#no one quite comes to mind for scifi in the same way but i'll find him eventually. im sure. (threat)

[wiltking]

hiya wilt! I have not read cs poe's other works but I look forward to hearing your thoughts about them 👀 may check them out if they're good!

I actually have a rec request from you: do you happen to know any fantasy/sci-fi books like the steel remains where MC is a gay man versus the world but he tears his way thru it all anyway? I know that's a pretty specific concept but that book is one of my favs (sadly the other two books aren't as great) and I've been chasing that feel the first book gave me

i know the feeling you're talking about and agree that ringil is a very special character and if i could take him out of that series and put him somewhere more deserving of him (or more like the first book, even), i would.

a few characters come to mind that i think you might like, that touch on some of that same unapologetic faggotry and anger, but disclaimer that your mileage may vary.

Chess Parteger from the Hexslinger trilogy by gemma files - the most angry and faggoty on this list by a mile, chess is one of the characters of all time to me, and he definitely spends a lot of time fighting against the world and everyone in it, and raising hell wherever he goes. heads up that the series contains a lot of disturbing content, more so than usual, as its part horror.

Felix Harrowgate from the Doctrine of Labyrinth series by sarah monette - not a series i recommend much, because i think it has a lot of weak points, especially in the middle. but in the end i found it very worthwhile with a strong, thoughtful conclusion. felix is a very flawed man, and a large part of the story deals with him working through the unsavory effects trauma has had on his behavior and thoughts. but i enjoyed the rage, and the grief, and the healing that came along with it.

John from The Rifter by ginn hale - less outwardly angry and unapologetically gay than the others on this list, but still fits the bill and is worth a mention for the colder vibe of the story itself, which reminds me a little bit of the steel remains. and he's just an incredible character who definitely does his fair share of tearing through the world.

Vanyel from The Last Herald-Mage trilogy by mercedes lackey - i have issues with this series (mostly the conclusion which i found to be insulting. among other things) but vanyel himself is a great 'gay hero' type character who prevails against all odds. much of the story deals with his gay loneliness and grief and his journey of healing while also saving the kingdom. less fire and more slowburn though, hence his position here at the bottom.

[canmom]

Do you think Hideaki Anno is right-wing or is it too difficult to tell from his works?

Haha that's a question.

I'll focus on nationalism rather than trying to get into, say, gender politics here, since that's the accusation that most seems to follow Anno around.

Anno's politics are... hard to pin down from his work alone, I think. He's like... a prototypical case of that generation of 'apolitical' otaku that followed after the Anpo generation, with Eva pretty much the definitive statement of the 90s psychological turn. But that said... I can definitely see the argument that there are nationalist themes in some of his works like Gunbuster, though I definitely don't buy every reading in this series (lots of dubious kanji reading). He definitely has that otaku fascination with war machinery and war media (apparently he's a big fan of The Battle for Okinawa and watched it over 100 times), which can easily blend into imperialist ideology.

But there's complications here. For example, the Animekritik series cites the setting of Gunbuster in Okinawa as something formative to the nationalist ideology they are trying to illustrate - in part in relation to the ongoing controversy over American military bases in Okinawa. Anno has at least been on record as saying he's disinterested in Western culture, and I can see the reading of Jung-Freud as an external Other who is shown up by the Japanese girls, somehow simultaneously representing the USSR, Europe and the States. But anti-Americanism in Japan can come in both left and right wing flavours (c.f. Anpo). Communists want the Americans out too! Portraying Okinawa as a military training camp in a Japan-led military coalition certainly comes across as a more nationalist take on that whole matter, but I feel like it's got about the same level of serious nationalist commitment as Doctor Who putting random British people all over space.

When Gainax has played around with nationalist imagery it's usually been in a kind of ironic sendup way - see Ash's writeup about the Aikoku Sentai Dai Nippon controversy, in which Daicon Film staff were disdainful at the accusation that their goofy toku film reflected a genuine nationalist sentiment. While Imaishi takes it further, a lot of Anno's work is also about playfully reappropriating past works. In Anno's case a lot of that is classic tokusatsu, Ultraman in particular, and also Leiji Matsumoto's scifi, notably Space Battleship Yamato, which, well... you know the deal there lol. But it's not so simple to go from that to 'Anno is a nationalist'.

Eva doesn't tend to attract these accusations, but I recall the controversy came back around with Shin Godzilla, though to my mind it's hard to find a straightforwardly nationalist reading of that movie. (It's a film about the experience of the earthquake and Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, and it's critical of Japan's bureaucracy, but equally one where the JSDF repeatedly get their shit handed to them and civilian infrastructure is what actually stops Godzilla - not to mention Godzilla is painted as quite a tragic figure here!) It all feels pretty tenuous.

I haven't seen as many of Anno's live action films as I'd like, so I can't comment as much on the more recent Shin films, Love & Pop, Shiki-Jitsu etc. And it's always possible for subtler allusions to slip by the anglophone viewer. Still, I don't personally think Anno's post-Gunbuster work is particularly nationalist in outlook. I certainly haven't seen any evidence of him favouring, say, war crime denial, anti-Korean sentiment, remilitarisation, etc etc. - he's definitely not as dubious a figure as someone like Hajime Isayama. But it's not like, anti-nationalist either! It's just kind of hard to read in those terms.

So I lean towards your second option, I'm not convinced he's a nationalist or particularly right wing. He happily associates with Hayao Miyazaki, who's definitely not a right wing guy. But Anno'll also let hilariously cooked stuff like whatever On A Gloomy Night was supposed to be into the Animator Expo. So I don't think he's particularly left wing either, he's no Ikuni! But Anno's fiction is very individual focused, full of psychoanalytic themes and internal conflict. He can vividly portray trauma and complex power dynamics. There's a lot to appreciate in works like Eva from a left-wing angle. I don't really know why this association of nationalism follows him around.

Idk, maybe there's a bunch of interviews I'm missing! Presumably you have a reason for asking this question...

[godlizzza]

3 + 17 + 21 for the book asks! :D

Yeee!

3. What were your top five books of the year?

-Swordheart by T Kingfisher

Amazing fantasy/romance about a woman attempting to be married off by her family, who finds a magical sword left to her by a deceased relative. When she draws the sword, it releases an immortal warrior bound to serve whoever wields the sword. The two of them then escape together and travel across the land in search of legal help for her. Halla and Sarkis are amazing characters, with great chemistry and the journey they take together, both physically and emotionally, is soooo good.

-City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

Historical fiction/coming of age set in New York City in 1940 about a young woman named Vivian, who's been kicked out of college and is sent to live with her theatre director aunt. I'll talk about this book more in just a sec haha.

-And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

A crime/thriller about a bunch of people invited to an isolated island by a mysterious person known as U.N Owen, however soon after they all arrive, they start dying one by one to the theme of a haunting nursery rhyme. Agatha Christie is the queen of crime for a reason and while I'm most familiar with her Poirot mysteries, this standalone book was so creepy, so atmospheric, and full of so much dread that I think it might be my favourite of hers that I've read so far.

-The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir

You may have seen me reblog quite a bit of stuff from this series and that's only because it took over my life for a good few months there. This series is so hard to concisely describe because it's unlike anything I've ever read before. It's a Scifi series set in the distant future where humanity is spread out across the solar system, and there's a House on each planet that practices some form of necromancy. Book 1 follows our protag Gideon, an indentured servant to the ninth house, being roped into joining the reverend daughter of the house, Harrow (who she fucking hates) in this competition where duos from each of the nine houses are sent to a dilapidated castle on a distant planet to try and unlock the mystery of ascending to a higher power known as lychtorhood. All you need to know is that the series is funny, action-packed, mysterious, confusing, often mind-fucky, and gay as hell. Just read it.

-She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat by Sakaomi Yuzaki.

A manga series this time! I read quite a few manga series that I really loved this year (Cherry Magic and My Love Mix-up were also contenders for this spot) but this series holds such a special place in my heart. It's a slice of life romance about two women, Nomoto and Kasuga, who live in the same apartment building and bond over their mutual love of food. They cook together, go out to eat together, and just spend loads of time together. It's very sweet and wholesome. Watching them grow closer and seeing how much they love spending time with the other and are just looking for any excuse to invite the other over is sooo cute. There are 3 volumes out in English rn as well as season 1 of a live action tv show adaptation, which is also really good. It truly makes my heart sing and is the best Yuri manga I've read so far.

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

Here's where I circle back to City of Girls! I knew very little about the book going in and was surprised at how immediately taken I was with it! The narrative voice is so strong, and the way the book tackles so many things- friendship, romance, sex, family, passion, changing political climates, class- it's all so good. The book is a wild ride. You go through a lot with Vivian, including her highest highs and lowest lows, but through it all you see the simple journey of life that everyone goes through. It's truly an amazing book and one I'd recommend to everyone, even if you don't typically reach for historical fiction.

21. Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama?

I haven't participated in any but I've seen quite a few unfold. The ones sticking out to me rn are that girl on tiktok who would loudly and publicly thirst over hockey players because they reminded her of fictional hockey players she'd read about in sports romances, to the point where she was literally at games irl filming these men and catcalling them. It got so bad that the wife of one of the players came out on instagram to talk about how uncomfortable this shit made her and her husband feel and the tiktoker's reaction was to be like LOL get over it. wild.

There was the one where this indie horror author saw a negative review of one of his books, so he publicly started dragging the girl who'd made the review and even dedicated a book he wrote to her, and was just generally a massive dick.

And most recently that upcoming debut author who had made a bunch of fake accounts on goodreads to boost the rating of her book and bomb the ratings of fellow debut authors. Then when people started to follow the trail of breadcrumbs she'd inadvertently left behind, she made a fake conversation between her and a supposed 'friend' on discord admitting to being the one behind the review bombs. Eventually, proof of her being the culprit got released and she lost her book deal, her agent, and all her author friends. Sucks to suck.