#pretty good book overall certain very weird parts

[jewishcissiekj]

screaming crying throwing up

[docholligay]

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Thank you @becauseforoncethisisme for sponsoring this! Regulars know this, but if you're new here, all opinions are mine and it's fine to disagree with me, but please don't get weird about it.

Nonspoilery: 

Good God in high heaven and low hell, this is so much better than the first book. This is both a personal and professional opinion.  The only problem with it being, I cannot in good conscience tell anyone to read the first book in order to get to the second. I don’t think it’s so good as to justify that. That’s a pretty tall order. In all, though, if you read Gideon the Ninth and thought, “Hm. Okay, that’s enough for now,” this might whet your whistle a little bit more. 

Spoilery: 

Wow did I like this better than Gideon, you were all so right and it does not bother me even one solitary bit to say so. I think it starts slow, and I don’t know that I really ever connected with the second person bits--once I figured out what it meant, i wanted it to be confirmed and stop-- and of course Muir’s style occasionally grates on me (Muir and I are the same age. I know we grew up in the same fandom environment, and part of the reason I know that is I recognize elements of her style from fanfics being written then as now. This is stuff from like, sporking days. She’s so talented, and so loves these strange, memey asides even in lovely moments. That being said, i think this book strikes a much, much better balance with that and there were even times I found it fun, so, things are improving) But overall I would say I liked this book just fine, and would consider reading it again on some winter night. LEAPS AND BOUNDS over my experience of GtN

I struggled so hard with the first 150 pages or so of this book. I think it was a combination of how little I remembered from the first book, the taste the first book left in my mouth, and the fact that I am just, too stupid for high-concept fantasy. So all the stuff about thanergy and thelergy and conversion, I just, sat there not possible caring less about any of it. I don’t care now, and I came away liking the book! This is for someone, certainly, but I am not it. If this hadn’t been a commission, I think I would have given up at a certain point. I usually give a book 100 pages and this wouldn’t have done it for me*

At the end of the day, I think one of the things this book can be about--for me, it’s about more than one thing, but this is the easy reach--is about grief. And how being willing to give yourself a Fantasy Lobotomy, if that’s what it takes, to avoid the hurt and loss that grief brings in, and the guilt, only ends up hurting yourself and everyone around you. 

Also, it doesn’t bring them back. Forgetting them in every way possible does nothing to bring them back. Now, Harrow is a special case, so for her it can’t only be about avoiding pain, because what she’s also doing, because of how the whole Lyctorhood thing works, is, in a sense, keeping Gideon on life support. Like is said later in the book, shoving her in a drawer she can’t open, but so long as the drawer is never opened, Gideon is alive. It’s Harrow living her entire life in the doorway where where a policeman stands, ready to tell you someone you loved is dead, and she won’t let him speak. Because it’s not true until he does. 

I like Harrow so much more in this one by virtue of the fact that this book cares so much less if we like or forgive her. Because of the way it works with perspective, and the way it’s trying not to tip its hand to the fact that Gideon is our second-person narrator, we get a much more neutral version of Harrow’s life 

How Lyctors work: Love it. What a choice. My favorite takeaway from the first book, and perhaps the only thing I still think about actively while lying in bed at night, is the necromancer-cavalier system. I think it is fantastic, I love it, it works perfectly for imagining all shades of relationship and is very fun to do to your blorbim. I can’t remember if we found this out so explicitly at the end of the first book--as I said in an aside post while I was reading HtN, the pool scene in GtN pissed me off so much that I had a rage blackout for much of the book and forgot it the second I wrote about it--but the idea that the necromancer can only become this sort of ultimate power by killing this person they, by necessity, have some level of intimate bond with? Exceptional. I love that they are, in a sense, protected and powered by a person who loved them, that they murdered. I am so unbelievably into this idea, and the idea of those who can DO this, and who can’t. Reeled me back to my blorbos all over again. 

Which of course makes the whole thing with Harrow so interesting, because Harrow is someone who can’t deal with the cost of it. In full fairness to her, it wasn’t a choice she got to make, but she certainly does Gideon’s memory no honor by refusing to even acknowledge her sacrifice. She’s spitting on the roast lamb on the altar, so to speak. It’s sort of the murdered children problem all over again, though a million times better done: If an impossible sacrifice is made for you, what do you do to earn it? It’s Saving Private Ryan, and you have to spend your whole life hoping you earned a sacrifice someone made without your consent. And you should! What will you do, to earn your place? I know, i know, we all hate that except for me, but if Gideon died to make you a demigod, earn your power, and take your responsibility. 

Ianthe: I love a good horrible, manipulative cunt, and Ianthe certainly is that. This isn’t even me joking, she’s one of my favorite characters in the book (Though not my absolute favorite)  and also my poster child for “I support women’s wrongs.” I think it’s so smart and great that at the end, Ianthe makes the wrong choice, and that you are sitting there screaming for her not to do that, and yet when she does it, it feels completely correct. Of course this is a thing that she both can and would do. Ianthe is about hedging her bets, and above all else, about Ianthe. She killed Naberius as soon as she figured out the deal. We get the sense that she feels…i’m not sure how I want to say this…it’s not that she doesn’t feel about it, but she feels inevitable about it, also. To her, there was no other choice. 

She is willing to help Harrow destroy herself, shut herself off, because Ianthe loves a good “you fucking owe me” but also because other than how it benefits or hurts her, what the fuck does she care? I love her, it’s how I wish I could write Minako if I could get away with it. She’s clever and fun and terrible. I think she’s also, narratively, a great balance for Harrow’s whole ‘That girl in homeroom in an Invader Zim hoodie” vibe. 

Mercymorn my beloved: If Ianthe is my poster child for, “I support women’s wrongs” than Mercymorn is my ‘tag yourself.’ The longer the book when on, the more I liked her because the more I understood her. As an old lady who has been a part of things for many years, who has seen them grow and fall apart, who has lost people I loved and worked with people I hate, I loved everything about her. I love how utterly done she is with the whole thing. The way she so clearly loved Cristabel, and how she reacts to the pain of that love in a way I understand, and didn’t realize how clearly I understood her until Mercymorn killed the Emperor. Then it all hit at once, I remember that moment pretty early on in the book where it mentions that is you say Cristabel’s name to Mercymorn, she reacts like she’s stung. The way she yells at Harrow to never use her name with her, filled with rage. That is a kind of grief I recognize. I don’t want to talk about it and i’ll fucking kill you if you remind me. 

I felt every ounce of hurt, a plucking of a twin string, when she said, “This is the chance for unloveable Mercymorn--critical Mercymorn--to show you that she is the most capable of her name.” 

And then she kills the emperor. Do I think he was sorry? Do I think he never wanted any harm to come to Cristabel**? Does Mercymorn think that? It doesn’t fucking matter. Whether he feels bad about it or not, it’s academic at best. She murdered Cristabel because a man she trusted, a man she took to be her God, lied to her about it. He told her she, to save the world, had to give up a person she adored. Had to do it herself. I, too, would rip him atom from atom, if I were Mercymorn***. Maybe she does forgive him, but only because he is about to make repentance in blood. 

She’s my favorite character in the whole fucking book, bar none. 

(On that note, sort of, I actually came to very much love Augustine.)

Oh! One thing I loved, so much, and I don’t think anyone I’ve seen say anything even offhandedly about the book, is during the fight with the Sleeper, how Ortus’ BELIEF and PASSION form the basis to call up Mattias Fucking Nonius. Is that not incredible? That faith, can be so strong, that Abigail could call up a man that none of them ever knew, who is basically an idea more than a man, to fight? I think it’s such a lovely little lesson tucked in there, because we have been making fun of Ortus’ belief system for the entire book, mocking the way he recites this, and in the end, his deeply held belief matters, it matters so much, and I adored that as a real reversal of mocking someone faithful. 

I think part of the underlying problem with GtN is I just don’t like Gideon. I don’t like her point of view, I don’t like her character voice, I don’t like her general vibe, and the narrative does like her, and wants you to like her. In this book, it’s fine because so much of it is not from her perspective, but it became pretty clear to me that so much of what I disliked (though not all) of the first book was a Gideon-based problem. And you can’t escape her in the first book. 

This all flew immediately back to me when Gideon is taking up Harrow’s body and also the narrative duties. I cannot stand her character voice. Muir is capable of being so smart and so beautiful in her prose, but not only is Gideon herself irritating, but she inspires Muir to do this…recitation of memes, the one I can think of off the top of my head is “Jail for mother” Tamsyn i will fucking kill you. I will not read Nona, because the back page tells me, threateningly, that Gideon will be back in Nona, and not only can i not handle reading another word from her, but also that will unmake the beauty of telling Harrow that she has to let Gideon go, that she has to let them become one and thus lose Gideon, because of course it does because it’s a fantasy book, and fantasy just Does This A Lot. Stop letting people come back! Kill these motherfuckers and leave them dead! 

The thing about Pyrrha and Wake having an affair with Gideon’s body, and wake having God’s baby in order to open the locked tomb, it’s such a weird aside in a weird moment, that I can see I am going to forget about it. It’s so strange! I mean, it explains why Gideon didn’t die when she was supposed to, and I don’t have a problem with it per se, but I also don’t know that I have any feelings about it other than, ‘hm. Strange.” 

In all: Not a bad book! Enjoyed it more as the book went on, Mercymorn for Lyfe. I hope Ianthe continues being the world’s sexiest and worst person. 

Did you want to ask me something? As long as you’re not a dick about it, ask away! Let’s have fun. 

*I suppose that’s my own personal de jure vs de facto, because truthfully I can’t remember the last time I straight up did not finish a book. Perhaps I’m just lying to myself. I dnf shows and movies all the time, but not books. 

** No, I don’t think that. 

***Although I’m actually not all that sure in my marriage if I’m the necro. I think I’m actually the cavalier. I don’t think Jill would feel a whole lot of patience over having murdered me either, though.

[nota1eks]

If/when they create a phm movie, what changes (if any) would you like to see them make to the story?

Jesus that’s a hard question…wow…! In a perfect world, they’d change nothing. It’d be a TV show with lots of room to portray everything. But we don’t live in a perfect world. I, therefore, want to keep as much of the original book as possible. My only immediate want is that it might be cool for them to use “they” for Rocky instead of “he”. Maybe some toning down of the Crazy Russians stereotyping, though if they do it right, that can be great. Nothing else comes to mind that I want changed -- it's a very good book.

But with that out of the way, let's talk about stuff that will very likely be cut. Because I think that's very interesting...

I think, as with Pathfinder getting fried and the dust storm in the Martian (2015) (wherein, both times, a huge plot event in the movie was gotten rid of for time purposes, with little impact on the overall plot, but a devastating-ish loss to the dedicated novel-enjoyers), some stuff will get cut out. Let's go one by one through the timeline of events:

The flashbacks will be there. Maybe not in flashback form (maybe they come before the rest like in the Martian...though those aren't flashbacks it's just backstory), but nonetheless there. Not everything will be there, though. Stratt barging in on Grace's class will be there; him doing the first experiments on astrophage will likely be there; meeting the crew will be there along with some of him training them so as to explain how he learned so much about being an astronaut; the explosion at Baikonur and the proceeding chaos will be there, trailer meetings included; but I think that'd be roughly it. They'll add some; they'll take away a lot. No Steve Hatch; no Lamai; probably very little Lokken (which is very sad); no frenchscientistwhosenameicantrememberimnotevenarealphm fanomllllll, either. They'll have their stories be explained via Grace talking to Rocky. Lots will be explained via Grace talking to Rocky.

Now, they'll have to have Grace waking up and seeing his dead crewmates. They'll have to have Ryan Gosling wandering about this spaceship scratching his head. That's a big part of the story. But I think after a certain point, after enough clues are gathered together, they'll infodump on us. It will be done well, of course, I mean just look at who's making the movie, but it wil lhaev to be like that. Maybe the nannybot will give him information. Maybe there will be a "Here to save Earth from imminent apocalypse? Click here ->" type of thing, but it won't be Grace turning to the camera and saying "Hey guys! I'm here at Tau Ceti to save Earth from astrophage! There's this weird ship out there. Keep you updated! Like and subscribe!"; nor will it be a voiceover. I had a Media Arts teacher in school and he told us that, more than anything, we were to avoid having to use voice-overs to explain out movies. At all costs. So I doubt they'll use that here -- maybe later, though. More talking-head with visuals than voiceover explaining the story.

Now. With Grace meeting Rocky there will either be nothing cut or everything cut: Maybe Rocky wil have a Magic Language Machine. Maybe Grace has a Magic Language Machine. Maybe they do everything how they did it in the book. Either way, it'll have to likely be one or the other. I'm very excited to see how they do Rocky's voice. An adaptation of the Audible Audiobook's version would be ideal, as I and many others think. There aren't many other good options... With the rest, I'm genuinely not sure. I can see them going both ways with this: cutting everything and rewriting it or keeping it pretty book-accurate. By any measure, they won't cut it all out. That'd be stupid.

With the in between between the Blip-A-Hail Mary disconnection and them arriving at Adrian, much will be cut out. It'll be rewritten. For better or for worse. Since it's just that theoretical, I'm not sure what changes I'd even want to see. Maybe some more back story on Rocky's crewmates? On Adrian (the eridian)? I mean Grace asking Rocky about Adrian would be a great opportunity to get some backstory in, btu the movie will already be so chock-full of it that I don't know if they'll be able to fit it in amongst everything else.

The Adrian Incident will likely still be very, very similar. It's the emotional peak of the movie. Rocky will nearly die. I will watch my friends weep, crying about how I should have warned them, and I will tell them they should have read the book. With Grace trying to save Rocky...eeh...it might be there; it might not. Flip of the dice with the landscape of the table being what the rest of the plot looks like, if that makes sense.

Now......The Great Taumeoba Escape. It's a lot like Pathfinder and the Dust Storm. It's just not all that relevant! SO MUCH is happening in the book at this point that -- I don't think -- they would be able to fit this in, even with a TV show with half a dozen hours to show the story in. I'd much rather lose this than lose backstory or silly goofy Rocky details.

The journey back, though, along with the breeding of Taumeoba was so boring it was cut out in the book. No way they'll have it in the movie. Probably even more will be cut out. Maybe one single Eureka! scene where Grace and Rocky drink vodka and wear crystals, respectively, but no more.

Now...The Great Taumeoba Escape 2: Radiation Exposure Boogaloo will NOT be cut out. Lest I stomp out of that movie theatre shouting insults at the directors etc. I kid, but not by a lot. They have to have this in order for Grace to turn around. I also bet they'll delay Grace learning he was a coward until here. It'd work so well there, yeah!? So he does his little thing, then turns around. From here, I think everything will be to-the-book. But let's talk about the ending.

Grace being a teacher is fundamental to the story. He can't not be, or the book/movie just won't work. Now, in The Martian (2015) they changed the ending. But that's not big, really. Mark becomes a recluse who gets looped back into being an astronaut training people who will then work on Artemis versus him being a teacher -- there's not that big of a plotline difference there. And we can pretend that in the interim he was a recluse. BUT IF THEY DON'T MAKE GRACE A TEACHER I SWEAR TO GOD--! calm. be calm. Anyways, him teaching again is a huge end for his character arc. And Rocky wil come in, no doubt, and tell Grace Earth's back to normal. Sending him back off to Earth just doesn't work, plot-wise or logic-wise.

Here's my last want: Earth. I want to see Earth back in shape. I want to see Stratt looking happy in her jail cell, etc.

Christ, I just wrote a lot. Um. I hope that answers your question...? And if it doesn't, feel free to ask me! I can -- and gladly will -- talk about this book all the livelong day!

[vacantgodling]

#11: Sir Mukul Brio

You wanted the easy way out to avoid unnecessary expectations. Your parents wanted more from you, for you, but the mundanity you seek is a rare commodity. You finally found it here, you thought, but life has a way of changing plans. And these plans involve heroism — you’re not certain you’re being paid enough for it.

“mukul” means bud or blossom. “brio” refers to the vigor or vivacity of a performance.

34, cis male (he/him), romance: yes, sex: yes, preference: both masculine and feminine

he stands at around average height (5’7”), and his hair is an off beige, leaning into tan territory. his eyes are a muted brown and he tends to keep a close shave (though these days he’s been letting stubble grow out. it complete’s the bags around the eyes look he’s got going for him). you can tell he has a strong core though, he’s stocky and looks like he’s got a weight to him and could probably best you in a wrestling match (if he felt like it. but usually he doesn’t).

mukul is a knight; specifically he is a guild advisor for the aegean guild of explorers (AGoE). these knights are chosen directly by the bureau of guilds (a branch of government) to oversee and report back to the bureau of a guild’s activities to make sure they’re following laws, ordinances, creeds, and are paying proper scutulage to the crown. mukul isn’t “guild staff proper” however, the AGoE is QUITE short staffed, which is only natural given that is a relatively new guild, which has led to mukul becoming much closer to the staff that is there, particularly miona, who is head of the treasury and allocates funds/does the books for the guild. as the AGoE is a small guild, and because guild advisor isn’t a Highly Respected position, mukul actually doesn’t make as much money as other GAs who work for the larger guilds (such as the knights of virtue or KOV) make. its a bit disappointing to him, as a his whole goal in life is to fucking chill. 

as a general, knights and mbw/mbas are quite similar, the only real difference is social class. mukul’s main weapon is the sword and shield, and he’s pretty decent at horse-combat, though its nothing particularly to write home about. where he really shines is aforementioned, wrestling, however he hasn’t wrestled seriously since he was at the knight’s academy.

mukul is a third son of the prominent brio family, who are quite well-respected in lathsbury, though not egregiously rich, which gave mukul credence to enter the knight’s academy. he was quite average during his studies, and likes to portray himself as average overall, simply because he doesn’t have any passion for the things that he’s doing. after graduation, he sought the least intensive role he could find with his credentials to earn income, and landed in the position of GA. he definitely isn’t a fan of madja, especially how exploitative she is with their skeleton crew staff, and has contemplated quitting on So Many Occasions. getting pulled into having passion for the world around him is part of his arc, and when the going gets tough, he isn’t willing to turn his back on the weird things he starts to notice both in the guild and in the guild’s books.

3 fun facts: mukul’s one true love is baking, and much of his free time is spent doing research into old and unique baking techniques. his current biggest goal is to make the most perfect labyrinth honey loaf, which makes his proximity to guilds useful. he still can’t figure out how to temper the honey and its been troubling him for a bit. but most of his creations he takes to miona since she’s fond of sweets. he’s really not a morning person and once held a grudge against someone for 6 months for waking him up earlier than he wanted. despite his lack of passion he has a very good relationship with his family. his mother writes him so often its almost excessive.

[arecomicsevengood]

My Favorite Thing Is Drawings

Got book two of Emil Ferris' My Favorite Thing Is Monsters out from the library yesterday. I read book one courtesy of the library too, and so did not necessarily remember all the finer details of the story, but was able to follow along pretty well. The reader is reminded of the basics up front. Ferris is an incredible artist, especially in color, able to capture painting-like effects of depth and texture through the crosshatching of colored pens, and it's always impressive. The thing that is weird about the book is that the most impressive images have basically nothing to do with the overall narrative: Images are copied from paintings in a museum, or from monster magazine covers. (It is possible the monster magazine covers might actually be Ferris' own designs, but within the context of the story they are copied images.) The main character is an artist, named Karen Reyes, narrating her life and telling her story, as well as the story of her family and other people that live in her apartment building, but there is almost a negative correlation between how important something is to the story and how much gusto she attacks it with. One important piece of backstory, once Karen learns it, is specifically described as being so upsetting that she has to draw it in a cartoon style rather than be overwhelmed by it. The book keeps going, chugging along, remaining compelling in its narrative. But then, the book's climax is not depicted at all, elided in a blackout of in-story head injury, as if setting up the story to be resolved in a third volume.

This last part is particularly bizarre or galling because the book is labeled as the conclusion of the story. Ferris and Fantagraphics were engaged in a legal battle after Book One became such a huge success - She made a shocking amount of money in royalties, but it seems like she was offered large advances for future books, and now has a contract with Pantheon for upcoming work, one of which is apparently a prequel to My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. But all of this is on some level besides the point when discussing the work itself. (Although I do think it's weird that reviews say the book ends on a cliffhanger rather than doesn't end. You get to a certain point in the reading when you realize the amount of pages left before the end is not enough to wrap everything up at the pacing the story has been told so far, and then you end up being basically correct.)

But what I think is interesting is, this book is blurbed by Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, and Alison Bechdel. I'm not tryinand g to offer a hot take where I say the book isn't good - it's quite clear why people would like it. I think one could make a case that this book is more like illustrated prose than comics, but on a certain level, who cares, why make rules when the work is effective. Still, there is a take, which I guess I associate with Sammy Harkham, although I don't know who would disagree, that the way a comic works is, you draw all the parts equally. You make everything as visually interesting as you can, even the boring parts. I haven't seen anyone make the case that Ferris' book is effective because the drawing is sometimes really impressive and other times perfunctory. People instead note that she can really draw, wow, you immediately realize when looking at the book that she can really draw, and then there's this story that's really compelling that pulls you through.

What I have seen though is plenty of people that like comics just not really care, not really engage with the work, given its level of success and price point, and the sort of maybe-resentment that animates a dismissal of "that doesn't seem like it's for me" when a comic hits with the NPR crowd. These people are perhaps not wrong: The book is based around a very specific set of formal specifications that make it unclear what Ferris could do if she didn't have Reyes as her narrating main character to excuse her indulgences and the things she gives short shift to. There is this sort of disjunct of values that emerges between the comics that are like by people who read maybe one comic a decade and one comic a day where maybe the latter would never peruse the comic the former had so enthusiastically recommended to them. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters doesn't need to be good comics in order to be a good book. But you can see in how it doesn't conclude that it still benefits from the expectations people come to comics with, that for all the novelistic structure employed in its nesting stories it is still deferring its conclusion like the soap opera of a classic comic strip or a superhero serial. Part of me loves that, that comics are so much about you living with them and the jokes and energy a drawing conveys that add up to a worldview that they don't need to cohere into a form that carries a conclusive third act. But I'm not seeing anyone make that case for Ferris specifically, the same way I'm not seeing argue that her approach to having the best drawings be narratively extraneous is what engages the reader. I'm just seeing enthusiastic critical hosannas, which the book itself can't quite deliver on, at least in terms of eliciting from me.

[zukkacore]

Imo the new PJO shows greatest strength is definitely Riordon’s craft maturing since the lightning thief in terms of…. Thematic coherence?

I think PJO has always been fairly thematically coherent & impactful in its messaging but especially at first the books feels much more like fairly lighthearted action adventure road trip narratives that are extremely episodic and more focused on being entertaining than having something To Say. Which, they’re books for middle schoolers, I think an “adventure road trip with some unserious monster slaying” is a perfectly serviceable concept and in execution riordan is admirably gifted in that his writing can be entertaining for both the primary demographic kids but also adults.

But they’re not books that just suddenly decided to half-heartedly have a theme (unlike other kids fantasy from the period I don’t dare namedrop lmao), because of all the foreshadowing and the motivations behind the antagonists (one antagonist in particular), it’s clear he probably had a thematic direction for the series, even if I don’t know how planned the initial 5 book run was. I really do admire what the book has to say abt bad systems that are set up to leave certain folks behind, and what parents owe to their children, & abt how easy it is to fall for charismatic leaders promising for a return to glorious prelapsarian past instead of trying to provide real solutions.

In the series, what I’ve really been enjoying is how every interaction and monster doesn’t just feel episodic, each monster feels like a facet that is part of the central thesis regarding the gods & their relationship to their children. I think the writing strength does a lot of heavy lifting because while overall I think the show is pretty solid, I do have a few critiques.

Mainly one of the frustrating things probably has something to do with budgeting. Scenes that are very thrilling and action driven in the book are truncated & often replaced with a lot of kinda slow oddly paced walk-&-talk scenes. Probably bc that’s much cheaper to shoot. Riordan himself seems to be fairly transparent about the changes he’s made in adaptation due to those limitations.

The effects for tv show cgi are not perfect but pretty impressive (I’ll reiterate, for tv cgi, the bar is on the floor….) but there’s a weird emptiness or sterile quality that makes the world feel not so lived in. Idk I think this was the most apparent to me in the casino episode, which I know riordan hates the movie & we joke abt the poker face scene but I was honestly kinda bewildered at how lifeless and boring they made the intentionally enticing distraction of the lotus casino seem. I get there can’t be gambling, but maybe an arcade? A buffet? Something?

I sound like I’m really going in on the show but I’m really not, I’ve been really enjoying the adaptation so far. The flaws are not show-ruining but I do think they culminate in a result that struggles w pacing & lacks the propulsive energetic quality of the books. Which, adaptations can be different, but to me that quality was always a strength of the series that imo I would’ve prioritized in adaptation. What saves some of the problems for me is that even tho a lot content is kinda delivered in this weird inert way of the actors doing their best to bring life to scenes where people are standing around stiffly and exchanging dialogue, the content itself is really good. His knowledge of his own characters & their dynamics, their desires, their place in the narrative, is so clear. The emphasis placed on Sally Jackson in particular & her influence on Percy & his values is a great additive element to the show. Again, the thematic coherence that has evolved since the lightning thief is in full display. For example, before last nights episode, I was actually saying to my mom that I hoped they would cut the procrustes water bed scene bc that chapter always felt weirdly fillery and goofy in its tone, but it was integrated in such an organic way that I really liked it!

I’ve been saying for like a decade that I thought PJO’s monster of the week episodic structure would make a better show than movie, and like. All im saying is that being apollo cursed with the gift of prophecy isn’t always a bad thing

[hellaverse-critical-confessions]

So I promised a background/minor character design appreciation post...

(Part one because this will likely get long)

Starting with the imps, due to the order in which characters of different species are presented on the wiki

Ah, Pringles. Of course. What a guy. He is very shaped. (Especially the hair and collar. I happen to be a sucker for male characters with that kinda "cat fluff" hairstyle.) Love the weird little cuff on his tail, it's so unnecessary but it fits. Dapper boy. Gotta love him

(As far as I can recall he gets bitches in Ozzie's, which, like, good for him!)

There's this kiddo from Loo Loo Land. I like her shapes as well, very exaggerated. As depicted here she kind of reminds me of some concept art girlies from the Art of Encanto book.

Actually, I think I have an image...

...I'm not the only one who sees it, right?

(Anyway, it's still available for free to view online. Very interesting stuff.)

Ahh... this guy. Or gal, actually. Turns out this is Skye Henwood's impsona, as well as my favorite character in Western Energy. Me and my friend were deadass ready to adopt her on sight. So tiny!! So shaped!! Look at that ridiculously huge bowtie. The littol suit. I want a pocket-sized imp now. Would carry them everywhere in my purse. Speaking of...

That's exactly what she did! Another crewsona (Sam Miller), and this design is incredibly slay. The feathers. The tail. Big, flowy, swooping shapes. (Not a big fan of the hands, though.) Very majestic creature overall.

Moving on to a few background Wrathians from Harvest Moon. She's a cutie. Not much else to be said. I like her outfit with the little boots and gloves as well as her pigtails.

I think these two could be related.

She looks so silly, I love her. Her hat and horns are disproportionately huge and it's precious.

Her name is Square, and she has major resting bitch face energy. I appreciate her instantly. (Long sleeved shirt + short shorts is a good combo.)

This guy from the Ozzie's elevator scene (Aspen) looks like he'd have quite the story to tell over a couple drinks of hard liquor. Slutty, but in a tired way. (A certain saxophonist cat from another piece of online media also fits that description.)

HER!! I love her so much. Everything about her honestly. The colors!! The legs!! The underbite!! She has no official name, but I call her Pomegranate. Or Pom for short. Got some of my own lore for her and everything.

Haven't watched Queen Bee, so I didn't get to see Dennis in action, but from this still alone I conclude that he's pretty cute. (However dude could use to pull up his pants.) Didn't really deserve to get yelled at, anyhow. Justice for Dennis!

Though I do have an old Dennis character, and he's a dick, so maybe Blitzo was on to something.

I like the girlie on the right too. Women with :3 smiles automatically win me over. The ripped pants and loose tank top go well together, and the splotch of magenta on the waist isn't obnoxious.

Mamma Mia, an imp with not purely and overwhelmingly red skin? What a spectacle. She looks way more like a black character than Velvette. And due to her subdued skin tone, the pink looks nice on her. (Which can't be said for Millie in one of the pieces of summer merch. Who thought pink on her was a good idea?!) Cool hair texture as well, feels very poofy.

Some bite-sized imp clowns from The Circus; their names are Eenie, Meenie, and Miney. How charming! Though, as I recall, doesn't that old children's rhyme go on to have four-

...Oh.

I think this might be Barbie Wire. We were never told explicitly, and she isn't even mentioned in the episode itself, but she looks closest to that design.

(Though I just noticed her horn stripes are too thick. Nevermind, then. Seems like she didn't even get that brief cameo in Blitzo's nearly episode-long childhood flashback despite being his twin sister, which should suggest that they were pretty close.)

I like this chick, though.

And that's it for now! Let me know if you'd like to see a part two though I might just go ahead and make it anyway

[jetwhenitsmidnight]

The Crack at the Heart of Everything by Fiona Fenn

Release date: 12 November 2024

Genre: adult science fiction fantasy

Synopsis

Orpheus can't believe it's come to this. After helping his childhood friend conquer the realm by raising an army of hell-beasts, the befuddled dark sorcerer finds himself banished when the price of his magic endangers the palace. Isolated and betrayed, the feared spellcaster isn't exactly thrilled when his irritating and handsome rival keeps stepping between him and certain doom.

Ill at ease in the barren wasteland his powers created, Orpheus slowly warms to the charismatic ex-general's relentless overtures. But as his feelings grow more intense, the former villain struggles with an inconvenient calling towards heroism.

Will dabbling in good deeds get him killed or open the doors to happily ever after?

Review

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC!

I went into this expecting more villainy, or a more villainous main character, but that's not really what this book is about.

Orpheus, initially appears to be the typical archetype of a villain: sneering, lurking in the shadows etc. But he quickly turns out to be not as villainous as he appears. Through his interactions with Fenrir (love interest) and flashbacks to his childhood, we get to see who he is under his pretense of evilness and how he got to be where he is.

This book is very much about Orpheus going through the process of healing and redemption. The general vibe is pretty angsty, with Orpheus feeling remorse about his actions + struggling with his insecurity. Not to be uncharitable, but I did not resonate with his journey. Maybe it was just my mood when I read this (it was a weird few days for me), because otherwise this is exactly the kind of book I would have loved.

I kind of wish Orpheus did/had done more evil stuff. He never actually did anything truly evil (IMO), so I don't feel like he necessarily had to do much/any redemption. Perhaps this is just me and I feel this way because I'm lacking in morals.

I noticed other reviews saying that Fenrir isn't as well-developed as Orpheus, and I definitely agree. However, I don't think it's necessary for Fenrir to be as fleshed out; Orpheus' story takes precedence here, and as he is, he serves his purpose in the narrative just fine.

One character that I wished get more development is Lore (antagonist). While we do get to see parts of her from Orpheus' childhood, we don't get to see the reasoning for her motivations. And yes, she does explain that she does the things she does because she "wants to", but I would have appreciated more depth from her. I am sort of conflicted, because, yes, not every villain needs a tragic backstory, or a noble reason for their actions, but she just feels very one dimensional.

Overall, a pretty good debut novel. This didn't resonate with me, but I think it will for lots of other readers.

[haljathefangirlcat]

Tagged by @elphqueine. Thanks for the tag!!

Tag nine people you'd like to know better.

Last song: Lord of Nothing from Dragonlance: The Last Trial. Not really into Dragonlance as a franchise, but this self-contained, vaguely horny Russian musical? *chef's kiss*

Currently watching: Silo and Foundation. I know literally nothing about the book series either is adapted from but one is good dystopian "the authorities are keeping us in the dark about some terrible secret" fun and the other has a fucked up Empire that looks mighty and prosperous at a glance but is actually about to face its decadence and fall... also because all the emperors are clones of the very first emperor who died ages ago and that's, huh, probably not going to work out well in the long run.

Currently reading: L'Oro Fatale: Miti e Leggende del Nord by Mary Tibaldi Chiesa. In English, the title would be something like The Fatal Gold: Myths and Legends of the North. Your usual "these are the gods and their myths, these are all the other supernatural beings running around, and these are the heroes and their legends but really we're just doing (part of) the Volsungs (plus Helgi and Sigrun)" introduction to Norse mythology, written by an author who took to writing as a refuge from and shield against the many tragedies in her life and living under the Fascist dictatorship. Some weird stuff in places, but overall, a lovely read with some very, very pretty passages.

Current obsession: Sky High (2005). Yes, the Disney movie about the school for superheroes and sidekicks that some people thought was in favor of eugenics despite the movie itself spelling out "hey, saying that some people are superior and some are inferior because they were or weren't born with certain innate qualities is actually pretty terrible and will only end up harming everyone!" every chance it got. I rewatched it some time ago, went "man, I haven't read fic for this in such a long time... let's fix that!", and finally ended up writing fic for it myself. Shut up, as far as kids' movies go, I still maintain it's great. And that it deserved a sequel or two, or even that tv series they apparently wanted to do back in the day.

Tagging @maddenedbythesstars @janiedean @octopuscato @galarix @hetamyuist @emozionidinchiostro @ziskandra @vardaaa @sunburntworm

[the---hermit]

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

I read this book because I wanted to read a lighter fantasy novel to get me in the mood to actually continue The Witcher book series, plus I was intrigued by how many people love this book. It was not good, I really did not enjoy my time with it. I will admit part of this is on me, because I know that YA isn't usually my jam, but I wanted to give it a try, and sometimes I do like some YAs. This was not the case. Firstly a bit on the plot, although if you have been online for the past couple of years you probably have seen this book everywhere. We follow Jude, a human girl, who was brought to Faerie alongside her twin sister and their older half sister who is part fae. The focus of the book is famously enermies to lovers trope that happens between Jude and Cardan, a young prince of this land. The romance part of the book is very little, which I liked, as the plot tries to focus on the political aspect of things in Faerie. The thing I disliked the most was the main character, I really did not like her. She falls under the not-like-other-girls cathegory and is overall so annoying. Her way of narrating everything was frustrating, she always played the victim in every scenario, it was a painful experience to read. Of course me disliking the MC so much does not help at all my overall opinion of the book, but there's a few more things I didn't like. I felt like the narration sometimes was a bit weird, there was a few descriptions that were confusing. Avoiding spoilers there's one scene for example in which a character is described to be tied up, but then a couple of their movements are described as they if they were pretty much free, and then again it's said that they are bound. And this is just one example. There's also another thing which I realized at the end, so many actions ofthe MC have zero consequences which makes everything even less believable (I'll talk about it under the cut in the spoiler-y section). I liked the idea of a fantasy novel set in a world of faes, there was potential, but this book was overall not for me. What convinces me of the fact that the story had potential is that at the end I am curious to know how certain things will progress in the next two books, although I hated the main character so much. Another thing I really disliked, and that had a lot of potential in my opinion, is having twin characters. That could have started a really interesting narrative exposing how two similar people can react to the same situation in totally different ways. Instead the overall narration seems from the very beginning to yell at the reader that Jude is the superior sister, because she is a fighter (she is impulsive and has anger problems, which could have also been a great thing to talk about because she has all the rights to be angry, but at the end that's only used to make her "cool"), instead her twin is always exposed as weak, in need of protection, not independent, with no explanation of why she might be like that. What I didn't like is that from the very beginning you can tell that the author didn't think much of this twin, who is just there to oppose Jude and make her the cool edgy one, I guess. I could go on on why I didn't like the book, but I'll stop, I would really love to know what were the reasons people who read this book liked it so much, as I said clearly this book wasn't for me, but if so many people loved it there must be something to it I missed.

As mentioned under the cut there's a small spoiler-y section so consider yourselves warned.

I read this book for the twin character prompt of the winter reading challenge

In this spoiler section I want to explain a bit better what I mean when I say that Jude's actions had no consequences. I am thinking about mainly two scenes. Firstly Jude litteraly commits murder inside her house, the house of a general, and no one hears, but whatever. Let's also skip on how she managed to hide a corpes by herself, which seems highly improbable. There are no consequences to this action other than her getting a couple of bruises and her not having Valerian bother her anymore. No one seems to notice one of the sons of Gentry has disappeard, no one. I understand that the reing is going through a lot, but nor his family or his friends seem to give a shit about him disappearing out of the blue, and of course there's not consequences for Jude. Another action of hers that has zero consequences, and to be honest I have yet to understand how that was useful to the general plot of the book (although it may come up on one of the next novels of the series, but I doubt it), is her kidnapping a human servant from Balekin's palace. She gets this girl out of the place and back to her senses, for no reason, when she is supposed to just spy and lay low, and has her kill herself because of the trauma of realizing what happened to her. We are then told that the girl is brought back to life by those who live in the waters, and that's it, nothing happens. No one realizes this servant has disappeard, which is more believable than the Valerian thing, but this girl being brought back to life has no real impact on Jude. When we learn that she is alive again, I expected some sort of confrontation between the two, something that maybe would have endangered Jude's position, but nope, nothing happens. It would have been the same if the girl remained dead, and it would have been the same if Jude had not tried to save her. It's things like these that contributed to me really not liking the book, because at the end of the day it felt like the book wasn't curated enough, and if it were it could have been much better. Anyway I think I dragged this poor book enough, so I'll stop here.

[skamiikaze]

200 Hour Polish Update

*Caveat: I had been studying Polish since around 2020 using mostly traditional methods. If you look, I’ve been in this server for a while so I, in my infinite stupidity, was lazy and didn’t start doing a lot of immersion until this year (despite being pretty obsessed with learning Polish… ik weird ass logic). Which so far, has been 200 hours. Realistically, I don’t know how many hours my total progress indicates but ehh. Before this year my study has mostly just been reading about grammar and reading from textbooks.

What has my immersion consisted of?

watching videos on YouTube (without subs)

listening to podcasts

How much a day / how do I track?

      200 minutes a day (3.3 hrs). At the start I did 60 minutes (1 hr), and then I moved up to 100 minutes (1.6 hrs)

      I track everything with a pen and small notebook. I think it’s more satisfying (and easier for me) to track this way. It boosted my motivation to see pages fill up. I much prefer physical tracking to digital. Personal preference, this is neither good nor efficient so don’t do this lol.

What I’m glad I did / progress I made.

      I started off this year already with a decent level. I could understand basic conversations but sometimes I would have a hard time catching words I knew just because I hardly did any listening. 200 hrs later, I have no trouble at all with that. I can follow more complex lines of thought and discussions. I will say though, I still struggle with stories. I think if I focus on that type of media that will sort itself out. My main focus was just to get good at the subjects I enjoy. I don’t like TV / Movies / fiction at all, so I mostly avoided it. I started off the year with watching My Life as a Teenage Robot, Hilda, and a little Kid Cosmic (never finished it) but I didn’t really want to continue that since I was getting bored. Once I switched to videos and podcasts about subjects I enjoy (history, religion, politics) I found it much easier to go on for long periods of time.

      I now find it much easier to write / think in Polish. My writing is not that great still, but I feel like I’ve made progress. I plan to focus on output more in the future, but I think that I will focus on improving my writing after I start reading more. I need to see good examples of the written word before making serious attempts to replicate it.

      I did no look ups (with some exceptions but for the most part it was exceedingly rare, and when I did it was monolingual). I’m glad I made that choice. Before one of my main barriers to immersion was all of the Anki fiddling and sentence mining / look ups. I am someone who has a hard time getting in the habit of doing things, and a lot of that was a huge barrier to entry for me. I said screw it, and just sat down and watched stuff. Nothing more, nothing less. I think this is one of the best choices I’ve ever made. Besides the executive function matter, I think overall this was more beneficial than If I had managed to do Anki and look ups. I know myself, I would’ve poured over the nuances of a certain word out of context in a dictionary entry. Which in the grand scheme of things, is a massive waste of time. That time is much better spent engaging with content. The word’s I’m „ready to learn” will come to me so to speak. I strongly recommend this strategy. It’s a little uncomfortable at first, but in the long run it’s worth it.

What do I regret?

      Not starting sooner (duh). Seriously though, the main lesson I Learned was to not be so slow to change. I am a very change resistant person, I really struggle to change my routine / try something different. This really has shown me that just getting started is very very worth it. Even if the first few days suck.

      Trying to read books too early. I don’t know why I tried to do this. I don’t particularly enjoy reading in English, so I’m not sure why I tried to force myself to read in Polish, which is obviously harder. My reading era in Polish shall come someday, but I’m not going to try it until I can get into it in English first. If It’s a chore to do I won’t bother with it right now. One of my goals is to read Sienkiewicz but that’s a far off goal. I will let you all know when I get there.

Previous and current level (self assessed, take with a grain of salt)

2C/3 in refold terms (current)

Level of Understanding (before) A2-B1

Level of Output (before) terrible, I shudder at the thought

Level of Understanding (current) B2

Level of Output (current) B1, needs work of course…

Statistics

Start: Sat. Jan 7th

End: Tue. Apr 11th

Jan: 2061 min / 34.4 hrs Feb: 2149 min / 35.9 hrs Mar: 5220 min / 87 hrs Apr: 2459 min / 41 hrs

What now?

      I am going to take a temporary break from Polish to focus on Czech. I will be moving to Prague in the fall so I want to get a bit of a head start (even though I will be learning Czech there anyway as part of my degree program but I plan to use English as little as possible when I get there.) I want to do about 100 hours in Czech and then return to Polish (rather, incorporate both into my routine). Partly because I want to get through the beginner stages of Czech as quickly as possible (with minimal Polish interference) and partly because I want to see how my Polish will fair after a break. Will it improve? Get worse? Stay the same? Remains to be seen. I will provide an update after I do said 100 hours in Czech. The nature of that update again, remains to be seen.

A few words of likely generic advice...

      Don’t be hard on yourself. I know this is almost a cliché at this point, but being overly critical of myself stunted my progress. I was afraid to challenge myself out of fear that I was not ready / I wasn’t good enough.

      Don’t try to optimize everything. It’s impossible. You wont be able to keep perfect records of everything, you wont be able to track every second, you won’t be able to exactly know where you’re at level wise. It doesn’t matter where you are right now, just keep moving forward. Even if you aren’t that far now, if you keep moving you’ll be a lot further along than if you hadn’t moved at all.

Dziękuję serdecznie za uwagę! Czołem ;-)

[luminouslumity]

Just gonna come out and say it, I haven't really been the biggest fan of fairy stories. Holly Black doesn't really do it for me with the exception of The Wicked King and I'm really not a fan of SJM, though I thought Margaret Rogerson's An Enchantment of Ravens was pretty okay, so it's not like I'm completely against them, either. That said, not counting re-reads, I've also been struggling to just find investment in reading in general—not necessarily whether I find the book good or not, but whether or not I'm having fun, if that makes sense. To bring up AEoR again, I remember having a good time, but I don't remember ever getting excited to get to the next page, y'know? Casual reading, basically. That's the best way I can describe it anyway.

So when a YouTuber I watch recommended Forest of Dreams and Whispers in her latest video, I decided to check it out, if only for curiosity's sake.

And boy am I glad I did!

The Fae of the Forest series are gender-bent fairy tale retellings, with the first book being based on Sleeping Beauty and the second being based on Snow White. Only two books are out right now and I personally enjoyed the first book more, but I liked the second book too. And best of all, they're fun!

FoDaW focuses of Juliana Ardencourt and Prince Hawthorn, and despite this being a Sleeping Beauty retelling, the actual Sleeping Beauty part doesn't actually kick in until about halfway through the book. The first half is very much about their relationship and how it progresses from this enemies-to-lovers type thing, so that by the time the curse kicks in, they're already in love, they're just too stubborn and stupid to realize it.

Speaking of, one problem I've always had with the enemies-to-lovers trope is that a lot of the time, it can come off as rushed at best or romanticized abuse at worst, but in this case, I thought it was actually pulled off really well! And tbh, I wouldn't even necessarily call it enemies-to-lovers, more like frenemies-to-lovers. It's stated early on that while Hawthorn bullied Juliana when they were younger, she'd always get back at him tenfold, so it kinda reminded me of Derek and Odette's relationship from The Swan Princess in that regard. By the time they're in their teens, it's just flirty and witty banter all around for the next three years! And even then, when Hawthorne realizes how badly he treated Jules in the past, he actually apologizes!

There is a bit of a love triangle and it's also one of those love triangles where it's clear that there's not much of a competition going on there, and though I normally loathe them, it didn't really bother me in this case either. It helps that neither side was made out to be worse for the sake of elevating the other, so Juliana's other "suitor" is also super sweet, nor does the conflict last very long anyway. The other characters were also great, and while the main villain was your typical "take over the kingdom" type of guy, I enjoyed him too! And the way he got his comeuppance at the end was beyond satisfying!

Because the second book is a direct sequel, I don't want to talk about it much, but overall, I had a good time, especially towards the end.

Another thing I really liked is how the series handles aging. Weird thing, maybe, but once you notice how many immortal x mortal pairings have the former be thousands of years older than the latter while also considering or at least pointing out that the mortal character's age would be the equivalent to that of an immortal child's, it starts to get into creepy territory for me personally and I'm kinda tired of it.

But in this series? Fairies age normally and then just stop getting physically older after a certain point. So when the first book has Hawthorn be eighteen, he's not just eighteen by Fae standards, but actually is eighteen. I don't know, it's just a nice detail that I really appreciate.

As for things I didn't like, there were some typos I'd noticed and some of the dialogue got pretty anachronistic at times, but overall, still a fun ride. I'll definitely be reading the third installment whenever it releases, as well as Katherine's other books in the meantime!

[warblingandwriting]

So this is kind of a weird series, I think, and this is more a of a ramble than a proper review. Out of the gate I’ll say I didn’t like it, but it had some ideas I liked, and I would love to see a remake written and directed by women that makes the queer subtext explicit, and deals more explicitly with women's issues by people who actually cared about the original story. Instead I feel like this series was far more interested in trying to modernize the story, in particular by making the female characters (especially Miranda) ‘strong’ in an entirely modern and literal sense. Anyway, spoilers ahead, although I will say I don’t think spoilers matter much for this series or the book. The series isn’t good enough to recommend, and there aren’t really big twists in the book that I think would be ruined by knowing certain plot points, just a fair warning if you truly like to go in blind, as I do actually really recommend the book.

Making Miranda into a "tomboy" stock character, and Irma into a typical "Rich girl" stereotype is not a replacement for adding depth. I actually don’t mind Marion’s characterization since she barely gets anything to do in the original film or book, but overall I still dislike the dialogue writing in particular. I can understand perhaps feeling like the Peter Weir movie makes the three disappeared girls lack some characterization as they're not on screen for all that long, but to feel the need to add these stereotypical affects as if they weren't fleshed out characters in the book is a bit painful for me to watch. I think, too, in doing this the series tries to comment on the ideas the book explores of the sort of idealization and veneration of these girls after their disappearance, by making their set somewhat rebellious, so that there’s a disconnect between their idealization and the reality? But I think the book does this much better by drawing the reader into that same idealization, and maybe make you not even realize you’re doing it until the end. The book functions as almost an interesting criticism of true crime, but this film doesn’t do the same, which is kind of unfortunate in an age when that genre has become so saturated.

And why does Mrs. Appleyard need a dramatic backstory? This was admittedly my least favourite part of the series. In the book (and by extension the Weir film), she is a traditional character, with somewhat mysterious origins, holding up the institutions of repressive patriarchy for England in a relatively recently colonized land. This series really took the book’s line about no one really knowing if Mrs. Appleyard had the credentials to run a school, she just looked good enough for the parents, and ran with it. Yet I still have no idea what her deal is. I guess she worked as prostitute and thief, but eventually killed the man she worked with and fled to Australia, and her strictness is just a reflection of her not wanting the girls under her care to end up like she did. However, I think this actually takes out a lot of the depth of patriarchal control from the book as opposed to enhancing it (which was, I think, the intent). Instead of this control of young women being institutional, casual, and easily reproduced by everyone, including the women around them, it now becomes a cycle set off by ‘bad men’, something unnatural, something that (as we see from pretty much every woman in the story) women won’t adhere to unless somehow forced. I suppose that’s true, in a way, but when every woman we see upholding gender roles and patriarchal structures in any way has been abused it sort denies the existence of casual internalized misogyny and the way these women were shaped by the culture they grew up in. It has a very sort of “as long you’re aware these things exist at all, you could never participate in them” energy that doesn’t ask anyone to examine their own biases, and why they might feel a certain way about a certain thing. I do appreciate the choice of this series to simply confirm that it was Mrs. Appleyard who killed Sarah Waybourne though (something that is ambiguously implied in the book, but practically outright denied in the Weir film), it is the one representation of that internalized desperation to ally oneself with the patriarchal ideal of female perfection that the series keeps, and it works (although I do think it would work better if Mrs. Appleyard in this version wasn’t already a hardened criminal who had killed before).

That’s not to say every piece of media has to engage with sexism in the exact same way, but I felt like the way this series did it lost a lot of the book’s depth. I don’t have much to say about the queer aspect, because I don’t hate it, and no one seems to ever actually find out about the relationships that happen so they don’t really deal with any ramifications for it. I’ll just say I think it was not done great, especially Irma being jealous/upset that Miranda is not interested in her in that way. I think I would have preferred a relationship between two of the three disappeared girls as opposed to the one they went with. I get what they were trying to do with the tension between someone who just wants to cover everything up and someone who wants to actually engage in a relationship (to the extent that that would be possible), but I think that could have been done just as well with any of the three lead girls, really, together. And it would have allowed Miss McCraw to keep her place in the story as the sort of necessary fate of brilliant women. As smart and accomplished as she is, working at a girl’s school is genuinely the apex of career possibility for her, again providing subtle and biting critique of women’s perceived abilities. Now that she is sort of at the girl’s school in exile she no longer gets to fill that role.

The series didn’t seem to allow itself to be about different types of women, trapped by different situations, in the strange liminal space of repressive English society in conflict with the ‘Wild New World’ (for the white main charterers of the book, anyway) of Australia. While that exists in this series, as I have outlined, the form of repression has been boiled down to be very similar from character to character which to me, flattens the story in spite of everything that was added for the series.

The additions seem to me to make it obvious that this is more of a reaction to the original movie than it is to the book, which is always disappointing in a remake where there is additional source material. It's even more annoying when there are some book-exclusive details that make it obvious the book was read by someone. I admit I like the Weir film, I think it is better than this series, but I can at least understand the impulse to see that, due to the nature of film, we lose a bit when we lose Lindsay’s third-person narration allowing us to understand the characters better, and want to restore that depth. But I think this series went about it in the wrong way. Although they came out in the same year, (and therefore probably weren’t influenced by each other) it seems to go for the The Haunting of Hill House netflix formula, and as someone who also wasn’t a fan of that series, it just doesn’t work for me. It’s not helped by the fact that every time book accurate dialog actually shows up it feels out of place, and often out of character with all the new additions that make up the majority of the story.

I think the book actually captures very well the repression that existed as a woman (or afab person) both in the time it was written, and now. Even after their disappearance the girls are scrutinized and obsessed over, almost like a cruel joke that even in places unknown they aren’t truly free from a world that venerated and caged them. I actually really like Lindsay’s unpublished ending, and it’s one of the things I kind of like the series for sticking with. The girls find a sort of ‘time-warp’ and go into it, to places unknown, and, one might hope, to a sort of freedom.

[nellie-elizabeth]

His Dark Materials: No Way Out (3x05)

This was an excellent episode!

Cons:

The stuff with Mary Malone continues to be a weak point, and honestly I think that's the consequence of trying to adapt this story in the first place. Atal and the others of her kind are interesting in theory, but they feel so random, so disconnected from the rest of the journey. And they're not quite as weird and alien as I always thought of them from the books, so I think in the back of my head I was really looking forward to the Mulefa and then I saw them and it was sort of a letdown. What Mary learns here about Dust and how it's dying is really important, but with so little time spent setting this up, it feels like it could have been learned elsewhere and without Mary even existing as a character.

I kind of missed checking in with Asriel this week; his plot is "keeps getting ready to do war in the background", which, fine, but I think more of an impending sense of his presence would be helpful.

And my eternal complaint that the daemons should be more integrated into the story. We see how much Lyra is suffering without Pan, we see Mrs. Coulter about to be separated from her own daemon... I think what would be helpful is if we saw the other daemons with the Magisterium characters a bit more. Heard them talk, watched them interact with their environment and bring key insights into certain moments, instead of just feeling like an afterthought.

Pros:

But like I said, this is a really good episode! Let's start with Marisa: again, huge acting props to the incomparable Ruth Wilson, she gives me chills. I love how her character encompasses the ferocity of a mother's love and the ruthlessness of pure ambition. Her complicated relationship with her daemon, all the ways in which she's not connected to him the way she maybe "should" be, but also just the visceral horror of being tied down and potentially severed from him forever... and how this very act of violence will be the means by which her enemies will kill her daughter... there is just so much going on here and I feel like I can see it in Marisa's eyes, all the complexity, every different aspect of this situation that is tormenting her. She'll never give up, not 'til the very end.

The bulk of this episode was spent where it should be: with Lyra and Will among the land of the dead. I thought pretty much everything about this worked wonderfully. They didn't go too over the top with the spooky vibes, but nevertheless everything had this sort of... unsettled quality to it, and the actual dead souls are dreary and depressing. There are also the shades or whatever you call them, who are reaching out to Lyra and Will and trying to make them doubt and give into their fears. Specifically, Lyra runs into a phantom voice of Pan, who tells her she's always been selfish. And then we have the moment where Lyra realizes she's not here to save Roger, she's here to save all of them. To fix the afterlife system entirely.

I'd kind of like to take back what I said earlier about Lyra taking this detour feeling very unmotivated within the pacing of the season. I think it works as part of Lyra's journey and a bigger part of the overall quest. See, Lyra wanted to make things right with Roger, who she feels she let down and got killed. But in doing so, she sees a systemic injustice and realizes that she needs to try and help as best as she can. Asriel, meanwhile, is like "I wanna fistfight God", but theoretically underneath his posturing and his overinflated ego, he's doing it for the same reason: he wants to break down a system that hurts people, take back power for those who have to live with the consequences. So I think that works as a good parallel.

Seeing Roger was very sweet, I like that he and Lyra got that chance to connect. Although, seeing their friendship chemistry just emphasized to me again how much more intense and special and precious the bond between Will and Lyra has grown to be. I really liked Will standing up and also offering to help, and how both kids were honest about not knowing how it'll all turn out in the end.

And then seeing Lee Scorseby! I got so emotional about it! I particularly loved the way he at first freaked out about seeing Lyra, thinking she was dead, then immediately switched into reassuring her that he was alright even though he'd been killed. It's just so heartbreaking that Lyra didn't know! Although it does make me laugh that Iorek didn't bother to mention it. Come on, dude. It was really sad, though, seeing Lee without Hester by his side: that remains probably the best human/daemon team-up the show ever pulled off, I really got the sense of the two of them working in tandem and being two halves of one whole.

And... yeah! I feel like I don't go into a ton of detail in these reviews, mostly because overall I feel satisfied by the experience of seeing this story play out on the small screen, while secretly kinda-sorta dreading how badly the finale is going to make me cry my eyes out!

8/10

[chocolate-parfait]

I see the askbox is open 🙂 You don’t know the speed at which I raced here.

But I was really hoping that you could do headcanons for Arthur (vamp), Masamune (Sen), and Mitsuhide (Sen) with a s/o who is an author? Like Tolkien almost, she writes high fantasy and is super well known? (bonus points if she goes back in time with one of her novels on her to show them exactly).

I hope it’s not confusing^^

I adore your writing so I hope to see whatever you publish in the future!

Thank you so much!!

Waa thank you sm for your support!! It really means a lot, thank you ❤ ❤ I hope you enjoy!

Author!MC who writes high fantasy novels - (Arthur, Masamune & Mitsuhide)

Arthur

Arthur is extremely amused and intrigued when he hears about your occupation, and even more so when he discovers that you’re a pretty big shot, too. For once, he completely discards appearances (although he still thinks you’re very pretty) and is genuinely interested in your job, frequently asking details about your writing process, your stories and such.

Your books come from two completely different universes, as we have realism and crime against fantasy and supernatural. Yet, when you offer your book for him to read, he falls absolutely in love with it. Although it may not seem like it, Arthur is quite the superstitious man, and has always had a certain interest in the occult and paranormal. Long story short, he becomes your number one fan.

He asks Comte to bring back your books from the future so that he can read them all (if you find out he’ll admit it with a sheepish smile and a blush on his face), and even then he feels like he doesn’t know enough about the different worlds described in your books and about their writer, you. If the topic pops up during conversations he'll take his chance and curiously ask you more and more questions about your job; if not, he'll pick up hints along the way whenever he can.

Your writing schedule will easily adapt to the domesticity of your relationship. You both write together in the same room (sometimes his, sometimes yours, or even in the dining room) as it can be very motivational, and you’re both ready to comfort the other whenever a lack of inspiration puts a stop to your writing. Furthermore, it’s very practical when it comes to taking breaks! He’ll cuddle with you while asking how everything’s coming along and if you need him to help you get some ideas. (this man will def sneak kisses whenever you're absorbed in your own little world because he adores the pout that magically appears on your lips whenever you're concentrated)

Overall, he’s very supportive of what you do. He understands the struggles of being a writer, but he also adores how much of a professional you are. Would probably be a fanboy even if you two didn’t know each other (he’d buy your books in secret so that Theo doesn’t tease him; the great mystery writer who adores realism, falls in love with high fantasy books. The man would never let him see the end of it)

Masamune

Even before knowing that you actually come from the future, Masamune is extremely curious to see some of your works once he hears that you’re a writer. As someone who writes poetry, knowing that you have the same passion makes him like you even more; although your occupations are as different as they can be, he still enjoys finding a common ground with you. Sometime later, after he has already discovered about your particular situation, he’ll also come to learn about the differences between what he thought you did and what your job really is. Fundamentally the job is always the same, but the whole process and the final products are almost completely different than what he had expected.

He doesn’t know what high fantasy is, but when you do tell him about all the various genres and such, he finds himself not too weirded out by the idea; it’s very similar to popular folklore, after all.

When he asks you to tell him one of your stories, you find the perfect situation to show him a physical copy of one of your best-sellers. He’s amazed by the weird-looking book. It’s experiencedly crafted and perfectly written (that’s printing for you<3), and he curiously fidgets with it as he asks endless questions about it. Unfortunately, he can’t read anything (even if it was written in modern Japanese he’d probably be able to grasp 3 words in a whole page or smth, lol), so you find yourself narrating your stories to him. (you receive great in-depth feedback for each chapter in return!! Masamune will be 100% honest with you and takes it v seriously). It becomes a daily occurrence that neither of you wants to miss. Each night, just before bed, you read out loud part of your book as Masamune quietly listens to your every word, wholly enraptured by the story.

He’s the most supportive partner one could wish for, and he’s always ready to show your works off to everyone he knows. He’ll help you get in touch with local printers and see what he can find amongst all the imported goods to make your job easier. If you ever find yourself stuck, he’ll gladly take you on a stroll to help you get your mind off writing for a bit to come back more refreshed and inspired.

Mitsuhide

Mitsuhide is a man who mostly communicates through lies, vague descriptions or distorted realities just to confuse others. As such, he finds your writing skills and wide imagination to be quite useful and admirable. He can be a capable storyteller if needed, so you often wonder why he doesn’t try writing every once in a while.

This said, he never expected for his kitsune story to strike up a chord in you to the point you’d write a story with a character heavily based on him as the protagonist. He’s quite flattered to say the least. When you hand the finished manuscript to him as a gift, he reads it all in one night. (let's pretend he'd be able to understand ahahah...) He’s amazed by your skill and the world you managed to describe through such vivid wording, but you'll have to read between his teasing words to grasp his real feelings about the gift, although he sincerely thanks you profusely.

The novel is the first work of yours he has ever had the chance to read, so he stores it away very carefully in a corner of his room, but curiosity makes him wonder about your previous works though he doesn't directly ask you anything about them. Sure, he'll probably drop some hints here and there concerning this hidden wish of his, but that's totally up to you to understand. Sooner or later he finds two copies of some of your books in the bag in your room (it was totally accidental, he wouldn't just barge in your room and look through your things like that), and he feels like he's fallen in love all over again. There's this particular level of mastery with which you handle your words that leave him spellbound and amazed. Who would have ever thought that his little clumsy mouse was such an expert writer?

In general, Mitsuhide is the closet fanboy. He won't be as open about his love for your stories as Masamune, but he's not afraid to be direct about his feelings every once in a while, especially if you really need to hear supporting words from him. If anyone ever brings up your skills during a conversation, he'll hum in affirmation with a rare, genuine smile gracing his lips.

[bloodstained-ballgowns]

‘The Morning Show’ rewatch thoughts: Part 1

I started rewatching The Morning Show in preparation for season 2 in September and I think the halfway point is a good point to scream some thoughts into the void. Spoilers for eps 1-5.

One of my personal favourite storytelling techniques is something I like to call the ‘impartial camera’, and this show uses it so effectively while handling really sensitive and volatile subject matter. The basic key to the ‘impartial camera’ in my book is that it forces the audience to make up its own mind because nothing is clear cut. There are no heroes and villains, all the characters are on the same playing field, and their actions are more being broadcast to the viewers instead of framed in certain lights. Like this show definitely has an agenda, is definitely pushing a certain narrative, but it lets the audience work through the nuances in that narrative in their own minds with everything unspoken onscreen rather than completely spelling it out for them. For example, I would say that the camera doesn’t condemn Mitch Kessler, Mitch Kessler condemns himself through his actions and his words that are shown onscreen, if that makes sense.

That being said, it’s not like the camera is just floating around. I really like a lot of the camera work here because you can tell that the direction is very purposeful while getting really personal. You definitely feel like you’re inside a character’s head when they’re at the centre of a scene.

Why has Jennifer Aniston acted in so many crappy romcoms when she can do stuff like this? She’s so good here! The acting overall is great, if a little melodramatic at times (seriously, everything is pretty much at a screeching ten, 100% of the time), but that’s partly a symptom of this crazy journalistic celebrity world where no one means what they say and everyone has a thin skin and keeps their knives sharp. Maybe melodrama is just what that world is like. 

Alex Levy is superficial and insincere and selfish and such a good character. She’s a professional (in that her job is her life, not that her tantrums are workplace appropriate, but oh well) and ambitious woman who is a complete bitch, a prejudiced feminist, and literally the embodiment of that “well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions” meme. Her power grabs are pretty pathetic and she has no idea what she’s doing most the time (mood) but it seems to work out for her okay mostly so I’ll give her that.

BILLY CRUDUP OH MY GOD. He’s like lightning whenever he’s onscreen, it’s amazing. Cory is probably my favourite character as well because he’s so undefinable, everything you expect and everything you don’t at the same time. His and Bradley’s friendship(?) is also fascinating and so heartening. I think they mesh so well because to viewers, they both seem like outsiders, and they definitely see that in each other too. I think they are the only characters who are ever fully, truly honest with each other. I hope season 2 doesn’t drastically change their dynamic.

I love Claire. I just really love Claire. Part of me wishes I was more like her.

Mia irritates me but you know what at least she’s good at her job (unlike some people *cough* Chip *cough*).

As long as Yanko gets to keep his eyeliner in season 2 we’re good.

I relate to Bradley on a deep level because she says what she means and gets annoyed when other people don’t do the same.

“What the fuck is going on right now.” “I don’t know but it’s weird and fascinating and I’m super into it.” Yanko and Daniel are me while watching Cory and Alex duet lmao.

Alex’s whole monologue to her daughter in the taxi about women and power fell flat to me because a) the reason the network isn’t giving her more power isn’t because she’s a woman (for once), it's because she uses that power, when she has it, entirely as a weapon for selfish means and as a slave to her very volatile emotional state, b) Alex’s ‘feminism’ is very self-serving so I don’t care and c) it was so cheesy. I liked Bradley’s one in the department store to Cory about women and media though, that was good. 

“Maybe you just have to lose it sometimes for people to take you seriously.” Debatable but it worked for Alex so...

“You sound like an ice cream flavour” She’s not wrong, Chip.

“I’m one of those strange men who only likes sleeping with women who are actually attracted to me.” askjddhjksndsk i’m still torn as to whether cory wants bradley in that way because no she’s not attracted to him and he seems to find her fascinating instead of alluring and they gel really well friendship-wise but then i feel like that’s exactly the kind of person he would fall for idk i have no idea where anything is going in s2

‘The Morning Show’ rewatch thoughts: Part 2