#the story of a girl and her monster
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emachinescat · 7 months ago
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A Year in (Book) Review: My 2024 Reading Journey 📚
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#25 - Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxier
Historical Fantasy / 378 pages / published 2018 / Finished Feb. 21
One Sentence Review: This is truly one of the most beautiful books I've ever read - funny, heart-wrenching, charming, and gorgeous, Sweep blends history and fantasy into a seamless tale of love, family, and growth and change, with a perfect bittersweet ending.
Favorite Quotes
"We save ourselves by saving others."
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"Say not in grief, 'He is no more,' but live in thankfulness that he was."
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"You can't have courage without fear, any more than you can have a ray of light without shadows... Some things are frightening, and only a fool wouldn't be afraid of them... Courage is feeling fear and facing it head-on."
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"It is a quiet marvel to watch another person grow up before your eyes."
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"The Sweep had never understood how a person could sleep through the sunrise. 'It's like Heaven itself is offering you a gift you're too lazy to open."
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"I've always admired a person who can admit to not knowing something. Most people smile and nod and pretend they know everything for fear of being caught out. But those people only ensure their ignorance."
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"But if you're always looking back, you might not see what's in front of you."
My rating: 5/5
A Few More Thoughts (Spoilers):
It was a masterpiece! This book is a perfect blend of charm, humor, beauty, sadness, history, and purpose. There were times when I couldn't stop smiling, and moments that shattered my heart. Nan was a lovely protagonist, and Charlie an absolute delight. The ending was bittersweet and beautiful.
I knew next to nothing going into this book, so imagine my surprise when my favorite poet was integral to the story and the theme! I was surprised and overjoyed to see how the book was in two parts, Innocence and Experience. It was truly so beautiful to see William Blake used in this context.
This book showed me so many beautiful things! How the people we love and lose are never truly gone, and how life can be so beautiful even in the midst of hardship, how real change can happen when people take a stand against injustice, how precious and beautiful life can be, how important it is to not judge by appearances, and how often those "monsters" who seem strange or scary are not the true monsters.
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yippieitsarvensart · 7 months ago
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Lilia x monster hunter
more based off of mhs if you couldn't tell
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freaky-flawless · 7 months ago
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Headless Headmistress Bloodgood redesign!
I've been wanting to redesign her for a while, in a way that would marry the aspects from each of her designs that I like. I'm pretty happy with how she turned out!
At some point I would like to design some more Monster High teachers and staff, because no matter what gen, that school is struggling.
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godofstupidsentences · 1 year ago
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The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Suzanne Collins / Antigone, Sofocles
How do you mourn a brother you wanted dead?
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thousandyearphantombunker · 3 months ago
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"We want more morally grey/flawed female characters"
You bitches can't handle APPLE WHITE!
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like people keep saying "you couldn't even handle rose quartz" but this is even more pathetic to me. How can y'all make this kid into a monster?
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zellk · 8 months ago
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Forgot to share here.... old doodles of when I finally came around to finding a design I like for Qalaari's mom !!
#it's so fucking funny to me that i inadvertently gave her a variant of the “mom about to die” haircut because... well...#surprise... she did die when Qalaa was young (12) :'^)#Qalaa (now between 20 and 22) still hasn't gotten over it#her mom had really weak health and really shouldn't have had a child but she made her choice#it turned out to be not the best one for her health LMAO#who wouldve thunk#but hey she wanted it and i'm pretty sure she doesn't regret it#but well... Qalaa does feel like she was a participant in her mom's death#(the other participant being her biological father who ran away before she was born and shattered aamira's heart)#ANYWAYS#i love qalaa's messed up familly#it's like a regular messed up story where actually no one (and everyone) is to blame (except Qalaa lmao she asked for NOTHING)#Aaamira gave so so much love to her child ;;;;;; this built the unbreakable core of Qalaa's kindness#aamira#aamira croquelune#aamira molandine#croquelune#still thinking about making that potentiel small DnD 'lore addon' of Qalaa's village that you can take and plug in your very own campaign#as long as you have 'far from civilization' woods or mountains you can put them in there#a village that welcomes the 'monsters' and the cast out#(like aamira)#look at me rambling in the tags lmao i just love qalaari (& her background) so much#last thing tho : you have to understand that Aamira is small and very slight and Qalaari was a HUGE baby and is a really big girl overall
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madame-mongoose · 2 years ago
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That welcome home thing reminded me of my own character I made a few years ago named Hayley
She's a little 7yo scarecrow kid who would feature in books for little kids!! While a lot of her stories have that Halloween/fall vibes it's not a horror and very based on vibes similar to The Great Pumpkin, Casper, Scary Godmother, Ruby Gloom, and other cutesy Halloween media for kids!!!
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iguessitsjustme · 3 months ago
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I love Monster Next Door but they are not going to make me feel sorry for Jane. I mean it's obvious that those girls aren't actually her friends but they also aren't wrong. But she hasn't done any self reflection and she has been nothing but cruel to Diew. I'm glad he stood up for himself and he unintentionally really hit her where it hurt.
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beaulesbian · 1 year ago
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It's time to rewrite this story.
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c1trvswurld · 28 days ago
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Finally glad the mouthwashing fandom-at least on here- is finally coming around to see the idea that neither curly or jimmy are completely innocent nor should be babied or completely villainized because to do that you'd need to *checks notes*
Completely ignore how mouthwashing is a story of how systems of abuse are kept in power. Particularly rape culture and the patriarchy that encourages these actions while also encouraging bystander effect from other men close to predators...which is all encouraged under a system like capitalism.
Idk read more of tha rant in tags I got carried away I fear.
#its all interchanging systems babe#if i see another post babying curly#or removing any amount of humanity from jimmy#im going to assume you simply dont want to interact with the meat of the game#you just looked at overall plot points and story beats with a glance and refused to give this wonderful game its flowers#stop turning these complex character into one dimensional things you can comodify like prepackaged food#this also heavily includes anya and the weird way you guys also baby her#shes a grown woman...a tramatized one yeah? but a grown woman who should be treated decently#not just spme one note preformative doll you wave around in order to comfort and baby curly or to shit on jimmy in the most ooc way possible#same with swansea#my goodness#mouthwashing#seriously ik fandom always does this but mouthwashing tumblr somehow impressed me?#with how much they could miss themes and intricacies for their preformative turn to the camera so they can say#“grrr this character bad and is monster lets throw a bunch of cluster b disorders at them and remove any character to prove a point ”#“wow this character is completely absolved from his actions and is too innocent to be deeply analyzed...#lets give him a playtoy supporting female character to dote on him and loft him up despite her own trauma!“#rant#im sorry its just soo annoying#usually im a “do everything you want forever” type girl#but its seeing the fandoms hypocrisy in jow they treat charscters like jimmy and curly and swansea that makes me realize#media literacy is soooo down hill.#quick give me a 500 word essay on why you think *shittiest take ever* is acceptable!
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cassandralexxx · 1 month ago
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This is kind of a random thought but I think it’s interesting how skm is far more popular through its young adventurers edition than the adult format of the play. Like every post I see on this platform has both Tilly and Agnes as high schoolers. Even though  Agnes is still the older sister they are closer in age. It’s interesting because with this small of an age gap it’s a different kind of sadness in Tilly’s death. A certain devastation in that they were so close yet so far from one another, like there is the real possibility that they could have been friends.
The version of the play I watched was a college production. With this Tilly was more the Kid Sister than a Younger Sister like in the young adventurers version. Agnes was a teacher at the school as opposed to being a cheerleader. I think this leads to a different perspective on grief in the story.
I feel the young adventurers version mourns a past, where you’re grasping at a relationship of what could have been. “Why didn’t you tell me” it’s about the wishing for a part of the relationship that was possible if only life was different.
The Adult version of the play mourns the future. It is not just who they are now but your hopes of the future with them. That what if.
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yellowocaballero · 5 months ago
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hi! i've been reading some of your older fics and was wondering if there's any merit in watching buffy for the first time in the year 2024
This may not be obvious, but this is actually an extremely complicated and highly subjective question. I'll try to go on for too long.
As background: my mother loved Buffy and its spin-off Angel growing up. It was our Bible (besides the actual Bible). Not kidding, she was on the forums and fan groups and wrote fanfiction for it and everything (These days, she's really into kdramas and Asian dramas, and calls me about how the Thai seem like big fans of gay people). So I'm quite biased.
BTVS is both a product of its times and ahead of its times. It was a show about feminism and the struggle of living in this world as a woman, when very few shows were doing that. It was the first show to have a long-lasting lesbian couple, and the first show to depict a kiss between them. For better or for worse, it was one of the codifiers of broody vampire boyfriend. It was pretty unafraid to be experimental in a lot of what it did. It had incredibly complex and nuanced character work and growth that I still aspire to. Spike's arc is still matched in quality only by Avatar's Zuko. Angel's long term arc, from Buffy to his spin-off series, still makes him one of the most complex characters on TV. It had the most complex depiction of depression on TV at the time and I still think it's one of the best. I think the show had very high highs.
It also had very low lows. Some of the feminism is problematic in retrospect. The sapphic couple has a rather famous element that was severely problematic. There are, overall, some deeply atrocious arcs that I can appreciate objectively but not in practice. Xander: a whole-ass character aged awfully. On a meta level, the workplace conditions were bad (thanks, Whedon.) There are no people of color. The spoiler's sake I won't go into detail on this, but in general the good stuff was so influential and the bad stuff was just awful.
I think these days people tend to brush off the entire thing because it's Whedon. That is more than fair. But I'd also say that Whedon & Buffy is extremely similar to Brian Michael Bendis & Ultimate Spider-Man. Bendis was fantastic at writing sassy, bouncy, permanently stressed-out teens - issue was, he wrote entirely different serious adult characters the way he wrote these sassy teens. Same with Whedon: the annoyingly constant quips are perfect for Buffy, because that's who the characters are. They're awful in Marvel, because Steve Rogers is not Xander. Kinda similarly, Buffy was genuinely feminist for 90s TV - issue is, Whedon has not grown or developed his views, and now his works feel so sexist (oh my fucking god why did you treat Natasha like that). After a certain point it's egotistical: you're writing like that because you're Joss Whedon and it's how you write, not because it's what's best for the characters and story. But it was really important to me to get the character voices right, and it's freaking difficult to endlessly write dialogue that distinct, full of voice, witty, and clever.
I think BTVS & Angel TV's greatest influence on my writing is how intensely character-driven both of those shows were, and how intricate the characters were. What every character did was something they would do, if that made sense. Even the stuff I hated to watch, that made me uncomfortable, was the culmination of so much (usually). I think I also picked up the constant wit and humor lol. On a personal level, the conversations I would have with my mother where she broke down the character motivations and composition of the story was my first exposure to looking at storytelling from an analytical perspective and a framework of critical analysis, which was an approach I carried into the rest of the media I consumed and that was the primary reason I was able to become a decent writer. Thanks, Mom. Have fun with your kdramas.
TL:DR: There is merit, especially if you care about good character work. There are things about it that may make you want to drop it, which is extremely valid. Season 1 is rough but interesting, Season 2 and 5 are the best, Season 3 is pretty good, Season 4 and 7 skippable, and Season 6 is........epic highs, epic lows......
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aroaessidhe · 2 months ago
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2024 reads / storygraph
The Sapling Cage
YA fantasy, start of a trilogy
a trans girl and her friend swap places so she can join the coven of witches who wander the land instead of becoming a knight
as they travel and she starts to learn from them, while hoping she’s not found out , they uncover a corrupt magical blight that threatens to become a civil war
bi demi MC
#The Sapling Cage#aroaessidhe 2024 reads#I enjoyed this! it’s a pretty classic fantasy setting out into the world#+ group of teens save the kingdom from power hungry adults from both factions kind of story.#There’s some very cool creatures and monsters and I hope we see a lot more of that as the series continues!#I like how it takes quite a classic fantasy setting/narrative but puts some weird and interesting details in there#I liked her journey of questioning whether she actually wants to change her body#or whether that’s just out of fear/pressure and she’s a girl either way.#I thought the prose was okay. sometimes it felt like things were glossed over and a lot of the character and relationship#(all kinds) development is a bit telling not showing - I didn’t get a really solid sense of the friendships or developing crush she has.#the bullying subplots especially felt a little underdeveloped? they’re just suddenly cool with each other.#also the adult saying she didn’t step in because that would escalate things is an odd choice#…..checking now this is not actually marketed as YA. I think if I read this thinking it was an adult book I would be a bit harsher.#I read it with a YA mindset and imo the teen characters; coming of age themes; the straightforward worldbuilding/narrative#and writing all feel very YA (not a bad thing!)#Overall though I liked a lot! I’ll continue the series#it’s sapphic (possible developing relationship though who knows where that will go) and also there’s an aroace side character#sapphic books#trans books#demisexual books#aroace books
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pinkfey · 15 days ago
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i may be obsessed.
#her name is tenka but everyone calls her brandy#(warden nickname she earned in her early days due her unbreakable record of being able to drink ANYONE under the table)#her mother was banished from orzammar when she fell pregnant with her (long story very sad and dramatic and lowkey personal)#and while she was pregnant she was cared for and eventually fell in love with a gentle blacksmith from a small ferelden village#who her mother married (taking his surname) and who raised tenka as his daughter#she was a young child during the fifth blight and their village survived unscathed w the exception of some food shortages and trade issues#nothing life shattering#but she had heard of the darkspawn from her mother's stories about their family's history and they were her boogeymen#her monsters under the bed#but her parents reminded her she's smaller than all the other children and that's her strength. she's brilliant at hide and seek.#the darkspawn didn't come during the apex of the fifth blight but after#some lone grey warden had been staying at the inn that weekend. said something about looking for someone#now when the darkspawn came tenka Hid. her father was outside. her mother had already gone to the market. it was still morning#they said they wouldn't get in the house. it got very loud and then very quiet. and they got in.#she burst from the cupboard and ran to her father's smithy but she was only a child and when a darkspawn axe raked her back she collapsed#into the rack of blades she had been reaching for. these were her monsters and she was bleeding so much and her parents were missing#and she was so scared so so so scared. between fight and flight it was always flight and she had nowhere left to fly to#another graze of the blade across her chest as she scampered back made her scream and that's when she saw rowena#her uncles and cousins from her mother's stories never felt like heroes due to what they did to her mother but when she saw rowena hack#down her monsters piercing through them valiantly like light through the crack in her dark bedroom door#with her mother and father right behind completely safe and sobbing and relieved and Alive#she had never looked up to someone more#see rowena got a lot of things wrong but brandy is exactly what she got right#only two villagers died. farmers. it had been but a small darkspawn raid. but she saved a girl. saved a family. saved a town.#rowena stayed in town while tenka recovered (most likely to ensure she didn't contract the blight) and tenka adored her every move#she knows nothing of rowena's struggles. knows nothing of rowena's missteps. nothing of the constant reminder of mortality in her head#just that she's her hero. just that she wants to be exactly like her.#she joined the wardens young with a kiss to her parents goodbye and never looked back even when it turned out to be harder#in ways she'd never imagined. but she was immovable. a force of will. she was dauntless and daring and it was her idolization of rowena#that inspired her and kept her going. where other wardens cracked no amount of hardship could break her. it was almost Smug
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forcedhesitation · 6 months ago
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why should it just be steve who has all the torturous purgatory realm fun?
#dbd#myart#wip#quick clarification for those only familiar with the american version of ringu: sadako is 19.#anyway. I love that dbd lets me explore steve and nancy's characters outside the bullshit that the show is.#because the whole steve and nancy dynamic is Interesting. but the dustbags are plagued by cerebral hetrot so that story never GOES anywhere#it's just the “Waaaah love triangle OMG!!! will they? won't they?” crap. idk man. idc. why're these dumbasses breathing in Upside down air?#some people here have seen lucy before-- he is the ghostface pictured. and he's an OC. different person entirely from danny.#I won't explain his full lore here but-- he was a drag queen before the fog who started out by only killing those who he felt deserved it.#his entire persona satirises catholicism and he calls himself “the holy ghost” rather than ghostface. the entity made him an actual devil.#he's obsessed with steve because he LIVES his own role so he sees steve as his heroic opposite or some fucked up gay shit like that.#he's clutching kate's heart because if he were a real character in the game-- he'd have two moris.#one standard... and one for if a steve is present in the lobby. the second would involve him carving out the heart of a survivor as a gift.#he never harms steve though-- so it makes steve's penchant for self-sacrifice pointless.#steve instead has to do what he can to open the gates as fast as possible-- or watch everyone else die! :)#as for the toxic yuri-- it occurred to me that sadako's backstory bears some striking similarities to barb's story.#as soon as I realised this-- it was like I had suddenly gained the ability to see a new colour I could not see before.#sadako wanting to torment nancy as sick revenge for what happened to her but using barb's death as justification for this...#...nancy being unable to escape the ghost of barb... even in this hell dimension full of terrifying monsters--#it is still the memory of the girl she feels she “let” die in steve's pool that scares and hurts her the most.#not to mention that sadako's powers are reminiscent of how the upside down related fuckery appears...#the screwy technology. the telekinesis.#I just REALLY love seeing characters be forced to confront difficult parts of themselves even if that shit REALLY hurts.#dbd makes it so easy to do that to any given character. of course this goes both ways too-- it'd force lucy & sadako to change too.#which opens the door for torment on their end too because killers who disobey the entity are tortured into obeying.#a rock and a hard place on both ends. and that is Exactly how I like it. intense. complicated-- a puzzle to be solved.
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jennycalendar · 2 years ago
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so have had a couple conversations with people about dawn that have made me think that maybe my take on dawn is worth bringing to the table! it's best framed by my convo with my mom, who was expressing general dawn frustration -- not just with dawn's characterization, but more specifically with the retcon in. and dawn's characterization, as we all know, is very "baby teenage girl" + "was originally written as younger than fourteen," so that's a straightforward explanation, but the retcon to me has always felt emblematic of dawn's status in the narrative as buffy's childhood innocence.
dawn is buffy. she's a part of buffy. the show emphasizes this in season five: that to buffy, dawn feels like more than just a sister and therefore more vital to protect. i've seen this framed as dawn being sort of like buffy's spiritual daughter, but i think that's a little off base: dawn is buffy's innocence, her girlhood, personified. she shows up in season five because if we're charting buffy's emotional journey, season five is the season where buffy feels like she is calcifying and becoming unfeeling because of everything that she's been through -- so of course this is the season where dawn springs into being but simultaneously Has Always Been There! buffy has reached a point of emotional distress so severe that the little girl in her has sprung away and out of reach, becoming a literal other person who is somehow always getting into trouble and causing problems. dawn is this little girl. dawn is a part of buffy.
and this contextualizes EVERYTHING that buffy goes through this season re: dawn. everyone in the entire world is bearing down on her girlhood, and it is her responsibility as the slayer to kill it. like from a pragmatic standpoint, killing dawn would (as giles points out) solve the big-picture problem, because killing dawn means that glory no longer has access to this Exploitable Thing that will allow her to end the world. killing dawn is also what the knights of byzantium are trying to do, and they're presented as just as much of an obstacle as glory, despite having the fate of the world in mind as well. she is posed with this essential choice, and it is so horrifying to her that the penultimate episode shows her literally retreating into her mind, playing over and over all of these moments where she was told it's her responsibility to protect this vital part of her, and the one moment she entertained the notion of just Giving Up. just Letting That Part Die.
which in turn makes her choice at the VERY end of the season so heartbreaking -- she is posed with this question and she chooses, instead, to die. she does not want to let go of her innocence. she does not want to live in a world where she has been forced to kill that part of herself, and so she tries to kill herself instead.
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