#review guide

[stemmmm]

if you havent read my wife's gf fanfic WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!

(no sound)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Sandra Newman’s “Julia”

The first chapter of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four has a fantastic joke that nearly everyone misses: when Julia, Winston Smith's love interest, is introduced, she has oily hands and a giant wrench, which she uses in her "mechanical job on one of the novel-writing machines":

https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

That line just kills me every time I re-read the book – Orwell, a novelist, writing a dystopian future in which novels are written by giant, clanking mechanisms. Later on, when Winston and Julia begin their illicit affair, we get more detail:

She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the finished product. She 'didn't much care for reading,' she said. Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.

I always assumed Orwell was subtweeting his publishers and editors here, and you can only imagine that the editor who asked Orwell to tweak the 1984 manuscript must have felt an uncomfortable parallel between their requests and the notional Planning Committee and Rewrite Squad at the Ministry of Truth.

I first read 1984 in the early winter of, well, 1984, when I was thirteen years old. I was on a family trip that included as visit to my relatives in Leningrad, and the novel made a significant impact on me. I immediately connected it to the canon of dystopian science fiction that I was already avidly consuming, and to the geopolitics of a world that seemed on the brink of nuclear devastation. I also connected it to my own hopes for the nascent field of personal computing, which I'd gotten an early start on, when my father – then a computer science student – started bringing home dumb terminals and acoustic couplers from his university in the mid-1970s. Orwell crystallized my nascent horror at the oppressive uses of technology (such as the automated Mutually Assured Destruction nuclear systems that haunted my nightmares) and my dreams of the better worlds we could have with computers.

It's not an overstatement to say that the rest of my life has been about this tension. It's no coincidence that I wrote a series of "Little Brother" novels whose protagonist calls himself w1n5t0n:

https://craphound.com/littlebrother/Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.htm

I didn't stop with Orwell, of course. I wrote a whole series of widely read, award-winning stories with the same titles as famous sf tales, starting with "Anda's Game" ("Ender's Game"):

https://www.salon.com/2004/11/15/andas_game/

And "I, Robot":

https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_I_Robot.html

"The Martian Chronicles":

https://escapepod.org/2019/10/03/escape-pod-700-martian-chronicles-part-1/

"True Names":

https://archive.org/details/TrueNames

"The Man Who Sold the Moon":

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/05/22/the-man-who-sold-the-moon/

and "The Brave Little Toaster":

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_212

Writing stories about other stories that you hate or love or just can't get out of your head is a very old and important literary tradition. As EL Doctorow (no relation) writes in his essay "Genesis," the Hebrews stole their Genesis story from the Babylonians, rewriting it to their specifications:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/41520/creationists-by-e-l-doctorow/

As my "famous title" stories and Little Brother books show, this work needn't be confined to antiquity. Modern copyright may be draconian, but it contains exceptions ("fair use" in the US, "fair dealing" in many other places) that allow for this kind of creative reworking. One of the most important fair use cases concerns The Wind Done Gone, Alice Randall's 2001 retelling of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind from the perspective of the enslaved characters, which was judged to be fair use after Mitchell's heirs tried to censor the book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suntrust_Bank_v._Houghton_Mifflin_Co.

In ruling for Randall, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals emphasized that she had "fully employed those conscripted elements from Gone With the Wind to make war against it." Randall used several of Mitchell's most famous lines, "but vest[ed] them with a completely new significance":

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/268/1257/608446/

The Wind Done Gone is an excellent book, and both its text and its legal controversy kept springing to mind as I read Sandra Newman's wonderful novel Julia, which retells 1984 from the perspective of Julia, she of the oily hands the novel-writing machine:

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/julia-sandra-newman?variant=41467936636962

Julia is the kind of fanfic that I love, in the tradition of both Wind Done gone and Rosenkrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, in which a follow-on author takes on the original author's throwaway world-building with deadly seriousness, elucidating the weird implications and buried subtexts of all the stuff and people moving around in the wings and background of the original.

For Newman, the starting point here is Julia, an enigmatic lover who comes to Winston with all kinds of rebellious secrets – tradecraft for planning and executing dirty little assignations and acquiring black market goods. Julia embodies a common contradiction in the depiction of young women (she is some twenty years younger than Winston): on the one hand, she is a "native" of the world, while Winston is a late arrival, carrying around all his "oldthink" baggage that leaves him perennially baffled, terrified and angry; on the other hand, she's a naive "girl," who "doesn't much care for reading," and lacks the intellectual curiosity that propels Winston through the text.

This contradiction is the cleavage line that Newman drives her chisel into, fracturing Orwell's world in useful, fascinating, engrossing ways. For Winston, the world of 1984 is totalitarian: the Party knows all, controls all and misses nothing. To merely think a disloyal thought is to be doomed, because the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnicompetent Party will sense the thought and mark you for torture and "vaporization."

Orwell's readers experience all of 1984 through Winston's eyes and are encouraged to trust his assessment of his situation. But Newman brings in a second point of view, that of Julia, who is indeed far more worldly than Winston. But that's not because she's younger than him – it's because she's more provincial. Julia, we learn, grew up outside of the Home Counties, where the revolution was incomplete and where dissidents – like her parents – were sent into exile. Julia has experienced the periphery of the Party's power, the places where it is frayed and incomplete. For Julia, the Party may be ruthless and powerful, but it's hardly omnicompetent. Indeed, it's rather fumbling.

Which makes sense. After all, if we take Winston at his word and assume that every disloyal citizen of Oceania is arrested, tortured and murdered, where would that leave Oceania? Even Kim Jong Un can't murder everyone who hates him, or he'd get awfully lonely, and then awfully hungry.

Through Julia's eyes, we experience Oceania as a paranoid autocracy, corrupt and twitchy. We witness the obvious corollary of a culture of denunciation and arrest: the ruling Party of such an institution must be riddled with internecine struggle and backstabbing, to the point of paralyzed dysfunction. The Orwellian trick of switching from being at war with Eastasia to Eurasia and back again is actually driven by real military setbacks – not just faked battles designed to stir up patriotic fervor. The Party doesn't merely claim to be under assault from internal and external enemies – it actually is.

Julia is also perfectly positioned to uncover the vast blank spots in Winston's supposed intellectual curiosity, all the questions he doesn't ask – about her, about the Party, and about the world. I love this trope and used it myself, in Attack Surface, the third "Little Brother" book, which is told from the point of view of Marcus's frenemy Masha:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531/attacksurface

Through Julia, we come to understand the seemingly omniscient, omnipotent Party as fumbling sadists. The Thought Police are like MI5, an Island of Misfit Toys where the paranoid, the stupid, the vicious and the thuggish come together to ruin the lives of thousands, in such a chaotic and pointless manner that their victims find themselves spinning devastatingly clever explanations for their behavior:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460

And, as with Nineteen Eighty-Four, Julia is a first-rate novel, expertly plotted, with fantastic, nail-biting suspense and many smart turns and clever phrases. Newman is doing Orwell, and, at times, outdoing him. In her hands, Orwell – like Winston – is revealed as a kind of overly credulous romantic who can't believe that anyone as obviously stupid and deranged as the state's representatives could be kicking his ass so very thoroughly.

This was, in many ways, the defining trauma and problem of Orwell's life, from his origin story, in which he is shot through the throat by a fascist: sniper during the Spanish Civil War:

https://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/soldiers/george-orwell-shot.html

To his final days, when he developed a foolish crush on a British state spy and tried to impress her by turning his erstwhile comrades in to her:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell%27s_list

Newman's feminist retelling of Orwell is as much about puncturing the myth of male competence as it is about revealing the inner life, agency, and personhood of swooning love-interests. As someone who loves Orwell – but not unconditionally – I was moved, impressed, and delighted by Julia.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/28/novel-writing-machines/#fanfic

[sugaredrhubarb]

A QUICK GUIDE TO AO3 CUSTOMIZATION FROM SOMEONE WHO KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT CODING

ft adding pink to everything and my secret to writing long comments

note: I originally posted this to twt but if that place burns in a fiery pit I spent too long on this for it to disappear, so I'm putting it here too :)

so many people know way more about this than I do, but this is a step-by-step walkthrough of the changes *I've* made, and hopefully it works as an introduction people can build from for whatever they'd like to do

There are a lot of images in this post! (click to enlarge)

to start, AO3 skins

site skins change how the AO3 website appears when logged in (even on mobile), mine is pink and blue!

I'll have my skin turned off throughout the post so the guides appear as they will for you

to create, edit, and view skins, go to the "skins" tab from the left-hand menu. you can also view public site skins from there or from the button in the preferences.

public site skins are made by other users. i would really encourage previewing and exploring them to become familiar with the possibilities (maybe you just want to use one of them and now you're done!)

to create your own skin

on the skins page, click "create site skin"

if you don't know CSS (same), use the wizard! clicking on the "?" will give more information about each option

I only use the colours section you'll see a link right there for hex codes I use pink as a header colour and bue for accent but lots of people change the background colour and that looks really cool!

submit

The next step (optional!!!) is to add CSS from a public skin to your own. I use "ByLine" by Branch. this separates the tag categories and adds spacing to make them easier to read.

here is a before and after using the fic "Landslide" by @roosterbruiser as an example

to see the CSS of a skin, click the title

copy all the text below the CSS heading

in the skin creator/editor press the custom CSS option and paste all the text into the CSS box

you can have both wizard and custom CSS settings, in mine you can see the header and accent colours as well as the CSS

level up: USERSCRIPTS

userscripts are small pieces of code that modify a website. for AO3, this may involve adding shortcuts and buttons or even advanced tagging functions (computer people, I'm so sorry if this is wrong, I'm trying). I use Greasy Fork and Tampermonkey.

This is how I write long and formatted comments!

Greasy Fork is an archive of userscripts and Tampermonkey is a browser extension and userscript manager. You don't need to use these two in particular. please use your common sense when downloading anything or adding permissions to your browser.

Greasy Fork guide on installing scripts

Install Tampermonkey on Chrome

there are TONS of user scripts for AO3. This is another good opportunity to explore all the possibilities. there are lots of more complicated options I haven't explored.

scripts for AO3

i use this floaty review box

and this comment formatting

EDIT: if you use chrome you might need to turn on developer mode in your chrome extension manager - you can google "tampermonkey developer mode" and it should explain that :)

to install (once you have Tampermonkey installed):

open the script you want in Greasy Fork and press install

Tampermonkey will open, press install again

clicking the Tampermonkey extension will let you toggle scripts on and off, and opening the dashboard will let you view, edit, and delete scripts

i find i can only have a few turned on at a time before they cancel each other out, but that depends on which ones you're using and someone more savvy might be able to fix that

how to use the floaty review box - write more comments!

there will now be a "floaty review box" button at the top of the work, it will open a floating text box you can move anywhere on the page. highlighting any text and pressing the insert button will paste the text with italics into the box

anything you type in the review box will appear in your comment at the bottom of the page!

if you have also installed the comment formatting script, you'll be able to highlight any text in your comment and use the new buttons above the comment box to format it

thats all ive got! Hopefully this is a good starting point to get familiar with some of the terms and basics for skins and scripts <3

if you want some inspo for how to comment on fics i made a whole fic rec list on twitter based on comments I've left, it's here. i have a masterlist of recs there mostly for darklina/reylo and similar ships.

the tag #reading with ru has cod recs and me talking about books

:)

[osakateto]

My take on lotr and the hobbit

[willowcrowned]

unironically howell movingcastle had it all figured out. I never get anything done unless I trick myself into it say what you will but his methods work

[woolieshubris]

So, you've been sent bait: A Guide for Internet Posters and Readers

Disclaimer: I am simply an autistic internet poster with a special interest in human interaction, abuse patterns, and internet culture. I am not a scholar and I do not have a degree in these things. While I have done research into the topics of cancellation, online abuse, and harassment, I am far from an expert.

Introduction:

I've seen this happen dozens of times before. A semi popular blogger will suddenly seem embroiled in a controversial topic, receiving harassment and accusations of some pretty terrible things. It goes on for about 24-72 hours, and then poof, it seems to be completely over, (however, of course, it can be brought up again without warning.) This can be emotionally damaging for the blogger, for the supporters of that blogger, and for the shock waves it will undoubtedly send into the greater community. This also further spreads discourse and popularizes harmful ideologies to people who might have previously never heard of them. The targets are almost always trans women, (with transmisogyny doing most of the cancellation legwork) and it seems to always have the goal of turning fellow trans people against the target. (Though, of course, I've seen this done with autistic creators, nonbinary creators, ect. Trans women are just the most popular target.)

Now, the goal of this guide is to help people understand how this happens, be able to recognize the patterns of a targeted harassment campaign, and be able to try and prevent it in the future. I'll be writing this as a guide to the target, however, I think it's important for lurkers/readers to also be able to recognize these patterns so they too can avoid being manipulated into falling into these pitfalls. A large portion of this harassment initiative is to use "useful idiots" in order to do most of the legwork. As a reader, you must avoid becoming a useful idiot, (which I'll be referring to as fools from now on) and you must be able to tell when other people are being used in this manner as well. This is the most effective way to protect people from unwarranted harassment campaigns.

Section 1: Bait

Types of Bait:

You've been sent bait, but you aren't sure if it is actually bait, or a genuine question from a fan. You don't want to ignore someone's valid concern, so you answer it even though you might not be sure. This is your first mistake! If you think it might be bait, it's best to treat it as such. Think of bait asks as toxic waste. If you aren't sure, it's much better to be safe than sorry. If you receive a bait ask, your best bet is to delete it and not respond at all. Yes, it will probably rattle you, and you'll probably feel bad about deleting the question, but you need to understand that it doesn't matter. If this person was asking a genuine question, they would understand if you don't want to answer. If they get annoyed or angry at your lack of answer- they were likely asking it with the intent to hurt you.

The first type of bait is bringing up a controversial topic.

While certain topics (like queer rights, abortion, Palestinian freedom) do actually matter in the real world and I would believe are worth responding to or making your position clear (as long as it is something you do have an opinion on) this does not mean all controversial topics are equal. Many topics that are "hot debates" online do not matter in the real world. (for example, proship vs antiship). Regardless of the validity of the debate, if it doesn't matter in the real world, it likely isn't worth publicly stating your opinion on those things. That is why people who are active in those movements try to make these things seem like they have real world consequences- to try and make their debate more valid and easier to pull more people into. The real goal with many of these topics is not to try and have a reasonable discussion. The goal is to try and pull as many people into them as possible. If they can successfully get ANY response out of you, then they win. Their debate is now broadcasted on your platform. Their thoughts, arguments, philosophies are now spread to thousands of people instantly. Even if you respond with an answer like "huh?" "what?" or "what does this mean???" they still win. Your acknowledgement of the debates existence at ALL is a win for them. They get to publicly platform their beliefs on your profile. If you respond at all and express even the slightest hint of an opinion, then they will have an entire section of fools that can now send you messages about this topic. Death by a thousand paper cuts. This is the most common type of bait, and the reason is simple. Internet debates can suck in people and can quickly rot peoples brains. Like sleeper agents, people will automatically start trying to chime in the moment they see the hints of any debate. If you fall for this debate, the best thing to do is delete everything, block main players and wait it out. With any luck, it will be completely forgotten by the end of the week.

The second type of bait is an accusation.

Again, while some allegations or accusations are worth responding to, if it is completely false, not responding will be your best bet. If you do respond at all, the allegation and your name will be linked in peoples minds. Even if you deny it, people will be confused as to why it was brought up at all. They might even think that you are lying or deflecting. Responding to the accusation at all is treated as a confession. If this accusation is something you've heard before, it would be worth looking into the source of the claim- someone might be spreading lies about you. However, if this accusation is something you've never received before, it is almost certainly bait. They are trying to make you look bad. Just delete them. If this is something you are receiving from a specific person, ask them about it privately. Never respond to false accusations on your public platform unless you know the source of the accusations. If you have to respond to them, you need to link to the accusation in full, not vaguely describe them. When you vaguely describe them, then you are putting the duty on the readers to find the accusation- they'll read it on the accusers terms- putting the ball directly into the accusers court. If your reader reads it directly from the accusers, then it will automatically make your refutation look dubious by comparison. Make it easy for the reader to see the full accusation and point out the absurdity of the claims. By laying out all of the information clearly, the readers will be able to easily figure out that the claims were bogus. In future confrontations, your supporters will likely even respond to the accusers for you, now that they fully understand the arguments against you. Supporters love to correct people, and this can help you significantly- just as much as it can hurt. It's a double edged sword, so if you point it in the right direction, it can help protect you against false accusations.

The third type of bait is confusion.

This type of bait is a bit harder to spot, and it's usually blended with the other two types. This type of bait is deliberately confusing. The confusing nature is what makes it such effective bait. A vague message can be read a thousand ways, and as long as one person can spin it in a way that makes you a "horrible person" then that can quickly become the narrative. If you receive a question that you do not understand, you have no reason to answer it. If you can't answer, simply not acknowledging it at all is the smartest thing to do.

How to deal with bait:

As I've stated in the previous sub-sections, the first time you receive any type of bait, you should ignore it. The intentions of the bait may differ, but they all need to be treated in the same way- with no respect at all. Anyone who tells you otherwise is someone who wishes for you to be hurt or a fool. If you receive it more than once, try blocking the person. If you continue to receive it, then that means that in all likelihood it's more than one person sending you the bait, and it might not be bait after all. However, you should proceed with extreme caution. You do not respond to the bait- you figure out the source of the questions and answer it on your own terms. Simply making a post like "Hey, for the record, I support dolphins." will go over a thousand times better than a post that goes like "'Why do you hate dolphins?' I don't." If you are receiving bait, another way to deal with it is by turning anonymous asks off and looking into the blogs of people sending you the bait. Search terms relating to the question they asked. If it's something they seem to get into a lot of internet fights over, block them. The approach you must always consider bait with is that all of the bait asks you receive are sent by one person trying to seem like a group of people. This is on purpose- they want to intimidate you into answering. This is why blocking and turning off anonymous asks can be useful tools. It forces them to unmask themselves.

Footnote 1: The response by these bait people is often "keeping on anonymous asks allow people to feel safe in asking these important questions." Your safety is more important. This is just trying to guilt trip you. Fools will also often respond similarly. After all, it can sound compelling. However you are not a publicly traded company. You do not need transparency. You do not have body guards or multiple employees. You are a singular person with a right to privacy and safety.

Summary

In this section, we discussed the main types of bait: controversial, accusatory, and confusing. We also talked about the best way to deal with each type, as well as the pitfalls of responding to each type, and how to deal with a larger harassment campaign.

If you personally have fallen victim to any of these techniques, either as a fool or a poster, I can understand how you might feel- however the important aspect of these types of bait is that they can and do trick people. If they didn't work, they wouldn't be used. It is not your fault for falling for it- it is completely on the perpetrators of this abuse. However, I hope this guide can help people to protect themselves or recognize when these things are happening to them.

[ochrogasting]

I've been thinking about carmarcus lately

[thefangirlphenomenon]

the validation i get from seeing my goodreads tracker say "you're 2 books ahead" is rivaled only by the endorphin rush i get from actually reading

[talknerdytome18]

Ranking All Books by Holly Jackson

Since I've read all of Holly's books, I'm going to rank them! Disclaimer: This is my opinion. If we don't have the same opinion, then respect that. Let's go!

Warning: this may contain spoilers for all books published by Holly Jackson. If you don't want to be spoiled, then scroll away.

6. Killjoy (2021)

I found this story cute! Very fun and fast-paced. I loved seeing how it all started and loved seeing the friend group's dynamic again. I just found this to not be the best out of all of Holly's books (granted this is a novella, but it's not my fave). Also, too much Ant Lowe in my opinion. I would have preferred more Jamie Reynolds. Also, I personally think Connor and Zach should've kissed but oh well.

Overall, fun book! If you wanna go back to where it all started, then this novella is worth it.

5. Five Survive (2022)

Guys... I have a reason why this book is ranked so low. I'm going to start by saying that I did not hate this book. I found the story intriguing and was engaged once the action started. For her first standalone, this book was really good and exceeded my expectations. My main problem with this book was that I found that I could care less about the characters. Personally, I found Red Kenny to be a weak protagonist in comparison to Pip and Bel and, not to mention how I could care less about Red and Arthur. Red and Arthur are cute, but honestly, I could care less if they got together or not.

Again, I don't hate this book. For Holly's first standalone, it was really good. However, I found that I didn't really care for any of the characters.

Overall, good book! Wish I connected more to the characters because the premise is incredible.

4. Good Girl, Bad Blood (2020)

All books in the AGGGTM series are five star reads in my opinion, but I find this the weakest book in the trilogy. Honestly, I love this book with my whole heart. Coming from being Connor Reynolds's biggest fan, I love how much he appeared in this book and how he aided in finding Jamie.

I think this book suffers from what I've dubbed "Sequel Slump" - meaning that the first book is so good that the sequel "slumps" in comparison. In this case, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is so good that this book just "slumps" in comparison, and I think it's because it takes a while for the mystery to officially begin, since we're taken through a quick recap over the previous book's events and then the memorial.

Also, I personally think that Connor and Zach should've kissed. Connor going to Zach's house to play Fortnite after the memorial? Very fruity to me (joking... or am I?)

Overall, love this book. Wish it got more recognition in the fandom.

3. A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (2019)

LOVE THIS BOOK. This book is fast-paced, thrilling and mysterious. It has a healthy dose of mystery and romance, along with characters I truly felt interested in. Pip's an amazing protagonist who fought hard to prove Sal innocent and find the real killer under the guise of her EPQ, all as she got the guy (Ravi Singh) in the end.

I loved that this book kept me guessing until the very end. I was suspecting everyone (Max, Jason, Naomi, Elliot, etc) and was genuinely surprised finding out Elliot killed Sal. Holly had written him to be such a likeable person that I couldn't believe he would kill Sal just so he could frame him as Andie's killer. AND BECCA? Never would've guessed it. Holly Jackson knows how to write compelling thrillers and I love that for her.

My only real complaint is again, Zach and Connor should've kissed. Connor honey I get that you liked Pip, but Zach Chen is literally right there. You boys are soulmates and I pray that the show recognises that (along with LauCara).

Overall, AMAZING BOOK. Deserves all the hype!

2. As Good as Dead (2021)

AHHHHH I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH. THIS BOOK IS HOW YOU END A TRILOGY GUYS. From the beginning, I was hooked by the mystery of Pip's stalker. This book broke my heart with Andie's email - poor girl was so scared of her father and died trying to escape him. I really like how this book doesn't give Andie a full redemption arc, rather it explains her actions. It really humanises Andie - a girl who grew up in a toxic environment and died trying to save herself and her sister.

My heart shattered when Pip broke up with Ravi. AND HIS SUGGESTION WAS TO MARRY SO THEY COULD GET SPOUSAL PRIVILEDGE??? RAVI FUCKING SINGH WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME???

The ending? EVIL. FUCKING EVILLLL BUT I LOVE HOLLY EITHER WAY. In my heart, I believe Pip got back together with him and they married. They also got another golden retriever in my mind after they got married.

Only complaint was WHERE WAS ZACH CHEN? CONNOR AND HIM SHOULD'VE KISSED WTF. Not to mention Lauren and Cara... Love my girl Steph though. Hoping that Lauren and Cara are a thing in the show though since we don't know much about Steph.

Overall, BEST BOOK IN THE TRILOGY GUYS.

The Reappearance of Rachel Price (2024)

HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

THIS BOOK... I WILL ONLY SAY ONE WORD: BRILLIANT.

When Holly Jackson said that this book was her favourite, I can see why it is. While I struggled to get into it from the beginning, once I read past 100 pages, I was hooked. Bel Price is such a complex protagonist that I could find myself relating to. All the characters were just so complex and you truly don't know who's lying until the very end, when we find out (spoiler alert) that Charlie (Bel's dad) had ordered his father to kill Rachel.

Not to mention how insane the sibling plotline was??? I NEVER WOULD HAVE SUSPECTED THAT CARTER WAS RACHEL'S BIOLOGICAL DAUGHTER. My heart broke when Rachel spoke about how Patrick took Carter away from her when Carter was only two weeks old. The Price family are truly disgusting - Rachel, Bel and Carter deserved so much better.

Also, I preferred the romance between Ash and Bel over Arthur and Red. Ash is such a fun character and I was genuinely sad when him and Bel weren't endgame. I believe that one day, in the near future, they reunite and get together officially.

Overall, LOVE THIS BOOK. If you haven't picked this up yet, then do so now!

~~~~

That's it! If you wanna talk, then my inbox is open :) - Em

[starcrossed591]

CDrama Year in Review 2024

Another year, another crop of CDramas! I had less time for dramas this year than I'd have liked and still have a few that I'm finishing up, but am close enough to done that I feel like I can commit to rankings/reactions. I'm not sure that anything truly took over my brain this year, but there were still a number of dramas that I loved, so here we go! (And if you're also a KDrama person, you can find that list for the year here)

Disclaimer: Rankings based on my personal preference, not objective quality.

14) The Substitute Princess’s Love: I didn’t really have any problems with this inoffensive historical, but also wasn’t grabbed by it, either. Dropped about halfway through.

13) Fortune Writer: I liked the premise of this one—a villain who learns she is in a novel and is determined not to be killed off by the plot—but picked it up too soon while it was airing and wasn’t caught up in it enough to keep up with it. Dropped.

12) Follow Your Heart: I so enjoy so much of this rockstar cast, which includes Luo Yun Xi, Song Yi, and Ryan Cheng, that it was especially disappointing how much the script let them down. A remake of sorts of the KDrama The Beauty Inside, this drama features an ML with face blindness and an FL who occasionally shape shifts, which was fun at first but did not hold up for as long as it needed to to maintain any sort of real tension. It had maybe a little too much of a youth/idol historical vibe for me? I kept up with it for about 30 episodes, but even the beautiful suffering of Luo Yun Xi could not keep me hooked, alas. Dropped.

11) Different Princess—Definitely a lower budget drama, but I lowkey enjoyed this transmigration drama in which the writer gets stuck in her story as (of course) a female character supposed to be immediately killed off. Instead, she keeps herself has a romance with the villain initially supposed to kill her off, which I was very here for. There are certainly higher production value dramas with the same premise that do it better, but I enjoyed this one for what it was. I also always appreciate a drama that takes seriously the difficulty of a transmigrated character who knows she can’t stay and doesn’t know what that means for a relationship that she is really, truly invested in.

10) Snowfall—I really, really liked the first 15 episodes of this drama, but then I got distracted and just…never came back? That said, vampires in Republican China are an excellent idea, and I’m glad this story exists. Would still recommend if you’re in the right mood for a very gothic tragic vampire romance with gorgeous set and costume design.

9) Amidst a Snowstorm of Love—This drama is definitely relationship propaganda (affectionate), but I enjoyed it nonetheless, especially after the turmoil of The Princess Royal when I wanted more of Zhao Jin Mai. She’s lovely here as Yin Guo, and of course, Leo Wu brings his overpowering smolder even as a contemporary billiards player rather than a historical general. Although this drama has heavy doses of Finland-travel-ad and For-the-glory-of-China sports ball and I somehow know approximately zero percent more about snooker than I did when I started, I still really liked it overall and would recommend if you’re in the mood for a slice of life comfort watch.    

8) Are You the One—Look, will this drama blow your socks off? No. However, since Lost You Forever rewrote some of my brain chemistry and I am Zhang Wan Yi trash, I really enjoyed more time having him on my screen. Though it plays with domestic bliss, the setup of a general setting up a woman with amnesia as his “wife” to use as a bait for the bandit he’s trying to catch is pretty foul, actually, and the drama was at its best when it leans into how truly fucked up it is of Cui Xing Zhou to deceive Liu Mian Tang (played wonderfully by Wang Chu Ran) that way, especially when she at first trusts him completely and does her best to support her ‘husband’. I did kind of call the twist that turns it from a game of cat and mouse to a game of cat and cat fairly early, but the slow burn as they creep towards an entirely preventable tragedy was fabulous. I think it was a mistake to market this drama as a rom com, and even though it doesn’t ultimately end up a tragedy, very much appreciated the angst and situational irony that the drama put its characters through to get them to their well-earned ending.    

7) Love Game in Eastern Fantasy—I like this one! Esther Lu is charming as a modern day woman transmigrated into a video game version of a novel from her favorite author that flopped for her. As these things normally go, she finds cast as a villain she found supremely annoying upon reading, and she must get grouchy SML Ziqi (Ding Yu Xi) to fall in love her, along with a few other tasks, to escape the game. It’s pretty typical xianxia cultivator vs demon stuff, but the characters are fun to spend time with, the costuming and styling is gorgeous, and the it’s generally all around delightful. Full disclosure—I have about ten episodes left, but fully intend to finish as soon as I get the chance.

6) Fangs of Fortune—Another one I quite like but just haven’t *quite* had the time to finish. A fabulous found family/polycule just dripping in angst are at the center of this beautifully shot drama, and for the first fifteen episodes or so, I was totally riveted until life got in the way and I had to pause. Still, the cinematography is so gorgeous and distinctive, the characters and their tangled relationships are fantastically developed, and the OST is just as good. I’ve heard the last few episodes are a bit messy, but I’m really looking forward to finishing this one, too, as soon as I have the time.

5) Lost You Forever Part 2—I’m not even really sure what to say about this drama. LYF Part 1 was my top drama of last year, and Part 2 was always gonna be tough for them to put together, especially under current censorship restrictions and with the episode cap they were given. I did ultimately still enjoy it overall and would still recommend it because I loved Part 1 so very much, but will always sort of yearn for the drama it could have been had they been allowed to follow the path of the novel. Xiaoyao, Cang Xuan, Xiang Liu, and Tushan Jing are still some of my favorite characters to have encountered, and I look forward to what their actors do next. (If you’re interested, I…actually co-host a podcast where we did two episodes on LYFP2 analyzing what worked and what really, really did not, which you can find here and here.)

4) Will Love in Spring—A contemporary romance with some actually very adult characters whose relationship I very much enjoyed watching develop. Much more angsty than the fluffier Amidst a Snowstorm of Love, this drama features a not-always-likeable FL and ML who went to school together, but haven’t seen each other for years before they reconnect in their hometown. The ML is a funeral makeup artist, which was a fascinating to see, and the FL, though very well put together on the surface, has her own trauma to overcome because of her prosthetic leg. I really liked the small town setting as these two damaged adults manage to make their way to each other despite both being extremely prickly when rubbed the long way, and if the end is a little bit hand-wavey in it’s neat resolution, I enjoyed spending time with these characters so much that I don’t care.

3) Blossom—I’m not *quite* done with this historical transmigration story, but I’m close enough to the end to know that I love it. I love a realistically competent—and complementary—FL and ML, and Dou Zhao knowing the general strokes of the past she’s going back to but not the finer details of crazy political plots she wasn’t involved in is a clever way to keep viewers on their toes as well. I also really love the consistent refrain of Song Mo that he knows Dou Zhao will thrive on her own but could do even better with love and support. I also have appreciated many of the ensemble characters who have turned out just a little differently in Dou Zhao’s second go round, perhaps her little sister Ming’er the most (poor Ming). I’ve also really enjoyed Li Yun Rui in a male lead role, since I quite enjoyed him as a smartass SML in Love Like the Galaxy in my early CDrama days. Definitely recommend checking out if you haven’t!

2) The Grand Princess/The Princess Royal—This drama *just* edging out Blossom because of how much I adored and latched onto Li Rong (Zhao Jin Mai) a more bitter—and honestly more damaged—transmigrated FL than Dou Zhao. In this transmigration historical or was their first life all a dream, who’s to say, Li Rong and her prince consort husband/political enemy die on the same day, Li Rong of poison and her husband of the assassination Li Rong orders because she assumes he did it (oops). Li Rong and Pei Wan Xuan (Zhang Ling He) thus both transmigrate back to their youth before their politically arranged marriage, and in a delightful turn of events, recognize the other almost immediately because of their *Go strategy* (yes they are also giant nerds, actually), and decide to team up to prevent the tragedy that had ensued in their first lives and then go their separate ways. Seeing these two choose to grow together in this life rather than apart was a real treat. Did the SML get too much screentime in the second half, and could he have benefited from a stronger actor? Absolutely yes. Did it take away from my enjoyment of Li Rong’s rather profound emotional development as she chose to trust people she didn’t before? Not at all (or at least, only a little). The combination of political maneuvering, the mystery of just where Li Rong went wrong in her first life, and sweeping second chance romance all really hit for me. I adored this drama.

1) The Legend of Shen Li—I was absolutely hooked by this xianxia whose mature leads found themselves growing inexorably closer to each other even though the literal rules built into the fabric of the universe are against them. I adored Zhao Li Ying in The Story of Ming Lan, and she didn’t disappoint as demon general Shen Li, and she had such fantastic chemistry with Lin Geng Xin as Xing Zhi, the last of the old gods. I was all in for every narrative arc of this drama, from their domestic bickering in the first arc in which Xing Zhi is a sickly mortal and Shen Li is largely stuck in the form of a phoenix aka ugly chicken, to when Xing Zhi does his very best to pretend a complete lack of interest in Shen Li even as he can’t seem to leave her alone, to Xing Zhi absolutely losing it when he thinks Shen Li has been lost and defying the universe itself to try to find her, to their determination to save the demon realm even at the cost of their own lives. And (spoiler) their comfortable domestic bliss mixed with flirty, gender bendy shenanigans in the epilogue episode was such a treat. There may have been characters and moments in other dramas that I occasionally had stronger emotional reactions to, but this one was hardly lacking in emotional punch and was also the most solid from beginning to end. I would recommend it without reservations or caveats.

Favorite Female Character: There were a lot of female characters to like this year, but the one that hit hardest for me is Li Rong (Zhao Jin Mai) in The Princess Royal. She pretty quickly recognizes that her quest for power and single-minded mission to keep her brother on the throne in her first life came at great personal cost *and* failed to make her happy.  Her resulting determination to make different choices—often ones that make her more emotionally vulnerable—in her second go round at life made her really compelling. I appreciated that although Li Rong is inarguably a strategic genius, she still often completely misread of other’s people’s emotions and totally misunderstood how those emotions will affect their actions. I also loved seeing her relationship develop differently not just with her husband, but with the other female characters that she forms an alliance with early on. Li Rong Still ultimately chooses to trust those people again even after she has been so deeply betrayed in her first life by the people she loves the most in the world, which took tremendous strength.

Favorite Male Character: Look, I just loved that Xing Zhi (from The Legend of Shen Li), the last of the old gods and the most powerful being in the universe, just wanted to putter around at home and take care of his wife. He also had this undercurrent of amusement and good cheer even when he was annoying the heck out of Shen Li by needlessly following her around while also refusing to admit his true feelings even to himself that was really fun to watch. It was also nice that he was played by a fully grown man in his thirties rather than someone younger—Lin Geng Xin’s layered performance was a big part of what made this character who he was.

Favorite Secondary Female Character: Lost You Forever Part 2 had many, many weaknesses, but A’Nian’s growth from impulsive, bratty princess to an even-keeled, clever, far-seeing queen was not one of them. I’ve always been very fond of A’Nian (yes she is my icon, why do you ask), even before she really deserved it, but I was so obsessed with both her arc as an individual—she even led troops?? Successfully?? After obsessively studying The Art of War to prove that she can be *helpful*??—and in her relationships both with her sister, Xiaoyao, and with Cang Xuan. (Spoiler) A’Nian’s long awaited and longed for wedding to Cang Xuan that she realizes she no longer wants for herself but nonetheless must follow through with for the good of her country broke my heart.

Favorite Ship: This one was pretty close with the leads of The Princess Royal, but Shen Li and Xing Zhi from The Legend of Shen Li. They had such chemistry from the beginning (somehow even when she was a CGI chicken??), and I loved that they were played by/as grown ups making grown up decisions. They balanced the big, dramatic, end of the world scenes with quiet, domestic ones really well, and I loved that even though Xing Zhi was much more powerful than Shen Li (that whole last of the old gods thing), he always stood back and let her do what she was gonna do unless she asked him otherwise. (Spoilers:) The sequence that has stuck with me the most for these two is when Shen Li has been disabled and never knows which of her sense will work when she wakes up—sometime’s she’s blind, sometimes she’s deaf, sometimes she can’t move, etc.—and at one point, she wakes up with none of her senses working. After a terrifyingly indeterminate space of time in which she can’t see, hear, or move and feels trapped in her own body, she regains her senses to find herself leaning against Xing Zhi’s shoulder. When she asks if he’s always been there, he responds that he will “always be around,” and she answers, “Since you are always around, I will no longer be afraid” (giffed here by ladydynamie). For a determinedly independent and competent woman like Shen Li to be able to really lean on Xing Zhi, both literally and figuratively, really speaks to their dynamic and is part of why I loved them so much.

Favorite Secondary Ship: Shanguan Ya (Cheng Guo) and Su Rong Hua (Yi Da Qian) from The Princess Royal have got to be it. Li Rong’s total ignorance of their romantic tragedy in her first lift contrasted with their narrowly avoided tragedy in the second really hit for me. Their personalities also meshed so well, and it was delightful to see Rong Hua fall for the rule-breaking version of Shanguan Ya who disguises herself as a man to sneak out to gamble all the time, rather than her role as well-behaved daughter of a prominent family. Rong Hua falls both first and harder for his lady, which is a trope I love, and refuses to give up on her even when all hope is lost and she seems to choose another path. And not for nothing, a solid and sober Rong Hua showing up for a desperate Shanguan Ya in their first life with the line “In this life, I’m willing to descend into hell with you” is seared into my brain (giffed here by nunafilms).

Favorite Trope: Extremely competent women who do really well on their own but find that they’re even better with the right partner—Li Rong (The Princess Royal), Shen Li (The Legend of Shen Li), and Dou Zhou (Blossom) are three of the best examples.

Biggest Disappointment: I know I still ranked it rather high, but Lost You Forever 2 really was so disappointing. Giving us exactly what it would look like for Cang Xuan and Xiaoyao to tear each other to pieces after that pitch perfect buildup of Cang Xuan getting closer and closer to losing it whenever he feels like he might lose Xiaoyao….and then making it all out to be a drug dream was such a rug pull. I hate that I can’t recommend LYF now without big caveats about part two.

Drama from Another Year: I picked up Meet Yourself after Will Love in Spring when I was wanting more of Li Xian, and I was not at all disappointed. I’m on the record as loving female leads who are Flight Risks™, so of course I was all in for Xu Hong Dou deciding to quit her job and abscond to a small village in the country that she had always meant to visit. The beginning may be a bit fraught (I’m used to first episodes having a lot going on to get things set up, but oh boy was this one rough), but once things get going, I adored this quiet, warm-hearted drama. Each episode felt like spending time with friends, and I would recommend it both for the central romance and it’s fantastic ensemble cast.  

Dramas I Missed: It’s been a bit of a rough year for me professionally, so there were a lot of dramas I really wish I’d had the time for but just didn’t—The Doubleis probably the biggest one here. Other dramas I’m hoping to get to eventually are Liu Yu Ning’s Eternal Brotherhood and Heroes as well as Zhang Wan Yi’s The Rise of Ning. I still kind of want to check out The Story of Pearl Girl, even though I know it was a flop for most people, but looking at my to-watch list (as well as who knows what else will come out in the meantime), I probably won’t make it to this one for a very long time, if ever.

Dramas I’m Looking Forward To: Predicting when (if ever) CDramas will actually air remains a fool’s game, but: A Dream within a Dreamhad an absolutely fire teaser, plus I adore Liu Yu Ning; and Legend of the Female General is giving Ryan Cheng his big break as the ML—I’ve been rooting for him since his mini drama days with A Familiar Stranger. I’m cautiously optimistic about both.

[fictionalmenmistress]

On my second watch, I realized that "Its Raining Men" was still playing, as Nandor literally crashed from the sky in front of Guillermo at his first pride parade.

Guys. Guys. Its raining men. Hallelujah.

[charlie-old-one]

I’ve just finished the first book of A good girl’s guide to murder by Holly Jackson and I’m obsessed with these characters.

I’ve already bought the second book!

If you haven’t read it yet, get on it! You won’t be disappointed!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Christopher Brown’s ‘A Natural History of Empty Lots’

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Christopher Brown is an accomplished post-cyberpunk sf writer, a tech lawyer with a sideline in public interest environmental law, the proud owner of one of the most striking homes I have ever seen, and an urban pastoralist who writes about wildlife in ways I've never seen and can't get enough of:

https://fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/

All of these facets of Brown's identity come together today with the launch of A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys and other Wild Places:

https://christopherbrown.com/a-natural-history-of-empty-lots/

This is a frustratingly hard to summarize book, because it requires a lot of backstory and explanation, and one of the things that makes this book so! fucking! great! is how skillfully Brown weaves all that stuff into his telling. Which makes me feel self-conscious as I try to summarize things, because there's no way I'll do this as well as he did, but whatever, here goes.

Brown is a transplant from rural Iowa to Austin, where he set out to start a family, practice tech law during the dotcom boom, and write science fiction, as part of a circle of writers loosely associated with cyberpunk icon @brucesterling. After both the economy and his marriage collapsed, Brown started his restless perambulations around Austin's abandoned places, sacrifice zones, the bones of failed housing starts and abandoned dot-crash office parks.

When he did, something changed in him. Slowly, his eyes learned to see things that they had just skipped over. Plants, animals, and spoor and carapaces and dens of all description, all around him, a secret world. These were not pockets of "wilderness" in the city, but they were pockets of wildness. Birds' nests woven with plastic fibers scavenged from nearby industrial dumpsters; trees taking root in half-submerged tires rolled into a creekbed, foxes and rodents playing out a real-life version of the classic ecosystem simulation exercise on the edge of an elevated highway that fills the same function as the edge of a woodland where predator and prey meet.

As Brown fell in love again – with the artist and architect Agustina Rodriguez – he conceived of a genuinely weird and amazing plan to build a house. A very weird house, in a very weird place. He bought a plot of wasteland that had once housed the head-end of an oil pipeline (connected to a nearby oil-storage facility that poisoned the people who lived near it, in an act of wanton environmental racism) and had been used as a construction-waste dump for years.

After securing an extremely unlikely loan, Brown remediated the plot, excavating the oil pipeline, then building the most striking home you have ever seen in the resulting trench. Brown is a pal of mine, and this is where I stay when I'm in Austin, and I can promise you, the pictures don't do it justice:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/style/christopher-brown-edgeland-house-austin/

Formally, A Natural History of Empty Lots is a memoir that explains all of this. But not really. Like I say, this is just the back story. What Natural History really is, is a series of loosely connected essays that explains how everything fits together: colonial conquest, Brown's failed marriage, his experience as a lawyer learning property law, what he learned by mobilizing that learning to help his neighbors defend the pockets of wildness that refuse to budge.

It's an erudite book, skipping back through millennia of history, sidewise through the ecology of Texas, all while somehow serving as a kind of spotter's guide to the wild things you can see in Austin – and maybe, in your town – if you know how to look. It's a book about how people change the land, and how the land changes people. It is filled with pastoral writing that summons Kim Stanley Robinson by way of Thoreau, and it sometimes frames its philosophical points the way a cyberpunk writer would – like Neal Stephenson writing a cyberpunk trilogy that is also the story of Leibniz and Newton fighting over credit for inventing calculus:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/11/20/neal-stephensons-system-of-the-world-concludes-the-baroque-trilogy/

Brown is a stupendous post-cyberpunk writer, and also a post-cyberpunk person, which I've known for sure since I happened upon him one morning, thoughtfully mowing his roof with a scythe:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/46433979075/

You can get a sense of what that means in this lockdown-era joint presentation that Chris, Bruce Sterling and I did on "cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk":

https://archive.org/details/asl-cyberpunk

Brown is a spectacular novelist. His ecofascist civil war trilogy that opens with Tropic of Kansas got so much right about the politics of American demagoguery and was perfectly timed with the Trump presidency:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/07/11/tropic-of-kansas-making-america-great-again-considered-harmful/

The sequel, Rule of Capture, uses the device of courtroom drama in a way that comes uncomfortably close to the Orwell/Kafka mashup that the authorities have created to deal with environmental protesters:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/08/12/rule-of-capture-inside-the-martial-law-tribunals-that-will-come-when-climate-deniers-become-climate-looters-and-start-rendering-environmentalists-for-offshore-torture/

And the final volume, Failed State, is one of the most complicated complicated utopias you could ask for. This is what people mean by "thrilling conclusion":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/12/failed-state/#chris-brown

As brilliant as Brown is in fiction mode, his nonfiction is unclassifiably, unforgettably brilliant. A Natural History of Empty Lots is the kind of book that challenges how you feel about the crossroads we're at, the place you live, and the place you want to be.

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/17/cyberpunk-pastoralism/#time-to-mow-the-roof

[neosatsuma]

Aubreyad as Troubled Birds

Martin:

Diana:

Wray:

Jack:

And last but NOT least...

Stephen:

[aintevenchillin]

Gif I made it’s on tenor now https://tenor.com/ezpTJT27Z3W.gif