#on the OTHER hand weird bone sex can be narrative magic

[iwowzumi]

my feelings on griddleharks relationship status is so complicated. they should kiss. they should never touch again. they should have weird bone sex but they are also both asexual and terrified of intimacy. they should die in each other’s arms. they should fuse their souls into one perfect being. they should get married AND divorced. hope this helps

[grittyreadsfic]

hello my friends, one singular person asked for this weeks ago so i’m here with my most unhinged rec list yet: tk and nolan.

now, this one was hard to reign in, so i really didn’t. this pairing had maybe 230 fics in the tag when i first started reading hockey fic, and it’s now over 900, and i’ve read far too many of them, and that makes it so hard to parse it down. so i just...didn't!

so with that said, please enjoy so you want to get into tknp: a beginners guide to a classic case of idiots to lovers

i told myself that i couldn’t rec an author’s entire body of work but then i remembered this is my blog and i do what i want, so i did some consolidating. here’s a list of the quintessential authors for this pairing, you can start at any of their profiles and pick any of their fics at random, and it’ll be one of the best ones for the pairing, hands down.

therainbowsedge: i’d start with the summer camp fic, or the sex toys one, as both beautifully capture the true idiots to lovers nature of this pairing, but just top tier writing all around

manybumblebees: the wedding fic is so tender and port stanley is a classic, but literally pick any single fic and you’ll have a perfect tknp fic. i’m not kidding

jamesvanriemsdick: their tknp fics in their series are some of the hidden gems of this pairing (the tk heartbeat fic makes me LOSE it) but the delaware fic or the seattle fic…..there’s really something for every mood

catchascatchcan: start with era of gods because i could write literal essays on how it’s some of the best fantasy worldbuilding i’ve ever read, but then just read everything else on their account, including non tknp fics. you won’t regret it

hackysack: ao3 user hackysack has written one of two timeloop fics that i absolutely adore, and i thought about just calling that one out in particular, but all of their work deserves the attention

canary: nothing to prove was the first tknp fic i ever read and i was immediately hooked. all of their fics are a good starting place for the pairing, and just really give you a feeling for the pairing

and now, for the fic recs!

to be, despite it all by smudgedfreckles

summary: or, nolan patrick’s gender thesis, by travis konecny.

why i love it: there’s not a lot ofo nonbinary characters in media, even in fic, but this fic’s treatment of nolan and their path to figuring out their gender just feels so real and made me feel so seen. tk’s characterization is also just top notch, and it’s just a super sweet story about two people who love each other

last ones standing by makeit_takeit

summary: If you’re committed to finding your future spouse, reads the last line of the ad, and are ready to look at yourself and your love life in a whole new way, apply now.

At the bottom of the ad there’s a link, and Travis finds his finger hovering over the screen, lip still caught between his teeth.

“I mean,” he says very reasonably, speaking out loud to his empty apartment like some sort of possibly-crazy person, “just applying doesn’t mean anything. Maybe I just fill it out, and see what happens. It’s not like I’m really gonna get picked to be on TV, come on.”

He snorts out loud, just to show his apartment he hasn’t lost his grip on reality or anything; he fully understands how ludicrous that would be.

Then he clicks the link anyway, because yolo or whatever.

why i love it: what part of a married at first sight fic doesn’t make you want to immediately dive right in? the concept is fun, the execution is absolutely flawless, and it captures their dynamic so well while letting it develop naturally

motivation by connectknee

summary: Kevin knows when to back off, the article said. He knows just when to shut up and leave Patty alone, something Travis has never known how to do.

why i love it: the thing i love about this pairing is that tk is loud and in your face, and nolan’s more reserved, a little quieter, a little harder to read. this fic does a really great job of exploring how tk could feel like maybe he’s just a bit too much and is one of my favorites in terms of miscommunication

a tenderness grows by rusesdeguerre

summary: Nolan wouldn’t say that landing a job as the Philadelphia Flyers’ psychotic and probably clinically insane mascot was a childhood dream of his. Maybe tangentially: playing pond hockey in –30°C weather and pretending to be Sidney Crosby is practically a rite of passage when you grow up in Manitoba. That, and experiencing the distinct displeasure that is thousands of mosquitoes sucking your blood out when your father drags you on a father-son camping trip into the backwoods of the northern Canadian Prairies.

why i love it: this was the first fic i recced on this blog, and i stand by that decision. a fic where nolan is not only not a hockey player, but is in fact the person in the gritty suit? absolutely perfect, and so charming from start to finish

meet me at my window by springsteen

summary: Travis has lived in Philadelphia for a few years now, long enough to know there isn’t a major city in America where superheroes don’t destroy an entire city block trying to save humanity or whatever. He can deal with all the super-shit, but Travis did not sign up for getting woken up from a deep sleep because some fucker’s trying to break in through his window.

(5 times the super-villain known as "The Cat" breaks into Travis's apartment, plus 1 time Travis invites him in.)

why i love it: there’s a lot of things to love here, but the concept is just absolutely one of my all time favorite aus ever. it’s fun and charming and the perfect glimpse into a world where heroes and villains exist, and what it’s like just to be a run of the mill kind of guy existing in it. tk and nolan’s back and forth in this make it so engaging, and it’s such a top tier fic

body’s in trouble by cloudsandpassingevents

summary: “Oh, sorry,” someone says. “Didn’t know anyone else was here.”

Nolan freezes, then turns around very slowly. When he looks up, Nicklas fucking Backstrom is standing behind him in a hoodie and baggy sweats, holding the biggest bag of Swedish Fish Nolan’s ever seen in his life in one hand.

“Uh,” Nolan says around the pop tart between his teeth. “Yeah.”

What the fuck, his brain helpfully supplies.

why i love it: from nolan’s inner voice, to the way the author explores all the dynamics within the team, to the way they write the unexpected but actually, it kind of makes sense friendship between nolan and backstrom, is just absolutely fantastic. there’s a lot of moments that circle back and build on each other in a way that really just makes it super compelling

rhizomatic foundations by lighthousetowers

summary: Twenty days after he moves in with Kevin Hayes, twenty days – three months, five months, depending on how you look at it – after not talking to TK, TK shows up at the front door with a plant the size of a basketball in his hands.

TK grins. "Patty, meet Reginald." He lifts up the plant. "Reggie, meet Patty. He's going to be your new - caretaker."

"What the fuck," says Nolan, not moving a single muscle.

Or: That Nolan can hear the plant talk might as well just happen.

why i love it: this is probably my favorite magical realism fic just about ever. it’s fun and charming and a little weird, but in the best possible way. there’s such a wonderful narrative in it, and lighthousetowers always has such beautiful writing, and it really shines in this one. the dialogue and nolan’s characterization are also part of what set it apart for me as one of the best tknp fics

in the dark of any town by mengetpegged

summary: If the voice has an accent at all, it’s a flat prairie Canadian, with none of G’s French-Canadian softness at the edges. But mostly, the accent is just ‘pissed off,’ which TK believes is a default setting for ghosts.

“Who are you?” TK asks, and he doesn’t like how strained his voice sounds, doesn’t like the tinge of anxiety tinting the rise of his question. He tries to regulate his breaths—in through his nose, hold, out through his mouth—but it feels like he’s not getting enough oxygen, which makes him panic even more.

“Someone with a fucking migraine, dickhead,” the voice says. “So keep the lights off and shut the hell up.”

(or: Nolan Patrick, Hotel X Ghost)

why i love it: i’m usually not super into ghost fics, both the spooky kind and the nonspooky kind, but this one is a rare exception. it’s charming and fun and tender and it’s got some of, in my opinion, the best characterization of tk and nolan in any fic. the way the author writes their dynamic and their dialogue is just unmatched

lets_make_this_moment_a_crime.mp3 by honeydripping

summary: Travis meets Nolan at a Midtown show in 2002 when he punches Nolan in the face. He can’t help it, “Like A Movie” just goes off.

But he does feel guilty about it.

or

TK and Patty work at a bakery together. They go to punk shows to pass the time.

why i love it: idk if anyone asked for an early 2000s emo/punk/alt au but wow! i sure am glad it exists! really the vibes of this fic, as silly as that sounds, are absolutely unmatched. i love the structure with the music, the development of their relationship, and just everything about how the author wrote the setting (there’s this whole thing with tattoos in it that makes me feel absolutely insane)

you’re ripped at every edge by you’re a masterpiece by conformityissuicide

summary: “Ugh, look, this yoga teacher has it out for me, man. And I can’t go back there without at least having some of the basics down. I’ve got to win this battle.”

“Yoga isn’t really something you win at,” Hartsy starts.

Travis cuts him off, “You can win at anything if you try hard enough.”

+++

OR that time Nolan's a grumpy yoga teacher and Travis realizes he wants to bone him and prove him wrong about Travis' non-existent yoga abilities.

why i love it: listen, if you want tknp, at least one of them has to be an idiot, and this tk absolutely captures the obliviousness i love to see in him in fic. it’s such a great characterization of them both and such a great concept (and even better execution)

you form a terror pack (and i’m aware of that) by dalmatienne

summary: “Can I help you?” TK snarks, both eyebrows hiked up in a way that has earned her many elbow checks to the ribs.

The chick looks down her nose, long thick eyelashes fluttering. Red-bitten lips part to blow a florid pink bubble and TK can smell the chemical sweetness when it pops.

“Yeah,” she says in this monotonous voice that seems almost at odds with her bubble gum and neon skates. She jams her stopper into TK’s thigh again, literally inches away from where it’d really hurt. “Tie ‘em.”

why i love it: to be honest, i generally don’t read rule 63 within hrpf, but this one is just absolutely knocks it out of the park. the concept (i fuckin’ love roller derby), the characterization of nolan, the pacing, the rituals, the tone of the entire fic, it’s just all around a perfect read from start to finish

thrills and grills by bitter_leaf

summary: Travis can’t even begin to wonder what he did in a previous life to incur the wrath of this fucking cook. Travis thinks he’s a nice person, doesn’t conduct himself in any way that could be considered particularly dickish, and unless this guy has some sort of issue with hockey bros or people from the boonies, he’s not sure how he started shit without even knowing.

__

Patty has a vendetta. Travis just wants to eat his eggs in peace.

why i love it: honestly this is the enemies to lovers fic i’ve been waiting for. i remember seeing the reddit post when it first went viral and thinking it would make such a great fic premise, so stumbling across this one was just so wonderful. super engaging and fun and so hilarious to read!

nothing but room for you by fightingfuries

summary: When his agent tells him he’s going to be traded to the Devils, Nolan isn't sure how he feels about it. Might be easier if he was going somewhere farther away, like California or fucking Florida. Somewhere sun-soaked and foreign. Someplace so different from Philadelphia that he can forget he ever played for the Flyers, forget everything that happened there.

Or Nolan fucks up, gets traded, gets his shit together and falls in love. Not necessarily in that order.

why i love it: i cannot stress to you how much i love trade fics, and this one is one of my absolute favorites. the trade to the devils-so close to philly, still, but there’s more to distance than physical miles-was such an excellent choice and the split timeline adds so much to the narrative, and the emotions are real and messy and complicated in the best way

a couple of runaways (i’m glad you stayed) by overturnedgoal

summary: The person in the video he’s watching is super annoying. Some obnoxious holier than thou granola type who keeps talking about their environmental impact as if they aren’t driving a gas guzzler around, but the basic idea of living in a van, driving around wherever, camping all the time, just going hiking and swimming and seeing the whole country? It sounds pretty dope, honestly.

why i love it: i like to watch tours and conversions of vans/buses into tiny homes as a self soothing method, and this fic has the same impact that watching those do. it’s such a fun concept, and it’s so fuckin’ soft, and the dialouge between tk and nolan is just *chef’s kiss*

all candor and style in the crook of your smile by p3trichor

summary: It’s a photo of Nolan on his knees with someones’ fingers in his mouth, lips slick with spit. Travis flicks by it almost too fast and he’s only got seconds to decide if he wants to screenshot it, if he wants to just give up the ghost right then and there. Except Travis’s phone freezes momentarily and then the group refreshes, sidcros87, Bert59 and 14 others took a screenshot!

It’s gone before Travis even has time to process it and he already wasted his replay of the day on a stupid video of a stupid fish that Hayes caught.

Can you send me that screenshot Travis texts Bertuzzi before he can overthink it, his dick already stirring in his sweats. Tuzzi sends back the cry-laughing emoji and then the screenshot before Travis can be too annoyed at him.

Or, Nolan is being weird about Travis's break-up and TK is maybe not straight.

why i love it: i genuinely don’t think i have words for the amount i love this fic. it took me forever to actually read, but it’s absolutely one of my favorite fics, and it’s an absolutely riot to read. carter’s meddling and the presence of tyler bertuzzi both make it extra fun, in my humble opinion

[initiumseries]

CAOS Part 3 - review

Uh, okay, so I think by now, we all know this show is terrible. Netflix gives showrunners a lot of creative freedom, and I think, for better writers, you could get some really interesting content, but they just seem to keep giving these assholes who wrote the travesty called Riverdale, so many opportunities to make more shitty television, and I feel like they really deserve to be limited in their ability to create/write if not stopped completely and thrown into a well with Julie Plec.  Anyway, I’ll try to break this down as best as I can into different piles of shit and this will contain spoilers:

Characters

Prudence and Ambrose

So, to be really honest, I watch this show exclusively for Prudence and Ambrose. Because, well, look at them: 

I wish they had more chemistry because they are super hot together, and I still ship it. A young Black couple? On TV? In this sea of shitty interracial relationships? I’ll take it. Anyway, of course, the progression of their relationship is ridiculous and frustrating. Ambrose decides at the last minute, not to kill Father Blackwood because he has a weird time egg thing that they don’t really understand, also he has the twins under some weird mind control for no clear reason, so they stay their hands. It doesn’t make sense, but it becomes clear, Father Blackwood has an insane amount of plot armour and ultimately would have to serve as a vessel for Satan. Father Blackwood uses the manipulated mind of the other weird sister to sic her on the coven, and she ends up killing Dorkus, whom Prudence finds. She then blames Ambrose for not allowing her to kill FB, and they break up. Now...this would kinda make sense, if not for the fact that they trapped one of the pagan witches and forced her to change everyone back, but no one bothered to do anything about the mentally ill witch who you all strapped up for a reason? Lol ok. Seems like an oversight on your part Prudence, but...okay. Clearly manufactured breakups are exhausting, especially since [young] Black couples with no serious relationship dysfunction are now an endangered species. It’s also frustrating because we barely got to see them....*be* together, especially after they returned home. 

Nick & Sabrina

So, I know from the beginning, we were supposed to believe that Nick and Sabrina had that kind of, Bad Guy, seduces the girl Good Girl, luring her into the dark side, hot, intense, passionate relationship. But their lack of chemistry and really shitty acting just made them really dry (which I get into here). I don’t believe them, and I definitely don’t believe that Sabrina would, once again, break a shit ton of rules to get Nick back. I just don’t buy that they had that kind of an intense, desperately in love, kind relationship, because they do not look all that comfortable around each other, much less in love. 

I personally find Sabrina utterly unlikeable as a main character, largely because who IS she? She has no personality, she just does whatever the plot needs her to do in the moment, and the actress makes Sabrina appear smug and unremorseful while she fucks up everyone’s lives. There is a lot of exposition of everyone telling us she’s this power hungry, manipulative character, but we never see that. She just does stuff and everyone is all “Sabrina how could you?!” and there are never, ever any consequences. I would have liked to see her push so hard to get Nick back and the struggle being, sure she wants him back, but mostly she’s doing it because she can. But that’s not what happens. 

So Nick ends up in this weird drug addiction, alcohol, sex demon spiral because he has parts of Satan still in him and it all just falls so flat and lame, because this show is SO bad at pacing, and these actors suck, so nothing is believable. The idea of him scrubbing his club foot, having nightmares, suffering PTSD, is fine, the execution was trash. Nick sees Caliban and Sabrina have one interaction and he’s like WELL, GUESS I GOTTA CHEAT. And just ends up in some S&M situation with sex demons and heavily self medicating, but none of this has any weight, and we don’t really see him...spiralling. He just immediately resorts to these things and it has no real impact on anyone or even him really, and that’s it. 

Harvey and Roz

Uh, they’re probably the most confusing match here, because there is no lead up to their relationship, there’s not suggestion, there’s no pacing. Just BOOM, we’re into each other now. BOOM, Roz is the only sexually active person in her friend group (lol of course the Black girl is sexually active. Gotta maintain white innocence at all costs), so she’s just ready to jump Harvey’s bones any second now. So of course, the show punishes her by having the pagans turn her to stone. And as if that’s not bad enough...

Which I talk about here and here, because honestly I’m just sick of this show’s antiblackness.  Theo & that other guy

So I was watching this unfold like, yeeaahh, they’re gonna make the trans guy get with the enemy aren’t they? And yes, they did. Cool, they didn’t kill him off, but I’m still perplexed at how Theo isn’t even a little upset that this guy was basically sent to infiltrate his friend group and sat by while his people harmed Theo’s friends, and also...used him? Like...we just...are gonna...gloss over that because he changed his mind? Lol ok. Sure.

Mambo Marie and suddenly Zelda?

I...I mean her name is Mambo Marie. I love the idea of Black witches finding Black spirituality and magicks through Vodun and a Hatian Priestess. But they quickly undo that, by ensuring that Mambo Marie only teaches Prudence in the presence of these white witches. And we see her...doing...an African drum circle (eye roll), only to be interrupted by the High Priestess of White Feminism, Zelda Spellman. It quickly devolves into thinly veiled racism where Zelda doesn’t trust Marie because she’s Catholic (says the woman who worships Satan, has an anti Pope and prays to Lilith with the same prayer for Mary mother of Jesus? LOL. Not even unpacking the fact that Vodun is an African spirituality having 0 roots in catholicism WHITE WRITERS). Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Marie and Zelda are a thing for no reason? After the way Zelda treated her? Why did Marie even stay? This isn’t her problem. This is a white witch problem. Okay. That’s too much to unpack. 

Plot

So, my biggest problem with almost all Netflix English programming is that they are so obsessed with aesthetics, and don’t pay enough attention to actual character chemistry, plot, story flow, details, pacing etc. Like...things that actually make stories interesting to watch. So they slap all these people together and throw them into aesthetically pleasing backgrounds, shake it up with so much exposition that nothing actually happens, and are like BEHOLD A STORY. And CAOS is *especially* guilty for this.

First of all those musical breaks were annoying as fuck. Musicals serve 2 story functions: advancing the plot or telling a story. These musical numbers did neither and were honestly ridiculously gratuitous, highly annoying and totally pointless.

What time of year is this? Why are we having pep rallies and how the fuck and when did Sabrina and Roz join the cheeleading squad, and why?

for the aesthetics and not for any real plot reason. It just seems stupid because now I don’t know how much time has passed between Nick going to hell and this, because you’re all handling it like it’s been a few weeks and is still relatively fresh, but suddenly, Theo, Harvey and Roz are in a garage band? You’re a cheerleader? For what? Since when? Why? These choices introduce more questions than they answer and serve no narrative purpose. So much wasted time on shit that doesn’t matter. 

Sabrina is supposed to be fighting Caliban (who is literally the only person she has chemistry with on this show and they killed him bc ofc they did), for her seat on the throne, and yet the trials only seem to come up when it’s convenient, and also seem to be directly related to her dealings with her coven, which is also convenient.  I’m so confused about Satan. His powers come from being a celestial being, and so, because his coven mistreats him he’s like...lol okay, well fuck you guys and goes through all these convoluted small motions to greatly inconvenience them and withdraws his powers? This is so petty and pathetic. Also, what’s the point? He could just wipe them out and start over, instead of skulking around inside FB then suddenly decides to track down Lilith. Again, convoluted. This plot is all over the place. Why does Satan need Sabrina to be Queen of Hell in the first place? He seems perfectly healthy. Why can’t he just rule it? Like...that makes no sense. What is he gonna do? Retire? WHAT is going ON?

How did Sabrina come back in time to herself stuck in stone? Is that trip to Pontius Pilate (lol) supposed to have created a loophole for her to save herself and everyone? This is giving me hardcore Twilight Breaking Dawn vibes, where, the show finally, FINALLY gets interesting, there’s real stakes, shit is actually happening instead of everyone talking about things happening (Hilda ending up killing her fiance was literally the only time I felt something watching this show because it was genuinely sad, and well acted, and Hilda coming through with that doll at the end was pretty disturbing, I’ll give them that), and ofc, Sabrina goes back in time and undoes it all. Lol. Okay. God forbid there be real consequences to anything on this show.

Final thoughts

Once again, the white feminism runs high on this show. They treat this Black Vodun Priestess Marie, like garbage, allude to her “foreign” magic, but Marie is sitting here like “we’re not men, we’re women, let’s work together.” This is why I hate white writers writing for Black characters. Black characters should have Black motivations, and a Black Vodun Priestess, should know that white women and Black women do not have aligned motivations just because they share a gender. Once they started with the bullshit right from her arrival, she should have handed Prudence her card and peaced tf out. Instead she tolerates the isolation, ostracization and thinly veiled racism...and decides to stay, and help. WHY? Marie has gained nothing by sticking around helping these ungrateful ass witches. I honestly would have preferred Prudence asking her to stay to learn more about Vodun, and them building a mentor/mentee type of relationship, especially since Prudence was the one who invited her and stepped to Zelda to defend her. I want(ed) to see that relationship go somewhere. The deliberate denial of healthy Black female friendships on tv is frustrating.

 These witches finally finding their power in their ancestors and I donno, some female creator or whatever, reminds me of white women “finding” wicca and praying to “Gaia”, (reminds me of BTVS s4 when Willow joins the wicca group) which is basically what happened but lol okay whatever. I guess they aren’t satanic witches anymore. Lol, I love how Harvey and Roz and Theo are teenagers, human teenagers, who have lead largely normal teenage lives up until this point, but see their loved ones tortured, deformed or murdered in hell, with basically no residual issues, and are all like, YES, let’s roll up on these adults with shotguns and swords and kill the FUCK outta these people!! That absolutely sounds normal! Like...what? Lol. God this is just so bad.

Also, I’m so confused by this aesthetic choice for Sabrina as Queen of Hell. Like what the fuck. Why is she dressed like a Victorian era queen, with shoulder and a broken rib bodice? What?!

This show is truly awful, this season made no more sense than the last two and now that Prudence and Ambrose aren’t together, I might be done watching. 

-20/10

[xaphrin]

I hope you don’t mind I smooshed these together. Also, this got WILDLY out of control. 

Damian glared at Raven over the rim of his glass, watching as she leaned against the bar, likely showing a flash of cleavage. She’d specifically worn that dress - the one with the black sequins and the low neckline - because she said men were easily influenced by the allure of sex, and it made getting information from them “a piece of cake”. 

Damian had originally scoffed at the idea, he didn’t think anyone would be dumb enough to just blurt out information to a pretty face and a pair of tits. But, now that he had alcohol burning through his veins, he realized he would have gladly given Raven anything she wanted if she was next to him. Her eyes suddenly seemed too wide, her lips too red, her breasts too full, her dress too short - short enough to show the lace edge of her stockings - she was too much of everything.

“I didn’t think Raven could be that hot.” 

Damian looked at Gar, who was sitting next to him, gazing longingly at her. Gar propped up his head up on his hand, and grinned like an idiot, a flush working across his cheeks. “I didn’t even thing she had breasts. I mean… look at that.”

Raven gave the guy a soft smile and took a drink that was offered to her by the bartender, sipping it. She leaned forward even more, and Damian stared at the lace edge of her stockings, his gaze sliding up the back of her thighs until he caught the black edge of her panties just barely peeking out from the hem of her dress. He felt his blood boil in his veins, and suddenly his mind was filled with him ripping her panties off her hips, hoisting her against a wall and-

Raven’s eyes widened, and he could feel her glare flick to his own. Her lips twitched, and with a subtle movement, she tapped the side of her head. 

Right. Empath. 

Damian flushed and reached for his third drink, downing it in one movement, as he looked out onto the dance floor. Starfire looked like a model, nearly a whole head above the other women, and men kept coming up to her, asking to dance. She fluttered her eyelashes and danced with them, each movement a lie. She was watching for their second target, who was currently in a booth by the corner, his inebriated following Starfire’s every movement. 

Sex, it seemed, was a way to get bad guys to do bad things. Damian hated it when they were right. Jaime sunk down next to Gar and sighed. “No luck trying to get anymore info from the bodyguard. Just a bit about a party downstairs, which we already knew about. How is Raven faring?”

Damian looked back at her, and he watched as the man she was chatting up finally kissed the back of her hand, leaving a small smudge on her skin. It was her ticket downstairs to the party. “Better than us, I see.” 

“Good.” Jamie sighed and leaned back in their booth. “Well, at least our magical tank can get into the party. You think they’re really serving meta drugs downstairs?”

“Or trafficking metas. Or it’s just a normal party with run-of-the-mill drugs. That’s why we’re checking it out.” Damian felt his tongue struggling to work, and he silently cursed himself for never having the foresight to build up a good alcohol tolerance. Two drinks and he was buzzed, three drinks and he appeared to be inebriated, which was embarrassing. 

Damian watched as Raven turned away for just a moment, and he saw the guy she’d been chatting slip something into her drink. When Raven turned back, she reached for the cocktail glass, and Damian swore time stopped. Panic, painful and urgent, filled him to the brim, and he launched himself out of the booth and crossed half the bar in two steps, knocking the drink out of Raven’s hand. 

“Hey, babe.” The word felt weird on his lips, like a term of endearment that didn’t quite belong to either of them. “Sorry, I’m late. I got caught in traffic. I thought you were going to wait for me?” He leaned down and pressed his lips to her ear, whispering. “He slipped something into your drink and I can’t tell if it’s magical or not. Don’t drink it.”

He felt her tense, but otherwise her composure stayed the same. “I just got invited to a cool party downstairs.” She smiled at Damian, and then at the stranger. “You mind if I bring my boyfriend? He’s cool, I promise. Plus, he doesn’t mind sharing… if you know what I mean.” 

Raven bent over again, fluttering her lashes and winking, and Damian caught the bare edge of her nipple exposed from the edge of her neckline. Fuck. She was really laying the sex on thick. He flushed and glanced at the guy’s face, who was so entranced with Raven that he didn’t notice Damian grabbing her drink and pouring it into the floor. 

“Uh… y-yeah. That’s cool.” The guy licked his lips and reached out for Raven before pulling back. “Sharing… that’s neat. Been doing that awhile?”

“Yeah. Makes things… exciting.” Raven smiled and shifted her hips, a slit in her barely-there dress flashing the edge of her stockings. She reached out and grabbed Damian’s hand, lifting it out towards the stranger. “You mind?”

He curled his lip up at the edge, looking at Damian’s hand and pressed a quick, messy kiss to the top of Damian’s hand. It took everything in his power not to wipe his hand on his pants and then immediately punch the guy in the face. He had to remember that this was their ticket into the party. He plastered on a fake smile and wrapped his arm around Raven’s waist. When had she gotten so short? Damian glanced down at her. 

“Wanna head down there now?” Raven pretended to down the now-empty glass in her hand, and smiled at the other guy. “I’m feeling kind of… hot.”

“Yeah.” The guy grinned and cocked his head to a door in the corner, flanked by two bodyguards. “I’d love to show you around. The music is better down there anyway.”  

They made their way through the packed dance floor, and Raven nodded in Starfire’s direction, letting her know that they had made it in. Damian bent down and pressed his lips to her ear. 

“He doesn’t mind sharing?”

Raven looked up at him and shrugged. “The guy was only going to let me in there if he had a chance of sleeping with me. I had to think of something.” 

“We’re not even dating.” Damian glared at nothing in particular. “And you called me your boyfriend?” 

“You don’t even like me, and yet you made it look like you were dating me.” Raven flicked her stare up to him, lips tilting down in a frown. “And you’re the one having drunken thoughts about fucking me.” She paused and gave him a flat stare, a slight flush to her cheeks. “Tell me, is it the stockings that do it for you?”

He didn’t want to say yes, so he just kept quiet and glared ahead. “Shut up.”

“You’re drunk.” Raven rolled her eyes and made her way to the door. The bodyguard pulled out a UV light and saw the kiss on her hand light up, and then Damian’s. He nodded and ushered them forward, eyes staring out into the dancefloor. 

Raven took a step forward and wrapped her arms around the stranger’s elbow, flashing him a saccharine smile as she asked some benign question about what was going on downstairs. The guy didn’t have an answer, and all he could do was grin hungrily at Raven. The door opened and there was a hum of high-powered techno that wafted up from the basement. “You’re right, the music is way better. How’s the booze?”

“Good.” The guy looked down into Raven’s cleavage and smiled. “We got a few things stronger than that if you’re interested.” 

“Ah… well, I do need a good, stiff one before I get started.” Raven smirked, like she was telling him a secretive joke that only they shared. “Like I said, I’m getting pretty hot and might need to… cool down.”

Damian rolled his eyes and followed them both down the stairs, a mixture of jealous and annoyed. On one hand, he knew this was just Raven trying to keep up the ruse, and on the other hand, he didn’t want to share her with anyone. Then again, it wasn’t exactly like she was his to share. What a fucking joke. 

The hum of the music was so loud it practically vibrated his bones, each step brought him deeper and deeper into the smell of sweat and drugs and lust. Raven reached back and grabbed Damian’s hand, pulling him with her. Her fingers tightened, as if she needed someone strong to cling to, and Damian remembered that the rush of emotions was probably drowning her. His heart seemed to beat harder as she ran her fingers along the line of his pulse, and he watched as she looked over her shoulder at him. Her face was flushed and he could see the way she watched him from beneath those heavily lidded eyes. There was too much all at once, and she needed a stronghold to protect her, no matter what she acted like. 

Raven was smart, she kept play acting through her worry, creating a narrative that everyone else seemed to buy, and he had to remember to play along with her. And protect her from whatever was down here. They finally landed into the packed basement, the pounding of the music drowning everything else out. Raven let go of the guy’s arm, and he bent down to yell something into her ear. Raven nodded and she grabbed Damian’s hand, leading him to the bar in the middle of the floor. 

Damian pressed his lips to her ear. “Where is he going?”

“To find his boss.” She glanced around, eyeing the drinks in everyone else’s hands. They had to blend in. “Let’s get a drink.”

Damian didn’t know if he could handle another drink, but he knew he had to avoid any kind of attention. He stood behind Raven as she ordered for them both, and the bartender gave them both a heavy pour of something strong. Damian coughed as he sipped at the drink, the fuzziness in his head getting worse. 

“I didn’t think we’d get in.” Damian glanced around again, his free hand threaded through Raven’s as she clung to him. “What does it feel like to you?”

“A shitty rave. Sex, drugs, bad techno.” Raven shrugged. “I’ll look for a meta drug, but I’m not sure if this is the place we need to investigate or not. So far it’s all the usual suspects - meth, coke, pcp, pot. Nothing that even hints at a meta drug.” 

Damian looked around at the alcoves set up around the perimeter of the basement. Some of them were private booths, others were more of an exhibition. A man was shackled to a cross while some naked blonde was performing felatio on him while she was being whipped. Damian jerked back and glared at the scene before he glanced at Raven. 

“What? Never been to a sex club before?” Raven smirked and took another sip of her drink, eyes scanning the rest of the room. The subtle push of her powers was the only thing that alerted him that she was still acting. “I thought that would be your kind of thing. Always took you for a Dom.” 

“Tch.” He rolled his eyes and looked around again, trying to see anything that might have brought them both here. So far it looked all pretty run-of-the-mill illicit drugs and sex. Nothing the police couldn’t handle. Well, at least that was one club they could mark off their list. He’d send a report to the police when they got back home tonight, and this place would be busted by the morning.

“Am I wrong?” Raven was obviously teasing him, but still… there was a spark of curiosity in her eyes, like she really wanted to know. “You’re not interested in tying your lady friend up and making her submit?” 

“First of all, I don’t have a lady friend. And second of all, if I did I wouldn’t discuss it with you.” He glared at her, and without thinking about it, he downed the rest of what was in his glass. Fuck. Not good. Now he was going to be impaired, and that was not a good plan. Not around Raven, and definitely not while she was wearing those damn stockings. 

“I would have thought you would have popped your cherry by now.” Raven finished her drink, but it didn’t do her any harm. Her healing powers kicked in before she was able to even get a little drunk. She turned back around and ordered them both another drink, handing it to Damian. “I mean you’ve had to at least gotten a little handsy with a girl, right?”

“No. And I don’t want to. Women are a distraction.” He followed her around to an unclaimed alcove, and they both sat down, sipping at their drinks. The truth was, he hadn’t found the right girl. He’d kissed a few, and yes he’d gotten a little… handsy, but none of them had even held his attention for very long. None of them were very interesting, and Damian had always found more solace in being a part of his team than trying to find some kind of romance. 

He glared at her. “Why are we having this conversation?”

“I’m scanning the room, and I need you to distract me, or I’m going to get pulled into the sea of emotions. And then things will get… messy.” That was specifically vague, and Damian didn’t want to think too hard about what she meant. She shrugged and glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “What would you like to talk about? Video games?”

He flushed, trying not to be embarrassed by his hobby. As a child he wasn’t really allowed to enjoy games, he was meant to be a killing machine. Nothing else. It was only when he found his father was he allowed to be a normal kid, and he found video games a comfortable, normal change of pace. He glanced down at her. “I’m allowed to have video games as an outlet.”

“I never said you weren’t.” She propped her head up on one hand and glanced at him. “I’m just trying to find a topic that isn’t so awkward to talk about as your sex life.”

He scoffed. “What about your sex life?” 

He glared at her and took another drink from the glass in his hand. His head was definitely fuzzy now, and he felt like he was falling into nothing and everything at once. The bad techno almost sounded good, and the rumble of the bass made him feel like he was a world away from everything else. He could see why people were drawn to drink, it felt… nice. Delightfully numb. He glanced over at Raven and thought about how good she looked in the hazy lights, her skin lighting up a hundred different colors. Sweat gathered on her brow and pooled in hollows of her form, and Damian found himself wanting to explore ever secret hollow she had. Even in the smoke and sin of this place, he bet she tasted amazing. He glanced down and saw the lace edge of her stockings again, imagining hiking up her skirt as she crawled over him. 

“My sex life isn’t as exciting as you think it is.” She took another drink from her glass, her eyes looking out into the crowd as she continued to flush. “Trust me.” 

“I find that surprising. You seem to know a lot about places like this.” He snorted and looked back into her face, lifting an eyebrow. “Why?”

“I do research for places like this.” She shrugged, her face apologetic. “We have to know what we’re getting into when we come to places like this - how we’re supposed to act, what the rules are.” Pause. “And… maybe I’m a bit curious too. But, I regret to inform you that I am just as virginal as you.”

Damian glared at her. “And yet you’re making fun of me?”

“I never made fun of you.” Her eyes were wide and she set the glass down on a table to the other side of her. “I was genuinely surprised and curious. I honestly thought you had more… love interests than you have had. But, I can’t fault you for wanting to find someone special to share your first time with. Someone you trust, especially with all your scars.”

He flushed and looked away, not liking the way his stomach twisted and his heart flipped. How did she manage to disarm him so quickly? “I’m not broken.”

“I didn’t say that either.” Raven reached out and touched his knee, her fingers soft. “But you have been wounded, and it’s perfectly normal if you’re a little gun-shy.” 

He looked over at her, his face suddenly flush with heat and emotions. Not good. Not good. He didn’t want to think about how she looked right now, her eyes searching his face, her lips full and swollen, her cheeks flushed. It was as if she was somewhere between a daydream and a nightmare. Everything he wanted, but everything he told himself he wasn’t allowed to have. Her hand was warm on her knee, welcoming and comforting, and he… he didn’t know what to do next. All he could do was stare at her and hope the rest of the world crashed around him, just so he had a reason to break this spell between them. 

Damian swallowed the lump building in his throat, unsure of what he was supposed to say to her. The alcohol was making his lips loose and his mind numb. “I didn’t like you flirting with him. That… that guy.”

Her eyebrows lifted, but she didn’t pull back. Instead she leaned forward, dropping her voice so that he could barely hear her. “I had a sneaking suspicion you had a thing for stockings.” 

He flushed. “I think I do. On you, at least.”

She leaned even closer to him, so that her lips brushed along the line of his jaw. “I-”

“Don’t.” Damian wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him, the heat of the room practically stifling now. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he stared down into her eyes, swallowing whatever fear was consuming him. If everything went to shit after this, at least he could blame it on being drunk. But right now, in this exact moment, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. “Stop talking. I’m going to kiss you now, and I… I need you to shut up or I’ll never actually do it.”

Raven paused, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. A moment passed between them, stretching out into an eternity, and then she leaned up and captured his lips in a kiss that nearly burned him. Fuck. Her mouth was hot against his own, needy and desperate, and she practically stole the breath from his lungs. It was like she was branding him with each of her kisses, spoiling him for any other woman he might meet. He wondered how much of it was influenced by the feelings of those around them, and how much of it was her own desire. Right now, he wasn’t sure if he cared. The alcohol was coursing through him, making him question his own thoughts, but knowing better than to stop this. 

Gods, this felt like heaven. 

Raven crawled into his lap and curled her fingers in his hair, pulling him tight against her. She broke away, gasping softly. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I don’t like anyone.” His hands slid up the back of her thighs, disappearing under the short hem of her dress and pulling her hips down against him. “But… I think I tolerate you more than anyone else.” 

She smirked. “It sounds like you like me.”

Damian growled and pulled her hips down, feeling the heat of her body burn him through his own clothes. She hummed and her fingers tightened in his hair as her hips began a slow ride against him, the thin layer of their clothes the only barrier between them. Her lips found his again and she bit into his lower lip, drawing it into her mouth as he groaned again. Her hands trailed down his neck and she pressed her forehead against him.

“We have an audience, you know.” Her voice was low, and Damian glanced over her shoulder to see a few people watching them, obviously curious. 

He glared and they scattered, obviously not that interested. Damian looked back into her face and he dropped his voice low. “What you said before was a lie, Raven. I don’t share.”

She swallowed hard.

[jisssooyah]

Hi you... if you were going to curate a little season of films for me, which ones would you choose and why? They don't need to be horror, I'm just curious what you would choose 🌸

I don’t know if you’ll like these movies, or if you’ve already watched them, but after i watched these films, i felt like they might need to belong to you now. i hope they make you smile, roll your eyes, and cry just as much as i did.

1. city of god (2002): this is one of the most immersive and gorgeously shot films i’ve ever seen. it’s set in rio de janeiro during the 60s and spans decades exploring the drug culture in the slums and how this can affect kids just as they are trying to figure their own selves out. the way this film is shot, feels like you were at the sea with them as the sand crunched underneath your feet. but the way that the director captures these individuals, makes you so fucking relieved that you don’t live through any of the circumstances that they go through. 

2. the dreamers (2004): set in 1968, this film follows three students in Paris who come of age and explore one another and their limits during the revolution. while these students prop themselves up as individuals obsessed with sex, running underneath themselves is a current of jealousy, obsession, and blurred familial relationships that made me increasingly uncomfortable. you find yourself feeling bad for the children, and ultimately upset at their upbringing because of their parents. 

3. if beale street could talk (2018): this movie is based off of james baldwin’s titular 1974 novel. in it, the director expertly and vigorously explores love: a love that feels so real that it hurts. the cast is what sold this film to me. the way they talk, laugh, cry, and smile at one another is achingly beautiful and terrifyingly sad. i wanted to transport myself back to their time period and watch the main characters fall in love because the film didn’t seem like enough. 

4. the neon demon (2016): this film follows an emerging model who sacrifices herself to the demands of the industry in order to be attractive and beautiful. there are so many stunning colors in this film that it makes you dizzy, like you’re in a trance and that’s what this world is for the main character: a trance. as she oscillates between reality and fantasy, her world and the characters in it, increasingly seek out to alter her personality. 

5. death becomes her (1992): a deliberately ultra-campy parody of trashy, pandering "women's pictures," soap operas and paperbacks from the '80s and '90s. The three leads all do some of their best work - it's hilarious watching Meryl Streep play a terrible actress, Goldie Hawn is particularly hilarious during her character's cat lady phase, and all around just a really fun and eccentric film. 

6. princess cyd (2017): i can’t think of anything to write for this but i just wanna say that this is literally one of the most pleasant movie experiences i’ve ever had. so much light and genuine interaction in warm sun rays radiating positive energy and an openness that is far too uncommon in movies nowadays. people talk, people connect, people grow bonds and are allowed to be sexual or intimate or personal without an air of shame or judgement. just pure kind and curious human association. 

7. spiderman: into the spiderverse (2018): the message of Spider-Verse is not "gentrify yourself! stop expressing your personality and just conform to what society wants you to be!" After all, what makes you different makes you Spider-Man, and Miles' final expression of himself as a superhero still retains much of his personality and individuality...they're just being used in more productive and fulfilling ways. It's the little things that drive the point home, like noticing that the title page for Miles' finished Great Expectations essay has been stylistically doodled and colored like street art. Rather than seeing his artistic gifts as an opposition to his schoolwork, Miles infuses them together to make the best of the hand he's been dealt.

8. my life as a zucchini (2016): initially heartbreaking and sad, but slowly becoming more joyful and heartwarming as the plot moves along. The film really feels like it captures the essence and child like wonder of these kids, all of them going through hardships but managing to find something to help each other out. It’s so refreshing to see the actual orphanage portrayed in a more positive light, not the usual horrid dump that a lot of lesser movies play them out as. The animation is stunning. One of the best uses of stop motion I’ve seen, everything is so colourful and detailed. There’s some moments set in snowy mountains and these look incredible. There’s clearly been so much love and care put into each and every scene here. The music too, sounds spectacular, it really works well with each scene. 

9. lovesong (2016): Mindy and Sarah have that type of relationship where they don't need words because they speak in a language made out of glances and touches. This movie is about the fear of ruining a meaningful friendship and losing an important person, about love that is so complicated that one might not even try because the outcome seems to be so obvious.

10. her (2013): Heartbreak is formative: it changes you heart side out, and leaves your muscles a little stronger, your skin a little thicker, your bones easier to repair. Before this film, I’d never seen anything constructive in having your insides pulled apart by the seams by another person, but this film taught me how. Being in love and then being forced out of it is an experience that changes you fundamentally, but Her taught me its purpose – you don’t need them to leave you so that you can find someone who’s a better fit, because perhaps you never will. You need it to participate in humanity. The common denominator is being hurt, and without it, you’re barely alive.

11. shoplifters (2018): bittersweet and richly transportive, Shoplifters is a film that nonchalantly eases you into its tragic beauty in a way that doesn't punch you hard until the end. It simultaneously made me want to be part of the film's world and also very glad that I'm not. The setting the characters live in is messy and cluttered and full of dysfunction and lies, but it's also got family, and laughter, and fist-bumps, and slurping warm noodles while rain pings on the tin rooftop. So nuanced, so many tiny moments of delicate beauty and unassuming heartbreak, so many people making terrible decisions with good intentions.

12. god’s own country (2017): though it is a love story between two men, this aspect is only addressed briefly in a single scene. Rather, the film is about finding someone who makes you want to be a better person, someone who comes into your life just when you needed it most. Gheorghe helps Johnny open up and realize the beauty of the simple life. From this relationship, Johnny begins to feel comfortable with expressing himself, and his love and gratitude towards others. He also begins to appreciate life in the country, surrounded by stunning landscapes and the beauty of simplicity. Addressing the Yorkshire countryside, Gheorghe says "It is beautiful, but lonely." Johnny is presented with the notion that he doesn't have to be cold and miserable, slaving and drinking his days away. He is presented with the possibility of no longer being alone and finally finding happiness and contentment - and it is more than gratifying to see him accept it.

13. disobedience (2017): a tender star-crossed daydream. the three main character dynamics are special enough on their own, but the romance that blooms at the center is cathartically intimate and even magical: a reunion that feels so inevitable. catching glimpses of a past life, details we aren’t privy to. all the stolen kisses and whispers and promises. a bond so strong that they fall back in sync with each other like second nature, even if they try to fight against it. even if it won’t work. and yet they choose each other, even if for a few minutes.

14. raw (2016): this film is so gross and I like that. There is tons of blood and unique body horror and it all works perfectly for the tone the film is attempting to set. The use of color, specifically neons, creates a constant feeling that you are traveling through some sort of weird ghost world, which I really like. Overall, it's a very well put together film with flashes of brilliance.

15. the night is short, walk on girl (2017): what an absolutely magical adventure of a film. Essentially this is a heavily episodic look at a night in the lives of several people, centered on a woman and a man as she gleefully floats from event to event while he neurotically obsesses over how to "coincidentally" talk to her. The storytelling is incredible; while the overarching narrative is simple there are countless threads woven together to connect everyone in the story to each other. That in itself is a big theme: connections between people, how everything is interrelated, and what a large impact seemingly insignificant things people do can have an impact on everyone around them.

16. coraline (2009): Coraline is the best stop motion movie ever made in my opinion. Before the film released in 2009, I read the book and was completely blown away by its creativity and story. It’s a pretty dark tale featuring many scenes of fright that work well in both a horror setting and an animated kids setting. On surface value, this film is quite horrifying, which is something I’ve always loved about it. While it does make a few minor changes to the book, it improves upon a piece of art that was already jaw-droppingly good. Coraline feels like a real little girl with some real problems. She’s selfish but likable which is something most films cannot translate well. Of course, she has a pretty awesome arc as well which brings this movie to a perfect close for her character. The other-mother is also perfectly done. She is almost exactly how I imagined her in the book and the animation on her is spookily gorgeous. There is not one dull moment in this film. It is literally a perfect piece of cinema.

17. the third wife (2019): haven’t seen a film this visually delicate in a while. Ash Mayfair works with the looming mountain surroundings to make her characters —these women, these girls— as small as possible, as isolated as possible. Uneasiest of all is the protagonist May, so young and so weighed by responsibility, her position blurs between being one of the wives and being one of the daughters. It’s an extremely bleak tale of circumstance. An old tale, certainly, but so beautifully crafted it doesn’t matter. Mayfair holds a fearful tension throughout, and it only ever shatters in the cruelest of ways.The abundance of women and display of sisterhood begin as a comfort, but horror takes over as we realize how conditional and fragile that comfort is. Even the daughters are subconsciously aware, one of them praying to the gods to grow up and become a man, shearing her hair off in naive triumph. It’s a doomed cycle of girls performing roles which are unfortunately their best option, right up until the final scene of May with her daughter, still in their mourning clothes. She, like the older wives, finally realizes they’re the same as the cattle laying on their side for too many days.

[eligrantbooks]

gotta vent about my day real quick

highlights of the day

> be professional ghostwriter.

Agreed to edit a 25000 word segment of a finished manuscript for a much loved regular client, who said the MC’s dialogue needed to be punched up. Easy enough. I figured it would take a few hours.

Was briefly excited to discover the manuscript was for a concept I had outlined and written several chapters for a few months ago.

Excitement rapidly dwindles as I realize that beloved client has hired another ghostwriter to write the majority of the book. Which would be fine, except this other ghostwriter has no fucking idea what they are doing.

Formatting is a god damn disaster and I spend several hours just getting the document into a workable condition.

You ever open a word doc, look at the navigation pane, and just see a wall of blank links, because someone applied the header formatting somewhere and then just hit enter a million times instead of using a page break like a civilized god damn human being?

in the middle of this forest of blank headers, actual chapter titles are scattered at random, and also they only applied the header to roughly one out of every five chapters or so, you know, just, when they felt like it. when the spirit took them. when the stars aligned. when the feng shui was right.

Also, apparently they like the way first line indenting looks but don’t know how to make word do that (spoiler: its easy as shit and takes like two clicks) so every once in a while they start manually hitting tab before every line, until they get distracted and stop for a while, luring you into a false sense of security before they remember and start doing it again.

Sometimes, when a scene transitions but they dont want to just end the chapter for some reason, they break it up with spaces. Other times, they like to use asterisks. Once or twice, just for flavor, they throw in one of those page width lines that word makes when you type a line of hyphens.

There is random highlighting in places, for no discernible reason.

Once I have the document formatted in a way I can bear to work with, I start actually reading through it. About the first seven chapters were written by the client. They’re cheesy but solid.

Then I get to chapter eight, and the suspicions i had begun to form while putting the formatting through traction (namely that whoever did this was a fuckwit) quickly crystallized into a shining certainty that my beloved client had mistakenly hired An Ass Clown.

Not just An Ass Clown, but An Ass Clown who thought 50 Shades was a beautiful love story, actually.

And they gave This Ass Clown, this literary reprobate, this paste eating remedial english mother fucker, my outline.

let me clarify that i did not expect to have sole control of this story when i produced the outline for beloved client, and I was okay with that. That’s how it works. If I’d been dead set on writing this myself, i wouldn’t have sold the outilne to beloved client. but it really rubs salt in the wound to have spent hours of my life crafting the bones of this story, which i really liked and was excited to see take shape

and then find out it has been put into the pie fondling hands

of An Ass Clown.

first hint that something has gone drastically wrong: the arrival of completely unnecessary and ridiculous fantasy names for things.

“oh we dont drink coffee in this book. it’s kofee. at least until three chapters from now when i forget and it becomes kofe. Oh, and watch out for those thornaby bushes! I’m going to misspell that one literally every time I use it! It’s entirely possible that this isn’t a fantasy name at all and I just have a small seizure whenever I try to type the word thorn bush!”

second omen of my impending anuerism: phonetically written accents which are so comically stereotypical and inaccurate that native speakers of that accent should be entitled to financial compensation, except they can’t even stick to the stereotype accurately, producing gems such as  “It’s not safe in that there pen with ‘em swine, young miss.” I don’t even know what accent that’s supposed to represent. To top it off these accent abominations are sprinkled in with all the consistency and reliability of a lactose intolerant cheese enthusiast’s bowel movements.

But this, I tell myself, moving on, is not my problem. I just need to punch up the mcs dialogue. It’ll be fine. I can do this. I just need to take this shit: “A fond idea, but I doubt I have that ability.” I joked. “I can’t imagine living without true sunshine. Even the triplet moons must shine less brightly without their sister sun.” and make it… not like that.

Except, and here’s where I start hitting the real roadblock guys

this book is in first person.

essentially, the entire novel is the MC talking.

So sure I can change the spoken lines, but her internal monologue

which is, i remind you, the entire narrative

her internal monologue is going to keep being maggie gyllenhal’s character from The Secretary if her copy of the script had been swapped with just a binder full of sonnets written by a middle school english class during the Shakespeare unit.

I get to chapter ten around three in the afternoon. I have been working steadily, with an unusual degree of focus thanks to my recent adderal prescription, since ten in the morning.

this is where shit begins to go truly bananas.

this is a YA beauty and the beast type fantasy

that good fun indulgent shit that’s almost as enjoyable to write as it is to read

usually. previously. before i had to endure this traumatic twelve hour experience.

Chapter ten is the first big “dinner” scene. this book isn’t being shy about pulling from the source material, but that’s fine. the beast “apologizes” (heavy quotes there) for having earlier used magic to force the heroine to answer his questions truthfully. They talk and almost seem to making progress for a bit, and then have a fight and storm off. Standard stuff.

Except, uh, the beast’s apology is, essentially “Yeah I shouldn’t have done that.” “so you’re apologizing?” “no but it’s the best you’re going to get so deal with it.”

and the headstrong, independent heroine who wears pants and wrestles pigs and dont need no man

just kinda rolls with this. There’s giggling.

They have their big dramatic fight, exit stage left, much angst and todo.

The next morning heroine wakes up to find the beast has (presumably) snuck into her room while she was sleeping and dumped a bunch of new dresses on her. he has also (apparently) replaced her brain with Bella Swan’s more vapid cousin.

She forgives him instantly. Because pretty dresses. She also starts calling him master, because why not. She has, over night, become the darling submissive Tumblr doms dream of.

This is not a bdsm book. I am eighty percent certain it doesn’t even include soft core smut. I’m telling you this so that you understand this transformation was not a contrivance in order to facilitate kinky sex. I have written a contrived set up to a sex scene or two in my day. This is not that. This is Not what is in the outline. I know, because i wrote the outline. It is My Outline.

No, The Ass Clown just… decided to do this. Apropos of nothing. I’m beginning to think the Ass Clown’s decision making process involves whipping pies at a comically large dartboard. And all the options on the dartboard are just “lol whatever”

By the time I get to chapter eleven, wherein our newly lobotomized heroine is “excited to wear a new frock and please the master!” - direct quote I have given up any pretense of editing dialogue and I am just straight up rewriting shit using the previous garbage as a loose outline.

I have eaten, maybe, three bites of a bowl of oatmeal all day. I have not taken a bathroom break since before noon. I have missed my deadline. Beloved client is concerned. I’m sure I can still do this, I just need a few more hours.

the words sound like truth but my soul knows i am a liar

I frantically restructure scene after scene, deceiving myself each time that it will be the last, and I will be able to get this crazy train back on the rails. But this crazy train has no interest in being on the rails. It’s a direct line no stops right off the edge of the cliffs of insanity.

The beast jumps unpredictably from homicidal rage and threats of violence to jokes and flirting as though he did not just declare her his property and threaten to rip her tongue out a few paragraphs ago. Heroine swoons and sighs and giggles regardless of whether she is dealing with Dr.Jekyll or Christian Gray on PCP.

But I’m still sure I can do this. I’ll just adjust these two full chapters to make her appropriately scared and angry, and then replace this weird conversation here with a heartfelt apology from him and an effort to do better. That will totally work. Unless, you know, it turns out that conversation I want to replace only starts out with them joking and laughing together, and turns into him berating and abusing her mid paragraph of a fuckin montage a page later! But, haha! Why would The Ass Clown ever do that? It would be completely irrational, tonally jarring and out of character! Only a seltzer slinging rainbow suspender-ed peanut butter fumbling son of six fucks would do that.

so of course The Ass Clown did that.

It’s eleven at night. I know when I’m beaten.

I inform beloved client that the Ass Clown has bested me and I can do no more.

She is very understanding.

I send her what I managed and I check the added word count while im at it

i added a full 6,000 words to that manuscript just trying to patch up this sloppy motherfucker’s lopsided prose and gossamer thin understanding of narrative structure

son of a bitch had about as firm a grasp of romance as i currently have on the trembling shreds of my sanity.

their grip on character writing could not be more tenuous if they had first dipped the target brand Hulk Hands which I assume they always have on their person into a barrel of adult-film-grade silicon lubricant and then taken their Leapfrog 2-in-1 Leaptop Touch down a waterslide.

Do you know how much I usually make for 6000 words?

$180.

Do you know how much I made for enduring this ass blasting, which I naively believed I could tackle in a matter of hours?

$100.

You owe me $80 Ass Clown. And I aim to collect.

Also I lost my damn mind for a minute and said the words "i dont know shit about fuck my guy” to my actual father on facebook

so there’s that.

[silkiemae]

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare My rating: 3 of 5 stars Alright, ya'll. I enjoyed City of Ashes a bit more than City of Bones writing-wise. You can see Cassandra improving as an author the more she writes, and I always appreciate that. This is a reread for me since I've read this series up until Dark Artifices but also skipped out on a lot. I'm not going to spend much time mentioning HP comparisons because I feel like it's been done to death in other reviews. The only one I feel the need to say is how the Inquisitor was such a heavy-handed attempt at making someone similar to Umbridge. But in the end, I felt sorry for Imogen. More on that later. A quick note about Shadowhunters as a whole: When reading a fantasy book about a made-up world, sometimes it's a world you want to go live in and become one of the magical creatures in said world. For example, everyone wants to go to Hogwarts. That's the most obvious one, but it's also the truest. We all want to go to the motherfucking school of Witchcraft and Wizardry and learn some magic. I don't think anyone would actively choose to be a Shadowhunter. I can't imagine wanting to join a society of prejudiced assholes who believe they are better than everyone else just because they've got some Angel blood. They shit on anyone they see as less than them, and Clary was very quick to adopt that mentality when spending time with Isabelle, Alec and Jace in COB. I like the narrative CC created of these people being anuses and then Clary coming into their world with her werewolf stepdad and her vampire best friend and being like, lol, look at my Downworlder pals tho,, you guys. They're not that bad! Also, Shadowhunters are homophobes! When Clary asks Isabelle if Alec is gay, she breaks down in tears and says that if their parents were to find out, they'd strip his marks and disown him. Naturally, this doesn't happen once Alec comes out but still. On to the story. This is going to be like a character ranting as the story goes on. So, enjoy. I know we're meant to think that Maryse(I still can't say her name) is initially being a cold-hearted bitch to Jace. She thinks Jace is in league with Valentine and kicks him out of the Institute for it. But the thing is, I don't blame her for thinking that. At the end of City of Bones, Jace was ready to forget everything he'd been told about Valentine and side with his dad. He was willing to pretend like Valentine didn't murder a bunch of Downworlder or his grandparents until Clary gas-lighted him into realizing the truth. Now he acts shocked that people suspect him of siding with his dad. Well, you did initially side with him, bro! Get some therapy for your daddy issues. Jace's refusal to visit Jocelyn is ridiculous. He reasons that she abandoned him and wanted nothing to do with him even though he's been repeatedly told by multiple people that she thought he was dead. Yet, he still shuns any attempt Clary makes to get him to connect with their mother. I didn't like him much in City of Bones, I thought his arrogance was a turn-off, and now this makes me dislike him even more. It's like he got too comfortable playing his sad orphan boy routine, and now he doesn't want to accept that maybe he has a non-abusive parent. Oh, wait, no, it's because he desperately doesn't want Clary to be his sister and therefore doesn't want to share her mother. A weird thing to do, Jace. Stop thirsting after your sister. Simon lost points with me the second I realized he was a weeaboo. He changed an anime because, I quote, 'no one ever has sex'. It should be mentioned that he was watching this anime with Clary at the time. Like, oh, let's just casually watch some Hentai. Also, he cannot read the room at all. I can't believe he thought kissing Clary with everything going on was a good idea. Not only is her mom in a coma, her stepdad a werewolf, and her real dad an evil mastermind, but she just found out she's part of an elite race of demon hunters, and her mother has been lying to her her whole life. Oh, and she's in love with her brother, which Simon knows very well. Yet, he still kisses her. And Clary is too much of an idiot to stop him or reject him, so she lets it happen, and then pity dates him the whole book. Like, how embarrassing for him. I like Maia. I like her toughness and how she fights her own battles(primarily). I like that she calls Jace out on his bullshit, and she doesn't take crap from anyone. I like her healthy wariness of attractive men because it is such a real thing. If you've ever dealt with good-looking men who think that the sun shines out of their asses and are trash, you'll know that feeling well. Also, the fact that Maia immediately thought of her abusive brother when she met Jace is very telling. I trust her judgment far more than I trust Clary's, let's just say. Jace continues to prove he is the most enormous prick ever. I get it; you had the saddest life ever. Your dad abused you as a child, faked his death and let you believe it for years, and then came back to life and manipulated you even more. You're in love with your sister. Your mom, whom you thought abandoned you, actually thought you were dead this whole time but is now in a coma. Like yes, all of this sucks. That doesn't mean you should LAUGH in someone's face after they find the body of a dead child. Imagine being anyone who met Jace and Clary when they thought they were brother and sister. You would firstly be disturbed as fuck at how weirdly intimate they are with one another, and then a few weeks/months later, when you see them again, they're dating. You'd be like...uhhhh???? And then they would have to explain their relationship to everyone so people wouldn't look at them with disgust. Real talk, I'd still judge them even after their explanation. Simon proves that he is nothing more than an idiot friend-zone guy. I see now that Robert Sheehan in the film adaptation is what made me like him. Now, I see Simon as a pathetic dweeb with occasional decent quips. Maryse’s logic of bullying Jace out of the institute makes no sense. So let me get this straight. To avoid him having to face the Inquisitor, she accuses him of being in league with Valentine and essentially kicks him out without knowing or caring where he plans to go live. This is somebody she raised as her son for what was it ten years? And she…doesn’t give one fuck about Jace because he didn’t tell her Valentine was his dad? I don’t buy that for a second. But also, like, most of the Shadowhunters seem like absolute assholes, to begin with. Already Inquisitor Herondale is giving off Umbridge vibes. She is far too extreme already. She has some grudge against Valentine and is taking it out on his teenage son because that makes sense. She puts him in a scary prison cell for talking back to her. Logical. Clary meets Maia for the first time, and when Maia asks her if Jace is her brother, she DISLIKES MAIA’S INTRUSIVE CURIOSITY. You have no idea how much this made my fucking blood boil. SHE HAS SOME NEEEERVE. Miss “how did Jace’s dad die?” On day one of being in the Institute, it was legit NONE OF HER BUSINESSSSS. Does anyone else notice how Clary has a habit of initially disliking girls whom she finds prettier than her? Like why are you so threatened, girl? She did it with Isabelle in book one, and now she’s doing it with Maia. Saying that because Maia is a werewolf, she should be hirsute. Like, shut UP. Clary. Sorry did Clary invite Simon to have sex with Luke in the next room? They sleep in the same bed together all the time, and he’s asking her, ‘are you sure’ like they’re about to bone? In regards to the stele. I asked about their limitations in the last book because they seemed like a universal solvent for any problem. Hiding and need to spy? Use the stele. Broke your arm? Use the stele. But at the same time, it can’t heal poisons from a Greater Demon, nor can it unlock a door but can somehow block the same entry against pursuit. An iratze is their healing rune, and I still have no idea what it can do. It makes Jace’s bruises disappear but doesn’t remove his body aches or dizziness? What’s the point of only healing him on the surface? (Apparently, the aches and dizziness were due to lack of food, but couldn’t an iratze stave that off?) In COB, there was no unlocking rune, but in this, Clary has the most powerful open rune ever. I know she has the power to make new runes, but they claim the open rune existed before this. And judging by how Clary recalls runes, they just come to them as needed? Like they don’t have to memorize the runes. I find it unbelievable that people would automatically accuse the vampires of the killings. Like yes, they were drained of blood, but they had their throats slit, and every Shadowhunter would be well aware that vampires have fangs. Why would they slit their throats? My first thought would’ve been the warlocks, tbh. Sliced throats and blood collections usually mean a ritual of some kind. I liked the introduction to faeries. I’m big into faerie folklore and usually like seeing the author’s interpretation of it. I love the twist on faeries being the spawn of angels and demons, and I like that all the customary laws apply to them still. (No lying, no eating their food or drinks, no dancing with them, and no iron.) I like that the Seelie Queen is a tricksy manipulative bitch. Though I enjoyed that scene, it felt like an excuse to get Jace and Clary to make out and gross all of us out. I know they’re not related, but THEY don’t know they’re not related, and it’s so GRODY. I keep thinking, what happens when they finally date and have to explain to everyone that they’re not related. They only thought they were and then like…what expressions/reactions they’d have. I’m desperate to witness that conversation. Simon is so stupid. He got so butthurt over Clary making out with Jace(they were forced to, bro, it’s not about you.) that he went and got himself turned into a vampire. His reaction made no sense, though, is the thing. He knew Clary loved Jace, yet he still thought it was a good idea to try and date her. Sure, most normal people would be disgusted at lusting after their brother but not Clary. She continues to pine away, and considering she hasn’t vented her disgust to Simon; he clearly knows she’s still into Jace. So why did he let himself get so bothered by this? Also, Clary punishes herself by ignoring Jace. Like….bitch, come on. I can’t believe they thought it was a good idea to let Simon go home and sleep under the same roof as his mom when he had been turned into a vampire. Also, naturally, Clary is making it about her. I would have liked to see Simon’s actual emotions about being turned into a vampire. Like the experience of it, etc. I feel like we don’t get much of it? We get a POV right after he’s turned, but he’s just talking about Clary and how tiny she looks and shit. And like, idk I think Simon is pathetic at this point. Why would you WANT Clary to date you knowing she doesn’t love you and shit. Like the thought of dating someone and them having to ‘try and be happy with me’ because they can’t be with the person, they want to be with sounds like a nightmare?? Why would you even want that? I think he and Maia would’ve been an adorable couple. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Jace is the absolute dumbest bitch and goes to see Valentine and then acts shocked when the Inquisitor knows about it. That woman is a psycho who has it out for you, bro. You should know better. Also, she is so extra. Breaking Jace’s mirror was so mean, and like I wish someone would’ve yelled at her for doing it. The relationship between Magnus and Alec isn’t as excellent as I recall. I think my young, naive self didn’t see how icky it was for this centuries-old warlock to spend all his time with a group of 17-year-olds. And then proceeds to date one. Like it’s creepy, but I accept it’s a common theme in fantasy writing. (Centuries-old vampire dates a 17-year-old girl is so overdone) I felt like we got cheated out of this relationship. CC includes povs from multiple characters, which is one of the reasons I like this book. I always prefer books with various POVs from the third person because it feels like you get the most out of the story. But that’s just a personal preference. I still feel like CC could’ve utilized it better because she could’ve written from Alec’s perspective?? And told us about how he and Magnus got together, etc. Yet we like kind of vaguely hears about it as background info. Instead, we have to read about two siblings who are not siblings but think they’re siblings pining after one another. Where’s that gay representation, Cassandra?? What's with Cassandra's obsession with coffee and cats? I'm noticing a theme here. Everyone likes to drink coffee(I can't relate), and the only pet anyone has is a cat. Magnus has a cat; the Institute has a cat, and Simon has a cat. Does no one like dogs? The boat scene was fun. I may or may not ship Jace and Simon a little bit now after that whole part. Also, naturally, Clary has to have some extraordinary power. And I'm glad Simon finally learned and ended things with Clary. The entire book had me wanting to punch him. Oh, the thing with Imogen. I felt bad for her in the end! Like yes, she was the most extra but she thought she was alone in the world and died seconds after finding out that she wasn't. :( Noted inconsistencies. In the last book, when the wolves shifted, their fur grew over their clothes, but here, when we’re told about Maia’s first shift, it says she woke up naked miles from her home. How is that possible if the fur is meant to grow over their clothing? Also, how could Jordan possibly speak to Maia while in his wolf form after he attacked her? We were also told in COB that Luke’s weapon of choice was the crossbow because of his ‘perfect aim and eyesight’, yet he wears glasses. But now it has changed to his good eyesight is only in wolf form, which doesn’t make sense because he used the crossbow in his shadow hunting days. I highly doubt the werewolf’s eyes deteriorate, so he had to have worn the glasses before being bitten. So again, HOW COULD HE HAVE PERFECT AIM AND EYESIGHT IF HE WEARS GLASSES, HUH? Notes made while reading * Oh my god, is Bat the bartender also DJ Bat from Club Pandemonium?? Also, if Maia is only 15 and she dated a guy old enough to bartend and DJ….??? *barf* View all my reviews

[sobdasha]

i got caught up with this not because i did better but because i’ve had no time/watched some tv

War for the Oaks, Emma Bull I began reading this book at the same time as The Innkeeper's Song, listed below. I started out dragging my feet on this one and racing through TIS. But one book got progressively more amazing while the other book got progressively less impressive and my better book is this one. This was the roomie's first brush with urban fantasy, and one of her friends got her a second-hand first edition paperback, and so she talked about it a lot until I finally picked it up and she said "Uh but also I haven't read it in forever so I uh. Don't know how it holds up." (She rightly fears me because as you will have noticed I am a Very Particular Reader.) Reasons I disliked this book at first: - fashion choices that scream "1980s" and fashion choices that scream "lesbian" are incredibly similar and guess which of the two I am not getting, seeing as this was published in 1987. - Eddie is breaking up with her garbage boyfriend which is good but she has an incredible amount of chemistry with Carla which is disheartening given that I know I won't get sapphics and Eddie will end up dating some other boy with whom there is no chemistry. - This is a book about rock-n-roll bands I don't know any of these songs (okay I might know these songs but I don't know artists or titles so I may as well not know any of these songs) it's kinda wasted on me. - oh boy I'm so excited to watch her and the phouka fight like Kagome and Inuyasha or any other pair with this dynamic yaaaaay /sarcasm Reasons this came to be a Good Read: - Everyone dresses so goddamn queer in this book that you know what, everyone except that jerkass Stuart is queer. He's garbage so he can be straight or whatever. It's my reading experience I do what I want. There's no way these people aren't bi. Also it's canon because everyone takes one look at the phouka and assumes he's gay. …………………………with slurs but still. - Good supporting cast. - I both failed to give the phouka a deep voice and also to sustain a Stereotypical Gay voice (which, the dialogue will totally 100% support), but I did accidentally voice him with Tatum's dub of Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss which was completely appropriate in the "vaguely gay vaguely British unambiguously prissy" department, and also entertaining because it reminded me of the dynamics in that anime but, y'know, better. - I almost gave up when the romance hit hardcore but it turned out later that was actually a fake-out that was meant to be garbage and set us up for the endgame much later, by which point Eddie and the phouka actually had the same level of chemistry as Eddie and Carla, so I could actively enjoy the ship. A win! Anyway it was fun. It may not have aged the best in the sense that it strove to be accurate to time and place (see: homophobic slurs), but the character dynamics held up pretty dang well. I would definitely read this again and enjoy myself; in fact I plan to.

The Innkeeper's Song, Peter S. Beagle I was very excited to read this because I was so blown away by The Last Unicorn but the more I read the more disappointed I got. Half the time I feel like that weeb who is like "hello I only like your fanfic you wrote when you were 13 and high on pixie stixs, all your stuff now sucks", and half the time I tell myself, "Maybe there is a reason I've only ever heard of The Last Unicorn and had no idea he'd actually written other books." As you have probably picked up by now, I have a knee-jerk dislike of first person PoV where it must prove itself worthy to me first, despite the fact that I like plenty of things written in first person. I also have a knee-jerk dislike of "I will change the narrator every chapter and announce loudly who it is instead of doing it subtly but unmistakably in the content of the text itself." This book had both. Despite all my harsh judgment, it would be incorrect of me to say that this writing choice is not valid. That this writing choice cannot be used to amazing effect. I do not believe that is what happened here. I did not feel it was adding much to the story to begin with (other than being the shortest and straightest path to advancing a narrative with many fronts), and I was definitely unimpressed when we got to the string of chapters, all of them less than a page and some no more than a paragraph, during the orgy scene where the 3 women have sex with 1 teen boy who's been thirsting after them, and they pay him a lot of worshipful attention in the orgy even though none of them actually like him, and also this is when we reveal one of the women is a man in disguise in the most confusing way possible so my cringe got even deeper as I waited for Beagle to fuck up a trans storyline. (It was literally just "I'm on the run so I'm magically dressing as a girl" but it took a really long time to clarify that after.) In addition to not liking the narrative structure, I just wasn't interested or invested in the actual plot. It didn't feel very urgent or important and at the end I was like "what even happened and also why did it happen." I was underwhelmed. I was definitely the wrong audience for this book. Oh also because I was not enjoying myself I started to get really irrationally annoyed by the way fantasy fauna and flora would have fantasy names and they would be italicized. In a first person PoV. Where the narrator is literally speaking the language that this word is native to. It half felt pretentious, and half highlighted what felt like a loose thread: everyone is literally narrating to someone (presumably collecting the story, after everyone has gone their separate ways) and this has all been woven together into a proper narrative, but our story collector is absent despite addresses to such a person. What purpose does this serve? Does it make it more ~authentic~ fantasy? Because I don't buy it. Now my suspension of disbelief is snapped; I'd have preferred it was either left out entirely, or made into a brilliant framing device like in The Name of the Wind.

Giant Bones, Peter S. Beagle This one was short stories "set in the same universe as The Innkeeper's Song", which basically meant some city names were reused, as well as all those italicized fantasy names and the "I am narrating my story to an audience in-story" frame. You know, all the things I didn't particularly care for. I pressed on to see if there was anything I might like, but since I can't remember, I assume there wasn't. Because this left me wanting, and the title was Giant Bones, I went to reread Conservation of Shadows by Lee instead, starting with "The Bones of Giants," which was greatly preferable, so much more my speed. That's when I did the write-up for the last round of books lol.

Nimona, Noelle Stevenson This has been on my list for Forever but I'm bad at reading new books. Anyway! Nimona was very good!! It felt, hm, very self-indulgent in the way that is amazing, where the creator gives themself whatever they want and the work turns out brilliantly because of it. I didn't think I was into friends to enemies to lovers but apparently I love it wen Stevenson handles it (see: She Ra reboot). Speaking of She Ra, I probably would have figured out where the end game was going if I'd read Nimona before looool. I know people referenced it when they talked ships but I just….didn't...pay enough attention. There was found family stuff I enjoyed, dad stuff, I'm finding that I am liking a lot of takes on monster girls, etc. Anyway it gave me a lot of feelings, it was funny, it was good, I need to get a copy.

The Dragon Pearl, Yoon Ha Lee The first time I talked about this book I mentioned something about the pacing and suspending disbelief or whatever, but I want to note that this time the pacing felt perfect and the plot didn't seem weird at all, it flowed very smoothly. I don't know if that's because it was a reread and I knew where it was going, or because I just read it awkwardly the first time. Anyway. Something that stood out to me this time is that, near the end, I realized this story is a bit animated Disney Mulan. There's even the "you broke this you broke that you impersonated a soldier but also you saved China so thanks" bit. Where The Dragon Pearl is wildly different from other Mulan-type stories that I like (see: Monstrous Regiment) is that it is entirely ungendered. (There are some mentions of gender in the book. These amount mostly to, "most foxes choose to be female because Tradition but one of my cousins decided to be male like my brother and no one mocks him for it" and "official name tags also include handy signifiers of which personal pronouns a person prefers.") What I'm trying to say is, a lot of other stuff when dealing with/trying to deconstruct gender stereotyping, ends up reinforcing it in a way. In order to illustrate why the stereotypes are wrong, they end up repeating the stereotypes a lot in order to argue against them. The Dragon Pearl, on the other hand, is genderless in a way that doesn't reinforce the gender binary. There are no gendered clothes. There are no gendered bathrooms. There are no gendered hairstyles or accessories. There are no gendered actions or emotions or stereotypes. There are no gendered bodies (the differences highlighted between Min and Jang-who-she's-shapeshifting-into are of build ie, height, center of gravity, not of private bits). No plot points revolve around the maleness of the person Min is impersonating; no plot points revolve around the femaleness of Min. And they/them? It's never explained why any person uses that pronoun. They just do so that's just how it is. I just think this is amazingly neat and I wanna applaud Lee for this finesse.

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, Mackenzi Lee I put this on my list because Queer and people were recommending it, but it was not well-advertized to me. I was expecting shallow teen romance, but dressed in historical clothes and unsubtly, unabashedly, unashamedly GAY. So I was expecting some gay. I was not expecting gay pining I actually enjoyed, I was not expecting call-outs for privilege of wealth and class and sex and color, I was not expecting the drama of the romance to not be stupidly fabricated misunderstandings but instead be driven by the need for character development and personal growth, I had forgotten I was expecting people of color, people with disabilities, badass women, I was not expecting a nuanced call-out of ableism ("I don't believe I need to be well to be happy", etc). I was not expecting a reversal of gender stereotypes that avoided saying "X gender is bad." Like, Monty is the team weakest link. Monty faints at the sight of blood. Monty is romantic and emotional and swoons at the slightest provocation. Monty uses his wiles to seduce people, that's the main skill he actually brings to the party. Monty cries. Aside from probably Monty's asshole dad who hates him for being gay, no one else nor the narrative calls these traits out as being Feminine (And Therefore Bad). Like, haha, We All Know These Are All Stereotypes Of Women At The Time, but no one says it. I find there's something really nice about no one saying it. Meanwhile, Percy and Felicity are competent and cool and I heart them. (What the hell, I heart Monty too. He really grows on you. He's so soft and in love and pathetic.) Anyway going back to the privilege thing, I love that Percy and Felicity and others constantly call Monty out on his privilege and refuse to coddle him over it. But they also care about him and they are very tender to him, not because of his privilege, but because he is a person who deserves basic person things, when he has his own issues. Your issues don't excuse your behavior, but yikes we deeply underestimated the sheer depth of your PTSD and we're gentler with you because of it. So try to stop being an ass. This book is just super wholesome and I can already tell this will be one of my new go-to's when I need a comfort book. Like Ancillary Justice etc.

The Gentleman's Guide to Getting Lucky, Mackenzi Lee This is not a fanfiction in the sense that is it written by the author and not a fan, but you need to understand, as part of me selling this to you as earnestly as I can, this is a fanfiction set after The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue which involves hijinks as Monty and Percy try and fail hilariously to have their first time having sex together, Felicity tries to wingman, there are miscommunications and nervous breakdowns and tender resolutions and it is absolutely a perfect indulgence. Because it was written by the actual author everyone is 100% in character and the narrative voice is spot-on. Kudos!

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, Mackenzi Lee Ace/aro Felicity???? ACE/ARO FELICITY!!! TBH I only vaguely remembered the descriptions for this one, ie "this time it's lesbians," and I was reading this going "there is a suspicious lack of lesbians but so much platonic vibes and also…..maybe…..maybe…????" and like I got both lesbians AND ace/aro Felicity????? Lee wrote this book? As a gift? For me???? I cannot believe I was blessed with "not like other girls"!Felicity as a vehicle for calling out the internalized misogyny inherent in the Not Like Other Girls mindset, and it is glorious. You can like pretty dresses and running around doing science, or you can hate dresses and only love science, or you can only like pretty dresses, or you can like whatever the heck you want in whatever combo, doesn't matter you're still a girl you're still valid and this shit isn't mutually exclusive. Much as I don't wear makeup (I've slowly learned to wear dresses again) in real life, gosh I love Johanna for being like "I love dresses and I love science and what if I was a badass adventurer but also got to be rescued a lot" because that was bitty me. Gimme a princess dress and a sword and a bow and arrows but also a tower to be rescued from and then various adventures. I want it both ways! And that's okay!! Also this is a critique I have apparently wanted since at least 3rd grade, see this proof from my daily journal prompts, I apologize for my lack of attention to spelling and forming letters: "Girls are what ever girls are. Girls like different things so I con't judge them all. Some girls like barbies. Just becaus you my not like barbies dosn't mean those girls aren't girls, it means they like more things that hove barbies. I like nintendo and I'm a girl." Apparently I was a Not Like Other Girls who thought Other Girls were still extremely valid. (that's kind of hilarious though because like, child, you had Barbies and didn't hate Barbies, you are just bad at playing with dolls and props. You're also bad at playing Nintendo.) Other stuff specifically, hm, it was refreshing to not have "I am skinny and perfect and clearly ugly" or even "I am legitimately ugly." Instead we have, "You do realize my torso is a solid rectangle, it laughs at this corset which I guess we are going to put on anyway, also my football player shoulders are going to literally pop the sleeves off that dress" and "I am built like a corgi dog, this is simply a fact of my proportions." Like, Felicity definitely has Issues with her traditional femininity and lack thereof, but I feel like it was never specifically tied to "my body shape is ugly." Also to go back to this book being written for me personally. You know they always say to write things that only you could write, that are self-indulgent, write what you want to see? It's really hard to do without a template to follow. Right before I picked up this book I realized that maybe The Thing Only I Would Write would be saying "a Skadi-and-Njord marriage is in fact a valid happy ending," but I've never seen that before and I don't know what it would look like even if I kind of understand the concept. All the media I consume, if not ending in romantic soulmates, is at least found family. If you are a loner, if you like being alone, your happy ending is to get a manic-pixie-dream-anything (girl, grandson, grandma, dog, whathaveyou) and integrate back into being social. There are no happy endings where a loner stays alone, where you get married but live separately and see each other very rarely because you love them but can't stand to live with them and you need to be alone to exist as you. And Mackenzi Lee just up and wrote it. It's valid to want to live in a house by yourself filled with bookshelves and have friends. It's valid for a girl to marry another girl who is a pirate and sails around most of the time and only comes to visit on occasion so you don't get sick of her and you keep loving her. This is an okay thing for an ace/aro to want, and it's valid to be happy with this. I can't even, y'all. I'm still marveling. I finally have seen a picture of the life I know would make me happy, and it's finally been acknowledged that I can be happy. (The amount of time I've spent, knowing I hate being social, and wondering--how many years down the line, when I'm living alone and content, will the switch suddenly flip? How many bridges will I have left behind when it turns out that I actually feel loneliness, and I'm miserable and unable to make friends and it turns out there are no manic pixie dream whatevers in real life and I fucked myself over forever because I was wrong and I should have been maintaining these social ties now and turning into someone I'm sure I'm not? What if people like me, who don't really get lonely without people, don't actually exist??) Anyway representation matters. Also Felicity being blindsided with Callum's proposal was, wow, okay I should have caught on to ace!Felicity then because that was so very accurate to my life experience minus people cutting fingers off. Look I was quoting stuff at the end to a friend and she was like "maybe that's why there's aces on the cover" and I am a very stupid ace okay. Felicity and Johanna's intense queerplatonic friendship that they keep trying to take up again in among the same sort of "you need character growth" drama that Monty needed re: Percy is also just, chef kiss, god I love this book. I need to buy this book. I haven't yet so what I did is I renewed all the books so I could immediately reread them after I finished them the first time.

[oncethrown]

2x12 You Are Not Your Own Review

Whole Episode Review

So much great stuff. So many problems. So much promise that Shadowhunters is determined to be better than the books.

So much evidence that they might not understand what the initial problems in the book were.

I’m not one of those people who reacts to characters like they are real people, or about the writers “treating a character like that” as though the plot actually happened to a real person. Doing something terrible to a character, or having a character do something awful is not “disrespecting” them— if you deal with the consequences of those plot points and use them to make a plot move forward, instead of just dropping them and running along to the next thing. If a plot point is just a thing that happens, then yeah, it’s a disservice to the character, but you can do really terrible shit to a character if you build it into something interesting plotwise and create character growth from it.

I’m not sure I trust Shadowhunters to accomplish that right now.

Shadowhunters entire premise is based on there being a whole magic world, where Shadowhunters are at the top, and downworlders are underneath them. There are laws in place that are supposed to guarantee some freedom and equality, and everyone knows they are bullshit, but the Shadowhunters don’t care. There’s a villain who embodies the worst of Shadowhunter supremacy ideals… but the Shadowhunters hate him because he killed a bunch of Shadowhunters, not because he threatens the downworld.

The narrative they are trying to push, is that their lead characters, Clary, Jace, Isabelle and Alec, are aware of and against the unfair treatment and oppression of the downworld and in favor of a fairer and more inclusive world. Especially Clary, who as a character from outside the world doesn’t have their ingrained prejudices.

But the writers are failing to a degree that almost seems intentional in the first two episodes.

The Problems:

1. Please Pay No Mind To The Pile Of Dead Downworlders Behind the Curtain

Valentine murdered downworlders en mass inside an Institute and the only time a Shadowhunter has mentioned it is Alec telling Jace that it isn’t his fault. Imogen was brought in to interrogate and torture Valentine— to get the mortal cup back. There has been no nod whatsoever to the Clave attempting to reach out to the downworld. Acknowledge the massacre, assure the leaders of the downworld that they didn’t know the mortal sword had the power to slaughter downworlders. When they bring up that Clary deactivated the sword? It’s done with annoyance that stupid Clary broke the Truth Magic.

Even Luke and Maia’s scene, where Maia is upset that most of the pack got rolled off the Institute floor and probably onto a truck to be dropped into the Hudson for all anyone seems to give a damn, gives Luke the less than compelling emotional reaction of “Meh, more wolves where those losers came from, my nosy gay partner is annoying me right now.”

The show did something catastrophic to a population that it explicitly uses to represent oppressed people, and sidestepped dealing with it further than wringing a Malec moment out of it. There is no emotional impact to dozens (hundred? We don’t know) of dead downworlders.

Everyone of the main Shadowhunter characters (except Jace) is in or has been in a significant romantic relationship with a downworlder, and none of them seem to be thinking about the impact of this massacre in any larger way either.

2. Business as Usual, Side of Evil

Shadowhunters encourage torture. Mundanes call that a war crime, but it’s whatever! Imogen tortures Valentine for information about the Mortal Cup. Imogen wants him dead because he won’t give up the mortal cup. The Clave wants him alive because he might give up the mortal cup if they just keep torturing him.

And then Clary McWhiteSavior handwaves all the torture and dark shit going on in the basement of the building she lives in, because Imogen lost her family… in a warrior culture, where people die all the time and most people lost a lot of family 15 years ago. When Imogen tells Alec that the Clave won’t let her kill Valentine, but she’s going to do it anyway… Alec is concerned… but concerned like a Republican senator, where he’s shocked and dismayed… but isn’t going to do shit about it (other than guard the door until it turns out that maybe it is his body-swapped boyfriend after all).

I get that Valentine is essentially the Shadow world equivalent of a White Supremacist. If he were burning crosses in Mississippi instead of… being menacing on a boat carousel?(seriously, Shadowhunters, figure out your damn aesthetic) I wouldn’t really give a damn about him getting a little bit mysteriously dead during a security tape fritz. (Except of course I would, because those sorts of “mechanical failures” only ever function to excuse the deaths of non-white people, and let killer cops back out on the street. That’s the actual pattern.)

But the Law is the Law. Shadowhunters are supposed to be dispensers of cold justice in strict accordance with ancient tradition. Having Imogen go rogue like that, and DRAG ALEC, ONE OF THE OFFICIAL GOOD GUYS along with her, and at no point have the plot acknowledge that she went off the rails is ludicrous. Even Casserole Clam managed to fit that part in. In the books Imogen breaks the Law to torture Jace, and the narrative kills her for it. It’s not okay for Shadowhunters to just walk away from that point, especially after tying a main character up in the mess.

3. Must Be This White or Male Not To Be An Addict

Season 1 Izzy was the youngest forensic pathologist in New York, a formidable fighter, a loving sister, a good friend, and a total badass. Season 2 Izzy is a frail drug addict who has yet to deliver a line to a man who isn’t playing savior or trying to bone her, or both! She is also the only non-white Shadowhunter from Clary’s stupid pre-credit intro monologue and she’s completely lost control of her sexual and romantic agency (Technically I know Alec has to be Latino… but Matthew Daddario isn’t so I think the point still stands).

Izzy and Meliorn had a relationship lacking the romangst that characterizes everyone else’s smooching time, but that seemed perfectly healthy and functional. Izzy even got to save him from the evil Clave imprisoning him with no evidence in a place that would kill him (remember when that became important in the story? Neither do I, must have gotten cut for more time for Jace and Clary to say sibling words over and over again in case we didn’t hear them the first time) but now she’s drug denning with Raphael until he turns her out in the street to save her life, and then she’s being saved by the mysterious blonde english boy who takes her home to save her life, and she doesn’t think it’s fair for Alec to not like Sebastian just because Alec wishes that he had been the one to save her life. Even Simon, who I have basically no qualms with, gets a scene where he gets to give her information about addiction and be respectful of what she might be needing in recovery, and has family experience and doesn’t judge her.

And it might have seemed sweet if Isabelle’s story line hadn’t stripped her of everything that was cool about her in season 1.  

Gag. Choke. Barf.

4. I Feel Like You Want Me To Think Boy-Touching is Gross

Remember all the hand holding and closeness and casual intimacy between Magnus and Alec in 2A?

No. Cause it wasn’t there.

Other than the greeting kiss in 2x11, every time Alec has touched Magnus like they are two people who are in love and are having and enjoying sex with each other,  it was actually Valentine, and the camera focused on Valentine being super weirded out by it. When it was Magnus touching Alec in Valentine’s body the disgust made sense in the context… but with everything else going on in that plot there’s still a yuck factor to the touch that makes the fact that the only time Alec and Magnus are together, in their own bodies, there is too much hurt and distance for them to touch each other.

5. And Like… I Don’t Want Homophobia in Fiction But…

What is going on culturally with Alec Lightwood The Only Gay Shadowhunter? No one mentions it, no one brings it up. And it would be a really good thing to explore in the current cultural moment. Homophobia (and racism) can be present without being overt. It can affect people’s lives and careers, even with everyone putting on an accepting face.

It could be something that forces Alec to think a little bit more about the wisdom of the Clave, and maybe make him think a little bit about how he was raised to think about downworlders. It would move him out of the dominant culture of his world into a weird gray space where he could learn. Because they gave him the impetus for that in Aldertrees “I loved a werewolf as though she was a person but it turns out she was just a downworlder” speech.

If Jenji Kohan suddenly took over as show runner, it might even be interesting to see Alec learn how not to be a White Gay ManTM, like the assholes joining facist movements because they think their sexuality gives them an excuse to hate Muslims, or the rotten toenail fungus suing the Alamo for hosting an all women screening of Wonder Woman because he can’t handle not being welcome in a space for women when he could go see the fucking moving anywhere else in Texas. (What an asshat).

6. And Since I Brought Up Disrespect

Again, doing bad things to characters isn’t disrespect.

But patterns in the writing for certain characters is.

1. Why is Izzy a pathetic damsel now, repeating the same experience, and the same fucking lines over and over again?

2. Why do Clary and Simon get greeting make outs and Alec and Magnus don’t? Why have we seen Clary and Jace dive into passionate full body kisses with a wide enough lens to see their bodies pressed together and not gotten the same for Magnus and Alec? Why have we gotten a cutesy morning after scene for Clary and Simon, and not gotten anything similar for Magnus and Alec, even in an episode where their fist time having sex was a B plot?

3. Why is Izzy always being put in the position where sex is being exchanged for something? (She goes off to have sex with Meliorn when they all need a backway into the hotel Dumort. Her attempts to get a bite from Raphael are all highly sexualized. Aldertree offered Izzy Yinfen in exchange for “dinner”.

4. Why is it that in the two sex scenes we’ve seen with people fully or mostly nude (Jace and the Seelie girl and Izzy and Meliorn) the woman is so much more sexualized than the man? And why have we only seen this much skin in these casual sexual relationships and not in the main romantic pairings?

5. Why has Clary  never listened to anyone, and never had to experience any real consequences for her actions (with the exception of getting thrown into a rape cage at Iris’s after trying to bring her mother back from the dead). Why does she keep saying she cares about downworlders (and always downworlders of color) and then fucking them over and forgetting about them? She tased Luke, for fuck’s sake, and went on her merry way like a fucking sociopath. 

While Watching Thoughts

Azazel is a good small arc villain. Sinister and handsome and powerful.

Kat Mcnammara is actually good at this cutes-y romcom shit. It comes across much more genuine than everything else she’s asked to do…but somehow it makes me hate Clary more. I like my female leads smart enough to realize that maybe Simon being a Daylighter is super rare, and maybe could mean trouble and maybe there’s a reason for Simon to be jumpy (Vote 1 of this reaction post for Maia as main character)

UUUUGGGGHHHH remember season 1 Izzy, who occasionally  did something other than make doe eyes at men who were actively harming her while she credited them with saving her life?

I would like to see Clary, Jace and Isabelle’s willingness to bring Sebastian onboard obviously tied to him being a Shadowhunter. It would make a lot of the anti-downworld stuff coming up pop more and give Clary’s character something to actually work with going forward-- “He’s a shadowhunter, I’m a shadowhunter, we are part of the shadowhunter club, my mom is dead and my father is evil and jace isn’t my brother, so shadowhunters are my FAMILY”

Valentine trying to do magic is great, Harry’s changed physicality doing Valentine is great. I wish the next day makeup made more sense.

I can’t tell if it’s sweet or needy that Alec marches directly to Magnus’s apartment after that phone call, especially since there was a huge fucking massacre and then they made him summon a greater demon that nearly killed them all?

Umm… okay with the matrix shot.

It’s…not awesome that the most affectionate touch we’ve seen Magnus and Alec have is when it’s being used to freak out Valentine.

Goddamnit Clary. Could you listen for just one fucking time? If only so I don’t have to hear you whine about it when the consequences fuck you over.

Interesting that Valentine thinks to call Dorothea.

I hope they make this Imogene the Sadist thing go somewhere

Please let this be the end of this fucking druggie storyline

Simon is sweet. He would have been a much better main character than Clary. Imagine, instead of this love-struck white girl— witty Jewish boy who deeply cares about people actually like… fucking notices the problems in the Shadow world society. Actually cares. Actually brings it up to the people around him other than just when he needs their help for stuff. (Remembers that Luke is basically his Dad)

This scene makes me wish that Valentine wasn’t the most boring fucking villain. I had no idea Alan was a good actor cause his character is such a mildly menacing blank space. His face when Alec shoves him away. His Magnus voice.

This is not the worst way to introduce the Herondale thing… but I don’t  want this Imogene/Clary scene.

Oh hey- Simon caring about someone again. Caring about the guy who has threatened him multiple times because Isabelle humanized him. Hmmm…. What an interesting trait in a main character brought into a repressive society against their will. Hmmm.

I like Alec trusting Jace with what just happened to him.

I don’t think Magnus actually calls Alec Alexander this often.

Haha. Valentine faking magic.

I hate gratuitous torture scenes. I gave up on Supernatural after the Samandriel thing. This had better be fucking moving toward a point. About the Clave being Nazis.

Please let this episode be the last I need to hear about the incest plot

Whoa. Raphael. This is the only time I’ve ever liked Raphael a little bit.

Oh good. Isabelle being a junkie is a plot point again.

Simon! So Stupid! Don’t wave it at everyone!

Luke knows he’s everyone’s dad.

Again. Make this Imogen thing do something.

Alec… isn’t really going to allow this to happen is he? Not just because it might be Magnus… but because he’s supposed to respect the rules. And like… there should be too much doubt in his mind to go this far. Especially with the weird phone call and visit earlier.

Ooohhoooo This is much better reveal of Jace’s parentage than the books. Buuuuttttt…. Imogen believes the Magnus/Valentine switch with way less evidence than Magnus gave Alec. Not great.

I wonder if this Herondale reveal reads as total left field bullshit if you haven’t read the books? 

Magic has to be harder than that.

Good point Alec. You are now here with the untrained shadowhunter and the random dude who according to his own story, just went rogue. There are real shadowhunters at the institute, where are they.

Ooohhh, Alan got that magnus-move down really well. It’s too bad he has to go back to being a frowny face with a overwrought backstory.

I feel bad for Kat that she got cast to be a cute red head and now that they have real money to work with they can afford people as talented as Alisha and Will. She can’t keep up.

Magnus must be a better fighter than that. What the hell was that?

Like… are they going to talk about the fact that Magnus’s first thought at every point has been protecting people… and Alec is a Shadowhunter… who was just going to guard the door while his boss tortured a prisoner? That’s some dark shit. And it sort of carves Alec down to just another Shadowhunter… another in a long line of the monsters who have hunted Magnus and his friends for centuries. How could Magnus have thought he would be different? Is it naive for him to really have believed that it was possible to love a Shadowhunter?

Alberto could have chemistry with a ketchup stain

Oh good. More incest. I was so very worried we might go four fucking seconds without it.

Is Jace just… hanging out and petting a sword?

So… did Imogen storm into Magnus’s and demand jewelry, probably without apologizing him for the torture and unlawful imprisonment? (Of course she did. Did Alec Say anything?)

We aren’t going to deal with the irony in her statement about what’s good and right… when she was all tortury and rogue murdery? We’re gonna let that go? Okay then. 

[kronecker-delta]

Cage Zone Thoughts

(Or some attempted guesses about upcoming Android Hell. While making numerous comparisons to Nier: Automata. And a little bit of Nier too. As well as considering some of Cage’s faults, particularly in sexual themes and bad writing.)

As such, spoilers and long, long post discussing such matters below.

I’m not what one would call a fan of David Cage’s work. I’d even say that I think his games are generally just kind of bad, and bad in a way where I’m not sure how they could be fixed.

Because ultimately they’re narrative experiences that have bad narratives. It also doesn’t help that I feel like Cage doesn’t have a central theme a lot of the time. Not a plot, he’s got too much plot in some cases, but an idea as to what the story is supposed to say.

What exactly is the point of Beyond Two Souls? What is Jodie’s life supposed to instruct the player about when they see it through to the end.

Or Indigo Prophecy. Or Omikron especially.

(Heavy Rain is more coherent, if deeply crippled by some parts because it manages to have a point that is sometimes self-sabotaged by other components.)

I bring this up as David Cage has given some... interesting interviews of late as to the direction and story of his next project. In once instance he tries to be clear that there is no political inspiration or greater point he is trying to illustrate. (Kotaku)

Yet in another he claims that the violence that will be an option for the Android rebellion is meant to draw the player in with similarities in real world incidents. To have a message regarding the nature of violent action in protest and revolutionary movements. (The Verge)

Obviously these two statements stand in some measure of opposition. A narrative can’t simultaneously have no authorial message it intends to impart and a clear one meant for the audience. There are further worrying elements. Such as David Cage first saying that it was about Androids and science fiction content as a focus and then later talking about how the story was about humanity.

While still avoiding a ‘big message.’

Perhaps it’s prejudice on my part, but I’m not sure one can write about themes like this, or really anything that might attempt for deep emotional investment from the audience, if there isn’t some fundamental core idea to your attempt.

This fear is what has brought about this essay. Since I’m now concerned that David Cage is going to handle this plot in the same way as his earlier works, which have quite a creative fingerprint to them, I think I can make some educated guesses on the likely direction and potential missteps that will follow.

Suddenly Ensouled

I suspect that the emergence of Android consciousness will not be planned or desired. While there remains the potential that there is some supernatural cause (and given previous stories some element of that being outright or left on the cutting room floor is quite likely) I think even in the case of a mundane malfunction being the origin it will be seen as a problem.

The Android Markus is supposedly ‘special’ for being able to free androids. What this means is entirely speculative at the moment, but I will guess that this ability is not common or easily understood. Cage likes mystery plots, particularly blunt ones where the question the audience has it upfront and with them for a long time. More over the trailers for the other character Kara point out an even stronger trend towards spontaneous intelligence.

This isn’t bad really, even if it’s common. The issue is, at least to me, that its been done enough times that if that’s all you’re doing with it you should really shoot for more.

Take Nier: Automata. There’s an outright robot rebellion plot in it. That is risen and dropped in the span of thirty minutes. That the Machine Lifeforms killed their creators isn’t the important part. The questions is why they did that and what they will do now.

(Much like the background of humanity’s death in that game is a footnote. The story is about what is supposed to be done after that point.)

I’m not too certain about what to expect give his previous games. I’m not optimistic that he’ll be able to swing it into something novel and interesting.

*Kill* and *Fuck*

Especially given how gratuitously exploitative his use of sex and violence has been before. A lot has been said about unneeded shower scenes and female characters placed in peril. I’m not of the mind that this comes from a place of sexualized degradation or some such, but instead cheapness.

It’s cheap and easy to make the audience care about a character by making them a young, attractive woman, and having her almost get killed or sexually assaulted (or both, as is not entirely a unique incident in David Cage games). There’s something schlocky and fake about the way those scenes are used though, that makes them not feel right for the stories they appear in. The serial killer and the dance club strip scene don’t really fit well in Heavy Rain (especially not one after another) and those aren’t the only offenders.

The birthday party torment in Beyond Two Souls is especially egregious in how far and how radically it shifts into tormenting the main character in order to draw out emotions from the player. It’s also not earned yet, as Jodie simply hasn’t been around long enough for that scene to have the weight that is desired. It’s simply assumed that the player will care as it’s about a vulnerable teenage girl crying.

Compare that with the slow descent of 9S. His emotional destruction takes the better part of the last third of Nier: Automata and while shocking, does not come across as unrealistic once it begins. Further it is not played as heavy handed. His love/hate (fuck/kill) relationship with 2B is symbolized by events that occur during gameplay, and not merely stated outright to the player. As I said, Heavy Rain does have a central theme and message (how far would one be willing to go to save the life of one they care about) but said theme is amazingly blunt in realization.

(Or ever better, Pascal. Making the player care about an obviously non-human lifeform grieving over even less human like creatures to such an extent is far beyond what I expect to see in Detroit Become Human.)

Not bad, but definitely worrying to me if David Cage is going to approach social issues. Especially given how extremely cliche, if not outright stereotypical his stories have become when they did such things before.

Added in that he will now be working with characters that are outright meant to be exploited by definition, and I’m extremely wary. I can only contemplate the potential (highly emotionally manipulative) scenes of coerced sexual activity that I see has highly likely in Detroit Become Human. It fits his previous work too well at this point. Once might be called a fluke, but David Cage has defaulted to such scenes for their emotional weight multiple times in the same game at this point.

Furthermore I doubt David Cage is going to play too far from his comfort zone. Kara is likely the designated subject for such roles, and I doubt I will see a switch up in how this works. The switch of support and physical action as seen with 2B and 9S is unlikely to be part of the story. So no Markus being rescued from military androids or Kara being the first to take a human life to save him.

(I suspect the opposite is more likely.)

Railroads End

I don’t think a story driven game necessarily needs choice. Or more correctly, not all narratives need to care about what the player would prefer to happen. Sometimes that works, but sometimes a tighter, more consistent story can be told without trying to fit different endings even if differing routs may be used to get there.

I bring this up as David Cage has had some rocky attempts at choice based gameplay. Omikron really doesn’t have any, as the central plot and ending is immune to any open world shenanigans the player might get up to. Beyond Two Souls barely has any meaningful choices. There is one centrally narrative choice (at the end) but it doesn’t change the post-game epilogue in a meaningful manner. The world’s still doomed to get Ghost Boned in the Ghost Zone.

Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain have more, with Heavy Rain being the standout by far. Given that Detroit Become Human is going back to the trio of player characters again (or almost quartet that Heavy Rain had) we might have another case where differing endings that allowed for player characters to die while the plot continues on despite that point. I found that to be quite a bit of fun in truth, if not enough to overcome the other story issues and such.

So while I’m hopeful that this might be a return to better elements, I’m none the less alarmed that David Cage’s decision to shoot for a more cerebral plot than just a mystery/thriller about a serial killer might not play well. Indigo Prophecy is barely coherent past the halfway point.

Which is one thing I haven’t brought up. Even Heavy Rain has cut content involving an inexplicable psychic link between the serial killer and the main character. Every David Cage game has some rather clumsy mystical elements thrown in. Like the multiple factions of Indigo Prophecy and Omikron or the Navajo part of Beyond Two Souls. I think it’s impossible to guess about this right now, but it’s not at all impossible if the real reason Markus can give other Androids free will is some kind of techo-magic Apple of Knowledge or that Kara might be a actual re-incarnation of a dead woman and/or possessed by a ghost from the Infraworld.

We’ll have to wait and see on those points I suppose.

 Final Note: I haven’t mentioned gameplay at all because it doesn’t matter. David Cage’s games play like ass. They just do. Telltale is better. I don’t even like them and they still are. The complicated quicktime events don’t add an appreciable investment most of the time as they just plain don’t work.

More conventional controls for the majority while saving the weird ‘artsy’ stuff for specific scenes would be better in my opinion and give more weight to them when they happen.

Or, there’s a reason the visual novel stuff in the forest of myth is the my favorite part of Nier. It’s not anywhere else in the game really. By being used sparingly it has more of an impact.

(Had another essay, but it wasn’t focused on Cage material so I wrote this one up instead. Hopefully I can finish that one too eventually.)

[mild-lunacy]

Sherlock, Irene and the Alien Girlfriend Trope

I don't wanna write this post... and the fact is, it's still not a natural reading of canon for me, but I think I like challenging myself to go deeper and deeper into the dark and the damp. As I said in my post-S4 meta on Sherlock's sexuality, I can't actually see Sherlock/Irene in the show even when I try to and suppose I should be able to, but I have to believe the intent was straightforward in the interviews about Irene, at least insofar as the acting. I'm thinking of the recent pre-S4 mention by Ben C, where he says Sherlock has a 'private life' with her to some degree. Given that I take Mofftiss' old interviews seriously (like I said recently), I suppose you could argue it follows we're meant to consider Sherlock ambiguously (but not really *romantically*) involved with Irene ever since ASiB-- in a very limited sense, anyway.

In other words, I imagine taking that texting reference in TLD seriously only makes sense if he'd texted her every now and then (not particularly often) but ever since the beginning. That would mean he'd done it in TSoT, for example, and that's why she showed up in his Mind Palace with all those other women he was intending to interview. So what do I think about that?

Like, remember that in ASiB, HLV and even TLD Sherlock thinks romantic entanglement isn't for him, and is 'human error', at least on the personal level. Any secret fluffy romance is out. So if any involvement exists, it's... maybe mildly sexually flavored teasing and a bit of chat, essentially much like what John was doing with Eurus. Oh, irony. Anyway, I still think it's weird, and almost completely unsupported. I don't even know how to respond (once I dissociate from my more intense emotions, I mean), because usually I need something to work with besides the suggestion there's something I don't know about, essentially. I mean, I think Sherlock respects her and finds her interesting... sexy would be a huge stretch. He's more likely to be flattered by the attention. However, I have to at least consider that Eurus asks that about him not being a virgin 'cause he's not... and it's related to the texting. Somehow.

Am I supposed to think about this so skeptically? I don't know, but considering that I like plenty of het couples, I can say with some confidence that I simply need something to work with before I find a romance or even attraction truly plausible for a character like Sherlock, and that's not asking for too much. This is *Sherlock*. You can't just hand-wave it or leave the audience to fill in the blanks when his very inscrutability and unsuitability for relationships has been a major refrain up to and including TLD. Anyway, note that I'm not suddenly accepting Ben C's statements as 'canon' -- I'm just taking them seriously and following the logical consequences to see where it leads. And seriously, it's hard to credit. If I force myself, I can imagine Sherlock's endless curiosity and bravado leading him to experiment once with Irene after he rescued her, and then texting. But with literally nothing to go on... and my conviction he's much more sentimental about other people than that, given he'd been a virgin *before* Irene, I can't do it. The main reason is my conviction we should be able to *tell*, because he would have changed his attitude or behavior somehow. After all, Sherlock's disconnection and its connection to romantic entanglement is a long-running theme, though we usually associate it with Johnlock, as most recently listed in @balancingprobability's post. You can't really resolve all that without consequences with Irene, either. So, I have to assume that he'd never consummated the relationship if it exists.

Besides that issue, I can't put a woman-- or The Woman-- into the box essentially reserved for Jim Kirk's 'alien planet only' girlfriend in Star Trek TOS. I mean that it seems unnatural to me to do out of any context, though I have to consider that the narrative may support it or indeed that could be the intent. That is, I have to imagine Irene Adler as a person who only really matters at all in a very narrow context, there and nowhere else. A brief vacation to carnal pleasure and/or ambiguously romantic interest, until it's time to go home to the Enterprise (and Spock-- or John, in this case). With Jim, at least it fits his personality; there's a reason Spock only did that when he lost his memory. It's not something you can casually insert for Spock, and so it never happened. Sherlock is much more like Spock than Jim Kirk, obviously. I don't really know how it works in Ben C's mind. The magic of heterosexuality at work?

This does appeal to me in one way, and that's just that I was never comfortable saying Irene's *only* function is metaphoric or representative of Sherlock's feelings. That sort of meta-only approach to characterization is just not very Mofftiss. Irene is a real person, so Sherlock has to have some actual relationship to her actual self and an actual explanation for her appearance(s) in his Mind Palace, no less so than any other character would need a reason. If you ask me, ultimately that reason isn't meta but neither is it meant to communicate the shape of any actual 'relationship'. No, what we have is the suggestion of one, much like Johnlock exists, between the lines. It's just... well, in this case, it's between the lines to preserve Sherlock's status, the legend and the mystery of 'Sherlock Holmes', I think. Even with het, they didn't want to go too far afield from focusing on Sherlock and John, or 'modern Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson', perhaps. It's all about them, and their stories. In the stories, Sherlock is either with John or alone, and so he remains-- with Irene Adler more or less a recurrent theme or memory rather than a person. A narrative ghost, like Mary.

It may seem like that's going back to the meta level, but it's a different kind of meta. It's more of a Holmesian commentary, a sort of self-indulgent homage rather than a fully fledged aspect of characterization. This is meant to be a teaser that relies on heteronormativity, not an actual relationship that makes any difference in the story. This definitely bothers me, especially in context with the continuous focus on Sherlock's capacity for romantic feelings and the importance thereof. This subject is constantly teased, presented as important, but not taken *seriously* except in ASiB and TSoT, which are also the two queerest eps. Like, by *no* stretch of the imagination is ASiB about Sherlock's relationship with Irene, and it could've been-- just like TSoT could've been about John and Mary, and wasn't. The women seemingly exist just muddle the waters, but that's particularly true of the way Mofftiss wrote Irene. They both work as conduits for the male characters' emotional development. They're still just... not pivotal to Sherlock or John's emotional growth, even though in TSoT and TLD John *says* as much about Mary. It just doesn't ring *true*. With Sherlock, there's absolutely no attempt made to make the arc about anyone other than John (and in fact, Ben C even mentioned this in the same interview he mentioned his 'private life' with Irene). So John is the center of Sherlock's universe, undoubtedly... but then there's texting vacations, sort of like sex vacations without the sex.

Anyway, it certainly casts their conversation at the greenhouse in TAB in a different light, given Sherlock *was* hiding some juicy tidbits and/or hetero impulses from John and from himself... maybe because Redbeard and/or Eurus's trauma, 'cause he heard Redbeard/a dog bark? Except who in the world hides heterosexuality, trauma aside. I just... I don't think it's *beyond* Mofftiss, but it really stretches credulity to think Gatiss wrote Sherlock as a closeted straight man. That's just... a bit much. I mean, I assume Ben C doesn't think of it like that, but Gatiss would be aware of the subtext, and he almost certainly doesn't think of it in those terms. So... I'd say we can dismiss any reductive or straightforward reading of Sherlock's sexuality, regardless.

It's obviously intentionally ambiguous, there's no way around that. The text isn't clear by any means, regardless if Ben C's headcanons, which you can see 'cause Moffat's said Sherlock's not interested in women, point blank. Honestly, that is what makes the most sense-- he may be haunted by Irene, and I suppose he visits her room in his Mind Palace sometimes (really?), but he's *obsessed* with John to the point where various villains feel the need to remark on it and/or show their home videos on the subject. Sherlock's emotional intimacy is overwhelmingly with John... and to be fair, that's not unusual in depictions of heterosexual manly men in genre media. Jim and (to some extent) Spock are certainly like that. It's just... Jim Kirk respected women, and they knew where they stood with him. There was no need for secrecy, and he was always sincere. This is... not that.

This is more like a heterosexual male fantasy projected awkwardly and incompletely onto Sherlock Holmes, who hadn't even developed enough conscious awareness of himself in his romantic/sexual aspect to do anything with it, for most of the show. The man was completely oblivious of most things to do with feeling until at least TSoT, so any long-distance texting would have been very, very bare bones until the time of TST/TLD, when John left him for good, and I guess he reached out to anyone who'd let him (he'd even tried therapy, after all). However, my suspension of disbelief can only stretch so far; so... still gay or null, essentially, as I said. It definitely doesn't extend to straight!Sherlock. Sorry, Ben.

[justbloggingit-blog]

The 20 Best Comics of 2017 (So Far)

In an interview with Shea Hennum, First Second Editorial Director Mark Siegel used the term “new mainstream” to describe the democratization of comics—an explosion “out of super-hero and memoir, blending all kinds of art styles and narrative approaches, to explore every aspect of fiction and non-fiction, from cooking to physics, from mystical fantasy to a history of the game Tetris.” It’s a potent dream that’s been fantasized often and articulated in many different ways, the thesis accusing publishers of treating comics more as a genre than a medium capable of telling any story. So…are we there yet?

If this list of our favorite comics of the year thus far is any indication, that answer is a strong maybe. Our favorite comic of 2017’s first half is a mystery and three biographies sit within our top 10. Other genre outliers include an epic poetry comic translation (Beowulf was a superhero?), a bunch of surreal sci-fi and an adult continuation of a ‘60s cartoon. Let’s break it down in the chart to the left. Admittedly, drama is a bit of a catch-all that holds an umbrella over both Fred Flintstone and disgruntled alcoholic ex-hockey players, but work with us.

Whether Paste’s taste dovetails with an expanded, intellectually diverse landscape of sequential art, we can confirm that these works are unanimously excellent. From Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman’s grandiose meditation on morality and godhood in The Mighty Thor to Jillian Tamaki’s exploration of technology and isolation in Boundless, the panels from the past six months haven’t been afraid to challenge us in the best way possible. Check back in December when we tally up our favorite books from the whole year.

20. Beowulf Writer: Santiago García Artist: David Rubin Publisher: Image Comics

Ether’s David Rubín may not have adapted Beowulf solo—he worked with writer Santiago García after the first attached artist had to bow out for health reasons—but this Spanish import stands alongside Rubín’s own two-volume retelling of Heracles, Hero, to cement his reputation as a preeminent interpreter of the grand heroic saga. Beowulf eschews most of the anachronisms of Rubín’s Hero, which was as much a tribute to Jack Kirby and the superhero myth as it was to Greek mythology, opting to portray a relatively straightforward take on the oldest English-language saga—”straightforward” being a relative term in Rubín’s prodigiously talented hands. While there’s little in the text that would shock Seamus Heaney, Beowulf’s most famous modern translator, García and Rubín instill their version with subtle suggestions and visual decisions that shed new perspective on this much-discussed story. The best example is one of the quietest: before Beowulf’s first sinewy tussle with the bloodthirsty monster Grendel, he lies in wait naked in the mead hall (a detail dictated by the epic poem). Rubín breaks down Grendel’s discovery of this idealized man into dozens of panels, including close-ups that suggest a sexual awakening in the monster. It’s a small moment, not explicitly present in the source material, that tilts the reader’s take on the story just enough to suggest that we may not yet have plumbed the depths of what Beowulf has to offer. Steve Foxe

19. Shattered Warrior Writer: Sharon Shinn Artist: Molly Knox Ostertag Publisher: First Second

The story of Shattered Warrior takes place on a planet populated by humans that has been conquered by much more powerful and technically adept aliens, the Derichets. A young woman, Colleen, works in a factory overseen by these tyrants, extracting valuable minerals from hunks of rock. Her family is dead, and she tries to lay low, but when her younger sister is found, she discovers a new sense of purpose. The foundation of the plot isn’t all that promising, unless you are easily romanced by simple speculative fiction. But what the authors do with it is what makes the difference. The book has an ability to pick you up and carry you along on its emotional flow. It’s an escape and it’s a manifesto that says forging new connections is the best thing you can do in a world where your oppressors hold all the power. It’s a book about the strength you gain from letting yourself be vulnerable, which makes it both good and important at the present moment. Hillary Brown

18. Roughneck Writer/Artist:   Jeff Lemire   Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Gallery 13

Jeff Lemire, the master cartoonist of dysfunctional families and rural stillness, returns with this 272-page tome that may be the most concentrated example of his aesthetic. Lemire has cultivated a resonant library of deeply personal work, unmistakable in its themes and sketchy, emaciated lines. Roughneck revolves around a former hockey player who takes refuge in an abandoned hunting lodge with his sister, pursued by an abusive ex. With a book this thick, Lemire has room to dig his scalpel even deeper into these characters while submerging them into the haunting wooded atmosphere that stands as his most frequent character. Sean Edgar

17. The Wild Storm Writer: Warren Ellis Artist: Jon Davis-Hunt Publisher: DC Comics

Late-period Warren Ellis is an interesting writer. He tends to float around Marvel and DC, dropping in for a visit when the mood strikes. In those cases, we’re lucky to get six issues of Moon Knight or Karnak, as it seems that Ellis has reserved his long-form energies for some of his more ambitious, creator-owned work including Trees or Injection. Who can blame him? But now, we’ve been blessed with a 24-issue series from the writer (four issues of which have hit shelves) at DC, in the form of The Wild Storm. It has all the makings of a series from the comic icon: thoughtfully crafted science fiction, scene-chewing super-geniuses, hyper-detailed gore, oligarchic intrigue and a “transkeletal drysuit” (plus other assorted Ellis jargon). With 20 more issues to go, Ellis has plenty of room to stretch, which means we’re able to spend time with these characters, to learn about their world and to let the mystery of The Wild Storm unravel with each bullet shot, bone broken and head exploded. Jakob Free

16. Saga Writer: Brian K. Vaughan Artist: Fiona Staples Publisher: Image Comics

If Saga’s 43 issues have confirmed anything, it’s that writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples are in this for the (very) long haul. At the end of this winding expedition of family, loyalty, sex and bananas sci-fi, grad students will write their thesis on this landmark comic and upcoming writers will avoid the genre, woefully lamenting, I’m not touching that shit after Saga. The first act witnessed two star-crossed alien lovers give birth to a hybrid baby, united in an us-against-the-universe struggle as two amoral armies pursued them. The second act showed how the greatest battles—drug addiction, infidelity and doubt—can emerge in the most peaceful lulls. The third (each consists of 18 issues, collected in hardback books) is only six issues in, but struck a massive, personal blow against parent heroes Alana and Marko in the last issue. Reading Saga is experiencing an obsessive simulation of a family’s life-span, far more real than any comic with preying mantis school teachers should ever be. The creative team hasn’t stopped melding sucker-punch creativity with gut-wrenching drama, and not one issue has failed to warrant our endorsement. Sean Edgar

15. Shade the Changing Girl Writer: Cecil Castellucci Artists: Marley Zarcone, Chynna Clugston Flores Publisher: DC Comics/Young Animal

Like most of the Young Animal lineup, Shade fills the void left behind by ‘90s mature-comics staple Vertigo, a weird and wonderful adventure that feels like a gem from an indie publisher. A play on Steve Ditko’s Shade, the Changing Man (better known from Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo’s long Vertigo run with the character), Shade would be captivating if it only focused on the titular character’s alien origins and her adventures as she explores a foreign planet. But what really makes the book shine is the balance of the fantastical and mundane, recognizing that being a teenage girl isn’t all that different from being a super-powered alien with a magic coat that allows you to possess other people. Our teen years are marked by a youthful drive to escape the known and safe alongside curious shock at the behavior of others.

Marley Zarcone’s crisp but flexible art and colorist Kelly Fitzpatrick’s palette are vital to making Shade into something both psychedelic and familiar, melting the reality around protagonist Loma even as she manipulates it to her will. This kind of introspective, kaleidoscopic jaunt isn’t unheard of in comics, but it is rare, if not completely unprecedented, to have it star a young woman. Loma is allowed to participate in all of the behaviors for which society often derides young women: she’s mean to her friends, obsessed with her social standing, constantly reaching for something new and unique. But this doesn’t make her any less compelling of a protagonist, or her journey of self-discovery any less important and enjoyable. It’s the perfect bridge to more adult comics for fans of shows like Adventure Time and Steven Universe, rife with complicated characters and exciting adventures, but rooted in the desire to know both the world and oneself. Caitlin Rosberg

14. The Flintstones Writer: Mark Russell Artists: Steve Pugh, Rick Leonardi Publisher: DC Comics

Paste is still mourning the loss of Mark Russell and artist Ben Caldwell’s Prez—could there be a better time for a spunky political palate cleanser?—but at least Russell still has The Flintstones to broadcast his subversive, socially skewed wit. Alongside artists Steve Pugh and Rick Leonardi, Russell has tackled commercialism, monogamy and race in this comic continuation of the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon. This year has also introduced the goofy green alien, The Great Gazoo, as he grades humanity an “F,” while the town of Bedrock grapples with the local church’s use of indulgences. Russell addressed similar territory in his hilarious prose Bible remix, God Is Disappointed in You, resulting in plenty of scholar-grade vitriol. Sean Edgar

13. Extremity Writer/Artist: Daniel Warren Johnson Publisher: Image Comics/Skybound

Paste named Extremity one of its most anticipated comics of 2017, and for good reason: Space Mullet’s Daniel Warren Johnson has long been one of the comic industry’s best-kept secrets, an “artist’s artist” who hasn’t quite broken through to the wider readership. Extremity, his violent, bizarre Skybound debut, should finally rectify that travesty. Like an outer-space Fury Road, Extremity is a bloody, fast-paced tale of tribal warfare in a sci-fi world that never conquered class stratification. And like Fury Road’s George Miller, Johnson thrusts his readers right into protagonist Thea’s revenge-driven conflict at breakneck speed. Steve Foxe

12. Sticks Angelica 

Writer/Artist: Michael DeForge Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly*

Sticks Angelica is not Michael DeForge’s most serious work. Rendered in black, white and magenta, it’s a vehicle for play. That’s not to say it doesn’t have melancholy moments. The plot is full of missed connections between characters and places, the meaning behind an utterance failing to jump the gap from one brain to another. All of these scenes are faintly sad, but they also have some sweetness to them. The geese, fish, deer, bears, humans, insects and rabbits who populate the book keep trying to reach one another; sometimes, but not frequently, they succeed. The ideas are interesting, and the individual strips, with their delicate patterns and intelligent use of color, produce a mindful, existential experience. Is there meaning in the world? In the wilderness? In the universe? Who knows. But there is art, and DeForge is making it. Hillary Brown

11. Solid State Writers: Matt Fraction, Jonathan Coulton Artist: Albert Monteys Publisher: Image Comics

Things are stranger than they seem, Now I remember what I dream / What if Kurzweil doesn’t make it? What if all the switches get stuck on destroy?

This question makes up the refrain of Jonathan Coulton’s “All This Time,” a lovely little ditty whose soul-wracking existentialism and infectious dream pop-melody provide the raw speculative kernel from which Matt Fraction and Albert Montey’s Solid State blossoms. Nothing so plain as a comic commissioned in some promotional bid for cross-medium synergy, Solid State is an entity all its own apart from the album from which it claims its namesake, and yet the two fit together so that their compliments and contrasts give rise to exciting new readings and possibilities not only for the text itself, but for the future of the media they represent. Set at the dawn of the singularity and brink of human extinction, two men separated by time and space with nothing in common save a first name (Bob) set out on their own separate journeys to bridge the divide between the mistakes of the past and the mysteries of the future. Equal parts wonderful, terrifying and mind-expanding, Solid State’s tale of serendipity, causal chaos and the unforeseen perils of science gone sycophantic yields a edifying experience that any reader, comic fan or no, would be tragically remiss to pass on for nothing save the reason of, “Oh, it’s just an album comic.” Solid State is what happens when three masterful storytellers reach into the zeitgeist, grasp at the root of our loneliest fears and most secret hopes, and manage to pull out something that’s not only entertaining, but resonant in its intimate profundity. Toussaint Egan

10. Everything Is Flammable Writer/Artist: Gabrielle Bell Publisher: Uncivilized Books

Gabrielle Bell’s comics arrive from unexpected angles. Whether her stories are dream-like fiction or drawn from life, Bell avoids the predictable, leading the reader to sucker-punch emotional truths that emerge organically from words and pictures. Her work is subtle in its execution and grand in its scope, and never quite goes where one might expect. Over the decades, the focus of Bell’s work has shifted slightly: the off-beat surrealism of her shorter works collected in 2009’s Cecil and Jordan in New York has given way to the nuanced nonfiction of books like 2012’s The Voyeurs. Bell’s latest confessional, Everything is Flammable from Uncivilized Books, chronicles her experience after a fire consumes her mother’s California house. The graphic novel experiments with structure, telling Bell’s story along with several other narratives that serve as counterpoints. It’s a deft narrative, a moving story with a tactile sense of place throughout. Tobias Carroll

9. The Mighty Thor Writer: Jason Aaron Artist: Russell Dauterman, Steve Epting Publisher: Marvel Comics

“What’s the best Thor run?” used to have an easy answer, or rather two easy answers: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did more than create Marvel’s version of the Norwegian thunder god in the ‘60s—they crafted a sprawling cosmic epic that was at times even more creative than their Fantastic Four run. Then in the 1980s, a long creative drought ended when Walt Simonson brought a cosmic scale and sense of humor back to the title, along with his gorgeous, dynamic art. But these untouchable runs are in touching distance, thanks to Jason Aaron and a string of talented artists. Since taking over the Odinson in 2012, Aaron has been crafting a multidimensional, multi-Thor saga that’s more ambitious and fun than anything else Marvel’s been putting out in the same time frame, or maybe any time frame. Through the buildup to the recent arc “War of the Realms,” Aaron has managed to comment on real-world politics, creating a cosmic United Nations full of elves, trolls, giants, gods and mortals. With the Jane Foster Thor saga, Aaron has incorporated a meta-element into the comic seamlessly, as Odin’s rejection of female Thor represents comic fans who can’t handle change, especially change involving women. Odin—the ultimate old white man—stands for male domination at its worst, and he’s supported by dumbass followers who hang “False Thor” signs that mirror the complaints of change-hating and/or misogynist fans. When Foster clobbers Odin with Mjolnir, it’s a beautiful moment. As she puts it, “…when you’re a ninety-pound woman dying of cancer…it does feel pretty good to punch god in the face.” Mark Peters

8. Boundless Writer/Artist: Jillian Tamaki Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly

At its core, Jillian Tamaki’s Boundless is a series of short stories examining concepts of connection—the ever-constant search for purpose. What makes the book feel simultaneously so contemporary and yet time-capsule specific is the pervasive lens through which this theme is explored: a chronicling of modern interactions with technology and culture, often with a focus on how the former has impacted the latter. In the age of tech, connection comes via consumption, relationships with culture defining relationships with people, and defining the individual self…Boundless is many things: contemplative, cynical, amusing, surreal, but mostly it anchors Tamaki as a formidable essayer of modern life, and undeniably one of the finest cartoonists of this generation. Zainab Akhtar

7. The Best We Could Do Writer/Artist: Thi Bui Publisher: Abrams

A genre with clunky names including autobiographical novel and visual memoir, the ever-growing library of comics designed to encapsulate real lives is bringing a wide range of important stories to entirely new audiences. Following in the footsteps of authors like Gene Luen Yang and Lucy Knisley, Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do presents the story of the cartoonist’s family as it travels from Southeast Asia to America, and the position Bui finds herself caught in as she becomes sandwiched between her child and parents. As with many immigration stories, Bui’s book revolves around identity. The Best We Could Do has been a long time in the making, and its author has sold early chapters online, but this printed volume collects all 15 in one place. Born in Saigon, Bui and her family came to America after the fall of South Vietnam, and her story offers readers a particular insight into the life of a family fleeing violence and fear in a time of political upheaval—a reminder of the micro consequences of macro political actions. Caitlin Rosberg

6. The Abominable Mr. Seabrook Writer/Artist: Joe Ollmann Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly

In his introduction, Ollmann writes movingly about what attracted him to Seabrook’s work: his honesty and his insecurity. (Though Ollmann also notes that both he and his subject have struggled with alcohol, and both blended/blend a desire to believe in the supernatural with an inherent skepticism.) Above and beyond, this volume, which encompasses the scope of a life, makes the case for Seabrook’s continued relevance as a writer, and charts an unsettling decline and fall. Ollmann has been involved with continuing Seabrook’s legacy in other ways as well, helping facilitate the release of new editions of Seabrook’s books Asylum (about his efforts to get sober) and The Magic Island (an account of his visit to Haiti). Before reading Ollmann’s clear-headed and empathic account, the name William Seabrook may have been foreign; by the end of it, readers will likely want to order one of his books—the mark of a comprehensive and compelling literary biography. Tobias Carroll

5. California Dreamin’ Writer/Artist: Penelope Bagieu Publisher: First Second

Pénélope Bagieu’s California Dreamin’: Cass Elliot Before the Mamas & the Papas offers a daunting proposition. The era of ‘60s flower-child music is over-romanticized, the outlines of Elliot’s life are well known and the subject is primarily auditory, which makes it difficult for a medium that doesn’t cater to that sense. But Bagieu clears those hurdles with style while depicting the life of a woman who made huge musical contributions while struggling with her body image and substance abuse. The cartoonist works in pencils, with no color, but the graphic novel doesn’t need bright hues to roil with life. Bagieu’s line feels personal, as though the reader puts it down on the page with their eyes as they read it. Instead of being cleaned with ink and Photoshop, the aesthetic has an organic quality that fits the story of a woman defined by rough and soft contrasts. It’s a wary love song to a complicated artist who provided the world with moments of flowery joy. Hillary Brown

4. You & a Bike & a Road Writer/Artist: Eleanor Davis Publisher: Koyama Press

In March of 2016, Eleanor Davis decided to ride her bicycle from her parents’ house in Arizona to Athens, Georgia, where she lives. Here and there, she drew things she saw and put them on Instagram. Followers received little dispatches as she made her way from Southwest to Southeast. Sometimes she was discouraged. Other times she seemed overcome by the beauty of the world or the kindness of strangers. The story unfolds slowly, without a classical narrative structure or predictable spikes of drama, but it is fascinating. You & a Bike & a Road, collects those drawings and captures the journey, while compressing the time that it took. It’s easily one of the year’s best books; the sense of immediacy and unfiltered emotion—its most notable features—are rare and difficult to do well. Hillary Brown

3. Doom Patrol Writer: Gerard Way Artist: Nick Derington Publisher: DC Comics/Young Animal

In a not-altogether-surprising turn of events, it took Young Animal architect Gerard Way and illustration sensation Nick Derington a bit longer than anticipated to wrap the first arc of their psychedelic Doom Patrol reinvention, although fans of the franchise will be hard pressed to argue that initial arc “Brick by Brick” wasn’t worth the wait. Way and Derington, with ample assistance from colorist Tamra Bonvillain, distill the gonzo appeal of Grant Morrison and Richard Case’s storied run—as well as Rachel Pollack and co’s oft-overlooked follow-up—with genuinely new ideas, a feat that’s rarer than it should be in the modern comic climate. During an era of reboots eager to trash previous continuities, Way, Derington and Bonvillain folded years of reality-jettisoning storytelling into a fresh story of an EMT in over her head, and a gyro that’s more than just tasty street food. It may be a while before we see Doom Patrol Vol. 2, but every long-awaited issue proves the vital need for Young Animal’s thesis statement: Comics for Dangerous Humans. Steve Foxe

2. Hostage Writer/Artist: Guy Delisle Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly

Guy Delisle’s library has largely stemmed from the cartoonist’s international ventures through exotic geographies including Jerusalem, Burma, North Korea and China. His intimate, stylized lines escorted readers through the areas via travelogues, volleying exciting bits on culture and history with each new panel sequence. Hostage is a jarring departure in both tone and approach. The 436-page doorstop relays the trials of Christophe Andre, a Doctors without Borders employee who was tossed into solitary confinement for 100 days while working in North Caucasus. Instead of the breakneck parade of culture clash and architecture, Delisle now traps readers inside four grim walls alongside his protagonist for a very, very, very long time. This book is an exercise in brutal empathy, a meditation on the sparsely worded monotony and terrifying ambiguity of human captivity. The result is simply intense, a crystalline example of what sequential storytelling is capable of communicating. Sean Edgar

1. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Writer/Artist: Emil Ferris Publisher: Fantagraphics

The first volume of Emil Ferris’ debut comic, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, was scheduled for release last October, timed to coincide with Halloween. But the company that owned the ship carrying the printed books went bankrupt, leaving its cargo in a terrible limbo that delayed the book until this year. In some ways, the hiccup was fitting. Ferris’ book has been anticipated for much longer and undergone multiple iterations. It’s the sort of achievement that requires a certain sense of mission to complete. But it’s here now courtesy publisher Fantagraphics, and it is well worth the wait.

Oversized with a paper binding, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters feels heftier than if it had a board cover, yet ephemeral at the same time. The story draws on EC Comics, Holocaust literature, detective fiction, monster movies, children’s literature à la Harriet the Spy and more, weaving a complex tapestry through the 1960s that surprisingly parallels our current era. Are its monsters a metaphor or a reality? And are the people in it who look like monsters the ones we need to fear? Ferris doesn’t supply simple answers. Instead, her work fuses the style and atmosphere of noir godfather Raymond Chandler with the passionate moral intensity found beating beneath a good episode of Tales from the Crypt. Hillary Brownp>