#thinking on it. the only light novel series i was able to finish was

[kitsquared]

In a big nostalgia run again

What if i try to reread the durara.ra light novel series again?

.. jk this one is actually hard ive been saying this one for years but it's hard to get back into that plot and 100 characters to remember

[mimiaguilar-bansheebender]

When Jinshi finally presents MaoMao as his bride (he’s too invested to leave her as just a concubine) i would love that some more time has passed and she has had time to prove herself as a great physician’s assistant (maybe the first girl doctor a girl can dream).

Also i think it would be hilarious if the 3 princesses prepared her for the presentation and with all the makeup and a tad more grown up she looks even more like Fengxian and Lakan is a happy tearful fox cause his beautiful and intelligent wife lives on in their daughter 🥲

Also! Read my rambles about what i think the best ending for the series would be:

i think the best ending would be something like yeah they're still solving mysteries and being consulted till the end of their days. Like sure, she might get kidnapped/hurt once or twice every couple of years, but also people now know she is LaKan's daughter and KaZuigetsu's favourite so the instances have reduced significantly.

I also think that MaoMao is super necessary for Jinshi cause he would def be at an early grave without her. she needs to balance him and whack him in the head for him to take breaks and take care of himself; alternatively she also needs him to stop her from playing with smth like quicksilver, so they're even.

they can't have a happily ever after. it is not realistic with the times and with the life they lead. they can only have a fulfilling life next to each other, supporting the work they both do because they both know how much value what the other one does actually has. A key part of their partnership is that they definitely admire each other in that point! They're both extremely hardworking individuals with amazing gifts that have had to develop masks for their own safety, but they're also inherently very good people that will run themselves ragged for other and the greater good, to imagine them riding into the sunset and getting a cabin to bake bread and live lovey dovey lives would be a disservice to them.

So imagine my surprise when the author said they want to give an ending that portrayed a (life goes on) vibe and people rioted on reddit (???) like thay is such a weird thing. How can you read on and on a again about MaoMao getting happy and liking the palace life (specifically the impact and help she can provide) to the point she wanted to beg not to be fired WAAAAY at the beginning; or about Jinshi running himself ragged to the point of extreme exhaustion, weight loss and passing out from sheer fatigue, just trying to fix and help the nation. To read them all reminiscence after wards like, we were dumb dumbs but we helped a lot of people, cue happy faces and think; yeah they def need to ride into the sunset! (like ???) These babies thrive of the work they do, to cut them off is to make them feel like their worth is diminished.

Is not that they like being recognized by their work, but they like the value their work gives their life and more importantly; they like to actively make the country and the palace a better place.

So when the time comes for the light novels to finish the only thing i wanna see is LaKan being a happy mess, cause his baby girl made it.

She is what Fengxian's life should've looked like in the best scenario. Had circumstances been different for them both, he would've come back and been able to buy her out and then she would've been the menace she was meant to be as the La Lady. But again, the time and the life they both led did not allow for that. Am i saying that they would've a fairytale life if he had been able to buy her? No! Let's remember most people either fear him or want him out of the way, they is no way to guarantee no one would've plotted against her or against baby MaoMao. They had a Happy-ish ending, where she knew she had been loved and he would never look at anyone but her, but she was already weak, sick and did not live long.

So MaoMao climbing ranks as rapidly as she did (let's remember she started out as a mere servant girl and Jinshi has been pushing to even the field since he made her take that first exam) LaKan will just see a small what if. Cause to him, Fengxian lives through their baby, she is every bit as cunning and beautiful, and while they were robbed of time and a better outcome by the times and his blindness, their baby just might make it.

He will make sure she can have a happier life than him or her Mom had, because the circumstances of their romance robbed her of a happy childhood, but also made her the woman she is today.

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

When I wrote about this part during the book club, I talked about how this romance made me feel hopeful and brought me so much joy. And watching this part of the series, I had the advantage of knowing how it all ends, and yet, the way this romance is built, it's almost as if I was expecting a different ending. Cause I felt the same sense of joy watching these two people come together, and I'm sure a small part of my brain was hanging on to the idea that it would be different this time. As if somehow this Young and this Gyu-ho were completely different people and so their story would have a different ending. Foolish, I know, but it's a testament to this show, that I got to be so enamoured with this romance knowing the pain that would follow.

I remember being a wreck when I finished this part of the novel. I felt Young was being so much more honest about himself that he had ever been in previous chapters. But this time I was overwhelmed. The reason of course being, Gyu-ho. There he was. A full person. Not just a recollection of moments told to us by Young, in his words. I could see his smile, the way he looked at Young, the way he slept, the way he brought so much light into Young's life, the way he tried just so damn hard to break through the wall Young had built around himself.

And for a while, he found a way in. Young allowed himself to be open, to be vulnerable with this person. Showing him parts of himself he didn't allow others to see. And what a beautifully normal romance this was. And we were allowed to see all parts too.

I have no doubt Young loved Gyu-ho fully. And if only he loved himself a small fraction of that, anything would've been possible. He doesn't believe he deserves this kind of happiness, and wouldn't even think of fighting for it. 'I'd been too greedy' - Young says when he realizes he won't be able to go to China because of Kylie. Like a sign from the universe, saying, that's enough. As if he'd been living in some alternate reality where he was allowed a small moment of happiness but now reality comes crashing in. And he simply sighs. Like it was somehow expected. So he doesn't fight it. He simply accepts it and does what he needs to do. Don't get me wrong. I'm not condemning him. Nor am I judging the way he chose to handle all of this. I understand it all. But, I wish he was kinder to himself. I wish he could see himself through Gyu-ho's eyes just for a second. And maybe believe that they could find a way.

[staytinyville]

OUTLAW (47)

ATEEZ poly!ot8 x Reader

Cowboy AU / Wild West

Series Masterlist

Warning: none

A/N NOT BETA READ. We have only two more chapters left of this arc! After that I might be taking a break for a bit. Not only to focus on some original novels I have planned but to also have a few chapters ready for you all to read. Cause this having to write chapters the day of updating--hate it lol.

It was a quick affair for when someone had come in to take away Hendricks. He struggled for a moment but after Wooyoung got annoyed with the man’s shouting and fighting, he was quick to shove a rag into the man’s mouth. Seeing as he was cuffed, Hendricks was only able to huff and puff into the fabric. 

When you turned back around to face Klein you watched as he was looking over the papers once more. He had a somber look on his face, one of regret as he sighed at each word that seemed to process into his head. 

“I'd like to thank you for bringing this to my attention.” Klein said, not meeting any of your eyes. 

“You don't seem like it.” Hongjoong raised his brows, crossing his arms as he stood in front of the man. 

“You're still criminals in the eyes of the public.” Klein finally looked up, sighing to himself as his eyes skimmed over all nine of you. 

“We understand.” You spoke up. “You're a respectable man who has a city to protect.”

You watched as Klein suddenly thought about the entire town, going back to clenching his jaw as he began to think lowly of himself. It was a tough job to take on, especially for a town that was the second most populated. You were never going to be able to make everyone happy, but you were able to make the world a better place. At least in your own image.

Your family had always supported Klein–a vast majority of the town did–so he must have felt a heavy pressure on his shoulders knowing that he was close to putting all of them in danger. There aren't many people you are able to trust when it comes to positions in office, especially not with times growing more and more. People were getting greedy as things began to change, which led to problems. But that shouldn’t stop the few who were trying to keep things at peace from doing what they must. 

While Klein had the right intentions–wanting to see Cromer grow into a modern city–he didn’t realize he would fall into a pit of snakes. Human era was inevitable. You were just glad to have stopped everything before it got too far. 

“Will you leave soon?” Klein asked. 

“We have a mission to finish.” Yunho explained. “This was only a side quest.” He chuckled.

Klein huffed a little laugh, pressing his lips together. “This drug.” He asked, tapping on the papers and envelopes. “What happens if it gets out?”

“The world falls.” Seonghwa answered. “It becomes baron of the joys we see everyday.”

“We've seen what it could do.” Jongho called from the back of the group. “It's not something this world should suffer from.”

“Why hasn't Aurora done anything then?” Klein shook his head, not understanding the whole thing. 

“They don't have evidence to prove corruption yet.” Hongjoong told the mayor. “That's what we've been trying to do for the past couple of years.”

The man took a moment to gather his thoughts before moving to grab the things from his desk. “Here.” Klein began to gather all the papers between Quaid and Hendricks, handing them over to you. “Take these then.” He told you.

“What about Quaid?” Mingi asked.

“I've already sent people after him.” Klein answered the boy. “We'll take care of him here in Cromer seeing as it's my jurisdiction.” He turned to look at you, giving you a thankful bow of his head. “Should anything else come to light though, I'll be sure to send word to you.”

“Thank you, Mayor Klein.” You smiled in thanks. 

You watched as he suddenly clapped his hands, rubbing them together. He gave you all a raise of his brow, pursing his lips. “You've all committed crimes that should be punishable but it seems to me you're all hard to catch.”

All of you suddenly looked at him oddly, frowning a bit at his words. You were a bit worried that Klein would somehow punish the boys for all they had done, but as you registered the rest of his sentence you concluded that wasn’t going to be the case. 

“You're letting us go?” You said, being the first to realize what it was he meant. 

“If what you say is true about this drug, then it seems we have a common enemy.” Klein nodded to himself. “I have a city full of people to keep safe. It's what I signed up for as mayor of Cromer.” He took a breath, coming to a stand. “I'll tell the city it wasn't you who stole the money.”

“Tell them you had money left over.” Hongjoong suggested. “You'll be seen as the hero again.”

“As much as one would love to take credit for that, I could not.” Klein shook his head. “I was going to send that money somewhere terrible. I could never live with myself had you not taken it.”

Your shoulders dropped at the man’s convention. He was right in thinking a majority of people would have loved to take the glory and credit for saving the town, but Klein wasn’t a majority of people. He was someone selfless who took care of others first. It was something each of the boys were quick to realize after speaking with him more. 

At least by what you could tell from the looks on their faces. 

“What will you say then?” Wooyoung asked. 

“The truth.” Klein spoke up, smiling as he thought it over. “ATEEZ were the ones who took the money.” He smiled, watching as the boys all gave him skeptical looks. 

“They have never seen your faces.” The mayor added. “I don’t believe they will suspect 8 handsome, young men who work for one of Cromer’s hotels. Unless you have warranted for people to think that.” Klein joked. 

The boys all looked at each other for a moment, humming in thought as they pondered on what they had all done so far in your town. “They haven’t.” You answered for them, sending them looks that called for them to behave. 

You turned back to Klein, bowing your head and giving him a smile. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Klein nodded his head, giving you a kind smile as well. 

Just as the boys all turned one by one to leave the office, you suddenly gasped, stopping to turn back around. “One more thing!” You called back.

“Yes?” Klein answered. 

“My father.” You began. “He's kind of in jail at the moment.”

Klein laughed, nodding in understandment. “I'll have him released, don't worry.”

“Thank you, Mayor.” You bowed one more time, turning to Hongjoong who waited closer to you.

“Be careful on your mission.” Klein called out before you all left the door. “It doesn't seem easy.” He added. 

You watched as the boys gave each other knowing looks again, Hongjoong sighing as he bowed his head. “It never is.”

Series Masterlist

@thefrog3223 , @iarayara , @0rangemilk , @explorewithd , @detectivedoodle , @bangtanxberm , @a1i33a , @loveforred , @drunken-deitence , @0325tiny , @the-ghostest-with-the-mostest , @atinyreads , @atinytinaa , @lexiigom , @smilingtokki , @mismatchfluffysocks , @brain-empty-only-draken , @sousydive , @alex-tinyy , @h3arteyes4mingi , @onedumbho3 , @popcatx0 , @blue1amory , @mommahwa1117 , @sunnyhokyu , @cloudieclair , @puppyminnnie

[oscargender]

Fucking can't believe I check tumblr at random one day after completely revamping my follow list and blog, and I discover someone who not only loves the Rose of Versailles, but is currently reading Golden Witchbreed. I was familiar with the author from reading one of her novels a couple of years back and enjoying it, picked GW up from an antique store at the start of this year, read it over the course of a few weeks then stayed up until 2am to finish it. Promptly bought the sequel and spent every spare moment over the next two days reading it. I'm fascinated by the worldbuilding and culture, and I love most of the characters. No spoilers because I don't know how far through you are, but for me the friendship between Christie and Ruric is the heart of the story. Am looking forward to seeing what you think of the rest of the book, and the sequel! (btw sequel is available on kindle- it's called ancient light.) Also I agree with most of your thoughts on the RoV movie, but that's for a separate ask.

OH MY GOD???? I think we’re destined to be friends forever (we would find each other in any timeline, etc etc) because what are the odds?? I picked up Golden Witchbreed at a used bookstore on a complete random whim—the author’s name caught my eye because the username I use for most sites has the word “gently” in it lmao, and then the reviews comparing it to TLHoD convinced me to get it. I finished it literally yesterday (another sign of our intertwined fates IMO 😂) and I am 100% going to track down the sequel ASAP.

Overall, I thought it was fine! Not my favorite book I’ve ever read, but I liked it enough to finish it and still feel interested in the sequel. There were parts of it that I really enjoyed (Ruric and Christie’s relationship, as you mentioned), and I immediately become obsessed with any older piece of scifantasy that fucks with gender and/or sexuality (which I imagine is at least partly why we’re both #RoVPilled and also fascinated by Golden Witchbreed). I also kind of love Christie as a character??? She’s hauntingly relatable to me. The way that she navigates social situations and got obsessed with Ruric right away… all I’m going to say is that if I were 14 when I read this book, I would be kinning the fuck out of Christie. I haven’t connected so deeply with a character in a really, really long time.

On the other hand, I didn’t like how many characters there were to keep track of (even with a character guide, I still didn’t have a great sense for the side characters’ personalities by the end, and I was constantly forgetting that Dalzielle/Suthafiori/the Crown were the same person 😭), and I thought it was CRAZY how fast the narrative moved on after giving all of her memories to the Hexenmeister???? The intimacy of that as a concept is staggering to me, and I think it’s wild that Christie just picks up, moves on, and is able to live her life without constantly ruminating on the connection she has with him (and every single Hexenmiester that will follow him until their line goes extinct). I feel like there’s more more for me to unpack/understand about the book’s themes wrt memory and ancestral continuity, since those are things I didn’t really pay much attention to this time around—I was too focused on all the gender going on 😂 I think I’ll probably end up rereading it at some point now that I have most of the characters straightened out in my head so I can pay more attention to everything else going on.

I’m still absolutely GOBSMACKED that you found my blog lmao. We’re probably the only two people on tumblr who have read/watched both RoV and Golden Witchbreed, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration (unless someone else wants to sound off in the notes of this post??). I will 100% hit you up when I finish Ancient Light, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the series as well!! I never thought I’d get to discuss this book with someone 🥺 let alone someone who shares the RoV mind virus????

[pinehutch]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤

Thank you for tagging me!

I should be honest: I am not much of a fic writer. This isn't self-effacing; I've been reading fic since the early aughts but only have 10 works on ao3. One of them is a poem. One of them is a few hundred words of something I've never finished.

That said, fic is important to me for a lot of reasons, but one is that in 2016 I started following a tumblr for a Dragon Age fic exchange, and in 2017 I wrote the first fiction I'd written in almost 20 years. I had been struggling to write poetry for about 10 years before that, too, and fic writing was part of my path back to writing at all.

This isn't to say that I think fanfic is valueless unless it results in 'original' writing; every story happens in context, and we all know how the lines between fanwork and original work blur, both in fan spaces and in commercial ones. But my particular, personal fondness for fic is because it gave me a path back to the first best thing of my life, which was language, and what we do with it.

With that said, my personal top five (links in titles):

Fundamental Forces (or, Root Causes)

Literally my first fic. This was when I remembered that writing can be fun. It's Dragon Age fic, femHawke/Varric. It's also written with a focus on Hawke's POV, a thing I think I pulled off quite well and have never attempted again. It's very silly. It features a 40-year-old and a 35-year-old being profoundly bad at emotional honesty. I riff on turnips for a while. It has a happy ending, which should surprise no one.

She breathed in through her nose and her eyes fluttered shut. “Kiss me, you idiot. Before they think I’m horrified.” Their first kiss. Quick and mostly chaste and part of a joke. She thought it was fitting.

Chapter Last

This is also T-rated Hawke/Varric, written for the same exchange, a year later. It's about near-misses, and trying again, and not being able to pick up where you left off, and it's stumbling back onto the path later, unexpectedly, and after having found another way. It is about stories, and why we do them.

It's fic of the games, of course, but in a way it's also fic-of-fic: there's a novella that's both a tie-in novel and a diegetic book in the Dragon Age setting, and it was printed irl the summer before I wrote this fic.

What I'm proud of, with this story, is character voice. Whenever I share any Varric-voice writing, even years later, people always say very generous things. Varric's also a writer, canonically, and I had fun mimicking 'his' style in passages of this, and trying to keep in mind how his writing and his inner narration would align and diverge. (Lots of Dragon Age fans are understandably thirsty about Varric; I think I've always found him relatable, in many ways, and it didn't occur to me to thirst. But I love him.)

I don't love the structure; I chaptered this, and way more than I needed to. I'd love to rewrite it, someday, but I also think it's good for me to sit with the awareness of its imperfections and the knowledge that people have loved it anyway.

Afterimage (there are two colours)

The Magnus Archives fic, E-rated. Basira/Daisy. This was meant to be a single installment in a series - I think I have a 20,000 word 'outline' in my gdocs, still, but I'm unlikely to ever finish it. The point of this story is self-indulgent, purple-prose, dreamy smut. Wanting the thing and having it, but not keeping it.

This was baby's first E-rated fic ever written. I have no explanation for this, either.

Transformative Work

Written for the 2022 OFMD Big Bang with @mia-ugly. Mostly Frenchie/Jim, a bit Jim/Oluwande, a bit Frenchie/Oluwande, a light sprinkling of polycule potential.

Transformative Work is my favourite thing I've posted to ao3 for three reasons.

It's 40k! I never finish longer works, so 40k is a big deal to me.

I think it's actually brilliant. Clever as hell, at minimum. But mostly brilliant.

It's collaborative!

Writing has always been a solitary thing for me; one of the things I love about Mia is how we can get on a wavelength about a story. (This is mostly a them trick: they're an excellent collaborator and instigator, in general.) I wasn't at my best when we were writing this, dealing with undiagnosed health issues and workplace burnout and an accumulation of grief, but it was beautiful and joyful work, in the end.

Also, I think it is almost exactly what we wanted it to be, and that is such a high.

Number 5 is a bit of a cop-out but still:

Remember when I said "we all know how the lines between fanwork and original work blur"? This is a poem I started writing when Succession 4.3, "Connor's Wedding" aired. I was in a worst spot than I had been the previous year, health-wise, grief-wise.

The title of this poem, "My Father's Dead and I Feel Old," comes out of Connor Roy's mouth in the episode. I had to pause the episode and just get pummeled by that perfect, simple line of iambs. I was a wreck, just generally. Yeah, man, my father is dead and I do feel old! That sort of thing. (The aforementioned health issue? Still not identified or addressed when this aired in spring 2023, btw. My brain was not braining well.)

But there were words for it. I was off work on medical leave at the time. I had just made the transition from crying like it was a full-time job to sleeping like it was a full-time job. The sleep wasn't helping. The crying hadn't helped, either. It wasn't something people could help. But words, and what we do with them - that helped.

Anyway, I'm actually quite proud of this poem, both as an original piece of poetry and as fanwork. It's not on ao3 for reasons including 'I haven't gotten around to it' and 'I don't know if this is sufficiently transformative, by the invisible guidelines I've just set for myself.'

Thank you for sending this to me, it was a lovely thing to think about on my Friday eve! <3

[eiffelradio]

9,10,11, or 19? or all of them? :>

9. favorite character?

jk actually my favorite character is probably gumilia. i love her & her arc (becoming a fully fledged sorceress, learning how to engage with other people, turning into a protector figure for those she cares about) so much. she’s also just fucking weird like girl WHY are you keeping kayo around in the hellish yard like that. i know what you are. and her side plot in the Gift novel about searching for rin chan lol

don’t tell me you didn’t think her part in fifth, pierrot (the song) was awesome. rip lemy but at least you had the honor of getting sniped by The gumilia. DONT TELL ME YOU WERENT HYPED AS FUCK WHEN GUMILIA TURNED THAT WOMAN INTO A FLOWER

other characters i’m a big fan of are michaela, elluka, and nemesis. im forgetting others for sure tho

i love behemo too and she’s up there as one of my favorites but i have to admit that a lot of what i like about her is just things i made up in my head. speaking of…

10. a headcanon for your fav character?

behemo is transfem and i lean towards viewing her as a lesbian (so im not personally a fan of things like dragonmask but i believe in their beliefs if you know what i mean). i view her as being really into lolita fashion generally, not just maid outfits. i 100% stole this from someone else’s post but i think Original Behemo is probably in cryosleep somewhere (not in the sense that she has any chance of coming back, just that her body isn’t literally dead.) and original behemo probably uploaded her memories somewhere that Our Behemo was able to access them (idk if i’d go as far as to say Our Behemo HAS those memories as if they were her own, but i think she at least has intimate knowledge of wtf Original Behemo was getting up to prior to the ‘arrival’ of Climb One)

this is kind of just canon but i think she’s a “once-in-a-millennium” genius just like levia. like come on you’re telling me she’s extremely talented when it came to making artificial bodies AND she managed the second period servers with very little help for long enough that the members of the climb one were successfully transferred into reality? are you kidding me? we don’t talk enough about how smart behemo is. i genuinely think she’s probably the most intelligent character in the entire series (seth and the 3 other gods probably come close though).

11. favorite pairing?

i dont necessarily view them in a romantic light (i think gumilia probably has herself a crush tho) but elluka and gumilia are 100% my favorite relationship in the series. i just find it very touching how they protect and guide one another, with their dynamic leveling out over time, even though their relationship is ostensibly one of mentor and apprentice. like in the Gift novel they are more like partners and by Pierrot gumilia clearly surpasses elluka in terms of technical skill (with elluka outclassing her in power only because she has access to eve’s lightning). i love how gumilia ends up taking the full protector role as master of the hellish yard (i.e. sending out seth to be there for nemesis).

i got really emotional when i read the bonus manga at the end of praeludium like omg….she misses elluka :(.

i like gumilia’s dynamic with michaela a lot too.

19. unpopular opinions?

i like gallerian but i don’t find him very sympathetic at all. i disagree with the notion that he was simply a “good guy led astray.

do NOTTTTTTT play with me about what order to consume evillious in. can we please stop acting like evillious doesn’t have spoilers and plot twists. i have a little project where im designing my ideal evillious order (which is essentially just release order but groups songs based on each novel and recommends things like re-listening to songs). not sure if i will ever finish that though

it might be considered unpopular that i exclusively use she/her for behemo, but this is just what i like to do and idc about how anyone else chooses to refer to her since in canon behemo herself and other people in-universe use masculine pronouns/words to talk about her.

[alexanderwales]

Book Review: Crystal Trilogy

I finished Crystal Eternity roughly two weeks ago, and immediately went to do a podcast with the author, Max Harms about the series and how he saw it. I've had enough time for my thoughts to crystalize (heh), so it's time for a short review.

Spoilers follow.

Going in, I didn't know much, only that it was about AI in some way. I was surprised, in the first book, when aliens were first mentioned, and for a time, it seemed like they were only there to justify having a single AI in a contained body, a "big ask" of the kind that's common in scifi.

But over time, more and more different things start showing up, and eventually I cottoned onto what the novels were doing: they're showing as many different types of intelligence as possible, they're about intelligence and humanity, and what assumptions we take for granted. There's WIRL, the dog, the daughter, the aliens, all kinds of different takes on what it means to be an intelligent, thinking being.

And this is the thing that I liked best about the books: they have a lot of ideas in them, and it's never too long before another idea comes by. If you're going to write a sprawling story, this is one of the things that's great to do.

The other thing that I liked about the books is that it felt free to get weird with things. It's a book written by an author for his own amusement, the way that he wanted to write it, and if you don't like it, fuck you. This is one of the great Authorial Virtues, and no, I don't have an essay ready to go on what those are, nor am I ready to add a second one to the list.

I'm a big fan of the monomyth and Dan Harmon's story circle, and of narrative structures in general. I like when we end at the beginning, having gone through the underworld and changed. I like character arcs, whether they're subtle or bold. There's a lot that you can do within these frameworks, and when you're a student of them, you know when to break them for effect.

The trilogy does sometimes break narrative rules for effect, to give you the sense that life is not how it is in books, or to highlight that these artificial intelligences are not human, or to give a sense of alienation, or to be confusing on purpose. I think that if I went back and read through some reviews of the books, I would be able to predict with great accuracy where people said that something was "unsatisfying" or "confusing", and I think that this is largely the point.

But do I like it?

I have this monkey brain that claps when the narrative lights go on. When a gun is placed on the mantle in the first act, I say "oh boy, someone's going to get shot with that" and then when someone gets shot, I clap. When there's a bit of backstory that comes in handy, when a heist gets pulled off, when two people kind of hate each other and then end up falling in love, when the bomb gets defused at the last minute, that's my jam, that's the thing that I'm into fiction for. I like when things are predictable, and then that predictability lends the opportunity for a twist on things, when there's a setup with a different payoff than expected. The gun gets set up on the mantle in the first act and someone gets clubbed with it instead of shot? That's the kind of thing that I also like, the subversion, the way that we're all in it together, that we know the same grammar.

My monkey brain liked bits and pieces of the trilogy, but overall, the books are just not written with the monkey brain in mind.

But I did like what it was doing on other levels.

There are reveals that feel uncomfortable because the monkey brain isn't getting satisfied, because you feel confused and unhappy about things happening off-screen by people unknown to you, but the narrative focusing where it shouldn't logically be focused for the reader to understand things. There are deaths of important characters that happen without fanfare, barely commented on by the narrative, and this was affecting in its own way, even if the monkey brain was frustrated.

There's a point, halfway through the second book, when the protagonist essentially dies and is replaced by a different person who has none of the same personality. And this is just a weird thing to do in a book, it feels bad to the monkey brain, but it's there by intent, and the jarringly unnarrative nature of it seems to be why it happens. It's not playing within the narrative frameworks, or using the narrative grammar.

I enjoyed the trilogy in the same way that I enjoy some art; it gave me something to grapple with, it had clear intentions, and I never knew quite what it was going to do. The narrative monkey brain has gripes, but most of these are in the form of "narrative rules good, narrative grammar good", and when I think of how I would "fix" any of these things, I immediately see how no, that would go against the artistic intent. (Mostly, anyway. I cannot claim to have picked through every single scene in a deep reading kind of way.)

I went into the trilogy knowing that some people did not like the second and third books, and yeah, I get that, because it becomes less of the thing that the first book was. But it does that for reasons, and I respect those reasons. The part of me loves analysis had things to grapple with, and I enjoy having things to grapple with, but not everyone is like that. Some people just wanted to keep seeing Face get up to hijinks, to have the characters stay as they were, and ... you know, maybe I could say that this is a signaling problem, that there should have been more signposts about how it would go, but I'm not sure I even believe that.

I think that makes it easy to recommend the first book and much harder to recommend the books that come after. It's not the kind of media diet that everyone wants. But the second and third book gave me things to chew on, which is something I value, and they had a clear artistic intent that was playing outside the rules of narrative, which is also something that I value.

[autolabrum]

Finished second read of Claw of the Conciliator. Spoilers abound below.

Read in the compilation volume shadow & claw published for Tor Essentials. Second read of the novel; made use of Michael Andre-Driussi's chapter guide for the series.

In terms of quality of writing and exploration of thematics, it does feel to me that this is a big step up from the first novel, and Wolfe takes some big swings (a couple of which don't work out, though most do). The primary tension I observed here is between the short view, where we see a plethora of individuals that feel differingly fossilized in their particular times, and the long view, where Severian's occasional broader teleological perspective must lead him eventually to instigating broad and destructive change.

Much of the contents of the novel explores a variety of relations between individuals and their finite relationship to time. The creatures of the cave are unable either to understand or to escape their physical predicament, and who Severian positions temporally and evolutionarily (this episode inherits both the good and the bad from its clearly Lovecraftian inspirations). Vodalus and his retinue are obsessed with the past, to the point of ritualizing their cannibalism so as to gain access to something and someone that has been destroyed. This grasping attempt to remove themselves from their temporal predicament, and the ways in which Vodalus fails to do so, is the source of the first of two uses of a relevant refrain: "That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin" (Chapter I), emphasizing the petrification of the individual relative to the much broader time scales to which the narrative gestures. That Severian is able to seemingly carry out a much more successful transfer of memories than any of Vodalus' retinue makes clear that he has some amount of access to time unavailable to others (this is in alignment with his perfect memory giving him perfect access to the past). Even the Cumaean is restricted to only exploring the time in which her life will elapse (notably contrasted with not only the alien being she communes with but the undine, creating a resonance between this finite/infinite divide and the terrestrial/celestial divide).

Jonas is likely the most potent example of this, in that he is an individual who has been dramatically removed from the time in which he should be fossilized. It is this shock (admittedly along with his injuries) of both the familiar yet corrupted name and the bastardized story of Theseus that leads to his mental degradation; he cannot continue to exist in this version of the universe. Like the light in Father Inire's mirrors, he has sped too far ahead, and can only slow down and exit the narrative, in fact through those same mirrors. He is even memorialized (I think) in the play as the character of the statue, who loses a love and is condemned to his loss: "Thus stone images keep faith with a departed day, Alone in the desert when man has fled away" (Chapter XXIV). Jonas reminds us, as the brown book quotes from Francis Bacon (as identified by Andre-Driussi), that "These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient" (Chapter XXVIII).

There are several points at which Severian begins to grasp at a solution to this petrification within time. Early in the novel, before consuming Thecla's flesh, Severian begins to philosophize on his own death: "I saw how little it weighed on the scale of things whether I lived or died, though my life was precious to me. And of those two thoughts I forged a mood by which I stood ready to grasp each smallest chance to live, yet in which I cared not too much whether I saved myself or not" (Chapter IX). This double mood, created essentially out of a cognitive dissonance, strives to reconcile the finite with the infinite (note here that Severian is a Christ-like figure, who references an incarnated and finite version of the infinitude of God). Dorcas' understanding of the Conciliator accords with this attitude, who "once took a dying woman by the hand and a star by the other, and from that time forward he had the power to reconcile the universe with humanity, and humanity with the universe" (XXVI).

Jolenta, though her rape intersects these themes with Severian's misogyny in a manner that is clumsy at best (see post here), does offer a perspective on his beginnings towards succeeding in this manner. As she begins to die, he begins to feel some amount of legitimate compassion for her (an off-putting but important process), until at her death he repeats the refrain he had said of Vodalus at the beginning of the novel: "[Jolenta's body] had been washed clean of beauty. In the final reckoning there is only love, only that divinity. That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin" (Chapter XXXI). Although it has taken the removal of the illusory beauty that sparked Severian's misogynistic rage towards Jolenta, he does seem to experience some real level of empathy, and to feel (perhaps for the first time towards another) the extreme weight of the finitude of life. He has, through the claw and through his own hatred, failed Jolenta, and now her life is concluded, extant within time and immutable. I am entering the terrain of the series that I really don't remember very well, but I hope that this perspective improves his attitude in the coming novels.

[andbrokenmemories]

full murderbot thoughts post

Alright! Finished with Book 7 of Murderbot, System Collapse, and collected my thoughts on the series.

Maybe one day I'll do one last round-up to read novellas and maybe write a Properly Structured Review Innit, so for now this is gonna be the messy notes version of this. Let me give a paragraph or two of review-y thoughts, here, though. Set the stage and all.

So: I liked them a lot! I wouldn't ever say I struggle with sci-fi, but I think in practice I struggle with sci-fi. For other genrefic novels, tropes i Enjoy the Consumption of can usually keep my interest alive long enough; like, Black Sun and Fevered Star didn't light me on fire, but there was a lot of dynamics and play within the space that I could consistently enjoy and keep. Chewing down the line on. real strawberry lace fiction. real gummy worm fiction

Sci-Fi usually struggles more with that, I guess. Or, rather, I don't enjoy genrefic sci-fi for sci-fi's sake? There is, i think, a needle to thread of Good Spec-fic, of "oooh literature on a Weird Way of Existing". that style can keep me hooked, and Murderbot Diaries manages that with all the intricacies of the SecUnit experience. and also you can just have a lot to say! and murderbot has a lot to say! overall 8.5 out of 10. book 1 is a 9 out of 10 (yippeee strained relations distrust etc); book 2 is an 8.5 out of 10 (ART good); book 3 is a 7 out of 10 (i dont really remember those people); book 4 is an 8 out of 10, book 5 is an 8.5 out of 10 but i think it'd be a bunch higher if i didnt find the middle a bit bloated; book 6 is a 7.5/10, book 7 is an 8/10. loose thoughts from my journal from here on. spoilers for the whole series begin in earnest.

I like murderbot diaries the most when its reasonably omniscient, dynamic feeling, with a bunch of pieces moving around; and when those pieces are the psychology of murderbot as it navigates shit. i popped the fuck off when at the start of the long one [that's Network Effect] we got an interlude of murderbot interacting with mensa and her family and Caring and augh. ouagh.

WE HJAVE TO PUT ON THE BEST DAMN TALENT SHOW THI S COLONY HAS EVER SEEN!!!! [this was right when i got to the documentary part of the last book lol]

what if the other sec units went stereotypical serial killer robot and murdered all their handlers. like yes i get an argument against that that goes down the line of “and then we wont be able to extract from the situation and everyone gets killed in retribution” but, also, i feel like early in this series there was a lot of text talking about how sec units don't actually. think like that. in real life. I dont know, maybe i havent adjusted to a Thematic Choice where actually that was unreliable narration, but i find my brain getting caught up on that every time. like comparing how murderbot talks about how sec units think early in the series to later on. bwah.

anyway [in regards to the end of Exit Strategy] something very unique but kind of hash tag relatable about an extended sequence of a character reconstructing their memories from base principles, all sortakinda drunk. seeing all those cute and Telling and I See How It Is moments, which i derived a lot of value from, really fun capper to a book. good times. and then they hit 100% and the microwave goes Ding and they sit right up in bed and go Damn. That was stupid. I'm leaving.

when the panopticon surrounds you on every level and you have a lot of time to think on your self and your connection to your self and gain access to every system that makes you up and makes you you and all you can manage to acheive with it is the recreation of the panopticon within the self. and being without the panopticon is uncomfortable and foreign and strange. when the character does not allow the narrative to woobify them. 😍

ships you can talk to (who talk back only in concepts) are a gender by the way. that first scene [at the end of All Systems Red] of Murderbot working out its take on the all of it to a ship who can't really talk back, and was more or less the default “easily Manipulated bot pilot” that we just kind of sidestep each time going forwards, but like. was also the Same Thing as Mbot in not having anyone to really talk this out with. we are both on the same level. we, two, have not been taught to sell our class, our people out to the humans; we can be Niceys to one another. you can seek that out and find it. there are glimmers and moments like that throughout the whole series going forwards. which kind of makes hanging out with the humies boring unless they're one of the like 3-4 that i feel have an Interesting Social Dynamic with murderbot

following on from that, i immediately started visualising ARTs feed-self as a Kirby Endboss mass of glowing, dazzling, flowing dials/lenses/clocks towering over everyone else. with speech bubbles violently louder than everyone elses. Like that was how my brain went “how would the graphic novel get this Concept of ‘I could squish you like a bug with one instant of thought you are nothing to me you little it/its freak’ across". and its good. its good

[in regards to Network Effect, and trying to sum up my whole feelings on 2.0]: Whoops! Your clone headmate you made underbaked on purpose came out with ADHD and joié de vivre and is kicking its feet up and down in its partition watching comfort media while you go through the shit that made the Expanse expand. that made the signal is. that made the Space [face/off-style pause] Dead

So, what're my big takeaways with the whole series? Everyone trying to Do Therapyspeak on Murderbot and it usually Not Working is nice. There is something wrong with you, and that's not like a puzzle to be unraveled, but the perspective the text then takes on everything else. this world isn't, like, Fascinating and realized with any special flair, but you get to have moments where Murderbot exposits how fucked shit is to other people, or judges a situation it's bitter about as people around it get Fucked Over, and it's just like. It's a fun level of fucked up, in a way, sure, but it's also those moments of like. Ah. Murderbot does not set out to be protagonist-ly about this world, to be deeply critical, to wikia-mode about it all. Only to be constantly drawn to such anyway, to being Bitter and having to exposit to make certain points land because it needs certain points to land because. shrugs, gestures. The World. All of it. but then we go back to like “Hey do you think you have trauma maybe?” “FUCK you” and it's consistent and that's all chewy in a way I find nice. It's nice. We're having a niceys time. smile emoji

[kooki914]

Given that the collection has 151,406 words, if you turned it into one book it wouldn’t be a novel, it would be an epic

Ok so while I'd love to let this blindly stroke my ego, I do have to point out that the Spadesgore collection technically doesn't meet the criteria for an epic novel, I think? Like, not only does an epic require actual high stakes of epic proportions, but the collection was also never technically intended to be one huge thing. If it were turned into a book it'd probably be multiple, like a romance series where each subsequent entry is longer than the last for seemingly no good reason. And the fics themselves wouldn't be individual books, they'd be more like... chapters. This is a really bad analogy let me explain myself-

Since I started expanding the first fic, I planned for the series to be split into Arcs™. Basically, the story is all one continuous thing and belongs in one collection, but by the way the fics are planned/written, they (thus far) follow three major arcs. The first arc, the light world arc, lasts from "A talk by the lake" and concludes with "A series of very, very fortunate events" (about 40,157 words total). The second arc is the dark world arc, which begins with "Sleepy words" and ends with "Surprisingly perfect" (109,904 words in total, thanks in no small part to the beast that is "Royalty"). If turned into books, I'd want those individual arcs to be split into individual books, technically able to stand on their own but following the same overarching story. The third arc (which I don't have a name for yet oops) just got kicked off with "A kind of daydream, but don't call it that" and will encompass the next approx twenty-something fics (whenever I get around to writing them) that I have planned out that (somewhat) neatly wrap up most of the remaining threads I want to explore with these two.

I say most because there's stuff I might want to write for the collection even after that - ideas I left unexplored for the sake of time and cohesion - or even stuff concerning my other Spadesgore AUs that we aren't even factoring into the full word count (yet) that could get their own standalone expansions outside the collection (looking at you, demon AU). All of that is, however, majorly dependent on two factors. 1) how exhausted I feel with the concept of the Spadesgore collection after the third arc is finished, and 2) how I end up feeling about the next chapters of Deltarune. (Though I'll be honest the second point is a LOT less important than the first LMAO)

So, yeah! Thank you for the ask that let me segway into rambling about my godforsaken fic series structure, and I hope you look forward to the next entries in the collection as much as I do!

[alt255]

shuuenpro truly will haunt me forever and like. obviously I'm fine with it being this way tbh . Uhm. But I've been thinking a lot lately, I guess, about how my motivations for staying with Shuuen are influenced primarily by what I've gained from its community. i.e. the reasons why I remain a shuuen no shiori fan are far more social in nature than any other interest I've ever had

I mean. from the very beginning, (for me, February 2019) it was already different because I was entering an interest that most people didn't seem to care for anymore . and I'm sure I at least had some level of awareness for this, that I was getting into something post-mortem. I just didn't think I'd get attached to the point that I Needed to talk about it with other people, y'know? So! around 4PM on February 11th, 2019, I gave the first couple of songs a proper listen, and then started reading the first light novel.

...and then, about 4 hours later, I made a group chat trying to get a few friends to read Shuuen no Shiori, because uh. Yeah.

uhm. and I was definitely doomed after 48 hours, because then I had actually finished reading light novel 2, which re:wired my brain and would remain my favorite light novel for years

but! around like 6-7 days in, I think things Really started to ramp up for me. because I had read just about every translation that I could find at the time out there, and made this hilariously desperate-sounding tweet that has aged incredibly well .

I also was becoming increasingly aware that it was becoming an obsession! Yeah. at some point I remember literally warning people that this was the only thing I expected myself to be talking about for months. at the same time, my Need to connect to people over shuuenpro only grew. I wanted to talk to people about shuuenpro So Fucking Badly.

and if there wasn't an easily discoverable space for it, then I had two options: give up the interest, or Make a space.

So. about a month in, after meeting/gathering enough people who were at least acquainted / knew of shuuen no shiori, I made a Discord server, which was possibly the best decision of my life. soon, I had turned 15 years old.

I was a baby shuuenpro fan. most people who joined the server were older than me and had already known of shuuenpro for years... which was admittedly a bit scary to me! but I already had a lot of passion for shuuen, and I would do anything just to find a community for it. So, somehow, I started to find one there.

around 3 months later, I uhm, organized my first Shuuen-related event: an art week during the summer (Week of Demise 2019)! But I was still very anxious at the time and (for some reason afraid of tumblr?), so while i announced it on twitter/discord, feya was the one who posted it here iirc. In the following years (2020-2021), I would become confident enough to make the announcements myself

the second half of 2019 is a bit of a blur for me, but in a good way, really. I think by some point we had around 100 members in the server. I got to meet and talk to a lot of people, and by the end of the year, I had basically found a home. and I felt genuinely so. comfortable and good about this.

and then came the need to be helpful to people, which led to the creation of a shuuenpro guide on carrd. November 2019. because there weren't really any completely up-to-date masterposts on the series I could find at the time, I made one myself. which became used a lot over the years, I think? my website now is one of the top search results for shuuenpro, so I'd say it's notable enough

I think just. what makes shuuenpro so special to me really is that it marked the first time I ever tried to actively engage with a community outside of a small circle of friends. and just how fucking awesome and good it felt to be able to organize stuff for that, to help contribute resouces and try to like. encourage revived or new interests in the series. to feel like I'm a part of something bigger. like simply being passionate about something could lead to so much .

like yes, of course I care a lot about the unresolved mysteries of shuuen, as many others do, but I think being able to participate in discussions about them (even if we would never reach an actual conclusion) is such a big part of the fun. all of those theories that we can never affirm or debunk, but being able to collaboratively contribute more and more points to them, or derive new ones from old ones, no matter how ridiculous or absurd they actually were, etc. It's just. Fun. even now I find myself looking back at messages and going. Oh my god. I missed this. we should do this again.

I am grateful to Shuuen no Shiori, but I think what I really mean what I say that is that I really am grateful to all the people I've met while in the fanbase. All of the important connections I've formed and strengthened, all of the ways through the community that I've learned to better myself—as a person, as a leader, etc. A lot of the improvement to my mental health in early high school could be attributed to the Shuuenpro community, I swear. And there are valuable skills I've picked up and projects I've pursued all originating from a love for Shuuen no Shiori, and a love for a community that I've wanted to give back to.

because I also found so much of myself in the community. I came out of it with a new favorite animal, a new favorite color, new hobbies—goddamn it, Shuuenpro was how I discovered my gender identity, among other things. 😭 I learned a lot about myself, basically! and I might even go as far to say that like. I don't think I would really be a programmer (or at least, as good of one), and I definitely wouldn't be as interested in archiving data and creating resources in the first place, if I wasn't so inspired by shuuen

In other words, Shuuen no Shiori made me.

so a love letter isn't enough, really. 1,713 love letters isn't enough, either. it's just. not.

I'm here because I want to be here, because even if I joined later than most people, I feel like I've found a true place to belong. This is my home. No matter what happens, as long as there is a community here, as long as there are people who still love this series, I too will love it. I'll take my own love for it to the grave. I won't forget it.

[nellie-elizabeth]

January 2025 - Reading & Media Logging

Thought I'd try and get some thoughts down about what I read/watch/listen to each month! We'll see if I keep it up throughout the year... thoughts under the cut!

What I Read:

This was a pretty light reading month, honestly. I've been so swamped with work and just feeling pretty overwhelmed and anxious in general, and it's had a negative impact on my reading time. I'm pretty far into 3 or 4 books right now so I think early February will have a lot of finished volumes, hopefully!

Maurice by EM Forster: Finished this on New Year's Day I think, so it counts! Really glad I read this, it was a surprisingly moving emotional experience, especially given when it was written and its publication history.

Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher: Well, nobody can say I didn't give this series a fair shake. I tried three books, but unfortunately it's time for me to bow out now. It's a bummer because I do like the world-building of this series, like I think the setting is intriguing and I would love to spend more time in the world, but... the characters are just too stick-figure-y for me, they just don't feel like real people at all, and the romances are very... tepid and don't give me any feels? If I'm reading romance I need the feels lol. I actually had the thought that I'd rather read like, mystery novels or straight-up fantasy adventure without the romance being the focus, in this setting. Because then the characters being pretty 2-dimensional and same-y wouldn't matter as much, because their emotional centers wouldn't be like... the purported main purpose of the text, as it has to be if it's romance. I also think they're just poorly written enough that it's hard for me to overlook other sins. Ah well.

Go Tell it On the Mountain by James Baldwin: obviously Baldwin is a genius and his stuff is always really moving! I hadn't read what is probably his most known work before, and it was an interesting experience - it felt kind of dense and impenetrable in some ways, but also really affecting in others. I feel like I can tell it's an earlier novel from him, where he's really working out some of his foundational thoughts socially and politically. Definitely glad I finally got around to reading it.

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens: Only recommend if you're a big ol' Dickens fan and you want to check out everything he's written - it's definitely not strong as a novel, it's very episodic and repetitive. But there's that quote about Dickens, that he has bad architecture but good gargoyles, and that was definitely true here. Sam Weller in particular stands out as an all-time Dickens character for me, I love love loved him. I legitimately wonder if Samwise Gamgee is based on him at all.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson: completed my re-read of this trilogy! These books are oddly compelling for a reason I can't quite quantify, I think for this one it was just super satisfying to see the good guys successfully dismantle all these evil conspiracies, they got that fantasy of being able to pull a fast one over the villains and totally drop the mic on them lol. Plus I love how just... unapologetically queer these books are in certain ways? Berger and her husband and their non-monogamous bisexual BDSM stuff, and then Lisbeth and Miriam... it's just cool how casually integrated that stuff is.

Blood of Empire by Brian McClellan: A straight over the plate, nothing fancy, nothing to write home about but nothing to complain about fantasy series! I really enjoyed making my way through this sequel trilogy. Not a ton to say, but I think for this last book the highlight is Bo and Nila slutting it up with all of Vlora's soldiers while she's having a mental breakdown. Great stuff, no notes.

What I Watched:

Outlander season 7 started back last year but the last couple episodes aired in January! I've already written reviews that are posted here going into detail, but broadly speaking I'd say that this show has had a gradual dip in quality over the years, I think partly in response to the books getting bigger and more meander-y and just less coherent as novels? So. Can't blame the show too much for that. All the stuff that makes me like Outlander for the messy, juicy, melodrama that it is, were still present this season though. I got fed WELL with all the John Grey material, lemme tell ya.

Critical Role, Bells Hells: Obviously I'm always watching whatever CR is putting out, but I wanted to do a shout-out on Bells Hells because the campaign finale episode is airing NEXT WEEK! This campaign has been far more controversial than the first two, it seems, and I'll just toss my two cents in and say that I really love it. I've seen some of the fandom criticism and it's an interesting experience for me because I can't exactly disagree with most of the points people are making, but for me most of the issues people have been listing, are features, not bugs, to my mind? Idk, I won't get into the weeds with it but I guess this experience has taught me that what I'm looking for from CR is not the same thing a lot of other people are. I love that these campaigns break the rules of narrative structure in ways that can sometimes feel uncomfortable or alienating. I think almost everything that's being said about BH could be said about M9, tbh, and there was far less of a backlash against it. Ah, well. Point is, I'm still having a great time and I'm SUPER looking forward to seeing the epic 8.5 hour finale episode next week.

Dropout Content: I've been having such a bad mental health month and work has been crazy and my brain has been having more trouble than usual processing new content, so I've been revisiting a lot of Dropout stuff, rewatching eps of Make Some Noise and Game Changer, and enjoying the new shows like Gastronauts and Nobody Asked. This has become quintessential comfort TV for me, I'll watch pretty much whatever these people decide to make. I've gotta get back to watching Dimension 20 though, I go through feasts and droughts with my binging of seasons. I was part way through Mice and Murder but I fell off of it... maybe I'll hop back on in February!

What I Listened To:

Epic: The Musical. Okay. So. One of the other reasons why I think my reading time was down this month is that my brain was eaten by worms and my whole personality was turned into Epic: The Musical? I am not that which I once was. I've been listening through this entire 2 hour and 20 minute album like... daily. For weeks. I cannot stop. I have been doing a lot of thinking about why this grabbed me the way it did, because I'm always fascinated in why certain things grab my attention and activate a hyperfixation, when others don't. Honestly, for the most part it's inexplicable; the stars have to be aligned or whatever. I needed something to listen to, to just buckle down and get through this huge amount of work at both my jobs, and this was what accompanied me through a couple of really bad weeks. Here's my pitch for why it's a good musical: catchy songs, complex and really well-constructed as a work of musical composition, awesome production quality, and a voice cast that's honestly so fucking stellar it blows the mind? If you're just like "yeah, I like listening to fun songs sung by people who are very good at singing" then like... I recommend it for that alone. But as for why I think this musical is not just good, but truly great, at least for my interests? Well, I think it's three big things:

This is an adaptation of a source material from nearly 3,000 years ago. I am fascinated by adaptations of ancient texts or even just like... "pretty old" texts - what concerns did the text grapple with in its original context, and what does this adaptation choose to focus on, how are different threads pulled depending on who's adapting it and when. It's the closest thing I have in my life to a truly spiritual practice, thinking about humans who lived so long ago that they could never have imagined the world today, sharing the same story I'm sharing today. Thinking about listening to this musical, and having this emotionally cathartic response to Odysseus reuniting with his wife Penelope after 20 years of separation, and knowing that millennia ago, ostensibly people sat and listened to this same story told in song, and had an emotionally cathartic experience about the same thing. It feels very special to me. Plus, like, I had a Greek mythology phase as a kid like I think a lot of us did, and this musical totally awakened that slumbering fascination, which is fun.

The compositional complexity of the text as a concept album. Jorge Rivera-Herrans is a young guy, he's in his mid-twenties and he started this project 4-ish years ago I believe. It makes me so hyped to think of the long life of creating art he has ahead of him, because this is... some good, good shit. Not just good for someone his age. It's good, period. The musical serves as something of a puzzle-box for those people who are interested in dissecting leitmotif and musical themes. This is one of the most intricately woven works of music I've ever encountered as a musical theatre fan, if I'm being honest. I'm still catching new threads every time I listen; the care with which it was constructed makes it feel truly worthy of closer attention and study. There's a pleasurable effort in unraveling all the ways the songs interact with one another. It works on the level of just being fun songs to listen to, but if you like it enough to want to slow down and pay attention, there's a whole world waiting there for you to notice.

The manner of how it was produced - a TikTok-y musical for the kids these days... basically, Jorge marketed this musical through social media. He released it in chunks over time, he released snippets of songs, demos of himself singing, he auditioned the vast majority of the cast by asking them to duet his TikToks and thus found the right voices for each character. He released videos explaining his process of composing, and going into the hidden motifs and connections. It was a brilliant bit of marketing, but it also hits on one of the most special parts of the musical and the fandom surrounding it: you get to see the creative process and the final product side by side. It's kind of the same thing I like about TTRPG shows, where you watch the art being made, and the art, all at once. Being able to go back and see Jorge singing a demo of a song in 2021, and then seeing his video asking people to audition, and then hearing the final release, and then getting a behind-the-scene video where he picks apart the choices he made in composition, it's like getting to see inside the machinery of construction. It's iterative and it's community-focused and it's the best of what social media can do, a reminder that it's not actually ALL bad. Plus, all the fan-made animatics are so cool... there are enough of them that you can actually "watch" this concept album from start to finish with visuals created by a whole host of talented artists.

So... yeah, I knew I'd talk about Epic for too long but that's where my brain is at right now. I'll be curious if by the end of February this hyper-fixation has started to fade, or if there's anything else that comes along to replace it!

This was fun, to reflect on what I've been watching and reading this month!

[violethowler]

My Thoughts On Light Bringer (Spoilers)

The wait for Light Bringer has been so long that I as soon as I learned that my physical copy wouldn’t be getting delivered until after release day, I immediately went and pre-ordered the ebook version so I could start as soon as it became available. I started reading around midnight my time and I literally only got three hours of sleep before I finished the book. And holy bloodydamn shit was it worth waiting all these years for.

The title of this novel felt incredibly fitting not simply as a reference to any one character, but because after the chaos and death and violence of Dark Age, this book was a ray of light and hope, validating what I said back when Dark Age came out and filling me with such optimism and excitement for what comes next. Even after Cassius’ death, I cried tears of joy when I finished reading the book because with everything in the world being on fire – from the rise in censorship and anti-LGBTQ laws in the US to the various crises caused by climate change, to the ongoing labor issues like the writers’ and actors’ strikes – this book reminded me how to have hope for the future and to recognize that with enough time and enough people fighting back, things can get better. To appreciate the smaller, less-publicized steps forward when I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the big headlines making all the bad things seem worse.

And on top of all that, it was just straight up fun. I love Dark Age and Iron Gold, and their seriousness is important to their themes. But one of the things that I loved about the original trilogy was the capacity of its writing to spark joy and put a smile on my face. Long have I missed a new action sequence that made me cackle like mad as I realized that the tables had turned on the villains, like the escape from Venus or Darrow’s emergence from the leviathan did. Or the powerful, raw moments like Deanna’s pre-battle benediction in Lykos. Or the quiet moments like Lyria and Cassius bonding, or Darrow and Sevro’s gradual reconciliation. These are just some of the many ways that Light Bringer feels like a return to the series’ roots.

The journey Darrow went on felt perfectly timed for the series, and every character grew phenomenally in this book. Some in positive ways, like Diomedes and Lyria. And others in negative ways, like a certain hypocritical, genocidal, fascist wannabe dictator.

Despite my burning desire for Lysander’s enrollment in the Head-In-A-Box club, his POV was masterfully written, allowing us a deeper glimpse into the inner workings of the Society Remnant that we didn’t properly get in previous books, while at the same time showing us at every turn that he is ultimately no different than Atlas and Atalantia. Given Cicero’s reaction to the burning of Demeter’s Garter, I feel like it’s only a matter of time before many of his allies realize that and turn on him.

And speaking of turning, I feel so vindicated that the alliance between the Rim Dominion and the Society Remnant ultimately shattered by the end of the book. But while I didn’t anticipate how it happened, I think it’s better that it happened this way. Firstly, Lysander is the whole reason the alliance exists, so it feels poetic that he’s the one who destroyed it. Secondly, it gives closure to the conflict between Darrow and the Rim over his actions in Morning Star, and that is so much more satisfying than my prediction of the Society being mad at them for Cassius being alive.

I’m similarly impressed with how the Obsidian storyline was handled, and how Lyria’s connection with Volga played into that. In hindsight, the storyline of getting the Obsidians turned away from Volsung Fa was the one plot set up in Dark Age that I could never really think of any theories of how it could be pulled off like I could for things like Sevro’s rescue or the breaking of the Rim-Core alliance. But Lyria being able to use her connections to get to Volga and make the first crack in her armor after Volsung Fa spent eight months manipulating her into following his rhetoric was a sight to behold, and I cannot imagine any other way it could or should have played out. It feels so incredibly fitting that if I hadn’t known Pierce had scrapped his first draft of the book, I would’ve assumed that scenario was planned from the beginning.

Which is really a testament to Pierce’s writing that even if I didn’t always like the choices made in this book (i.e. the lack of Virginia chapters compared to the POVs, the clone plot on Luna being left hanging, etc.), the choices still made sense to me and fit perfectly with the story that Pierce is trying to tell.

After almost 4 years of waiting, Light Bringer defied my expectations in the best way, and I’m even more excited than ever to see Pierce bring it all home in Red God.

[alexissara]

Best Of Me Alexis Sara, 2024 Edition.

Before the new year ends it’s time to celebrate one of the things I love the very most, myself.  In 2024 I did a ton of work, a lot of which I wasn’t able to share because it’s part of bigger projects. I wrote two books [rough drafts] in the Love Beyond The Holy Light series and am working on the 3rd, worked on Thirsty Sword Lesbians next expansion, helped my GF with one of her own novels, worked on several other TTRPGs, got to work on Gales Of Nayeli, started working on SRPGs of my own and more. Most of which I am more proud of than the stuff that is here on this list.  However, this is about the best stuff I released this year not things I did so enjoy the stuff I did this year that you can in some way shape or form access this year I think is best. 

10. The Upcoming Sapphic Games Guide This is one of the projects I work on all year long. Since I started doing it in 2023 I’ve been doing my best to find and cover as many possible upcoming sapphic games as possible. This is a big passion project that I put hours and hours into playing demos, reading pages over and over again, looking through devs twitters, watching every game showcase I can, I really and honestly put everything I can into making sure folks know where they can support sapphic games that are coming out. I hope for a world where I don’t feel the need to do this cuz people just say there is sapphic rep and what kind of sapphic rep in their games and that is an easy thing to find but unfortunately it’s way harder than it should be so I am doing the work so folks don’t need to.

9. Why FE4 Remake Can’t Happen Since the release of Fire Emblem Echoes people have had “rumors’ that the next fire emblem game is an FE4 Remake. Ever since then it has been the next game for every single game releases and it was going to be announced at every Nintendo direct. Somehow, this hasn’t happened and in this article I explain why it won’t happen [and shouldn’t]. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time and it was nice to finally lay it out. 

8. Pokémon Sun and Moon Fic - Lillie: To Stand By the Moon Part 2 

After a little over a year, I finally wrote the second part of my MoonLillie fanfiction. I really want to finish this story but I’ve been busy doing work and didn’t take a lot of time for fanfics in general. I am really proud of this second part explaining what was up with Moon during the events of Lillie’s story and leading into part 3 with Lillie. 

7. Sacred Stoners #1 One of the biggest pleasures of the year was getting to work with Actuallizard my favorite FE Youtuber for an episode of his new podcast Sacred Stoners, in fact on the debut episode where I got to talk about queer rep in Fire Emblem one of my favorite topics in the world. Lizard and Sequitur were so much fun to talk to and I would hang out again any time really. 

6. Dream Game: Pokémon Contest Legends 

The start of what I would like to be a series but likely will only just be this one article, I talked about my dream pokemon game, a Pokemon Contest forward pokemon game that is all about raising pokemon to do well in contests and dressing up and really focusing on the bound with pokemon. 

5. Drums Of War Review 

Drums of War is an amazing romhack and one of my best games of the year in 2023. I really want people to try this game, it’s better than most mainline fire emblem games even if it is a bit hard [I think they’ve added an easy mode since after i beat it]. It’s truly a great SRPG experience and I really do hope one day we could see what Parrhesia would do with a game they could actually sell and not just a romhack. 

4. Super Idols RPG Episodes 38 and 39 

While Super Idols RPG episode 38 didn’t come out this year, the part of the show I was more actively a part of episode 39 did debut this year and I am so proud of my performance on this podcast as Selena, one of my all time favorite OCs and putting her on that stage was really fun.

3. Fire Emblem Engage One Year Later 

To “celebrate” one year of Fire Emblem Engage and talk about how bad it is and how I kept finding myself disliking it more and more over time. Fire Emblem is my favorite game series and going over these feelings I think helps me place where I am with the series for the future which is, that i might not get a switch 2 because honestly, Fire Emblem is one of my main selling points for a Nintendo console but unless Tecmo Koei is making the next Fire Emblem game I honestly don’t trust it. 

2. Sierra Laider My Dragon Age the Veilguard OC Sierra is among my favorite things I made this year and how does she show up on a list like this well, I wrote a massive 31 day challenge of fics for her and I wrote another fic before that challenge for her and I’ve actually worked on more fics and stuff of her while I was playing Veilguard. Actually playing Veilguard I’ve mentally adjusted some of her lore while choosing to Ignore Veilguards shallow writing in other areas but I have a full canon of Sierra and Asher planned out now even going into some post Veilguard stuff. I don’t know if I’ll share their stories but I love Sierra so much and I think I wrote some fun little fics. 

1. Love Beyond The Holy Light Volume 1 Rough Draft 

While the rest of this list is not really order and the numbers are here to make it look like a structured list, number one is actually this, Love Beyond The Holy Light Volume 1’s rough draft now out on Patreon. Love Beyond The Holy Light is my novel project, started as a webnovel years ago, I hosted it on it’s own site and it’s a story I never moved on from, I was realizing every story I was making was Love Beyond The Holy Light, that since I gave up on it so I had to return. So I went back and rewrote it from scratch not borrowing any of my old writing and wanting to take it again from the top better than ever and I really think the story is finally the story it deserves to be. I am so proud of this and I really want people to read my story. I think Love Beyond The Holy Light is really special and folks should check out my story in which a couple of Catholic girls get down so bad for a pair of trans women they give up on their religion and end up helping with a revolution against a theocratic state. 

[tryslora]

What I'm Reading Wednesday...

On the Duck Prints Press reading server, it’s What I’m Reading Wednesday where we all share what we finished in the last week, what we are currently reading, and what we think of these books.

I figured hey, why not bring that to the rest of the world for myself. Because I love yelling about my current reads. And I’ve always got several things in motion at one time, between physical, audio, and ebooks, plus things I’m reading for specific reasons.

Here’s the summary from the last week in visual format (the actual discussion is behind the read-more):

Fiction

I am currently reading Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley (from Duck Prints Press). There are so many things to love in this book. The world building packs so much into such a small space. The culture clash between human and shapeshifter is wonderful (and Harley’s shapeshifters truly have a culture all their own). I thought it was going to be a quick read because it’s short, but the language and depth of information have me going slower and savoring every word. That said, I’ve also reached the point where I want to take it in faster, so I find myself spending a little extra time every time I pick it up, just to get a few more pages!

Manga & Graphic Novels

I have one manga and one graphic novel in progress.

I’ve been reading The Complete Elfquest, volume 1 by Wendy & Richard Pini for a little over two weeks now. We have several of these volumes, and my intention is to read one chapter/issue a night, so I am able to savor them slowly, but also get through them. Reading this first volume is like coming home into a fandom from childhood. The first chunk of it was also collected in the original Warp Graphics compilations, and I can’t remember how often I read those back in high school. I’m reaching the parts now where I probably only read the individual issues once or twice, so it’s familiar, but not to the point where I’m like oh yes, I remember gazing at that panel for hours. I still love these elves, and this story, and I cannot wait to get home each day and be allowed to read a chapter. I’m looking forward to when I reach new-to-me material.

I watched the 24 episode anime The Apothecary Diaries and I wasn’t ready to let it go when it was over, so I started reading the manga by Natsu Hyuuga and Nekokurage. I finished volumes 5 & 6 this past week and am currently reading volume 7. I have the remaining already published volumes waiting for when I’m done with this. I adore Maomao and Jinshi, and am incredibly excited to get to the point where canon moves past what is in the anime. That said, getting to revisit events I already watched on TV and linger over what was said and the exact expressions has been soooo good. (And yes, I know the light novels also exist and will be rolling into those in ebook form after the manga; I might be a tad bit obsessed).

Audiobook

A while ago I thought “I should read some TJ Klune” so I checked the library list I had for audiobooks, and the first of his Extraordinaries trilogy was available in audio. I listened to it. I was addicted. I’m now on the third book—Heat Wave—and I find it very very hard to put it down. I can’t listen while working, only while commuting, walking, or doing chores—things that don’t require me to actually think so I can multi-task. But hey, it’s a GREAT way to get me to do my PT since it means fifteen minutes more of audiobook listening! Nick, the POV character, has ADHD and I flail a lot over pretty much everything he thinks and does. I love every character in this series. I love how Klune is using superheroes as an allegory for the queer experience and for racial issues, but at the same time, is actually addressing those issues explicitly. I both want to listen faster to find out what happens, and linger so it doesn’t end.

Ebook

I have been reading Wayfinder by CE Murphy, which is the second in a duology. This is a romance, yes, but it’s another fun culture clash book, this time between humanity and faerie, and I am so here for that. Murphy is an author I used to read a lot from, and I’m trying to work my way through her back catalog slowly because I’ve always enjoyed her style. Accessible and fun. This series is about a woman who has always been able to hear lies (a Truthseeker), and how her talent develops, and how she works with the faerie kingdoms to try to help them (despite some of them not wanting help, and the original situation not being the one she’s actually needed for).

Non-fiction

I have been working my way through three non-fiction books.

One is A Year of Zen by Bonnie Myotai Treace. I had been looking for a journaling prompt book, and decided to give this one a try. I made the difficult decision to write directly in the book itself, then the additional decision to let myself fail if needed. So if I don’t get to answer a prompt on a day, I just answer it the next day. One prompt per day. It’ll take me more than a year to go through it, but that’s okay. The idea is to have me think and write a short paragraph every day, and not feel guilty about messing up. It’s working surprisingly well. Learning to let myself fail has been a big part of my process this year, and hopefully I am learning to let go of some of the anxiety about things needing to be matched and rigid.

The one I am stalled on right now is The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris. It was recommended as a book that therapists like to use for themselves, not merely recommend to their patients, and it reminded me of the radical acceptance I’m supposed to be practicing (and apparently am, despite myself, according to my therapist after she listened to me). The problem is, it has exercises (doesn’t everything?) and I stalled out because I didn’t have time.

Time is a theme, y’know? And that’s what happened with the last non-fiction book. I’ve been working through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, taking it as a self-guided 12 week course. I’m currently on week 5. However, I did a week of just doing morning notes before I really got started, then I took a week off when everything went haywire in my schedule because of the power outage. So it’s been about seven weeks so far. This week, as I worked on exercises, I found myself really digging in to my emotions about this book. And in the end, I decided that while I can see the value in some things, the book itself is giving me more anxiety about everything to do with my writing, while at the same time making it impossible for me to find time TO write (while following the advice it gives). So. I am no longer doing it as a course, with exercises, but I will finish reading it. And if an exercise appeals, I’ll do it. It’ll still take time, because I’ll probably still read one chapter each weekend, but I am already feeling WAY less stressed and I only made this decision last night.

So…

That’s it for me! What are you reading?