustrations of the book while he reads out the words and acts out the voices, getting thekods laughing as they grow tired. Until the kids would start yawning and laying their heads down to rest

Lifting his head up from the book to make sure tge kids were okay, he noticed all of them sleeping peacfully. He was about to close the book, before he noticed you sitting infront of him with a gentle smile and your full attention on him, asking him to continue the book

He would stutter in suprise, preventing his voicebox from glitching as to not wake up the kids, and cleared his nonexistent throat to keep reading to you, looking up at you occasionally, just to see your face looking down at the book and moon. He couldn't help but feel his wires spark inside him every time you giggled at his hushed voices

IMAGINE Moon and you carefully leaving the naptime corner, so you two could talk without disturbing the little ones rest. In hushed voices, you both chat happily away while joking with one another

Moon absolutely adoring when he manages to get you to laugh at one of his stupid jokes. Admiring the smile on your face and how you grip your gut snd your other hand over your mouth to prevent yourself from laughing to hard and keeping yoursel quiet

IMAGINE you and Moon playing a game together ad you liked to do during naptime. A simple game of hide and seek where you go hide, and moon crawls around to try and find you. The fastest he ever found you was ubder 5 minutes, because he could sense your heart pounding

Regardless, you get better abd better each time. Memorizing the play structures each time you did, and how to distract moon by pushing stuff over as a distraction for you to move poditions. You learned to keep moving and not stay in ons area for two long

But no matter what, Moon will always find you in the end, adding another win to his win streak smile. And of course, he teases the heck out of you for being third place(because Sun likes to participate)

And Moon alway snatching you out of your hiding spot and dragging you somewhere else, and youre used to it so you dont fight it

IMAGINE Moon huffing when he realized soon he should wake the kids so you and Sun could get them ready to go home, but he hates having his time with you ended.

So instead, he will sit on the floor with you as you both waited on time. His head in your lap as you pet his metal forhead in soothing circles. You dudnt know if Moon could feel it, but you still did it anyway. And, just with your touch, it makes his purrs vibrate even louder if it wasnt already. With the biggest smug grin on his mechanical mouth

IMAGINE after the Kids are woken up gently by the two of you, helping them fold up their blankets abd cots to make it all nice so its one less thing the attendant has to worry about

Moon will always grumble about not being happy that Sun gets more tims with you, but you reasure him that you always stay for awhile befoe heading home to spend time with your favorite jests

But, just a minute before the lights going out, you pressed a soft peck of a kiss on the Moon mans lips, causing him to freeze and his gears stopping for a moment in stunned silence. Before Moon could say something ot ask for more, youre already helping a kid and the lights back on

IMAGINE as Sun gives the last child to their parents, a big smile on his face as usual as the parents thank him and turn to take their kid back home with smiles on their faces.

Sun would sigh happily as he watched the family leaving, feeling a strong pain in his chest. Whipping his head around to make sure you were still there witg them. And of course, you're cleaning off the arts and crafts table He smiled in relief at the sight of you desprately trying to get glitter glue off of the table.

Before you knew it, you had arms wrapped around your waist and pulling you into another pick-up hug. Pressing your back to his face as he giggled happily. Praising you with compliments about how you were today with the kids. And of course, when you compliment him back, he gets so goddy and excited, he squeals and just hugs you tighter

Before your words came back into his mind, making his hands fidget as he held you, becoming less tighter than usual. And you noticed, asking him what was on his mind. He tried playing it off but gave up when you gave him that look

He gets all stumbly and tries ro express his words, but it only comes out as gibberish. The wirring of his fans not even helping the situation one bit. Trying to figure out how to ask you to give him a kiss like you did Moon

And thankfully for you, you almost immediately caught on and smiled softly, finding Suns actions adorable, making you giggle. Having to put your hand up and cup Suns cheek to get him to stop rambling and get him to focus on you.

Once you had his attention, you lean forward and press a kiss to tip of Suns metal lips, just as you did moon

_____________

Waaaa hope you enjoyed!!!! Sorry for my grammatically errors, i may be an American, but im not great with that

Have a good day/night!!!!!

Sun+Moon: *lovesick idiots*

Y/N: *just an idiot*

[blazehedgehog]

After watching SAGE's 2024 trailer, you ever get the feeling that most people want to be making indie games instead of fan games nowadays,? Every year there's been less and less fan works there.

This is the first year I've really felt it in any meaningful way.

There have been attempts for more than a decade to rename SAGE to drop the "Sonic" part. I've always pushed back against that and at this point the branding is too strong to give up, I think. People know about and come to SAGE because the brand is strong. Renaming it would be a death sentence.

Taking off my business hat, it's a bummer to see fangames in the minority here. Everybody wants to hop on that indie game gravy train and chase the success of Pizza Tower (seriously, count how many Pizza Tower clones are in the trailer this year) or Freedom Planet or Spark the Electric Jester or whatever.

And it's easy to congratulate people for striking out on their own and making original games. I was one of the many voices urging Sabrina to divorce Freedom Planet from the Sonic franchise and make it into an original game she could sell. So she ran a crowdfunding campaign (multiple, actually), was successful, and now we have two Freedom Planet games. And that's great!

But... does that mean all fangames should go away forever?

The example I lean on the hardest is comic books.

A lot of the guys who created the biggest super heroes aren't around anymore. They gave up control long ago or are straight up dead now. These books are effectively officialized fanfiction now, as are the $300,000,000 movies based on them. An ever-increasing number of people writing, drawing and directing these characters today were not alive when they were originally created.

But people still keep writing Batman stories, officially or otherwise. Because there are some stories you can only tell with Batman. Now, you could break off and make your own character that's similar to Batman, build up this history for him, and then finally tell your original story with that character. And maybe that's satisfying, to have built something of your own like that.

But for one: that's a lot of work. Batman is interesting because he has decades (almost a century now) of history behind him to play off of and work with. There are people out there who will tell you to just start writing your dream story and forget about building up to it first, but that's more about motivation and confidence than the idea that stories don't need historical context.

And two: that's already been done.

There's a good chance you know who Rob Liefeld is from his, uh, "distinctive" art style. He also created Deadpool, a katana-wielding mercenary assassin that dresses in red and black, whose real name is Wade Wilson. But before Deadpool, he created Deathstroke, a katana-wielding mercenary assassin that dresses in orange and black, whose real name is Slade Wilson.

Here is a guy who has built a career on copying his own work (and the work of others) over and over and over again.

Did it make Rob Liefeld rich and famous? Technically yes, but he kind of got rich because other people made better work using his characters, and he's famous for being kind of a hack.

So which is better?

Creative output you can do right here, right now, today, but is considered "fanfiction" or "fanart" or a "fangame", which may or may not lead to you being the person handling the official thing at some point down the road...

Or spending years of your life toiling to bring an original concept to life, and even if you struggle through all of the boredom and hardship of getting your original product out the door, it gets lost in the noise of now-million other creators trying to do the exact same thing. And then, at the end of your launch, after 2, 3, even 5 years of working and working and working, you've only made enough money to cover rent on your apartment for a month and a half.

Or, to put it another way:

Are you ditching fangame development because you have a legitimately great story you want to tell, or are you just doing it because you can't make money on a fangame?

Are you just creating another Bloodstrike?

As someone who has struggled to justify putting lots of hard work into a fangame myself, and have both made very popular fangames and some not-so-great original games, I don't know if I have a definitive answer for you. But I do wish there were more fangames at the fangaming event, and I will say, as always, if I could get paid a livable wage for making fangames, I would drop everything and do it in a heartbeat.

[usergreenpixel]

MALMAISON MEDIA SALON SOIRÉE 20: NAPOLEON’S ELYSIUM (2011)

1. The Introduction

Hello, dear Neighbors. Welcome back to Malmaison Media Salon. Oh look, we have an anniversary already!

In order to celebrate the occasion, I decided to post a long overdue review of “Napoleon’s Elysium” by Diane Scott Lewis. The book was actually brought to my attention by @suburbanbeatnik , who did the cover art for this particular edition of the book.

Now, usually I’m not the biggest fan of romance novels (not a dig at the authors, just not my thing), but this book was recommended by a mutual I trust, so I did give it a try. As for my impressions, we’ll get to them in a minute.

By the way, the book is currently available on Amazon and Kindle, but @suburbanbeatnik (to whom this review is dedicated) sent an EPUB version to me by email many months ago, so I didn’t purchase it.

Alright, now let’s get to the review!

2. The Summary

Amélie Perrault is a nineteen-year old daughter of a cook, who joins her father and the rest of the servants in order to share Napoleon’s exile on St. Helena.

Dreaming of becoming a successful erotica author, Amélie hopes to work on her novel in her spare time and uses the information she obtained from other novels in order to write the details of her story.

However, her unexpected feelings for the former emperor and a desire to find out who has been poisoning him complicate the situation in more ways than expected.

3. The Story

As I said, I’m not the biggest fan of romantic subplots or novels where romance is the main plotline, so imagine my surprise when I found myself finishing this book in one sitting!

The romance between Amélie and Napoleon is portrayed very realistically, considering the differences in age and social standing. Both aspects are things that other characters point out, and it’s very clear that Amélie and Napoleon are at very different stages of life.

Their bond evolves very naturally over time, without the story feeling like a bad fanfic. I would say that it is a very slow burn kind of romance.

Not to mention, I really enjoyed the detective plot line of investigating who is poisoning Napoleon and the adventure plot line involving his plans to escape.

Also, Amélie’s attempts to write her novel are very relatable. She wants to be strong and independent like her main character, but she is clearly a different person and is not the protagonist of her novel. I aspire to be an author too, so I definitely relate to the scenes of Amélie picking up ideas for her story or asking for advice on how to improve it.

Oh, and also there are a few characters who die in the novel, but they stay dead and these become very important plot points.

4. The Characters

Amélie Perrault wants to be a strong, independent woman, but luckily it doesn’t feel out of place for that time period. She just has ideas inspired by Enlightenment mixed with being young and a free spirit.

She is a very flawed, realistically written spunky young woman, but her heart is in the right place and she is one of the few people genuinely loyal to Napoleon.

Napoleon himself is definitely jaded, occasionally prone to outbursts and quite petty at times, but he doesn’t want Amélie to feel like she’s being taken advantage of and he genuinely loves her. In fact, it’s her idealism that inspires Napoleon to plan an escape from his exile instead of giving up.

Chef Perrault, Amélie’s father, is quite realistic too. He does believe in education for women, but he is still very protective of his daughter and at times still treats her like a child, which is understandable.

Count and Countess de Montholon are portrayed as traitors and ass-kissers.

Fanny Bertrand is a sweetheart who genuinely helps Amélie with her novel.

Clarice, another servant, is a bitch who starts out very shallow, promiscuous and rude towards Amélie, but then reveals information that helps the investigation of who is behind poisoning Napoleon.

Jules, the manservant of Montholon, is a fucking creep.

Ali, Napoleon’s personal servant, becomes a friend to Amélie and an ally who helps her navigate the environment of the St. Helena “court”.

5. The Setting

Fantastic writing and vivid descriptions of the island and other locations!

6. The Writing

The writing is sublime for the most part, but sometimes the characters drop phrases in French, which I did find a bit jarring when compared to the rest of the dialogue (which is obviously in English). We already know these characters are supposed to be French.

This is a minor issue for me though.

There is a case of the term “n*gro” being used towards the island’s black population, but we’re talking about the 19th century so it was to be expecte. It’s a dated term but I’m censoring it just in case it is triggering to anyone in the audience.

7. The Conclusion

Excellent book with realistic plot lines, colorful flawed characters, mostly great writing and vivid imagery that really sells the setting.I think I can definitely recommend it if you like historical romance.

Well, on this note, I declare this soirée concluded. Please stay tuned for future reviews!

Love,

Citizen Green Pixel

[holycatsandrabbits]

Happy birthday, book! Sherlock is a Girl's Name is now available from Improbable Press

The anthology

What would the Great Detective be like if Sherlock Holmes was a woman? That’s the question answered in Sherlock is a Girls’ Name, an anthology imagining Sherlock Holmes as female, in tall tales that follow the great detective across time and even space.

The stories in this collection, selected by long-time Sherlockian editors Narrelle M. Harris @221b-hound and @atlinmerrick, imagine Holmes in deep space, 1990s Russia, Victorian London, contemporary USA, worlds of magic and more.

Holmes’ many Watsons include ghosts, robots, a young boy who doesn’t speak, a teenage tuba player, a stranger on a plane – and that’s just to start. In each story Holmes and her Watson do what they do best: solve crimes and have adventures!

Amazing cover art by Andrea L. Farley.

My story

I am thrilled to be a part of this wonderful anthology! My story is “The Case of the Man Who Wasn’t Dead”: Modern-era medium Sherlock Holmes solves the murders of the dead who contact her via her spirit guide, Jane Watson, a nurse who died in 1944.

“You don’t have to be so rude,” Jane said. The light from the kitchen window didn’t affect her, didn’t set her red curls aglow or brighten her pale skin. But she was unfailingly lovely all the same, in that white sundress, with her hair swept back from her face and her lips bright red. If Jane were alive today, Sherlock thought, she’d probably be a fan of glitter lipstick, going around looking like she’d kissed one of Dorothy’s ruby slippers.

Sherlock did attempt not to make a habit of thinking about Jane Watson kissing things.

(Sherlock has a Crush.) And that’s her on the top left of the back cover!

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

[vvatchword]

Reading BioShock: Rapture (Part 1: The Cover)

Part 2: John Shirley and the Front Matter ->

“Who the hell is Reggie?” I asked my friends a while back.

Reggie shows up in a lot of BioShock fanfiction. At first I thought he was a fan-made creation that had jumped isolation, but he appeared in enough oddball places that I began to think I had missed something important from canon.

“He’s from the BioShock novel,” a friend replied.

I swore and eyeballed the novel, which has been sitting next to me for about two years now.

BioShock: Rapture is a video-game tie-in novel written by John Shirley (aka Some Guy) and published in July 2011. Originally, it had been slated to release with BioShock 2, which launched February 9, 2010. It did not because it had to work in BioShock 2 elements and the BioShock 1 canon had to be okayed by Ken Levine, creative director of Irrational Games.

Why I’m Reading This Thing

I’ve been working on a BioShock epfic, as you probably know since I won’t shut up about it. I adore working with pre-existing canon in an effort to harmonize dissonant elements and attempt Art (lol); long story short, my fanfiction is for my own satisfaction and nothing more. I like being as accurate as possible; I do not want to lie; and I like to respond to what someone is actually saying rather than the Internet custom of “Inventing a Guy to Get Mad At.”

So of course I bought the BioShock novelization the minute it came out. At the time, I was on about the third draft of my epfic.

I read about 50 pages, writing mean notes in the margins as I went, before I just stopped. I just couldn’t stand it. It was so, so wrong. At the time, I couldn’t have told you why. All I remember was that Andrew Ryan felt pathetic, and that is unforgivable. Ryan should always feel threatening and powerful and real. BioShock: Rapture’s Ryan felt pretentious and annoying and I was pretty sure I could give him a swirly with impunity.

What made this dissonance particularly irritating was that the information presented was not necessarily incorrect, but the tone, social dynamics, and overall implications were… how do I put this? Stupid. Stupid and vapid. The character interactions, the author’s comprehension of social and historical issues, the emotional zing—all void, careless, or off. That subtle off-kilter sensation ends up building into a hell of a thing.

I can stand a lot of bullshit. I even love bullshit. But what I cannot bear under any circumstances is boredom and “safe art.” And BioShock: Rapture was the definition of safe.

I had to realize that this was, first and foremost, a corporate product, lobotomized and neutered and defanged, with all the possible poison sucked out of it. (Coincidentally: just how I felt about BioShock 2.) The person who wrote it didn’t give a shit about it. The corporate execs who commissioned it didn’t give a shit about it. Only Levine probably gave a shit, and only in that the right information was presented. (I don’t know if BioShock 2’s creative director, Jordan Thomas, was involved. He wasn’t mentioned in any of the interviews I read.)

If this had been literally any other book, I would have gotten rid of it and forgotten about its existence. But Ken Levine, creative director of BioShock 1, had been involved, and by all accounts, he hadn’t spared any details. That meant that canon existed in this piece of shit—canon for BioShock 1, my favorite out of the three installments.

I don’t believe in making any more work for myself than necessary, and I don’t always trust wikis: I had to get into this book to find framework for my own.

I had to fucking read it.

The Journal Method

In an attempt to further cement the book in my mind, I first attempted to do a book club with other fans—not once, but four times. My attempts fell through, partially because I fucking hate everything about this book. My brain gremlins scrub it every time I dip my toe in the water. I realized that, to get through this dumpster fire, I would have to write about it. So I decided to use the journal method to attack it, sometimes literally.

See, because I have a jumpy, excitable brain—something like a Jack Russell terrier on meth—I write out my thoughts on the more difficult books I read. These write-ups are usually more like journal entries than about the story itself. It’s not necessarily helpful or interesting to anyone else, but it gives me touchstones that I can return to years later to quickly refresh myself on notes of interest. This way, I retain information and don’t have to re-read whole goddamn books again. Recently I’ve been doing this with Paradise Lost, which is very difficult to read thanks to its archaic English, poetic diction, and constant references to classical myth and literature. It works well!

That said, I kinda hate myself for what this turned into. Is it reasonable? Oh, no, of course not. I started overthinking it at once. You should all know I am Shameful and Cringe and Deserve to Be Thrown in a Well. No balanced human being should care this much about this book or franchise. Thankfully I am deeply imbalanced and have no standards that anyone understands.

I make this readable for my own pleasure. If you come along on the ride, god bless you. Also, feel free to critique or share your own experiences and opinions.

About John Shirley

I’d never heard of John Shirley before this book. According to the bio on the back of this book, he won the Bram Stoker Award for a story collection (Black Butterflies), and has written numerous bestsellers I’ve never heard of, as well as an adaption for Constantine. He was also one of the screenwriters on The Crow.

I do wish I had any sense of any of these things. I do not. Not even The Crow. You’d think that’d be up my alley. I started The Crow and promptly turned it off. This says nothing about his screenwriting, just that I started a movie he impacted once.

I read a few interviews with him regarding the book, which gave me further hints as to his influences. He’s a white centrist Boomer because of course he is. This was the first sign that I should be afraid.

First, socially (and generally) speaking, the more mainstream identities you possess, the more insulated you are, and the less you are challenged to step outside of that viewpoint. The tone and subjects of mainstream media cater specifically to you. You accept this is as “the way the world is” instead of realizing that the mainstream is itself a cultural viewpoint with a limited focus. It takes you effort to empathize with viewpoints outside of your own. Many people never make that effort. The less you attempt to understand alien concepts, the worse you are at doing so.

Second, centrists tend to see every human philosophy as morally neutral. To a centrist, it is the philosophy’s application that can be done Incorrectly or Wickedly.

In my mind, this is supremely stupid. A philosophy is not a law of nature, but a human tool. It can be fundamentally broken in how it approaches the universe; even if it produces good outcomes, its goodness can be outweighed by its negative aspects.

Objectivism is one of these philosophies. If you know anything about it, you know why it’s broken and why it should be thrown in a fire. I will probably explore it in some capacity as I write this piece, but I won’t be terribly exact due to its nature. This is for me to remember what I have read, not to win awards or reach a big audience.

All of this said, I’m coming to this writer in what amounts to a vacuum, with a handful of suppositions based on some quick interviews. I have no perspective on him as a person or artist in any depth. The book is gonna have to stand on its own merits.

About the Front Cover

At first, I began by talking about the prologue, but my criticisms started to spread all over the front matter of the book, which is how you start off with me criticizing the FUCKING COVER.

Generally, covers aren’t really that important, but in this case, I feel like the graphic design implies how much care was taken with the book itself. Someone let the interns do this. I would bet fucking money. The art is completely inappropriate.

How do you choose cover art? Well, what is cover art intended to do? It’s intended to deliver a quick advertisement to the person passing the shelves. It’s supposed to answer questions, like: “What is the story about?” It’s supposed to lure you in. There should be some suggested friction or promised reward.

Look at this fucking thing. What is the art’s focus? Is it interesting? What does it say? Does it give you an idea of the book’s story, characters, plot, setting, or tone? If you knew nothing about BioShock, what would your impression be?

Now, you and I both know (because we are nerds) that the focus is on the globe with the starburst, for we know the starburst is where Rapture is located.

Except that’s not the first thing you’re going to think. The first thing you’re going to do as A Human with Eyes is search for a focal point. The globe seems like a background element, the flare a stylistic choice. You will first latch onto the man and the woman in the bottom left because the human mind is hardwired to look for faces, but they don’t seem to be the focus of the image; in fact, the image feels strangely off, like there should be something else to it.

That’s because this particular image is focused on architecture and setting, with the crowd as flavor over the top; it is best viewed in landscape. The book cover has cut off 2/3 of the goddamn picture and thus completely obscured its original intent. Here’s the original--which is by Craig Mullens, btw. I love it. It’s one of my rotating desktops and I own it in physical form.

"1959," by Craig Mullens

A lithograph of this image was included with a limited-edition game guide released with BioShock 2. It was one of the few special-edition illustrations that did not focus on Big Daddies or Subject Delta. BioShock: Rapture is a prequel, so it couldn’t use any images with Big Daddies on them—it’s not about the social fallout you see in-game. Mullen’s art was, however, a preexisting piece that nobody had to spend any extra money on.

The point being: this art was created for BioShock 2, not for the book.

In other words, no special efforts were made for any of this. Slap on BioShock logo! Find some font evocative of art deco (copy-paste-make shape-paste-in-place), and outline that shit in Illustrator one billion percent. Use this beautiful art in a way that says nothing about what the book is about because it’s really not meant for that purpose to begin with, and get your $0/hour intern to slap it all together.

Whallah! Body-slam that shit on a bookshelf and go back to drinking.

The Back of the Book

The bad graphic design extends to the back of the book. The summary is double-spaced for some reason, there’s little contrast between text and background color, the background is noisy enough to obscure the font, and the Andrew Ryan graphic fucks up the indents, making the summary look like a text wall. It’s not, actually. Regardless, the effect is the same: it obscures readability.

Spoiler: it’s probably because they didn’t want you to read it.

This graphic looks better than the book in person and it is still ass.

Oh hey who wrote this summary?

The First Paragraph of This Lazy-Ass Shit

It was the end of World War II. FDR’s New Deal had redefined American politics. Taxes were at an all-time high. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had created a fear of total annihilation. The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business had many watching their backs. America’s sense of freedom was diminishing… and many were desperate to take that freedom back.

Uh whose side is this on lol

So, summaries are here to do two things: explain the general Where, Who, and Plot, and Invoke Interest. A summary is the scantily-clad lady-friend with one knee cocked out of a doorway saying, “Come on in.” She gives us a little wink-wink, shows a little skin, I’ll show u soooo much more if u just step this way big boy.

Unfortunately, the way this summary works is more like somebody flinging buzzwords at you as fast as possible while hoping you don’t look too closely. If you are on the political right, it will immediately invoke a certain fuzzy alarm reserved for words like “communism” and “socialist”; if you are on the political left, it invokes your illiterate aunt’s unhinged Facebook rants. One has the sense that said writer doesn’t actually know what they’re talking about, which is a hell of a way to a) start a summary for historical fiction and b) summarize a book that they should, by all rights, have read.

What’s more, if we judge the strength of its hook alone—its only fucking job, I might as well add—it’s weak as balls: the only sentence that pulls you in is the one about nuclear weapons, and that’s because it gives you a sense of urgency and fear of annihilation. Problem: this book ain’t about nuclear weapons. This book ain’t about the end of World War II at all. Wrong subject. Completely wrong.

You might very rightfully say, “Well, this is from Andrew Ryan’s point of view,” in which case I’m confused, because this is not written from Ryan’s point of view. This is written as Information We All Know and Understand to Be True :) The problem being that it is so slanted, and so vague, and so simplified to the point of stupidity, that it puts the summary’s writer in the spotlight at once, which is a catastrophic failure by every metric. This summary makes me ask questions like, “Should I be wary of the author’s ulterior motives?”

Well. To be fair, a BioShock novel by an Objectivist would be a lot of fun—in the same way Miami Connection is fun. I would absolutely read that and cringe and cry-laugh and throw the book and then pick it up again. Very good times would be had. Why? Because somebody cared about it, and somebody is about to say some very, very stupid bullshit with all the confidence and passion in their whole body, and everything in the story is going to align beautifully to that bullshit, and something bullshitty is going to happen and it will be like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

Let’s just say that I love reading Ayn Rand but it’s not for the reasons she’d prefer.

I want you to know that Shirley has been quoted as saying, “You cannot fly a plane without the left and the right wings,” which I will allow to stand without commentary.

FDR’s New Deal had redefined American politics.

That’s the most diplomatic way I’ve seen the New Deal described. Ever. And I was taught American history in West Texas by a basketball coach. It’s so carefully neutral that the first thing I did was read the sentence twice, like that was going to open up a magical window back to the past and show me what harried motherfucker wrote it. If it had done this, I would have thrown an egg at them. Not very hard. So maybe less of a throw, more of a “rolled it across their desk and closed the window to fuck with them.”

“Where did this egg come from,” they’d say. “What the hell. I hope it isn’t a dimension-hopping nitpicker again.”

Anyway, that’s when I realized everything about this book was probably going to be wrong: as I stood in an aisle at a Barnes and Noble in July 2011. I’m talking about a sinking feeling and a slight nausea. I actually thought about not buying it and I was at a point in my life where I bought everything with a BioShock logo on it. I was also a stupid-ass far-right evangelical flirting with Objectivism at the time. Big fuck-ups all ’round.

If the copywriter wrote this… still not a good sign, but better than if the author wrote it, because a) this prose is clumsy as fuck and b) the end of World War II is not the point and thus should not lead.

Is There a Right Way or Are You Being a Cunt?

Yes!

What is the point? Andrew Ryan as a person; what history has done to Andrew Ryan; what people have done to Andrew Ryan; Andrew Ryan’s philosophy; Andrew Ryan’s goals; Andrew Ryan’s failures; Andrew Ryan. ANDREW MOTHERFUKCING RYAN. Start with RYAN, not with the historical context.

America’s sense of freedom was diminishing…

In. In what context. Citation needed. Citation please. Loaded language. Loaded like a fucking gun.

The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business had many watching their backs.…

Woo. Whooooah WHOOOOOAH hold on there Silver whooooooah I’m gonna need you to hold on a second. This is way too fucking vague.

At first I thought it might reference the USSR in addition to the United States, but by starting and ending the paragraph with America-centric sentences, the “where” and the “who” is most likely “America” and “gubmint” respectively. That’s immediately problematic because those two concepts are so vast.

What government agencies? What sanctions? Who’s the “many”? What are the wrongs? I’m still groping in the dark. My friends in hell, this is a summary. That means I (the Reader) should know exactly what is going on by Sentence One. So far I have the vaguest notions of historical period and authorial motivation as written by a 12-year-old off 4chan.

A lot has been written, but nothing has been said. This paragraph depends on You (the Reader) to ascribe value judgments about these vaguely-referenced enormous fucking political machines. And we can’t because, I mean… we don’t know who they are, what they’re doing, or why they’re bad. Also, given the writer’s clear axe-grinding, I’m kinda wary, so I’m already holding them at arm’s length.

Now, I can appreciate that the writer was trying to give historical context, but in this particular story, that context only makes sense once it filters through Andrew Ryan. Andrew Ryan takes a vast, infinitely-complex part of history and narrows it down to one place, one time, one person, one ideology. If you throw a net that’s too wide, you lose all definition. A fucking metric shit-ton of bullshit went down in the little window between the end of World War II and the founding of Rapture: World War II literally affected every single country and human being on Earth, and even cutting it back to Just America is too vast a subject to simply imply.

What is more, the story of Rapture is not the story of World War II or handsy government, it’s the story of how Andrew Ryan dealt with challenges he could not bear. The minute you focus on Ryan, the summary clicks, and everything immediately grows more concise and clear: then we can have specific government entities and specific events that lead to Ryan building a utopia beneath the sea. Lead with Andrew Ryan and the explicit ways he has been hurt. Make it personal, a story about a person, and make it specific, and for god’s sake, make it FUCKING INTERESTING.

Long story short, this summary feels like you’ve opened a bad theme from a high school student and they need to type so, so many words and it’s 4:46 AM and they are fucking tired and they can only reword Wikipedia so much before they lose their fucking mind.

Paragraphs Two through Four

Among them was a great dreamer, an immigrant who’d pulled himself from the depths of poverty to become one of the wealthiest and most admired men in the world. That man was Andrew Ryan, and he believed that great men and women deserved better. So he set out to create the impossible, a utopia free from government, from censorship, and from moral restrictions on science, where what you gave was what you got. He created Rapture—the shining city below the sea.

Someone is fucking stanning. Someone was definitely arguing on forums that Rapture would have worked great if only… and then they gave a long bulleted list, and everyone called them a big dork even though they’re all on a video game forum arguing about a game from 2007.

Now to give you a little perspective, this book was released fresh after the Tea Party movement had really gotten its feet under it. So I couldn’t help but think: who is writing this? Why is it written this way? Were they trying to channel a libertarian, or did they really mean it? Are they the kind of person who would excuse Ted Cruz?

If we had started the summary by focusing on Andrew Ryan personally, we wouldn’t have this problem.

But this utopia suffered a great tragedy. This is the story of how it all came to be… and how it all ended.

A tragedy!!! In my BioShock? It’s more likely th an y ou th in

k

Look at the way this is fucking phrased, I can’t…

I can’t

Why Are You Like This

This is a great time to talk about auxiliary (or helper/helping) verbs and passive voice, because this summary is lousy with them, and this is a textbook example of how they can suck the tension straight out of a premise.

The Tools

Passive voice indicates that something has been done to the subject. The subject is not an actor in their own right: they were affected, and they were powerless to stop it. They are, by definition, inactive.

Auxiliary or helping verbs are myriad, but the most common ones are “are,” “go,” and “has.” In function, they tend to soften sentences—probably because they imply the action has been finished. They are also colorless, weightless, and have no emotional oomph: auxiliary verbs are 100% structural.

The ideal is to say as much as you can with as few words as you can, and that means using the most proper and powerful words possible in the best possible places and arrangements.

Back to the Summary

Remember what I told you that an ideal summary should do?

You want a summary to be immediate and punchy. You want it to suck the reader in. You want a sense of who all the major players are and the problem involved.

In this case, it’s Andrew Ryan, Bill McDonagh, and probably Frank Fontaine. There should probably be a government entity represented by some toady, too. Maybe even some suggestion of specific bills or social movements. Hint that Ryan’s got an ideal and that he sold the fuck out of it, and that people believed so much in that ideal that they’d abandon everything they worked for to go under the sea.

It was the end of World War II.

World War II gave me a little jump of interest, but on the whole, I feel nothing. This is a state of being and it’s just chilling here. There’s no problem. In fact, this is the definition of a solved problem. I’m all about no-Hitler! Okay! Good! Yeah!

So?

Taxes were at an all-time high.

Passive voice is used here because it’s explaining a state of existence. A state is, by virtue of its nature, inactive. Nothing is happening. It already happened. Here we are, standing here, breathing, existing, taxed. All righty.

So?

The only tension we get here is from the construction of the sentence itself. This is a loaded sentence—it implies that taxes are bad, it implies that they’re being improperly used, and it gives no actors—but that turns your focus onto the summary writer, not onto the story itself. It’s like these taxes just materialized out of the ether. What’s more, we don’t know where these taxes are being levied or what’s being done with them. This shouldn't be passive. Who's the actor?

In some ways, thanks to the placement of this sentence, this implies that the taxes are a major subject. You head to the next sentence expecting expansion on the tax problem.

Coincidentally, that’s not a great load-bearing sentence. I can think of nothing more boring than taxes. It’s only interesting if you’re some kind of crazy reactionary asshole who operates solely via political slogans.

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had created a fear of total annihilation.

Finally, some tension! Now we also have a setting! Unfortunately, it’s enormous—it’s worldwide. So are we talking about worldwide taxes? As in, raised taxes were a worldwide phenomenon?

Wait a minute. What the fuck are you

The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business had many watching their backs.

WHERE ARE WE? “Secret” is a little exciting, but what “government agencies” and “sanctions” and what are they doing? Who is the “many”? Taxes + business means I see an economic concern front and center. So why is nuclear weaponry in here?

On another note, why is this so fucking dry? It’s like I’m reading a Wikipedia summary. The only powerful language has been “secret” and “all-time high” and “total annihilation.” What the fuck is going on?

Everything is so vague—so problematically, memeishly vague—that now my hackles are up. This sounds just like a boomer on the bus yelling at his phone. This is Neil Breen levels of indistinct. I don’t like it. It sounds like someone who doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, and this is a fucking HISTORICAL NOVEL.

I am now completely switched off from thinking about the story. It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a story at all. In fact, this sounds like it’s going to be unfocused conservative ramblings. I am now thinking not about the story, but about the writer as a person. I’m starting to wonder if even the author doesn’t know what they’re focused on—which implies a story without a solid structure—which implies a story without a through-line.

I don’t want to restate everything I just said, but you can see the problem, right? Things are just happening. Every occurrence is shared as a state of being. The people suffering are unnamed, and the ways they are suffering is indistinct. The friction is indistinct, too. I have no idea what I’m rooting for, I have no idea what the subject is, and we are four sentences in.

A good summary should be about 3-8 sentences long and punch you in the face. So far I have experienced the literary equivalent of a dry gnat fart.

Let’s move ahead.

That man was Andrew Ryan, and he believed that great men and women deserved better.

God I hate this fucking line. It says absolutely nothing about Andrew Ryan or Objectivism.

What is “better”? Better than what? Under what circumstances? What does Andrew Ryan believe? Why should I be interested? Why are you sharing this in past tense before the story even begins? This sounds like something tension should be attached to. Why is there no tension here?

Andrew Ryan is based on Ayn Rand, and Rapture is based on Objectivist ideals. People live and die as Objectivists. They fight for Objectivist ideals. On this very day you can go to YouTube and look up a recording of Andrew Ryan’s speech and some dumbass has uploaded it to YouTube with a slideshow of patriotic imagery. That’s how accurately Ken Levine cleaved to Objectivist ideals: that actual libertarians look at the message of the game and go WELL ACKSHUALLY

I think I’ve figured out why this is all so vague, though. Objectivism is controversial and Objectivists have no shame whatsoever. We can’t have controversy in our fucking BioShock! Maybe the powers-that-be defanged it because they didn’t want to deal with fallout. (Ha ha ha ha aaa h a ) Maybe they defanged it because they wanted to sell it to as wide an audience as possible, and they didn’t want to insult anybody holding $20.

Did they not play the game? Because that’s embarrassing. It definitely puts BioShock Infinite in a new light for me. There’s no way for us to accurately understand Ken Levine, a public figure, as a human being—all we have are little snapshots of him in time and second-hand accounts, which by their natures will vary in truth—but I’m starting to wonder if he started to raise this big middle finger, like: “ooooh u want me to be safe? Fuck youuuuuuuuu”

Which I can appreciate, obviously.

This fear of controversy is prime executive behavior. Executives, as I’ve learned over time, are fucking morons. Have you ever met an old man with the personality of a 15-year-old? Think Elon Musk. Well, there’s a reason for that. Because they hold the purse strings, you can’t talk to them honestly, because there’s a real chance they’ll take offense and strike back at you right in the pocketbook. Because they’re so wealthy, they can buy their ways out of suffering, so the fear of god is never slapped into them, and they have absolutely no conception of what true loss is. It’s not that they can’t fail, but their failure is so much more insulated than ours is. It’s how you end up with Oceangate: people to whom life has said “yes” so often that they have no respect for physics.

Executives are so used to being coddled that any pushback deeply wounds them. They can afford to be psychologically insecure. As a group, they are fertile ground for Objectivism to take root; they are most likely to see themselves as the Randian Ubermensch, for they also tend to be unreasonably wealthy—and that’s because of their innate genius and capability, right?

This is the height of an unchallenged viewpoint.

So he set out to create the impossible, a utopia free from government, from censorship, and from moral restrictions on science, where what you gave was what you got.

This is sentence eight, at the end of an 11-sentence-long summary, and ladies and gentlefolks, we have finally HIT THE FUCKING PLOT. I am going to hit a motherfuckin copywriter is what I’m going to fucking do.

THIS IS THE PLOT. This is where all the tension should be. This is where we should have our actors. This is the plot! It’s about Rapture! It’s about building Rapture!

Look how they wrote this shit!

The story should, by all rights, begin with a question: can Andrew Ryan build Rapture?

The extremely literal dumbass will say: “Yes hurhur.” But stories are not built on certainty, my fellow assholes. They are built on questions and friction and problems. We know how it ends, yes. Technically we knew how it ended when we started BioShock 1, didn’t we? The question you’re answering isn’t Yes/No, it’s WHY.

That doesn’t mean you treat the story as though the city is already built. Hypothetically there was a point where Rapture was just a very nice dream. That should be interesting in and of itself. The point of tension is Rapture’s production—the reasons why people want it, the acts taken to produce it, the actors who try to stop it, why someone would stop it, the ways you attract citizens to inhabit it without alerting the entire universe, the process of upkeep. Worldbuilding shit. What are Rapture’s pros and cons, the devils in the details, the kind of society that evolves from a place like this?

Why are they talking about it like it’s already been built? Why are they using past tense for a story that I haven’t read yet? I read a lot of stories knowing how they end. I don’t read for the sakes of endings. It’s like some dim-bulb somewhere was like, “Uhhhhh historical fiction uhhhhh it already happened so uhhhhh let’s write it in past tense…”

All stories have already happened by definition. It is finished. It lies in your hands. You talk about it in present tense in a summary because the reader’s experience is the important part. Reading is about the experience, not about the ending.

Someone somewhere is a colossal dumbfuck and I hate them for even touching my smart fucking video game. Don’t even speak its title. Get the fuck out of here you fucking clown and go back to reading shitty YA.

But this utopia suffered a great tragedy.

“This utopia suffered,” like nobody saw this shit coming. Like nobody was involved. We’ve gone from blaming everybody to blaming nobody. Like there was a natural disaster or an alien attack or God reached down and flicked Rapture into space.

This is. Just. Just the worst.

What the fuck am I reading about? Who are the shakers and movers? What are the focal points? A summary can’t and shouldn’t give you the whole story, but it sure as hell should give you some sense of what the trouble is and who’s causing it.

This line is what really kicked my brain in gear: the summary is so fucking hands-off. It doesn’t make any promises; it doesn’t fucking commit. It’s a vague scene with no actors in it. You might be tempted to say, “Well, Andrew Ryan is mentioned!” But the problem is that he’s mentioned off-hand, like he just kinda exists in the ether with the Bad Gubmint and the Many and the Taxes. It doesn’t introduce any problems and it doesn’t stand for anything. It’s just so vague and mealymouthed. Grow a fucking spine and stand for something you fucking cowards.

This idea offers a small possibility: that someone didn’t like the subject and described it at arm’s length—what they thought the author was saying while feeling deeply uncomfortable.

Whatever the case, this summary offers nothing. It isn’t even hot air. It’s a little gasp of lukewarm something-or-other. It has no scent, no function, no body, no face. Like the tenses it employs, it simply exists.

I’m pretty sure nobody loved this story while they wrote it and it shows. And if there’s anything I don’t trust, it’s work nobody gives a shit about. Being shitty isn’t the ultimate failure: being boring is. And this shit is boring.

AND IT’S JUST THE FUCKING SUMMARY.

Hope Springs Eternal

I remember reading the back of this novel before I bought it and feeling my stomach sink. I still bought it because I was that heartsick for a big ol’ BioShock novel. The only fanfiction anyone ever writes is instant-gratification short-form and that makes me very sad. At the same time, one must be sensible: writing a novel is a lot of fucking work, and one should be fucking grateful one gets anything at all. In fandom, where everything is a product of passion and free time, one must be particularly respectful of this.

But this is not fandom; money has changed hands several times along the way; and I expect certain standards from something for which I have exchanged funds. BioShock: Rapture was not written because somebody believed in it or loved it; it was written primarily to be a Product. It is cynical, as BioShock 2 was cynical, to appeal to as many as possible—which means that by definition, it is insecure, afraid, and says fuck all.

This is bad, okay. This is very bad. This is somebody who didn’t understand the game on some of the most basic levels imaginable. Things like: what is BioShock about? What is the moral system and philosophy in BioShock—as intended, as it actually landed, and as represented by different characters and the player? What does BioShock say about idealism and those who adhere to ideals at the expense of human wellbeing? How are characters influenced by world tragedies on a personal level? What happens when you have an entire population of radicals and there’s no longer a convenient Other to hate?

What makes BioShock interesting?

Whoever wrote this summary has no fucking clue, and what’s more, they don’t particularly care. All they understand is a Bad versus Good dynamic. Anything more complex makes them snort and stomp like a mule deer, and they’re just about to fling themselves off sideways and hurtle through an elementary-school window screaming about liberals or transgenders or something.

This had better be a copywriter because I’m about to roll some stinky-ass eggs y’all

Part 2: John Shirley and the Front Matter ->

[azurelunatic]

I cannot remember enough of that post about "what if The Locked Tomb was a shitty het romance" with the titles and the book covers to find it again and I needed it bc it was the closest art that did what I needed for a one-off object to hand to my partner.

but the upshot is that having failed in my tiny 2-person joke, I am plotting the photoshoot to do a serious attempt at cover art for The Necromancer's Marriage Season bc Belovedest

a) has now consumed enough of TLT to have Favorites b) Sex Pal is one of their Favorites c) would Love to cosplay Palamades at local fan events

BUT

d) minus more identifiable TLT characters like Cam or anyone in 9th house skull face, Palamades is just a geek in a grey cloak

AND

e) you just do not get Palamades without Camilla, it doesn't happen

EXCEPT

f) in that very specific section of Harrow the Ninth

ERGO

g) solo Palamades needs a copy of The Necromancer's Marriage Season and it turns out that online retailers will take art and turn it into blank books with particular covers at very reasonable rates. h) (okay, not quite as reasonable as the rates on the shirt that Pyrrha was going to give Nona, but We Live Under Capitalism)

[jensjumbledmess]

My review/thoughts about A Grain of Truth by Jack Rembiś, based on the short story by Andrzej Sapkowski.

Star & Spice Rating: ⭐️ 4/5, 🌶️ 0/5

TWs: Blood & Gore, Nudity (Female & Male), Sexual Assault

Judging a Book By It’s Cover: I think the cover is really pretty, the blue roses make a nice contrast to the beast door knocker and Geralt himself.

✨📖Review📖✨

If you enjoyed the story A Grain of Truth from The Last Wish, then of course you’re going to enjoy this; it’s the same story, just told as a graphic novel. This little comic makes a great addition to any Witcher fan’s collection. The art in it is BEAUTIFUL, and as a matter of fact, I liked the art in this SO MUCH MORE than most of the art in The Witcher Omnibus, Volume 1. I can't get over it; the pages seem so vibrant, even the dark scenes. I love the way the characters are depicted. I will definitely be adding The Lesser Evil to my collection too at some point and I would love it if Jack Rembiś adapted all the other short stories as well.

For those that don’t know, A Grain of Truth is essentially a Beauty and the Beast retelling. Geralt encounters two dead bodies while traveling, leading to him investigate the area. He then stumbles across a strange, shy woman who runs away after he greets her; nearby finding  a manor, with a big courtyard and unique blue rose bush. While literally stopping to smell the roses, a large beast bursts from the manor in a (failed) attempt to scare Geralt away. The beast’s name is Nivellen, and he has been cursed into this form by a priestess after he was basically peer-pressured into sexually assaulting her many years ago. After Geralt and Nivellen talk and have dinner, Geralt decides to simply leave after Nivellen confesses that he has come to appreciate and favor his beastly form and doesn’t want Geralt to try to break the curse. Over night, Geralt has the revelation that the strange woman outside the manor, who has been keeping Nivellen company, may actually be very dangerous.

Thank you for reading! If you liked my review/thoughts, consider following me on [GoodReads], [Bookstagram], or [Threads]! (I tend to post on GoodReads & Threads first!)

[alhilton]

I loved Hunters Unlucky so much. I've yet to read anything past Distraction, but I am in LOVE with what Arcove and Keesha have going on, and seeing that BEAUTIFUL cover with Keesha on it made me hype. It's made me more confident I can write xenofiction and have people read it! I have a question though; how you do get into 'xenofiction/monster' circles? I'm firmly placed in the art community, and my attempts to join writing ones made me realise we just aren't on the same wavelength :(

Hey, thank you! I think you will enjoy Bright Side and Legacy when you get around to them. ;) There is a future story cooking that is more Keesha-centric, although I haven't written it yet. The ramifications of what he did to Arcove in Book 1 keep popping up in the background of other stories and will eventually hit the foreground again. Iben surprised me with the cover for Legacy. It is a specific scene from that book, and it would be a spoiler...except that you won't understand how until you are already past that point, haha. As far as xenofiction communities - gosh, tell me when you find one? I've been writing in Hunters Universe since I was 14. I am not 47. I have 2 other story universes that are thoroughly established with many novels - Panamindorah (humanoids, but no actual humans) and the Shattered Sea (humans, et al). I throw Easter Eggs into all 3 from time to time - like the crossover Keesha story "Awake." I've got a 4th story universe - Sleipner (humans et al) that I haven't actually published books in yet (except for one sneak peek in cross-over in Legacy). I have never been part of community for xenofiction. Fans told me it is called xenofiction. I didn't know that. I called it an "Animal Epic." My books about human beings have a larger readership. By far my most successful series is The Knight and the Necromancer. Hunters is a relative tiny audience, but it generates the most fan art :) I'm not very good at writing what I'm "supposed" to write. I love writing gay romance, but if I was forced to write nothing else, I would sort of shut down and die. Fortunately, I am also a medical professional, so I am not dependent on my books making a living wage. The author for whom I feel the most kinship is Ursula Vernon/ T. Kingfisher. I feel like her audience and mine must overlap, but I don't think I've ever spoken to her.

I have been a part of various creative communities over the years (notably the podcasting author community that flourished from about 2006 - 2014). They were wonderful while they lasted, but all of these things eventually run their course and you have to look for new groups. I got my start in podcasting, so I know a lot of voice actors, some of whom are also writers. They mostly don't write in my genre, though. I have some wonderful writer buddies from various conventions. I love visual art and purchasing illustrations, so I made some long-time artists friends that way. Some are also writers or comics artists, not necessarily in my genre. I am a member of various author FB groups, including MM romance groups. They are all business-focused, though. You get to a point where business is the help you need. You're doing the writing just fine and you have an audience, but you need community around business and marketing, because sometimes that's the hard part.

I guess my advice is: go to conventions and talk to people. Spread a wide net - don't limit yourself to your genre or even your art form. Nurture friendships with creative people of all types. Cross-pollination is rewarding. Write stories, finish them, and make them available. Wash, rinse, repeat. Interact with your readers, but don't make yourself so available that you get heartburn.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Long post incoming...

I guess I'll try to be more reasonable and put things into perspective.

I also happened to come out of FURIOSA earlier today, which to me felt like a nice antidote to what Hollywood tends to pump out when it comes to big franchises. A prequel that really expands the Wasteland world of MAD MAX without feeling like a Glup Shitto-fest. I was pretty much glued the whole time, astounded at what it was going for, the big swings it took and - in my eyes - greatly succeeded at. You can tell creator/director George Miller loves this world, and wanted to expand it meaningfully with both this and MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, after 30 years of the series being a trilogy. And apparently without anyone getting in his way, at that. Rare for a big action film.

Did you know Miller, who also directed the likes of... THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, LORENZO'S OIL, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY (and pretty much was a huge part of the original BABE), the HAPPY FEET movies, and THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING... Did you know one of his favorite films is Walt Disney's PINOCCHIO? Which had a massive influence on him and his work?

Oh yeah, PINOCCHIO... The second-ever Disney animated feature film, a film designed to be like its European fairy tale-inspired predecessor - SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS - but double that, with its more sprawling story and larger budget. More multiplane shots, whole scenes in the ocean, all that hand-animated, meticulously hand-painted water...

And it was the exact opposite of SNOW WHITE when first released in February 1940. While reviews were generally positive, not really as glowing as SNOW WHITE's reception, it was largely impacted by World War II breaking out across the Atlantic. It couldn't play in the European countries where SNOW WHITE made tons of money, and the money it managed to make in the ally territories - the UK and France - wasn't going to cut it. Its American gross was solid, certainly in the shadows of the huge hit that was out at the time - GONE WITH THE WIND... But again, it couldn't cover the film's astronomical costs. Unthinkable for a film, whose opening song, is pretty much synonymous with Disney today... Once a big flop, now it's absolutely definitively Disney...

The Disney studio would continue to lose a lot of money during this period. FANTASIA did not appeal to audiences, and BAMBI also lost money. Only the relatively-cheaper DUMBO managed to make back its shoestring cost, in addition to appealing to audiences more than the experimental dialogue-free epic and the more lyrical, dramatic forest tale. Disney was deep in debt, and spent the rest of the decade making and releasing movies known as "The Package Features". Anthologies composed of short films/featurettes, with some sort of loose linking device for them. Disney wouldn't return to doing a singular type of story following one set of characters until CINDERELLA, released in February 1950 to critical acclaim and great box office.

Some animation fans and historians divide the Walt years into two halves, the Golden Age covering the streak that began with the runaway success of STEAMBOAT WILLIE and ended with World War II's impact on the studio's first five feature films. (Or six, if you count the hybrid THE RELUCTANT DRAGON.) The Silver Age, covering everything thereafter up until Walt's passing, typically marked at the posthumous 1967 release of THE JUNGLE BOOK. Again, in terms of features. I'd mark it at December 1968, when the 2nd Winnie the Pooh featurette - THE BLUSTERY DAY - was released. The wartime losses took so much out of the studio, that Walt and Roy O. Disney reached some compromises, which - to some - affect the features going forward.

Films like CINDERELLA and PETER PAN avoided the elaborate multiplane effects and minute details of PINOCCHIO and BAMBI, making up for it in their striking art direction and filmmaking choices. The storytelling is also something of a shift. Few of those films attempt to wear the frightening elements of SNOW WHITE and PINOCCHIO, the kinds of scenes that Walt often got angry letters from parents over. After BAMBI, not counting the package features, the death of a major "good" character was pretty much hands off as well. For example, during production of LADY AND THE TRAMP, singer/actress Peggy Lee begged the filmmakers not to kill off Trusty at the end of the picture, following his accident with the dogcatcher wagon. Walt and co. complied. By the time you get to the '60s, Walt's final years among the living, you're a country mile from the early films. THE SWORD IN THE STONE and THE JUNGLE BOOK are very lax "characters exist" kinds of movies, the latter having some danger in the form of the impending encounter with Shere Khan. Otherwise, they are much lighter in tone, much more fun-loving, like romps.

Over the years, I've come to really appreciate those later films for the things my 20-something year-old self tended to criticize them for. When really, it's just a matter of fact. Change happened, maybe had to happen, in order for the Disney studio to survive and keep making animated feature films. Few other studios during the Golden Age of Animation could afford such a luxury. The Fleischer brothers certainly gave it a shot, with GULLIVER'S TRAVELS in 1939 and MR. BUG GOES TO TOWN in 1941, but the falling out between Max and Dave coupled with distributor Paramount's neglect of MR. BUG put a stop to that. Feature-length films would be made in other countries using techniques other than traditional animation, though some studios in America would later get in on it once again - albeit with lower-costing methods.

But when Walt was around, it was really only him producing feature-length animated films on a regular basis. And to keep going with that, and not just making more money off of only the re-issues of SNOW WHITE and such, he and his crew ultimately changed course and... Well... I'll say it, I feel they still put in the hard work on a bad day. Even the films of the '50s and '60s that I don't like as much as some others, there's still... Say, a Milt Kahl head swaggle or something great from Frank & Ollie in there. Or a great score, or a good sense of pace, the late great Robert and Richard Sherman absolutely going off with a banger song somewhere, very inspired background art, etc. No slouching! Something like THE JUNGLE BOOK is very much as important to me as PINOCCHIO.

I've come to love all of it, really, even with perceived flaws or the results of the studio changing gears. The work of the animators, artists, musicians, etc.... They pulled the weight and then some, and even the more "middling" films of decades past hold some sort of special place...

Maybe this situation applies to the apparent mandates that Disney executives are compromising Pixar with.

Pixar went for many, many years without a box office loss. THE GOOD DINOSAUR, which was made during John Lasseter's 11-year reign, was the first film to lose money for them. It was released *20 years* after TOY STORY came out, and it's their 16th overall film. I remember the media trying to chalk it up to the film's troubled production, which is a silly sentiment, because TOY STORY 2 and RATATOUILLE were similarly-rough, rocky roads. That one just... Didn't appeal, no matter what work and effort went into it, and I also think STAR WARS 7 opening mere weeks later kinda cut into it as well. It was kinda tossed off by Disney's marketing department after INSIDE OUT debuted earlier that year.

But, it was viewed as a minor dent in the armor. CARS 3 didn't really break even when released in the summer of 2017, but that was a CARS movie, so a lot of people kinda just shrugged at that. John Lasseter was then slowly ousted from the Disney company as a whole months later... Not because of that film, or GOOD DINOSAUR, but because he was exposed by the Me Too movement that erupted in fall 2017. Lasseter abdicated his leadership roles at Pixar, Disney Animation, Disneytoon, and Imagineering, right before the release of COCO that autumn. With Pete Docter taking over as CCO of Pixar in June 2018, perhaps all eyes were on him. Unlike Lasseter, Docter was only running Pixar. Not WDAS, not Disneytoon (which was swiftly shut down upon Lasseter's exit), and no major presence in the parks apparently... How would he take on such a task?

Docter, I feel, had something going there. Lasseter's Pixar became what Ken called Sunnyside Daycare in TOY STORY 3, he turned the place into a pyramid and he put himself on top. So many directors and animators exodused out of Pixar in the early 2010s, notably Brenda Chapman, who had words upon being taken off of her film BRAVE. All of Lasseter's goodwill completely vanished after it was learned that he made many women at the studio - and at WDAS - very uncomfortable, and when it was very clear that he only favored his TOY STORY colleagues and wasn't keen on letting women nor PoC direct films at his studio. Docter sought to reverse that, and to let the filmmakers tell stories that meant a lot to them. Much in the same way he, Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich, and Brad Bird did when Pixar was relatively new to making features. It truly was like old times, and I myself was very excited about that.

And it seemed like the sky was the limit... What could go wrong? ONWARD was cut right off, in its second weekend, by the pandemic. SOUL, LUCA, and TURNING RED went straight to Disney+ in the U.S. and most other territories, and their subsequent limited theatrical debuts - expectedly - didn't do great. I see that situation as similar to World War II cutting right into Disney's animated features in the 1940s, impacting the studio/distributor's ability to give them a wide release (at the time, Disney was not big enough to be their own distributor, it was RKO Radio Pictures who were handling the releases of the movies)... and the way the world is now, how expensive it is to take a trip to the movies, what a gamble it is... Animated movies aren't guaranteed smash hits anymore, unless you're something like Mario or Minions, or some entry in a beloved franchise. Remember how PUSS IN BOOTS 2 literally had to claw its way up to such a winning gross and record multiplier? If that had cost the same amount of money as ELEMENTAL had cost to make? It'd be considered a big failure.

LIGHTYEAR was Pixar's big return to theaters, a summer bow in 2022 that was part of the studio's beloved TOY STORY franchise. It opened great, too. $50m! Quite above what other animated movies had been opening with from 2021 to now... But the legs were terrible, word of mouth was sour, audiences just didn't seem to like it. A rare swing and a miss. Pete Docter pulled a "Walt Disney responding to ALICE IN WONDERLAND's disastrous release circa 1951", taking the blame for the film's box office woes. ELEMENTAL opened blah, but had incredible word of mouth. Even Disney boss Bob Iger seemed happy with its slow-burn ride to $500m at the worldwide box office, until he wasn't... Now that's a failure, along with SOUL, LUCA, and TURNING RED... Which all didn't get to enjoy full theatrical releases due to a worldwide crisis that's actually still going on...

So now, the corporate logic is... Those movies all failed because they're too "autobiographical", the filmmakers' respective catharses being told through 90min animated movies apparently doesn't appeal to audiences... and that in order to be financially successful again, Pixar needs to make films with more "general" appeal. Pete Docter is not John Lasseter, and I feel the press takes advantage of that. Docter apologizes for films not appealing, whereas Lasseter - when his CARS 2 got panned by most critics - defended critical missteps with his chest. It's as if he still ruled at the end of the day and no one could touch him - given his four leadership roles within the company, while the quieter Docter... Not so much. I get the sense that Disney execs can push him around and the press can easily label him a weak leader, while John seemed invincible. Iger, for example, was aware of his erratic, gross behavior at awards ceremonies well before Me Too caught up with the Hawaiian shirt man... And he was very concerned, but... Lasseter kept his job for another decade, almost unscathed.

I get that studios often have these sorts of "Well, we've had trouble, what should we be making then?" moments. I feel that singling out the three films that went straight to streaming during a pandemic, and another that was high budget and was operating in a much different theatrical landscape than before, is not it, though. SOUL, LUCA, TURNING RED, and ELEMENTAL were liked by most audiences. They got good to great reviews. They were all nominated for Oscar.

This isn't like how FANTASIA and BAMBI were perceived by critics and audiences in the early 1940s. The mixed-to-negative reactions to those films back then must've played a part in Walt and Roy focusing on relatively safer films in the future. For example, CINDERELLA leaned into what audiences loved about SNOW WHITE, 12 1/2 years prior, and was one of Disney's huge hits of that decade that also did exemplary in re-issues. There's a reason the two big flops of the '50s, for Disney Animation, were the more experimental films - ALICE IN WONDERLAND and SLEEPING BEAUTY. Nowadays, both of those movies are beloved and like PINOCCHIO, FANTASIA, and BAMBI... Are synonymous with Disney, often ranked among the best, cream of the crop. The time isn't always right for certain movies...

But things are often unfair in these big entertainment conglomerates, who are run by money hoarders who only think in the moment... and if Pixar's gonna try to do this "general appeal" thing, they would still have to let filmmakers have all the fun that they can feasibly have with the stories. The current iteration of Disney Animation is buckled under so much executive interference, and test screenings where 7-year-olds dictate what goes in and what doesn't, and... Well... Look at their resulting output. How they still try to do the job passionately and not merely just pass the grade. It's like I'm watching them struggle to get their creativity out on films like RAYA, STRANGE WORLD, and WISH. It's, to me, much like where things were for them circa 1980-82.

And after nearly 30 years of making features, maybe Pixar might enter such a phase themselves, as executives place the blame squarely on the filmmakers for their own failures and uncontrollable outside circumstances... Like I said, we'll have to see how they navigate this particular set of rules. Does it work out for them? Does it create movies that audiences mostly don't care for? Who knows... Maybe I myself will like the movies still, maybe I won't even notice a difference... Maybe this is will all be moot, every sentence of it... But we'll see...

[yuurei20]

Azul Info Compilation Part 6: Book 4

Book 4 opens with the information that Azul, Jade and Floyd do not go home for winter break as they live in the “far northern reaches of the Coral Sea” and “at this time of year, the whole surface is covered in ice floes”.

The player and Grim get caught up with drama at Scarabia, are briefly held prisoner and escape on a magic carpet only to crash into Mostro Lounge, where Azul greets them by saying he has mistaken them for “dingy dustcloths”.

This expression struck a chord with fans on JP server who adopted it, and even now searching for the term “dingy dustcloths”—even without a mention of Azul or twisted wonderland or anything else at all—will get you a bunch of twst screenshots, videos and octavinelle fan art.

The "dingy dustcloths" line was also picked up by the Disney Games YouTube show "Good Boy!". While full episodes are hosted by Crewel's VA, this mini episode is just Azul's VA trying to guess what "a pair of dingy dustcloths" means in Japanese.

After ejecting the Scarabia students from Mostro Lounge and explaining that the player and Grim will be charged for the damage done to the lounge, Azul hears the story of what has been going on and decides that Jamil—his “very own classmate”—is in need of his help.

Azul strong-arms his way into Scarabia to return the flying carpet despite Jamil’s insistence he stay out (“I won’t even ask for my standard twenty percent finder’s fee”), guilts Kalim into allowing them to stay and offers to “share any insights” he has with the dorm.

They deduce quickly that Kalim is being mind-controlled, with Floyd saying “You gotta have skills and power on par with Azul for that”, though Azul himself says “Even I would be hard-pressed to control living creatures with their own egos like humans”.

It is Azul who suspects Jamil (“a clever hawk hides its talons”) and creates the plan to take him down.

Azul’s plan appears to involve easing the load on the students of Scarabia so that they are no longer tempted to overthrow Kalim and replace him with Jamil.

It is through Jamil’s attempt to mind control Azul that we learn that Jamil’s unique magic apparently causes its victim physical pain until they submit to him.

Jamil underestimated the extent to which Azul plans for all eventualities, however:

Azul entered into a contract with Floyd, taking Floyd’s unique magic (“bind the heart”, which allows him to deflect magical attacks) and gifting Floyd a deep voice in exchange.

Jamil overblots and banishes everyone to the desert, where Azul explains to Kalim that he is the one who pushed Jamil over the edge.

They return to the dorm through Kalim’s unique magic (producing water of any quantity with little effort) and Jade and Floyd’s eel forms, with Azul refusing to transform as he “isn’t a fast swimmer, even in his mer-form”.

(It has been pointed out to me that octopi are very fast, but in Twst Azul is canonically slow compared to other mer-people, so I don’t know what to tell you ww His slowness is one of the things that he was bullied for as a child and pushed him to overblot in Book 3.)

In Book 4 Jade claims that Jamil’s confession was live-streamed, but in Book 5 Azul explains that this was a bluff (“I can’t believe you thought that I, the very soul of benevolence, would willingly destroy a classmate’s reputation and social standing!”) and that his phone was on a speaker with Jade. Azul explains that “unlike Leona” he doesn’t “torment others for sport”, does not do more than what is necessary, and that he “obtained some perfectly good intel from the experience. I would never dream of devaluing my own assets!”

Jamil admits that, thanks to Azul, his and Kalim’s families never learned why he overblotted. Grim points out that Jamil has changed and Azul says “I much prefer it this way...Octavinelle’s doors are always open to you.” Jamil says that he will never transfer to Octavinelle.

[rmorde]

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2HA, Erha) delivered everything I wanted in a story plus everything I never knew I would actually want in a story.

When I consumed all four books and realized there was more, I was horrified. So, I ventured to all fan translations I can get and practically lost sleeping hours to finish it. It is that good imo.

First off tho, it is not for the faint of heart. Do not be fooled by the cover with pretty art. The premise barely scratches the surface of how dark the story is. Book 4 is also a fucking trap that lulls you into bringing down your defenses before giving you an upper cut in the face then pummeling down your soul into tiny little pieces.

It promised me a cute albeit dark-ish story of two men falling in love. However, what it delivered was a narrative with a thin veneer of fluff to hide tons of absolute brutality concerning racism, classism, elitism, generational trauma, body horror, genocide, rape, mob mentality, gossips, and so much more.

At its core tho, it is still a love story. You just need the patience of a saint and nerves of steel to power through all the pain and agony after the Farming Arc (Basically, be like Chu Wanning as a Reader). ----> I guess you can summarize my feelings as "Went in for the BL. Stayed for the plot. Surprised how underneath that pain, horror, and tragedies woven in the story - it was always about love."

Sure, there were asspulls here (Nangong Bloodline Mo Ran) and there (Butterfly Boned Beauty Feast Mo Ran). There were attempts to set up those reveals tho but they were a bit clunky. However, it is not too detrimental to the overall appeal of the story for me. There were weird phrasings and word choices too but I gave them a slide since it is a light novel after all.

The gore in the story is unexpectedly top notch tho. The fights and monsters are interesting. The stakes in the plot really ramps up the suspense. While some Reveals are fairly obvious, they were still rewarding because they were set up quite nicely such as the reveal of 0.5 Chu Wanning's soul being implanted in the current timeline Chu Wanning, Taxian-Jun appearing, and Shi Mei not being as nice as he presents himself to be.

I also like how redemption was explored in the story. A lot of characters, like Mo Ran, were presented with second chances to fix their own fuck ups. While the villainous characters were sympathetic, they were not given a pass. All of them have to work hard and make the right choices to achieve true redemption.

Just for example: Mo Ran. He feels remorse for everything he had done as Taxian-Jun. He did his best to make up for it. Chu Wanning even forgives him. However, it was not enough. Because the wrongs he had done are not just againstbWanning after all. He still had to pay for his sins with his peaceful life as Grandmaster and earn his happy ending through zombie Taxian-Jun.

There are many more characters trying to seek redemption in the story but I think it would be better if that is in a separate post instead.

Now, another recurring theme featured in Erha is kindness. In the story, Kindness can both be a blessing or a curse. A small amount of it can have big repercussions. Also, contrary to what most people think, kindness is a choice that requires a lot of (mostly thankless) hard work and sacrifice.

Anyway, Erha is my first danmei and I love it. It is dark but with a nice satisfying ending. I'll check out others. Scumbag Villain Self Saving System seems to be a good follow up but from I have read so far about it, it's kind of a parody/comedy type of story?

Maybe I'll check out Heaven Official's Blessing first instead.