#the only person who does it wrong is Stephanie Meyer because fuck twilight

[disappointingcabbage]

This doesn’t even get into the sheer variety of different vampire lores. Like. Every folkloric vampire story is different from region to region and every modern vampire story has its own take on these various lores. Like there is no One Way to do vampires

"You got vampire lore wrong in your story because real vampires do this and that" Buddy I have terrible news about all of vampires. Heartbreaking news. Worst news you're gonna hear all day.

[dalekofchaos]

I really liked your "how you and my friend would change Twilight" post. I was wondering, if it had to still be the same story but with small changes to the story, how would you change it?

Me and my friend’s rewrite

Edward does not watch Bella when she’s sleeping(For one it is just creepy that he watches her sleep without her knowing and it’s wrong because Vampires cannot enter a person’s home without permission.), he is not controlling over Bella, nor is Edward creepy to the point where Robert Pattinson hates every aspect of the character.  The problem with Twilight was it romantiscised controlling and abusive relationships. Take that away, make it a healthy and stable relationship and it could actually be good.

Bella is kinder to Charlie, tells him everything and lets him in. Bella and Charlie’s relationship start out strong and as time moves on it seems like Charlie only exists so Bella and the Cullens can hurt him and say “it’s for his protection” So what I would do is have Bella and Charlie being the only humans who know about Vampires.The Cullens allow this because Carlisle knows they can trust Charlie and Charlie does keep the secret and instead of Bella needlessly hurting Charlie, Charlie goes with the Cullens’ plan. Charlie struggles with wanting to keep Bella happy or siding with his best friend Billy. And then, Harry was killed by Victoria and all he wants to do is kill her and keep Bella safe. After the events of New Moon, Bella rightfully lets Charlie vent his frustrations for the hell Edward put Bella through. Bella’s screaming sleepless nights, and her depression. Charlie had every right to hate Edward and Edward deserved Charlie venting for the hell  he put his daughter through. He helps against the fight against Victoria and Riley as Jasper trains him to fight because Carlisle would say “even a human is capable of killing a vampire” And maybe have Charlie deliver the killing blow to Victoria as she rushes to Bella. And in Breaking Dawn Charlie gives Edward his wedding speech(only Edward is actually scared because Charlie now knows how to kill a Vampire) Charlie and Renee are there when Bella is dying. They do not leave Bella’s side. Charlie is happy to know everything is fine once she is alright and that he has a granddaughter.

Vampires don’t sparkle, The Cullen clan are Daywalkers(which is why Aro wanted Carlisle originally) they are the only clan of vampires that can daywalk.

Give Victoria more of a reason to want to kill Bella and The Cullens. According to her wiki, Victoria was abused and manipulated her whole life and consequently fell into the similar pattern with James. The tragedy is she was willing to die for the same type of person who mistreated her, her entire life. So Let’s say Victoria is with Laurent in New Moon. They want to make peace and show they hold no ill will towards Bella or the Cullens as James was a monster and he is not worth fighting for and they are both willing to join The Cullen Clan and abandoning their paths as drinking human blood. And the Wolf Pack mistakenly sees this as a threat against Bella’s life and they kill Laurent, the only real friend that Victoria ever had. So it’s more revenge for taking the only friend she had and for herself. I’d also make Riley a girl because I have to have SOME wlw content in Twilight

Jasper is a Union Soldier. It bothers me so much that someone who was a Confederate soldier is seen as heroic, while The Quileute tribe in the series are demonized(also for the fact that the Quileute tribe were culturally appropriated without their permission and given a racist portrayal) so Jasper being a Union soldier would be better than someone who proudly fought for slavery.

Edward apologizes for his distant behavior in the beginning because he was afraid of what the Volturi was going to do to Bella after he shows Bella the painting. 

Bella does not try to kill herself or seek thrills just to see Edward. She is depressed and her character arc in New Moon is coping with her depression. She is shown to movie on and coping with her friends Jessica, Angela, Eric and Mike. And Jacob. It isn’t until Laurent and Victoria that prompts Alice to arrive. It honestly sends a horrible message to people suffering from depression caused by a breakup that if your SO leaves, you should self-harm or attempt to kill yourself. Seeking a positive support network in my opinion would be a much better message

When everything with the Volturi is done. Bella punches Edward repeatedly. She finally vents her frustration and sadness over what leaving her did to her. And Edward and The Cullens apologizes for their actions.

Someone fucking calls out how abusive Sam and Emily’s relationship is

Jacob keeps his character from Twilight and New Moon. I have a problem with how his character was portrayed.  It bothers me that Stephanie Meyer sexualized a 16 year old boy. It bothers me that she forced racist, violent misogtnistic sterotypes on a 16 year old boy. It bothers me that throughout the series that Jacob has been completely against Imprinting and disgusted as it takes away free will and it bothers me that Jacob imprinted on Bella’s baby. It’s wrong morally and wrong character wise for Jacob to imprint.There shouldn’t even have been a love triangle as I always saw Bella and Jacob’s dynamic as best friends. Bella is Jacob’s a big sister figure and best friend. He should only be concerned about his oldest friend’s safety and not wanting her to be caught in the middle of a war. 

Bree is allowed to live with the Cullens.

Jacob and Leah would be together. They have a mutual relationship based on love and trust. Both of them are disgusted by imprinting. Leah screamed at Jacobafter he got crushed by that newborn is the only way she could express that she was upset he was hurt, she wasn’t actually angry. Seth is like Jacob’s little brother. Jacob and Leah deserve to find happiness in the end and not forcing one in a creepy relationship and ignoring the other completely. Jacob sides with Bella and is willing to protect her from Sam and Leah is by Jacob’s side. They stand together against the pack and Jacob challenges Sam for the pack leader. Jacob wins and commands the wolves to protect Bella and her baby. Jacob learning to accept Bella’s choices and growing as the pack leader would be Jacob’s character development and Jacob and Leah being a relationship based on choice, and mutual love would honestly be better than having hearteyes for a fucking baby 

Bella names her daughter Rose Leah Cullen. Anything is better than Renesmee and naming her after Rosalie and Leah would be a fitting tribute and not something that makes everyone go “wtf?”

Bella’s biggest concern after getting her urges under control after becoming a vampire is taking care of Rose. Not wanting to fuck. Even Kristen Stewart thinks it was ridiculous.

The final battle against the Volturi actually happens and isn’t a vision. They build up this battle against The Volturi and the  battle is actually good and gives it a lot of emotion and tension….and they fake out and make everything pointless. You have to earn a happy ending, giving us “it was a vision” was dumb and would just have Aro counter all the choices in the vision. It makes everything everyone was fighting for completely pointless. You could make it so that the Cullens, Jacob and Leah are the only survivors, their allies would mostly be dead but it was all worth  it to bring The Volturi down. Having it be a vision took away all the tension and emotion and gives everyone an undeserved happy ending.

[do-i-dazzle-you]

Edward watches her sleep and she didn't find that weird! It appropriates the bad trope of it's not creepy or stalking (or abusive, for that matter) if you're attractive. And again, BELLA HAD NO DEPTH TO HER CHARACTER. 2/2

Woah, this is like... a real one. Whoop! Alrighty *cracks nuckles* there’s a lot of points here so I’m gonna try to break them up. (the first half of the Ask is posted on my blog if anyone needs it)

1. Bella is a poorly written character. Asdfghjk They’re all poorly written, they were created by a Mormon with a vampire kink.

2. Bella has no depth. Actually... I think Bella’s depth is the only reason there are real, analytic Twilight fans. Answering from a book perspective, Smeyer might have actually done a good thing here. In order for someone to get past the first few chapters in a book (assuming no one is reading twilight as assigned literature) they have to connect with something in it. There are a lot of young adult books that focus on teenagers without any *personality* hitting the shelves right now. I’m looking at you, Quentin from Papertowns. Smeyer’s work definitely gets pegged as that “main character isn’t a real person until they meet the love interest” trope... but, at least Bella didn’t get all her personality traits from Edward. In Twilight, Bella had her own opinions and her own interests apart from Him. She liked being out in the sun because it reminded her of Arizona. she liked to read things like Great Expectations and Wuthering Heights, she enjoyed her schoolwork, and liked to be organized when it came to compiling evidence in her Hey, I think that creepy guy from Bio is actually a vampire??? file. Bella knew how to cook and really hated Edwards shiny car. She didn’t like driving fast and she found Edward’s actions incredibly disturbing. In Eclipse, Bella was very vocal about what she wanted. ((Although some of us were shaking our heads at that point)) Bella was damn well going to see Jake if she wanted to and she was damn well going to go wherever she wanted. Edward realized pretty fast that he could not control Bella and that it would be wrong for him to even consider it. Bella always had her own interests and her own opinions. Edward gave Bella a lot of crap, that’s undeniable. But, Bella gave a lot of it right back. Is every character Meyer wrote perfect, realistic, and rational? No, of course not, she’s ridiculous. Bella made some dumbass decisions and Edward did display some very problematic controlling/violent characteristics. Smeyer probably thought that made him “cute” or something. But like rant aside, just because Bella doesn’t do exactly what you do, that doesn’t make her an unrelatable or bland character. Did Smeyer try to employ the “I’m not like the other girls” trope? Absolutely. Does that mean there aren’t girls out there who read classic books and do their homework on time and roll their eyes at the Jessicas of the world? Nah. Bella? Full relatable adrenaline junky bitch thank you and goodnight.

3. There are already enough love triangles out there. You would be correct my guy.

4. The movies further the incorrect thought that women like to be fought over. So I don’t really know how it all comes over in the movies because I read the books before I watched them. (Unpopular opinion but I don’t understand people who like twilight because of the movies alone. Like don’t get me wrong I’m super glad you found something you enjoy... it just confuses me personally) But the overarching theme of twilight is that Bella does not like being fought over. She never thought of Jacob like that and never saw it as a competition. The only reason she ever told him she’d try at all was to make him feel better about hanging out with her. Because he didn’t feel like he was getting enough from their relationship. And because smeyer wanted to create her stupid love triangle. Repeatedly, Bella chose Edward. She told Jacob that. She told Edward that. She told them to stop fighting. Edward had nothing to defend and Jacob had nothing to win off him. Bella wanted them to know she wasn’t an object or a prize to be won. She hated being fought over, especially when there was no competition in the first place. Eventually, Edward realized that. Or at least pretended to, I don’t know if that’s explicitly stated. We never really know what they’re both hiding after that Eclipse tent scene 😑. Really, Smeyer just wanted them to fight like that and even get to the point in Eclipse where they treated Bella’s love like a game in order to satisfy her own need for toxic masculinity in a relationship. Yes I know what I sound like at this point in my ranting. But yeah, in response to your point, there was fighting over Bella and smeyer did see her as a prize to be won, but Bella did not -even for one second- enjoy that.

5. Bella doesn’t find it creepy that Edward watches her sleep. Yeah I don’t even have a response to that it’s just fucked up. Even in the book, Bella literally goes yeah I suppose I should find it creepy that this guy comes into my room at night. Seriously any sane person would, but for some reason I don’t. And we were all over here like BELLA. WHat. ThE. FuCk. And even now, during the Renaissance, I’ve noticed that we’re now even over here like Edward what were you thinking!?!What did Alice say?!? How did that rationalization process go in your head?!? And I personally believe it went something like this: ‘okay so I need to see her but I need to be cool about it’ ‘Edward you’re being weird’ ‘I’m a vampire if I sneak in her window she’ll never know I can just watch her then I’ll be more prepared by school tomorrow’ ‘Edward the rules of polite society still apply to you’ ‘since when?!’

So anyway I don’t know how what fantasy thing Stephanie has about men sneaking in her window and admiring her while she sleeps but

To wrap it up, I think really the difference between loving and hating twilight is the entire concept of death of the author. Sure, some people accept twilight exactly as is and see nothing wrong with that. But I think what’s so great about the Renaissance is that it’s a bunch of people who are putting their ideas out there and viewing twilight Critically. We’re using it to learn and to teach. And to make memes because we’re all just a little bit sad. We connected with those characters on some personal level and then watched as the author failed at writing them. Watched as she wrote her own characters’ personalities wrong. And then we took them away from her. And I think that’s really cool.

You too can anonymously bully me with your Twilight opinions

[nerdby]

Are you serious right now? First of all, I know what a male power fantasy is. And it's not what you think it is. A male power fantasy is a one-dimensional seemingly perfect male character with no real personality that allows the male audience to live vicariously through the character -- IE Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne. It's very popular in comic books, and if you'd watched Magic Mike you would know that the filmmakers tried very hard to make it the exact opposite of a male power fantasy.

Like I said, it's very popular in comics and that's one of the reasons why I prefer Marvel Comics to DC because a lot of what DC has put until the 2010s has been male power fantasies. Especially Batman and Superman -- Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne is the best example imo. When he waltzes in late to his own party with three gorgeous super models on his arm. That is a male power fantasy.

The dude trying to work his way out of poverty so he can found his art career and dealing with a jealous, insecure girlfriend? Not so much. Just my opinion.

I tagged this as female gaze because of faux feminist gender essentialist assholes who like to act like women can do no wrong and because they are objectified and treated like shit that gives them the right to objectify other people and treat them like shit. And it doesn't. Those women are bullying assholes with a victim complex who enable a double standard -- that it's perfectly okay for women to objectify whoever but everyone else who does it is an asshole.

Maybe these weren't the best examples, you're right. It did occur to me after I had posted this that I should have tagged the Marvel and DC and Twilight fandoms because as a nerd girl myself, I know first hand that fangirls are some of the biggest offenders.

Just ask Tom Hiddleston.

This is a video that went viral a few years ago after a fan meeting Tom after his performance in the stage play Betrayal told him that he was the reason she was a stripper.

But wait, lemme guess, that doesn't count because the Thor movies were directed by men, right? Fuck off. Obvious copout is obvious. Because those movies were consumed and enjoyed by women. Anyone with half a braincell knows that the only reason why Thor: The Dark World has a following is because of Loki being a hot emo.

And then we see Loki again here in the first season of Loki which was directed by a woman -- Kate Herron -- appearing again as fan service for a mainly female audience.

Which I know because as a queer trans person in the Loki fandom I have been torn to fucking shreds by Loki fangirls for writing queer Loki fics and pointing out that Loki himself is trans. The gatekeeping is real👌🏻

It's almost like the gender of the director, producer, whatever doesn't mean shit, right? Because at the end of the day, they just know their audience.

As was to attested by Tom's co-star Chris Hemsworth when he tried to avoid doing a shirtless scene in Thor: Ragnarok and Taika Waititi responded by telling him, "I want asses in seats."

If you want more evidence just search for Avengers x Reader fics here on Tumblr. It'll only take an hour or two to find one that isn't a smut fic.

Or we can look at contemporary literature like E.L. James's Fifty Shades Of Grey which was adapted from a bad Twilight fanfiction written BY A WOMAN and turned into a dangerously inaccurate portrayal of the BDSM lifestyle. Or the inspiration for Fifty Shades, Stephanie Meyers's Twilight saga. Do you know what Taylor Lautner is up to these days?

Getting body shamed by fans.

I don't really care if I offend anyone with post. I know that men do the exact same stupid shit. My problem is with the fact that people act like women don't. Which is a bullshit fucking lie. They body shame men for not having abs or for being fat or for having small dicks or for being trans. I've seen and experienced it myself -- I am AFAB nonbinary and spent three years on T.

If you wanna watch porn and read smut, fine. Go for it but don't fucking pretend women don't do the same exact fucked up shit men do. Don't pretend that you give a shit about mens' mental health or queer rights while you're reading yaoi manga. Which was written specifically as porn for straight women. That is its function in Japanese society.

Google it.

Just take some fucking responsibility.

Editing to add this articles about Chuck Palahniuk -- the author of Fight Club -- since people love the idea that it satirized toxic masculinity. Since art is subjective, you're free to think of it that way if you want. But Chucky definitely does NOT see it that way.

[flameclaw22]

Book Review: The Crown’s Game

Spoilers ahead!

Rating: 1 star out of 5

I'd been contemplating reading Circle of Shadows, the newest Evelyn Skye novel, but I wanted to test the waters by reading another of her books first. I found The Crown's Game on sale in the NOOK store for $1.99, so I snapped it up. In a way, I'm glad I did, because reading The Crown's Game ultimately prevented me from wasting considerably more money on Circle of Shadows.

I could use the phrase “dumpster fire” to describe this book, but that's really not fitting: Dumpster fires at least entail vaguely interesting events. The Crown’s Game is easily one of the dullest books I’ve ever read - even duller than any novel in the Twilight series. It’s no compliment to say that Stephanie Meyer did a better job world-building. Evelyn Skye exerted such negligible effort on world-building that her tale barely squeaks into the historical fantasy genre, giving more of the feel of historical fanfiction with magic tossed in for shits and giggles. The magic originates from some spring or fountain or some bullshit that apparently pays attention to arbitrary geopolitical boundaries and nationality. And excluding faith healers and a couple of magical creatures, the latter of whom are only mentioned in passing, there are only four known characters in Russia with the magic, and two of them monopolize most of it. Since both competitors possess gargantuan supplies of the magic, the result is a pair of stupidly overly-powerful heroes.

Skye is just as bad at inventing plots as she is at world-building. Expect no real action or intrigue from Crown’s Game. The game itself is nothing more than an unstructured magical pissing contest, and Skye fails to leave enough to the imagination to keep readers hooked. There’s no nefarious plot running beneath the surface, there’s no tension or suspense; it’s just a fight for who gets to be the tsar’s chief suck-up and who gets to die, and the two competitors falling in love.

The characters are breathtakingly boring. If you played the Wii Fit obstacle course game, you probably remember what a pain in the ass it was to avoid those logs, lest your Mii be comically flattened. Clearly The Crown’s Game’s characters played this game and lost spectacularly, because damn, are they dimensionally challenged. Though it’s not Vika’s fault that Pasha worshipfully describes her in a manner that is utterly vomit-inducing, it is Vika’s fault for failing to demonstrate that she is anything more than an insipid, gorgeous magical girl anime reject. She has pretty red hair with a black streak in it and can generate an entire island with her mind. She misses her dad. She’s pretty. She’s powerful. Did I mention she’s pretty? The way Vika blathers on about how attractive Nikolai is implies that she’s never seen a boy before (even though that’s probably not true). Spare me the agony.

Scarcely surpassing the sentience of a doorknob, Nikolai might as well have been a giant Russian Ken doll. His thoughts mostly consist of dreamily imagining banging Vika, hawing over not wanting to kill her, and attempting to concoct a contest-winning plan. When a woman in a semi-zombified state shows up out of the blue - alleging to be his mother, no less - Nikolai is relatively unperturbed. His strongest reaction is his revulsion over how dreadful Aizhana smells. Come on. Even if you live in a world steeped in magic, if a shambling, malodorous corpse lady appears and claims to be your dead mommy, you should shit yourself, at least a little bit. If all you can do is complain about is the foul stench, you desperately need help. When he walks into the Enchanted Hollow, a goddam cave, his thought is, “So this is why it’s called the Enchanted Hollow.” You’re a little slow on the uptake, pal. Reading this particular line evokes thoughts of that iCarly scene where Kurt, the cute but dumb (fired) intern, rides the elevator and then breathes in awe, “This is an elevator.” And really, that captures Nikolai’s essence - the hot but moronic guy who should be fired before he ruins the world. I half-expected him to pop into a scene with a plastic bag of lemonade.

Pasha isn’t much better. Like Nikolai, he too obsesses over Vika to a degree that seriously annoyed me, as a reader stuck in his head. (What I can say is that Pasha, as nauseatingly pesky as his crush-related thoughts are, isn’t a complete creep. For instance, he refrains from kissing Vika while she is asleep because he does not want to disrespect/violate her.) Unlike Nikolai, however, he exhibits some intellectual curiosity and later undergoes a considerable personality change; unfortunately, this shift is such an about-face that its effect comes off less as character development and more as a rancorous temper tantrum.

There’s little to say for the remaining characters. Renata merely serves to upgrade the love triangle to a love web. Ludmila is Vika’s plump, middle-aged sidekick, who effectively fills the role of a lame-ass Molly Weasley: a source of tasty baked goodies and motherly love, minus the tough fierceness that makes Molly so endearing. Pasha’s sister, Yuliana, functions as the impetus behind the Crown’s Game, urging her father to commence the contest, but Tsar Alexander is such an unpleasant dickbag that no other scapegoat for starting the game is truly required, rendering Yuliana obsolete. At virtually every given opportunity, he goes out of his way to be rude, condescending, or snappish. During his spiel about the rules of the game, Vika interrupts him as respectfully as possible to inquire about why one Enchanter must die at the end of the game, and Alexander acts as if she’s expressed the desire to hit him in the testicles repeatedly with a large stick. He can’t even muster the patience or sympathy to answer a valid question posed by a competitor - a teenager, mind you - in a fatal contest to be the tsar’s magical toady. When Vika arrives at the ball in her fabulous dress, the tsar snidely remarks that she should “take care not to become too enamored of the tsarevich” because “it will require more than a showy gown to be worthy.” Damn it, dude, she just told you that she fashioned her clothes herself. Would it kill you to just toss out some platitude or another? Honestly, I pity Tsarina Elizabeth - she deserves so much better than Alexander. Sergei’s role is just being Vika’s mentor/father figure and an eventual sacrifice; Sergei’s bitchy sister, Galina, is a fucking psychopath who forces Nikolai to kill animals that she put in his bedroom and doesn’t miss a chance to remind him of his “low birth”. And if you’re holding out for a decent villain, don’t bother: Despite being one of the more interesting characters, Aizhana is just a vengeful zombie who boasts a typhus-riddled black tongue (I kid you not), long fingernails, and a festering grudge. That’s pretty much it.

And just what the fuck is this sentence structure?! The writing is clunky, awkward, and the cause of many an eye-roll. For example: “Nikolai shook his head at the beauty of Bolshebnoie Duplo.” This is an actual sentence in a published book not written for fourth-graders. This is an actual sentence in a published book that is presumably not written by a fourth-grader. I have read and enjoyed books with similar writing flaws, but the other elements of the book compensated for them. Obviously, nothing in The Crown's Game does.

This clumsy delivery pervades the romance of the book too. In yet another nightmare sentence, Pasha gushes about this gorgeous girl (Vika), whom he spotted from a distance the other day:

“She has red hair, like the most hypnotizing part of a flickering flame, and her voice is both melodic and unflinching.”

Ew, gross, no, stop. You’re embarrassing yourself, Pasha. You heard her speak but three sentences from a distance and now you can describe her voice like that? Not only does this further paint Vika as a Mary Sue, but it also just makes Pasha look like a pompous ass. This sort of florid diction is typically reserved for Lord Byron’s poetry. And then, when Pasha hops back on the boat back to St. Petersburg, Skye writes, “He murmured, ‘Vika,’ to himself, more than once.” Oh. My. God. By this point, I can safely say that Pasha acts like Ron Weasley under the influence of Romilda Vane’s love potion. J.K. Rowling at least had the courtesy to cure Ron of his sorry state by within the chapter; Skye’s characters, on the other hand, continue this behavior throughout Crown’s Game. I can’t pick on just Pasha, not when Vika serves up internal monologues like this one:

“It was as if the attempts to kill her faded into the background, and now she saw the truth at the core of it all: Nikolai’s magic was gorgeous and powerful and... and... Her lungs faltered. Even the mere memory of his magic was so strong. And touching Nikolai, even through her gloves and his sleeve, was like being pummeled by a stampede of wild horses. No, wild unicorns. Beautiful, wild unicorns.”

He’s the other enchanter, and she’s just now figured out that he’s powerful? Also, does she want to fuck him or his magic? If you think Nikolai contributes nothing to this travesty of romance, you’re quite wrong:

“He had thought, during the mazurka, that they’d had something. Their touch had both frenzied and frozen the ballroom. Their breathing had synchronized, heatedly.”

I could find more examples but I really don’t want to, since I prefer not vomiting.

Skye spends so much time on saccharine pseudo-poetry that she skimps on meaningful interactions between characters, particularly those involved in the two pairings we the readers are supposed to choose between. One carriage ride and a ballroom dance with Vika, whom he’s only known for a couple of weeks, and he thinks he’s so in love with her that when he discovers Nikolai's identity as the second enchanter and that Nikolai is "in love" with Vika too, he feels betrayed enough to pit the two of them - his best friend and the girl he supposedly loves - against each other in a battle to the death. Nikolai and Vika's encounters consist of either one attempting to murder the other, often with a crowd of bystanders within view, or gazing longingly into each other's eyes. Although Vika does have a sweet mother-daughter scene with Ludmila, and Sergei and Galina seem to reach some kind of reconciliation before the former dies, character-to-character interactions are generally superficial and unanimated.

In the end, whether you subject yourself to the agony of reading this book is up to you. Personally, I think it might be less time-consuming to purchase a bottle of high fructose corn syrup from the grocery store, go home, and drink the entire fucker in one sitting. You'd get the same bland, over-sweet experience from whichever one you choose. As for me, I won't be reading another book of Evelyn Skye's. I've had enough literary corn syrup to last me a lifetime.

You can also read this review on my website: <https://thebookishhawk.home.blog/2019/02/25/the-crowns-game-book-review/>.

[thatgirlonstage]

@undyingdoom​ is this really a hill you want to die on

Like... YES, I concede your stance, but look the context here — that I didn’t provide only because this was a throwaway vent joke to the internet and didn’t think anyone would care enough to argue the point — is that this a line from a description of a book by another author, and this is being used to promote that author, who I don’t want to name because I don’t know her or her work and authors don’t usually write their own descriptions anyway so I don’t want to drag her into this. The way the sentence ends is “…the way that [author] has with her New York Times best-selling [title].” And like I don’t know this author, but if it were me I would be HELLA FUCKIN MAD to be compared to Stephanie goddamn Meyer with her name not even spelled right, infamous for a book series that really was really badly written and also portrayed a really horrifically abusive relationship as aspirational to a bunch of tween/young teenagers; or to Anne Rice, whose work I haven’t read personally but from what I’ve seen people who do read her work say has gone so far off the deep end of “I don’t need an editor and all criticism of me is Wrong” that her later works are borderline incomprehensible.

And I know, I know that part of this is just the business of book PR “If you like XYZ you’ll like this!” where XYZ are the absolute most mainstream and well-known names even if it’s actually a very poor comparison (witness every erotica and romance author who gets a smidge of attention from outside Romancelandia being compared to Fifty Shades despite being leagues better than E.L. James and probably having been at it longer too). But my god, it does not encourage me to pick up this book to have it compared to authors who are actually infamously pretty terrible writers.

Do they “capture my imagination”? …Sure. So did fucking Voltron. Doesn’t mean it’s not a shitshow. Someone tells me something is like Voltron, unless the comparison is explicitly “but better, oh my god so much better, it’s everything you wanted Voltron to be and it wasn’t” then I’m not touching it with a ten foot pole. Likewise Twilight.

There are so many things wrong with this sentence I don’t even know where to start I just need to fight whoever wrote it