#tbh i didnt like the book

[613rm]

[obsob]

once more around the sun!! :3

[carlarte]

Oh, Hazel, look! The field! It’s covered with blood!’

Fiver is my favorite character in Watership Down, he's just like me fr. I was afraid this wouldn't read especifically as Fiver, but alas... i liked my initial sketch a lot so i kept it as it was.

[kingly-court]

I’m legitimately gonna explode if I don’t find someone else who understand the background tragedy of the Gleeful Family in Gravity falls.

[phant0m-ch3rry]

"so just for this moment, as long as you're mine"

or fiyeraba yuri bc i love them n omg its been years since ive drawn wicked fanart <3

[jejesart]

[part one] [part two] you to me, me to you

[serien-grl-22]

I finished the Caraval trilogy and now I'd like to ask why we like Legend and find him attractive?

He was an annoying brat through the whole series.

[mossiestpiglet]

I need to get a physical set of the ouran manga so bad for many reasons but most pressingly because there is a post (essay) I really want to make comparing the way Kyoya and Tamaki’s feelings for each other and for Haruhi are portrayed but I CAN’T because I don’t have the text in! my! hands!

[thegreatyin]

rip my heart out and shoot it, why don't you???

at least it makes for a great mantlepiece item!

[queenerdloser]

okay there are some revenge stories where the "you're losing yourself to revenge you need to choose forgiveness instead :(" argument actually has some merit, but tbh every time a character has brought that up in count of monte cristo i'm in my corner shouting THEY PUT HIM! IN A DUNGEON! FOR 15 YEARS!

[dvasva]

Tbh? I think the radiant emperor duology deserves more critique than it gets in its tag, so after stewing it over for a couple weeks and also discussing it with my friend, I have decided to do it myself.

So. Spoilers for She Who Became the Sun and He Who Drowned The World ahead.

First off, so nobody accuses me of hating the series, I liked the series. I'd say I'd give the first book a 4.5/5, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I like both books. I truthfully skipped the fisting scene, it triggered some dysphoria that I wasn't comfortable with personally but I don't have problem with it existing in the book, it's good where it is, no changes.

No, my critiques come mostly from the second book, hwdts. Which sucks because I absolutely loved Baoxiang in it, it's a well known fact that my ideal type is pretty, really mean, characters. ('What about Madam Zhang?!!!???!? Shes mean and pretty!!' I hear you ask. Give it a second cause i will get to my beloved madam zhang) So, my critiques are mostly organized as 'The first part I didn't like in Hwdtw that signals the thing that became my biggest issue, the bits in the middle that i did like along with the bits that I felt didn't really work well, and Act 3 which is where my issues really were exacerbated.'

By the end of book one, I had a general annoyance but acceptance that Ma Xiuying was a bit of a weak character, and not weak as in 'dang shes a woman and cant fight' or any other sexist way you may interpret that, but weak as in structurally, she didn't really have as much depth as other characters. I thought she didn't have as much time put into her character as others. And yeah you could have a million character analysis essays over Ma and her place in the story and etc, but for me, her setup for the next book as potentially having conflict with Zhu or her own morals was the most interesting part of Ma. In general I think a lot of people tend to overlook this flaw partly because Ma is a cis lesbian character and the main 'love interest' in a book that is usually marketed to people as sapphic, which yeah there is certainly a sapphic relationship in the book but I think saying it's a major part of the book is really giving the relationship a load bearing wall ot isn't strong enough to carry. The Radiant Emperor Duology is not a romance, first and foremost. To describe it as a wlw romance is gonna leave people who read ot specifically for that reason kinda dissappointed by the end of book 2.

My big critiques didn't start until book two, and a particular scene, though. Ma, at the start of book two, was generally filling the niche of 'nagging wife' to zhu, which yknow, is a fine place to start from. I was a little disappointed there was no further discussion of Ma's disapproval of the morality of Zhu's actions, and in fact the dead child was pretty much entirely forgotten by Ma in favor of being Zhu's wife. Which, yknow, sure.

The Scene I had issue with happened (Spoilers once again) after Zhu finally captures Ouyang and imprisons him at her base of operations. Ma, dressed in her empressly regalia enters his room with the intention of being the bigger person. She walks in, looks at the stripped down and humiliated general who killed her father and famously is also really a women hater, and tells him she forgives him for killing her father. And then she gets upset and cries when the prideful general who hates women gives her a dressing down and taunts her and is like 'I'm glad I killed your father'? She nearly cries because Ouyang was mean to her (notably only cause he was mean to her and didn't gracefully accept her forgiveness, not because he killed ehr father) and runs off to Zhu. And Zhu responds with 'Wow, he's just a weirdo, everyone likes you and everyone in existance immediately knows you're a good person and you change people.' Which, my friend suggested before she finished the book, was a case of Zhu placating Ma and dismissing her feelings which would be an interesting dynamic.

Really my hangups with this scene come from multiple parts.

1. Ma' few character traits including being observant and reading people really well (a thing she's praised for in book 1) and having good social intuition are completely thrown out by her thinking being alone with ouyang and forgiving him would be a good idea and then her being shocked and upset when he spat on her forgiveness. And

2. Zhu's response is never once treated by the text as her dismissing Ma and placating her, and Zhu's statement despite never being shown to be true before and that moment being the first time it's ever mentioned, ends up becoming Chekov's moral purity by the end of the book, where the plot hinges on Ma being able to magically heal a damaged character's mind enough for Zhu to win in the end. Which I will get back to. There's a lot of other stuff happening between here and the end.

So, before I get back to Ma and her role in the story, I'll address some other bits from after this scene. Both problems and things I enjoyed generally.

Madam Zhang and her parallels to Baoxiang and her being the absolute queen of dissociating really was interesting (before act 3). She was a very compelling character who I completely understood and felt positively about. She had a way more interesting relationship with gender imo than Ma did, especially in book 2. I didn't really like that she was overwhelmingly shown having sexual villence done to her, that felt weirdly like a punishment. But, I did like her a whole bunch, and I liked the look we got into her head. She was probably my second, maybe third, favorite character in the whole book until Act 3.

I really, really liked Ouyangs dynamic and relationship with Zhu. The weird sexual tension between them, their weird kinda nonsexual but also kinda very sexual S&M relationship. It was somehow the most sensual, sexual part of a book that featured Madam Zhang having sex with multiple people, and Zhu going down on Ma, and a lot of other mentions of sex or scenes involving sex. Tbh I feel like, in a way, Ma was left to the sidelines for most of the book because Ouyang became the primary 'love' interest for a hot second there and the only reason Ma could get her spot back was Ouyang and Zbu's separation. Also, from what I've seen when people talk about this book, they always kinda try to express Zhu and Ouyang's dynamic as very nonsexual and nonromantic, as platonic mostly. And there is no inherent superiority of romantic over platonic, but I think to insist that it is only platonic, and not a strange swirl of romantic, platonic, sexual, frustration and relief, and a swirl of familiarity and vulnerability all wrapped into one, is doing the dynamic a bit of a disservice. And ther is, imo, very clearly a subtle hint of romantic intent and interest on Ouyang's part before he realizes Zhu has a body he hates.

Which is also another point I didn't like. Ouyang and Zhu's relationship end felt off. The entire bit with the pirates felt off, but especially how Ouyang found out about Zbu's body, and how Zhu reacted. I think Ouyang finding out second hand, from a combination of being suspicious and from Jiang saying it, was a poor way for that to be revealed. I think there was a better way for that to happen that woyld have felt more like a betrayl to zhu than this did. The fact that Zhu and Ouyang were so in tune and could see each other perfectly, but this one thing was a blind spot for both of them because of how unaffected by gender Zhu was compared to how overaffected by gender Ouyang was is a really interesting thing to explore, an interesting disconnect between two character's whose entire basis for their relationship is 'like recognizes like'. I think Zhu seeing it as a betrayl would have been more impactful if she had presented this informatuon to Ouyang herself and been rejected than how it went down. And, I think her not realizing Ouyang would be disgusted that he felt connected and felt a sameness to someone with a body he found grotesque and that he feared would have been more interesting for zhu, who views herself outside of womanhood and didnt really think that other people would not see her outside of womanhood, if she was the one who told ouyang herself.

Also, less importantly, think going into Ouyangs annoyance that zhu kept moving his target further away was a good move but it wasn't expanded on as much for my taste. I also really liked it when (spoiler) Xu Da dies, and that entire part despite some minir bits, was extremely good in that Zhu finally has tasted loss. She had, up until that point, been riding a wave of positivity, she was the underdog who won over and over again despite all the odds and despite her own reckless choices. So I did appreciate that everything went wrong for her at least once. that would have been, imo if other things were changed, a good place to end a book two in a three book series. Which will make sense as to why I mention it im a bit.

I also didn't like how Ma was nonexistant unless the plot was like 'ok we need to remind people that Ma exists.'

And there's of course other stuff but those are the main points of acts 1 and 2 that i wasn't fond of or that i liked.

Act 3 is a wholely different behemoth which can be encapsulated with 'I wish it was longer but also different' (courtesy of the convo my friend and I had).

My friend and I both agreed that we liked this kind of courtly drama game it was playing. My friend doesn't tend to like the structure or writing style of a lot of the chinese wuxia, danmei, or courtly drama translated books i read, so it was nice to know that the genre content isn't the issue for her there.

The biggest problems I had with the ending though was 1. I think Baoxiang and Ma had an interesting dynamic despite it being really rushed and how distasteful I found the entire concept of Ma being such a good wholesome goody good good person that she could change Baoxiang, quiet his demons and fix him in some way. That was annoying in an otherwise interesting dynamic. And 2. I think Madam Zhang's character traits and cleverness and all that were wiped away to make her inexplicably jealous of Ma in a way that I don't think fit her character and just served to fit a trope of jealous empress who hates the favored concubine.

So, here's my major proposed changes.

1. Ma gets sent to Khanbaliq extremely early on. Like, act one maybe after ouyang is captured early. This serves three purposes. A. Ma has something to do and is more present in the story. this could be a good xhance to let her actually feel frustrated or upset at Zhu in some tangible way that needs to be resolved or talked thru eventually. B. she gets more time to build a relationship with Baoxiang, whose entire defeat hinges on him having a strong connection with her. and C. Her absence in the other parts of the book feel less like she's being ignored or forgotten. It makes Zhu's lack of haste more than just a way to annoy Ouyang, and turns it into an interesting moral choice. Should she rush to Khanbaliq to save Ma or trust that Ma will be ok in favor of gaining power? Her lack of haste means Ouyang leaves, depressed, and she loses Xu Da, all while she doesn't even have the assurance that Ma is ok, she is truly at her lowest point with nobody with her. If Ma is in Khanbaliq and that's explored, then Zhu and Ouyang can also explore their dynamic without Ma feeling a bit like she is battling for Zhu's attention.

2. Madam Zhang is suspicious of Ma, or feels actually tangibly threatened by Ma. In act 3, Madam Zhang's anger towards Ma feels really out of place. She got exactly what she wants, she is empress, her emperor isn't interested in removing her from her position and her position isn't threatened by anyone. Baoxiang won't get rid of her, he won't demote her, he has shown zero sign of ever even considering it. So, why is Madam Zhang jealous of Ma? Imo, especially since she very clearly has dissociated into oblivion and has no love or affection for anyone anymore, and no real desire or motivation to secure her position further aside from maybe producing an heir to make sure shes taken care of after Baoxiang dies, there's no reason for her to be inextricably jealous of Ma. It kinda just erases all of Madam Zhang's political savvy and cunning into jealous, petty woman, and that sucks. If she was suspicious of Ma's intention, or Baoxiang genuinely expressed spmething that actively threatened her position, her hatred of Ma would make sense, but instead she hates Ma cause Ma is ugly and spends every night with Baoxiang. She hated rice buckets concubine cause that concubine used a lot of funds and competition genuinely made her position less stable. She needs better motivation for hating Ma.

3. As I mentioned earlier, Zhu needs to be the one to tell Ouyang that she does not have a dick. That's just all around better, it feels more like a betrayl to bare your secrets and be rejected, etc etc.

4. The duology should have been a trilogy, with book 3 starting when Zhu is at her lowest, ouyang is dead, ma is in khanbaliq, Xu Da is dead, a new guy is the emperor. This is where a book three should have started. in a series that has so many important characters, i feel like it needs more space. she's in a 10 gallon tank when really she needs a 30 gallon tank. Lots of it, especially towards the end of book 2, felt rushed and the extra book will absolutely push that back a bit and make it less rushed.

Anyways that's my critique of The Radiant emperor duology. Once Again, I liked the series, its one of my favorites i've read all year. I don't dislike it, and having a critique or opinion about something doesnt mean I didn't like the book or understand the book (because obviously if i understood it i would understand why its flawless). I liked it, there are things I wish were different, that's it.

[sodrippy]

doing the worst thing on earth and reading goodreads reviews of american psycho and this person saying it was 'impossible to form an emotional connection with [bateman]' is beyond baffling. youre not fucking supposed to form a connection with him are you well? the entire POINT of the book is to show- i mean its BLEEDINGLY OBVIOUS that- jesus. whatever.

okay and this other review by a woman who gave it one star, saying its like, a brilliant book, describing its intention really well, and then saying i fucking hated it. well yes but that isnt what a one star review is for? i mean obviously you can use the rating system however you like but i feel like giving bad ratings to books that you yourself think are well written or hit the mark of their premise well just bc you didnt LIKE it is like...stupid?

apparently theres big debate over the misogyny in the book and like, people saying oh the murdering of his coworkers and stuff is okay but bc most of his kills are women and its entwined with sex then maybe the author is a misogynist too and its a bit much and this book is problematic and antifeminist. i just. hello???? can anyone hear me???

[in-tua-deep]

when I was 12 I was sick and missed a science test. when I was back at school the teacher told me I could make it up after class but it completely slipped my mind and I went home on the bus

the next day I went to the teacher to apologize and tell her I could stay after that day if it was still okay and before I could she was like “You saw the zero in the grade book” in such a matter of fact way

I, in fact, had not looked at the grade book?? I had no idea that she’d put a zero in for my test. I was just a distractible kid with undiagnosed ADHD who… forgot to stay after school because my usual routine was to get on the bus

I didn’t say that of course. I just nodded in absolute befuddlement and then stayed to take my test that day

I’m much older than 12 now but I still remember my confusion and shame and the bolt of momentary panic before she told me she would let me do the test and I’m like. idk. it kind of stuck with me. I was 12. I was a pretty good student otherwise, yeah distractible but in a quiet “doodle on every paper near me” and “has two to three books on hand at any given time so I don’t get bored” kind of way.

I think even after all these years I still don’t understand why she felt like she had to scare me

[youmakethelight]

Okay, but I'm casting my mind back to try to imagine how I would have felt about tboc daryl before season 10 got me so stupid about this show, when I used to be a casual viewer. And I still think I'd have just thought daryl lost his mind tbh.

This is just me going off on tangents about the show now, don't mind me.

He felt a bit off in season 1, I can't lie. The costume change would have thrown me even if I wasn't as attached, because I'm probs just the type of neurodivergent that struggles with too much change at once, and him being away from TF, in Europe, and looking so different, then calling Laurent useless, then the ways he looked at Isabelle at the end of 1x06 - that was all just too different to the Daryl I knew idk. But I stuck with it.

But having his first on-screen kiss be so entirely unpredictable for what I thought I knew of his character felt gratuitous*. And then it's like suddenly I'm being railroaded into following him on this rolleroaster that I don't understand. One minute he's longing for home, the next he's playing baseball and "just having fun". Then home has found him, but now he's invested in this kid I still haven't learnt to feel invested in yet. And he's never even talking about anything to do with home anymore, even after Carol is there? It's suddenly all just about Laurent, and part of the problem for me is there wasn't enough balance to convince me of the story.

And I think this was most of my difficulty with enjoying TOWL, too. (Don't come for me please for talking about my personal experience of watching TOWL.) I watched TOWL first out of all the spinoffs, and I remember this one part where I think Michonne and Rick were in a kitchen or something and Rick felt so different to me and it made me sad, and then she called it out. And he said something like that it's been so long, he's lost who he used to be or something like that. I can't remember exactly, but it made me sad. And I think, for me, I didn't get enough glimpses of the Rick I recognised within the short 6 episodes that I never felt satisfied or happy with it. And maybe I needed more TF references or something??? I didn't even feel enough concern for Judith or RJ from him - maybe I'm misremembering, but I think your memory of the feeling something gave you is important. I get that the leadership want these spinoffs to be accessible to people who didn't watch the flagship show, but I think that's a big part of where it's losing the magic for me.

The thing that was better for me about DD season 1 is that it was all about getting home, and his determination felt relentless throughout the first 5 and a half episodes before it suddenly got weird with Isabelle acting like they've been a family for 19 years. Like, before that, I felt connected to his mission.** But then in season 2, it's almost completely gone, and Carol feels like the only part I can still connect with. Like, I know Rick didn't mention Daryl either I think, but I wish both of them had talked about each other. Idk, it just would have felt more like it's giving me something I can connect with? Rather than just throwing the characters into entirely new situations and also deliberately making them feel a bit out of character?

That whole part in TOWL where Michonne feels surprised to find Rick a bit changed is so similar to what they seemed to want to do with Daryl and Carol, and I don't really get why they did it to either of them. It's more believable with Rick than Daryl bc 1. He isn't Daryl and definitely adapts more to new environments, and 2. It had been many, many, many years, not like a month. But idk, I still wasn't keen, but at least they gave it a redemption arc or whatever you'd call it. With daryl it's still just like - ???? And for what reason??? I don't know. I just don't find it compelling idk idk idk.

*Even in season 9, when we met Connie, I felt a bit like 'oh are they gonna force a ship here bc they have them spending time together 🤨 (rather than just letting connie want to help for her own character reasons rather than making it about daryl and shipping), but if it's gonna be someone who isn't carol, I think I'm okay with connie', like bc we actually had reasons to like her and there was chemistry with Daryl. So why neither Connie nor Carol, but Isabelle? The show just never got me invested in darabelle in any way.

I already liked connie before they had her going on missions with daryl, so I actually cared about her a lot. I loved seeing her on those missions bc I was excited for her to have more screen time and I found her character empowering. So, I didn't want to see her reduced to just being Daryl's love interest, and tbh, I don't think they handled it well, bc they still reduced her to being Daryl's accessory, rather than giving her her own character depth. But I *still* would have been more on board with pairing up Daryl with Connie than Isabelle. Tbh, by the time that Carol was broken up with zeke, and they had the conversation about running away together, I didn't think of Daryl and Connie as making sense to pair anymore... But I also didn't see much point in the Leah romance either, so whatever, I guess this show just has a pattern of pairing up Daryl with random women he doesn't have chemistry with, instead of the ones he does?

**I always remember that Zabel pitched the idea for the show as "what if, in trying to get home, you find something else?", and the thing is, in order to get me to be convinced that Daryl "found something else", I'd have needed A LOT stronger of a pull for the French story. There was nothing there that hooked me to becoming convinced of Daryl finding something while trying to get home. Just having him voice the words "I found something", having Laurent the prophet say "you miss her too, I can tell", putting his crossbow next to Isabelle's hospital bed, and having him look at her for an extended time after she recovers, doesn't suddenly convince me of that idea. Idk. I'm not in the TV industry, so I don't know how that magic gets done - like when season 10 slowly turned Lydia into one of my favourite characters after she was introduced as an antagonist. But I have enough brain cells to see (from the moment they nonsensically forced them to share a bed??) that they were trying to convince us Daryl found "something" in France, and tbh, if I can see the strain in their efforts to make it happen, it's probably not working. And even NR couldn't answer why Isabelle when asked at NYCC. He was literally like, "idk they have similar pasts?? Idk???". Like, girl, if you don't know, why should your audience?

[starrynightsxo]

"Cardan looks taken aback. Or possibly I spoke so fast he's not even sure what I said. 'You need not say it out of pity,' he says finally, with great deliberateness. 'Or because I was under a curse. I have asked you to lie to me in the past, in this very room, but I would beg you not to lie now.'"

- Jude Duarte, The Queen of Nothing

[thatsgonnaleaveamark]

hmmm should i get slow horses 5th book before season 5 drops