#this whole fairy tale thing is...... very interesting. it compels me. very new to it all also

[veliseraptor]

May Reading Recap

A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. Rereading A Memory Called Empire was a treat - an expected treat, but it was good to find out that it lived up to memory. I liked A Desolation Called Peace a little bit less, but only a little bit - it very much followed up directly on the themes from A Memory Called Empire that I appreciated.

The Last Graduate and The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik. I devoured these books. I'm very surprised by this fact, since I'm not generally a "magic school" person, but there we are; Naomi Novik apparently managed to make me one temporarily. The last book was a particularly strong one and did some very interesting things with its worldbuilding that'd been set up in previous books and delivered in the last one.

Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End by Bart Ehrman. I've read and enjoyed some Bart Ehrman previously, but I feel like the quality of his books has diminished from his earlier work, and this book confirmed that for me. I'm a bit of an eschatology enthusiast (the main reason I picked this up, as well as the fact that (a) it was available at the library one time and I grabbed it on a whim and (b) author recognition), but I learned very little from this book that I didn't already know.

Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge. One of the things that made me happiest about reading this book was, unfortunately, the fact that I thought I recognized the ways in which it was referring back to Classic of Mountains and Seas, which I felt (again, unfortunately) sort of smug about. Checking the Wikipedia page for the book, apparently "Additionally, each chapter begins with a brief description of the beast which, in the original writing, was written in Classical Chinese, while the rest of the book was written in standard Chinese," which is so cool and I wish had been conveyed in the translation.

In general though, this was a good one, though I feel like the descriptive copy was a little misleading. It's less a mystery than a series of interconnected stories following a central character investigating the titular strange beasts, and learning how they connect to her life and history.

Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat. I liked this one significantly more than Dark Rise - which I guess makes sense, since a lot of Dark Rise was setting up the concept that most compels me about the series (the main character being the reincarnation of a notorious villain from the past). It still feels YA in the way that YA usually does, which isn't necessarily a bad thing if stylistically less my preference (and something I feel worth mentioning in the context of a possible recommendation). The ending was a gut-punch of a fun kind. I will be looking forward to reading the third one.

"There Would Always Be a Fairy-Tale": Essays on Tolkien's Middle Earth by Verlyn Flieger. I loved Splintered Light and was disappointingly underwhelmed by most of the essays in this collection. There were a couple that were more interesting to me, but on the whole a lukewarm response.

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Adrian Tchaikovsky wins again!!! I don't love this one quite as much as I've enjoyed the Children of Time series, but I actually think that I liked it more than The Final Architecture series. Fascinating concept, as usual fascinating worldbuilding for societies wildly different from our own, and dedicated to themes of cooperation and unity-across-difference without it feeling preachy or didactic.

Aphrodite and the Rabbis: How the Jews Adapted Roman Culture to Create Judaism as We Know It by Burton Visotzky. This was a good one! I already was familiar with some of the information here, but not all of it, and the work around art and architecture was new to me. I felt in some ways like Visotzky overstated his case a little, but on the whole a very interesting read.

Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives by Phyllis Trible. This one is kind of a classic of feminist Bible scholarship - a short book that does a close reading of the text of the stories of four biblical women who suffer in some way (Hagar, Tamar, the unnamed woman from Judges 19, and Jephthah's daughter). It's a powerful work, though it felt a little basic to me on the whole - probably due to the fact that it's relatively early scholarship on the subject working from a literary angle.

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. Books with footnotes are very hit-or-miss for me - not meaning books with contextual footnotes, but books with footnotes that are part of the conceit of the text itself. Some authors can pull it off; others really shouldn't try. In this case, the author felt a bit too taken with his own cleverness to pull it off; in general I felt like this book was trying a little too hard to be edgy and voice-y and ended up just feeling kind of shallow. It was a fun read, in some ways, but not a good one, and I'm torn on if I'm going to continue reading the series. If I do, it probably won't be in a hurry.

Tolkien and Alterity ed. by Christopher Vaccaro. I was excited about this particular collection of essays (you can probably guess why) and found them mostly uninspiring in the reading. The exception was a bibliographic essay on the treatment of race in Tolkien scholarship, which proposed more use of reader response theory, a suggestion which seems fruitful to me and more interesting than debates about whether or not Tolkien/his works are or aren't racist.

Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson. I feel like this is going to sound more critical than I really mean it to, but this was a perfectly adequate horror novel. I wouldn't call it exceptional, and it didn't freak me out, but I read it pretty much straight through and enjoyed the experience on the whole.

Thousand Autumns: vol. 4 by Meng Xi Shi. I liked this volume more than I've liked some of the others, and am enjoying the development of the central relationship, though I feel a little like I've been bait-and-switched about the level of fucked up that it's involved. Maybe that's why I'm enjoying this one a little less than I feel like I should: I was expecting more fucked-up between the two main characters based on the initial conceit and don't feel like the novel has really delivered on that. But I am enjoying Yan Wushi getting a little more...outwardly affectionate toward Shen Qiao, and Shen Qiao's concomitant confusion about it.

This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer. More than an adequate horror novel but less than an excellent one, I felt like this book relied more on gross-out horror than I typically prefer. Still, was definitely spooky, and confirmed for me that wilderness horror gets to me in a very specific way.

I'm presently reading Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, which I have mixed feelings about (not negative! just mixed). I'm not sure what I'm going to read after that, save that I'm now trying to alternate genres and might try to read some nonfiction, which I've been sort of off for a while. Otherwise I'll probably just end up reading Translation State by Ann Leckie, and possibly A Fire in the Deep by Vernor Vinge. But I'm really going to try for some more nonfiction next month.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Speaking of twst events, what are your Top 3 Favourite game events so far? I'm genuinely curious. :'DD

Are there any events you didn't like?

[Referencing this post!]

Mmmm… I think most events are at least okayish? In general, I tend to prefer stories with high stakes or the ones that have some meaningful impact on character development, which are few and far between when it comes to TWST 😅 so their events aren’t typically my thing! You’ll notice that my favorite events in TWST actually do have story and/or character relevance.

That being said!! My favorite events would have to be:

Glorious Masquerade — This is, in my opinion, TWST’s strongest story and best overall event. It stands out against the others by having actual stakes and fully committing to it, as well as does wonders for the SSR trio’s involvement and interests in taking down the Big Bad. This is particularly true of Idia and Malleus. Said Big Bad, Rollo, is also very compelling in his own right.

Wish Upon a Star — Historically, this was the first time we saw the student’s rooms! The story itself introduced us to Star Rogue, which was pivotal to the Shrouds’ childhood (and later becomes relevant again in book 6). It was sweet to see Deuce try so hard to get Idia to come out of his shell, and even sweeter to see how far Idia is willing to push himself for his brother.

Fairy Gala: What If (NOT the first Fairy Gala; this is an important distinction!) — The edge this has over the original is that it is connected to Ortho’s growth as an individual post-book 6. He is able to discover his own take on what “evolution” is. Silver also gets a cool spotlight which demonstrates the pacifist teachings he was imparted with, serving as the bridge between fae and humans. Very pretty clothes and makeup too!!

I also liked:

Happy Beans Day I and II — This was a nice event that gave the whole cast their time to shine without feeling too bloated. It was also fun to see the different strategies and tactics each student employed; it helps show off their characters and problem solving abilities!

Ghost Marriage — I really liked that TWST parodied the fairy tale love stories and romantic events (that Disney and even mobile games in general are typically associated with). Hilarious how each of the guys tried and failed because they’re just silly high school students with no idea how to actually get a date 😂 I’m also biased for any outfit that involves formal wear.

White Rabbit Festival (Queendom of Roses hometown event) — The Alice in Wonderland aesthetic of Clock Town captured my heart 😌 It was also nice to see Deuce prove that he has turned over a new leaf to the townspeople.

The events I didn’t care for are:

Endless Halloween Night — I have very strong beef with the ending and the reasoning given for it 💀 It feels like everyone got gaslit into forgiveness… I also hated how no one held Malleus fully accountable after all the stress they were put through. Easily my most disliked event.

Tamashina Mina (Sunset Savanna hometown event) — Underwhelming ending in spite of the hype building for it. No meaningful payoff for the foreshadowing of Cheka’s guards.

Tsumsted Wonderland I and II — Nothing really happens (other than I guess the Tsums being cute)?? And it doesn’t really make an impact on anything.

Lost in the Book with Stitch — Same issue(s) as the Tsumsted events, except somehow even worse because everyone magically forgets everything they did with Stitch :/ so the experience means nothing in the long term…

Honorable mentions for my dislikes:

All Master Chef/Culinary Crucibles — I hate having to sit around and wait for ingredients and the fact that you can’t cook multiple dishes in one go. The lack of story also makes these events just not worth it for me.

Sam’s New Year Sale(s) and TWST Anniversary — Do these event count as a story event???? They’re just kinda celebratory short interactions, if anything.

[celinamarniss]

Year in Review

In 2023 I posted 4 fics at 58,153 words.

Previous years:

2022: 4 fics at 45,096 words.

2021: 3 fics posted, 55,788 words.

2020: 7 or 10 fics posted, 125,738 words.

2019: 7 fics posted, 72,149 words.

2018: 7 fics posted, 87,752 words

2016: 9 fics posted, 51,643 words

2017: 9 fics posted, 115,336 words

2016: 9 fics posted, 51,653 words

In total, 49 fics posted to Ao3.

We Can't Keep Meeting Like This

34,355 words, gen, Din/Luke/Mara

The Din/Luke/Mara fic I told myself I wasn't going to write! As these things tend to do, it expanded into a much longer fic than I expected. The "five things (plus one)" structure helped to keep it from spiraling even further, but those individual chapters ended up being much longer than I expected and took much longer to write. At first, I serialized the first couple of chapters in smaller excerpts for WIP Weds on tumblr. It was fun to get a little feedback and the weekly deadline compelled me to write those chapters quickly. But when engagement dropped to basically nothing I stopped posting updates and waited to post each chapter to ao3 when it was done. My progress slowed down considerably, but the chapters got longer. I had fun, most of the time.

The Girl Who Traveled the Ways Between the Walls

4,938 words, gen, Animalis verse

Written for the 5k AU fic challenge. Luminous Creatures begins with Mara and Luke's daemons settling, and I regretted never writing a story with an unsettled daemon character. I wanted to write a fic with a fairy-tale vibe and I wanted to explore the weirdness of the Imperial Palace. The Palace becomes a fairy tale wood, and Mara sets off on a quest in which she encounters strange people who aid her or demand aid. Does she learn the right lesson in the end? Perhaps not.

Echo, Revenant, Targeter, Phoenix

15,431 words, gen, Winter Retrac character study

I wrote this one for the Star Wars Big Bang, an experience that ended up being so stressful that I dropped out. I still finished the fic on time and posted it. The fic attracted a modest number of readers (unsurprising given Winter has been basically forgotten these days), but their enthusiasm was very gratifying. I've always liked Winter and I wanted to give her a chance to shine.

However, while I love the worldbuilding and individual scenes and images in this fic, as a whole I don't think it's very gracefully written and I've never been very happy with it.

Cascade

3,429 words, mature, Luke/Mara

I wanted to include A Non-Zero-Sum Game in Vol II of my printed fic collection, but the series felt unfinished without the fourth and final story that I planned to write after Tether. So five years later, I finally wrote it. It was interesting to go back to those old fics and try to write a story that fit the series. I wanted to post it before the new year broke so that I could count it in the 2023 list, and I rushed to get it out. It could probably still use some work.

As the year went on, I failed to meet a lot of the arbitrary deadlines I set myself, and that made writing frustrating and unfulfilling. I don't want it to be like that! I want fic to be fun.

However, I have a lot of non-fandom projects coming up in 2024, and I'm going to have to shift my focus away from fic, at least a little bit.

GOALS FOR 2024

(almost exactly the same as the goals for 2023)

Triumvirate Finale! (explicit, very) The big finale of the Triumvirate series, in which the trio returns to Coruscant to face the Emperor. Doesn’t have a proper title yet. Progress so far: three chapters drafted, 15,410 words.

A Smuggler’s Guide to Joining the Rebellion (gen) The sequel to The Things You Find on Tatooine. Progress: the first chapter finished, 2,241 words.

Lando Calrissian and the Jewel of Andara (gen) The Lando and Mara heist romcom I’ve been promising forever. Progress: three chapters drafted, but in need of heavy revision, 6757 words.

Other fics on the backburner:

Courtship remix

Experiments

Daughter of the Rain and Snow

More daemon fic! 

[yuamusuzuran]

All games I played in 2022. after getting Steam account (in order of downloading and playing):

Cinderella Phenomenon (January 2022-Mid-April 2022)

Something I downloaded to see how my new PC would work with games and I didn't expect to enjoy it so much. Its an otome game/visual novel with a lot of content and non-conventional female MC who actually grows immensly in every of 5 routes, it was such a joy to play. Plus, in every route you discover something new about the world and story. Check it out if you like fairy tale-esque plots and interesting developments! Ranking of the boys/routes: Karma > Waltz > Fritz > Rumpel > Rod

Red Embrace (Mid-April 2022-Mid-May 2022)

It's a BL visual novel. Interesting setting, compelling characters and I have one complaint: its too short. You can literally spend 2 hours on one route (there are 4), but also the story is kinda predictable in this first installment. I liked it though! Especually Dominic's and Rex's routes. A game to play when you want to relax. My ranking of the routes: Rex > Dominic > Isaac > Luca

Maelstrom (Mid-May 2022-Mid-July 2022)

Another BL with interesting setting and a very retro vibe to it! It wasn't explicit to the extent I was expecting, but still made a compelling story and there was some gore that game warns you about beforehand. You really start caring for these guys and their future. Don't take some discussions in it seriously, tho. Also, watch out for bad endings, THERE'S A LOT OF THEM! My ranking of routes (based on personal preference): Jader > Helix > Zheng-Li > Sawyer

Amnesia: Memories (Mid-July 2022-Mid-November 2022)

Probably most famous game on this list, I wanted to play it for a while. It's a typical visual otome game so take some things in ut with a grain of salt and I lost my mind from anger in a few places (fuck Toma, I hate him), but the setting and the whole thing with Orion and the game'e mystery really kept me on edge more than once. My ranking of the boys is: Kent > Ukyo > Shin > Ikki (Toma is not even considered, I want him to burn in hell)

My Burning Heart (Mid-November 2022 - Beginning of December 2022)

Take this yaoi visual novel with a lot of grains of salt, it's not too serious and don't think too much about what's happening in it. It's very enjoyable for relaxation and voice-acting is very good (especially for Sultan and Harun), but yeah, if you want something meaningful and deep, this ain't it. Still very fun! My ranking of routes: Sultan Rashid > Halim > Harun (though I started to like Harun, he's such a sassy and awful bitch)

Currently playing HADES from SuperGiant and I'll probably write about it a lot in the future mostly because I LIVE for this game and will play it religiously for at least half of 2023.

[notjanine]

i did not make my reading goal of 69 books this year. life was crazy and my brain was bad. but i did read 53 books, and of those, i liked 50- good hit rate! favorites--in no particular order--under the cut

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez - black lesbian vampire period piece starting in the 19th century (iirc) through the 20th and into the future. good compelling stuff.

Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer - a delightful natural history of mosses. they're more interesting and cool than you think they are. i can't wait to go out and look at some with the loupe i was given for christmas.

Sorcerer to the Crown and The True Queen by Zen Cho - british wizardry stuff, but good. if i hadn't already known, there is no way i would have guessed that these were written by the same person who wrote Black Water Sister. darling she has the range. Sorcerer was surprisingly hilarious and they are both such fun. whimsical, but not overly so. i hope she writes a third, but either way, she's got me, i'll read anything from her.

Rocks by Jan Zalasiewicz - yes, this is about literal, actual rocks. i read it during a little geology phase early in the year. it's rocks. yes. but... it reads like a fairy tale? idk. i usually tune out when it comes to geologic timescales, but this guy made even that interesting to me. it's surprisingly lovely. and very short.

You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Janina Matthewson and Jeffrey Cranor - i had mixed expectations for this one. a podcast spinoff book could never be good, could it? if it's my favorite podcast, is it more likely to be good or more likely to be extremely disappointing? but a title like that... visceral, pulling you in (YOU feel it, YOU FEEL it), all phonemes spoken at the front of your mouth like it's meant to be whispered... oh. oh it's good. i think this is the only book i read all in one sitting this year. the alternate history in this fictional universe has been worming its way into my brain for years, and finally learning more was so compelling and satisfying. (note: read this book with Stephen Rennicks' score for the little stranger as background music, would recommend.) and i love that the stories told within this universe are all able to stand alone, including this one, but there're always enough details (big and small) to tie them together. gosh. i haven't listened to the new season of within the wires yet, but i look forward to it emotionally destroying me when i do :)

Provecho by Edgar Castrejon - vegan mexican cookbook that fuuuuuucks. the writing is so straightforward and warm, the photos are plentiful and gorgeous, and the recipes are mostly very approachable. however, there were a few surprises that made me gasp out loud. amazing

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner - this is one of those books i was reluctant to read because i didn't think it could live up to the hype. it does tho

Certain Dark Things and Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - i do not like noir! and she made me like it twice!

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie - i had only seen the 2010 tv adaptation of this (bonkers cast). the original ending is way funnier

The Bone Ship's Wake by RJ Barker - last book in the tide child series :( i will definitely read and enjoy the whole trilogy again someday. fantasy pirates on ships made of dragon bones and also there are freaky bird creatures who control the weather. plus like politics and war and stuff. interesting subversions of typical white western cultural norms. and cool monsters. a lot to like in these books. (playlist for reading this series is heavy on the assassins creed black flag score, and daniel pemberton's for king arthur)

Beast at Every Threshold by Natalie Wee - when she said This body isn't a trial run for your real life... Make your hands useful or you'll be sorry....

The Library of the Dead and Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments by TL Huchu - i don't understand why these aren't classified as YA, but i'm glad they're not, or i wouldn't have read them. street-smart teenage girl in near-future edinburgh talks to ghosts and solves mysteries. sometimes it's gross. sometimes it's silly. there's a vibe and it's enjoyable

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones - he does one thing i really, really hate in this book. but i understand why. other than that thing, it is a blast. a literary take on the slasher genre. gets meta, but not annoyingly so. it was just the right level of scary for me (i.e., i had to stay up late to finish it so i could be DONE with it, but the scariness didn't persist past that).

plus some honorable mentions:

I'm Waiting for You by Kim Bo-Young - short story collection bookended by parallel stories about a couple separated in time. the first half wrecked me. the second didn't. i fell out of love in the middle. this book will always remind me of that.

A Marvellous Light and A Restless Truth by Freya Marske - victorian (?) era fantasy that's like 30% smut. not bad. but i mostly like them because i read the first one very soon after Sorcerer to the Crown, and in my head, they are in the same universe. delightful.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers - the usual Becky Chambers stuff. thinly veiled personal philosophy with a veneer of sci-fi bullshit. it's pretty sweet tho

ngl my book completion rate steadily decreased as the year progressed; most of these are from before i started my internship in august. i have no idea what to expect in my life next year, so i'm not even going to make a reading goal. i will, however, keep my self-imposed rule that no more than 25% of the books i read in a year can be written by white men. (i have read wayyy fewer mediocre and shitty books since implementing this policy.) i might even try no more than 25% white authors full stop. we'll see. i'm excited to see what books i'll find next year! i wonder if i'll knock out all of the unread books in my apartment before i move...

[aphrostarot]

Healing Inner Child Pick a Pile

What wounds does your inner child have and how can you help heal them?

Please remember that this is a general reading and some things may not apply to you. Don't force it to fit. I offer paid readings on my page if you would like a personal reading. Prices are listed there. Please message me if you are interested!

Pile One (Fuchsite):

How do you see yourself?

Seven of Wands:

You view yourself as someone who has fought tooth and nail to get to where you are. You also believe you have a strong sense of justice and will never let others stand in their way. However, due to the difficulties you've encountered in your life, you have lost the ability to see others as allies, which has hindered your ability to make new friends, keep friends, and ask for help when you need it.

The Widow:

Throughout her life, the Widow has suffered a lot of death, literally and figuratively. She, however, has survived each of these losses with a great amount of strength. While you have had a lot of difficulties in your life, you have handled them with great dignity and grace. These are the things you believe make you strong and give you the ability to survive all that life throws your way.

How does your inner child see you?

Ten of Cups:

This is the card of fairy tales and having it come out here is showing me that your inner child thinks of you as their fairy tale ending. You are everything your inner child ever dreamed of becoming. They view you as obtaining their happily ever after, after having gone through a period of struggles in life. You are very successful and charming in their eyes.

The Coquette:

In their eyes, you are extremely charming, confident, and flirtatious. You have everyone’s eyes on you when you walk into a room. Everyone either wants to be you or do you. You are able to charm the socks off just about anyone you encounter, making them give you just about anything you want. You are very dreamy in your inner child’s eyes.

How does your inner child feel currently?

Two of Swords:

They feel out of balance and they do not know how to find balance again. They are scared because they view you as this amazing person, as the one who they always dreamed of becoming and you do not think of yourself like that, which scares them. Because how can they see you for what you truly are and you not see that? How can you be the same person yet be so so, different?

What did you lack as a child?

Ten of Pentacles:

This is the card of abundance, of happy families. It seems to me that your family lacked financial abundance in your childhood and this really affected your happiness as a whole family but also as an individual.

What is something that has left your inner child scarred?

Three of Pentacles:

At some point in your life, you were the victim of envy, and this scarred your inner child. The people around you were jealous of you, so instead of trying to help you, they tried to destroy you instead. As a result of them hurting you, your inner child struggles to trust others.

How does that thing affect your life now?

Ten of Wands:

This has affected your ability to work hard, and your progress in life. When these people were trying to ruin your life you were at a point where your progress and hard work were just starting to pay off. And now you have a fear of making progress in your life because you fear the people around you will not support your life last time.

The Empress:

The Empress is all about growth and having it come out here is telling me that your fear of success is hindering your growth within yourself. Your inner child’s trauma is what is causing you to fear your own success and your mistrust of others.

What is something you can do to heal your inner child?

Nine of Swords:

As a result of the trauma that your inner child has endured, they have become very anxious and depressed. Your lack of trust in others is your inner child coming forward.

Seven of Cups:

By rediscovering your dreams of success, you will be able to heal your inner child. As a result of your past, you have lost those dreams and this has caused a lot of pain to your inner child. You will be more willing to achieve success once you realize that people in your life don't determine how you spend your life, thus healing your inner child.

Princess:

You are your own knight in shining armor, according to this card. There is no need for anyone else to fight for you. To help your inner child heal, your guides are telling you that you must fight for yourself. You do not need the people in your life to approve of your life decisions.

How can you support your inner child?

The Devil:

As we have established, your inner child views you as the person they have always dreamed of becoming, and this card is showing that one way to support your inner child is by viewing yourself as they do. You can regain balance in your life by aligning your views of yourself with theirs.

Tower:

This card tells you to unplug and relax. You need some self-care at this moment. Your guides are saying that a way for you to support your inner child is by taking care of yourself. Love yourself, view yourself the way your inner child does.

What does your inner child have to say to you?

Six of Cups:

When you were a kid you were very passionate about life and your dreams of success. Those dreams were shattered by setbacks and jealous people who made you lose heart. You are being urged by your inner child to rediscover those dreams. Channel your inner child so you can feel that passion yet again.

Pile Two (Amethyst):

How do you see yourself?

The Empress:

Charm, charisma, and beauty are just a few of the things you think make you special. Your view is that you are a very creative and intelligent person who can succeed in anything they do. In your eyes, you exude a strong motherly nature that compels others to love being in your presence making you a great friend and lover.

The Gamine:

The Gamine rejects all things that society deems feminine, often rocking a pixie cut or a short chop with boxy clothes. They are free-spirited and a delight to be around. This is how you see yourself, as possessing a charming youthful spirit.

How does your inner child see you?

Six of Wands:

Your inner child sees you as someone who loves the spotlight but is very passionate, determined, and unafraid to take risks. In their eyes, you are positive, optimistic, and a natural-born leader. It feels to me that you are not at all someone they ever imagined becoming but they love who you have become.

The Siren:

The siren is a symbol of the challenge of resistance. Irresistible, she can entice just about anyone into her traps. She has every enchanted by her beauty and her voice. That is how your inner child perceives you, as someone who is irresistible and extremely strong.

How does your inner child feel currently?

Queen of Cups:

Your inner child feels very loyal to you. They love you very much and cannot believe how far you have come in your life. They are putting you on a pedestal due to the fact that you have surmounted everything they could have ever imagined becoming. They idolize you.

The High Priestess:

As this is the card of secrets, it seems like they are also reluctant to discuss how they are feeling at the moment. Maybe it is hard for them to trust others so they aren’t willing to share with me how they’re feeling currently. From the energy, I sense that they feel alone and that they cannot trust anyone else but themselves.

What did you lack as a child?

The Hierophant:

You had a very hectic childhood. Your family never had any traditions. Not only were there no traditions, but there was a lack of balance as well. Constantly walking on eggshells around the people in your life, you never knew what to expect. Not wanting to rock the boat for fear of uproar.

Three of Swords:

As a result of your hectic childhood, you received heartbreak after heartbreak. This makes sense with the energy I am receiving from your inner child. Your inner child is very untrustworthy because you lacked the stability in your childhood to feel like you could truly trust others.

What is something that has left your inner child scarred?

Ten of Wands:

As a kid, the people in your life relied on you a lot to provide for them and to keep them in check. You were blamed for many things, and you had to enforce balance in a place where it did not exist. You were the parent to your siblings and you were the parent to yourself. Which has left your inner child scarred and scared to trust others.

Justice:

As a child, you experienced a lack of justice. You were blamed for so many of the bad things that happened because you were expected to be the emotional punching bag for so long and when you didn't live up to your role you were punished.

How does that thing affect your life now?

Three of Pentacles:

This scarring affected your education. Your family may have pressured you to stay home and take care of them, so you did not pursue higher education. Alternatively, you may not believe you are intellectually capable of pursuing higher education. Whatever the case may be, your education has been greatly affected by the scarring your inner child experienced.

What is something you can do to heal your inner child?

Three of Wands:

The way for you to heal your inner child is by teaming up with someone. Asking for help. You have been conditioned all your life to be a strong individual, who never asks for help even when they need it. Now is the time to change that. Your guides want you to reach out to someone and ask for help when you need it. You do not need to tough it out alone.

Voyage:

Voyage tells you that you have all the answers within yourself, and you know it. You have been trying to avoid rocking the boat for some time now even though you knew that asking for help was the right option. You know, and maybe always have known, that you need help to get through this. Your inner child urges you to listen to yourself over trying to be what everyone else is telling you to be.

How can you support your inner child?

Two of Pentacles:

Your whole childhood lacked balance which left your inner child wounded. Here, your guides are telling you that the way for you to support your inner child is by finding balance in your life.

Escapist:

For a long time now, you have avoided what needs to be done in your life, avoiding this lack of balance. The way to support your inner child is to come home to yourself. Stop running away from yourself and what you need to do. Find that balance so you can begin to heal.

What does your inner child have to say to you?

Seven of Pentacles:

The Seven of Pentacles is all about plans paying off and having it come out here shows me that your inner child is telling you to maintain hope because soon your plans will pay off. If you do not have plans for the future, this is your inner child's way of telling you that you may need to plan more for your future because your hard work will pay off.

Additional Messages:

A channeled message I received from your inner child is, "You possess limitless abundance, you just need to believe it."

Pile Three (Amazonite):

How do you see yourself?

Nine of Wands:

You have faced an extreme amount of seemingly insurmountable challenges in your life and have come out on top almost every time. This has caused you to believe that you have unlimited potential to achieve all of your dreams. You see yourself as someone who will preserve until they reach their end goal.

The Demon Mother:

The Demon Mother is a vessel of mysterious power. She has a strong ability to manifest whatever it is she desires. She, however, commands attention, and others can’t help but be in awe of her. This is how you see yourself.

How does your inner child see you?

Ace of Wands:

Your inner child sees you as someone who is constantly pushing forward towards the things they want. They think that you are very successful when it comes to getting the things you want. Overall it seems to me that you and your inner child view you in the same way, as a very hardworking fiery individual. You could even be a fire sign, Aries, Leo, or Sagittarius.

The Psychic:

It is the psychic's strong intuition that allows them to see the future. They are able to predict what will happen in the future. Your inner child sees you as someone who has great abilities when it comes to your intuition. Whether you have practiced it or not doesn’t matter in their eyes, because to them you are very very magical.

How does your inner child feel currently?

Two of Pentacles:

They feel as though they are out of balance. This is interesting to me because they view you ultimately the same way as you view yourself. However, based on the energy I am getting from both you and them I think that you may be unaware of how strong your intuition really is. This is where they feel that imbalance, in you being unaware of how much power you hold. They know you can do so much with your powers if you were just aware of them.

What did you lack as a child?

Knight of Swords:

It seems to me that you had a masculine energy in your childhood who was very aggressive and caused you a great deal of drama and conflict growing up. This person loved to fight and that’s all they did when you were a kid, whether it was with you or other people. You were a witness to a lot of aggression.

Two of Swords:

Because of that person and their aggression, your childhood lacked a lot of balance. It was always a crossroads when it came to them, whether you should avoid them or face them. You were constantly juggling the drama and conflict that they put you through that your childhood lacked peace and balance.

What is something that has left your inner child scarred?

Judgment:

You lacked the ability to make decisions for yourself as a child and this really left your inner child scarred. This aggressive person had strong control over almost everything in your life at a young age and you were never really given the chance to be in charge of your own life.

Strength:

When you were a kid you feared standing up for yourself against this person who had so much control over you. This fear made you believe that you were not strong enough to stand up for yourself, which left your inner child scarred as well.

How does that thing affect your life now?

The Hermit:

You now live your life in a constant hermit mode. Avoiding others at all costs because you fear ending up in a relationship like the one you had with that person. You are lonely as a result. You may have a few friends but you keep them at arm’s length, not allowing them to truly get to know you. You believe that you are the only one who will ever truly know you and love you.

What is something you can do to heal your inner child?

Four of Pentacles:

The card of possessiveness indicates holding on to what you have with all your might. According to your guides, the only way you can heal your inner child is by keeping your things to yourself. Because you didn't have much control over your life and what you had when you were growing up, you aren't so possessive now. Since you never had anything to yourself as a kid, you allow others to take it from you at will. You may also just give your things to others because you aren't used to having them yourself. Your guides want you to stop that behavior and start holding onto the things you have.

Garden:

This card tells you that now is the time to focus on yourself, even if you feel that it is selfish. Put yourself first because you can now. Even though you were conditioned to believe that you are not in control of yourself, you are. Now is the time to truly listen to yourself and what you want, then go after it. If you do that, something good will arise, and that good thing will be the healing of your inner child.

How can you support your inner child?

Queen of Pentacles:

Treat yourself. Give yourself everything you have ever wanted, within reason. According to your guides, this is the way you can help your inner child. Bring luxury into your life, spend money on yourself, give yourself a spa day or two. Give yourself what you lacked as a child. Control over your needs and desires being fulfilled.

Lighthouse:

This is the card of not doubting your worth. Your childhood made you think that you were not capable of really anything, and that has really affected your inner child a great deal. The way for you to support your inner child is by believing in yourself, knowing that you truly are worthy of just about anything that you put your mind to.

What does your inner child have to say to you?

The Lovers:

Out of all of the piles here, the love that comes from your inner child is indescribable. Your inner child loves you so very much. It is hard for me to even find the words to describe the amount of love that is coming from them. They are extremely proud of you and everything that you have become. That is really all they want you to know, just how much they love you.

Additional Message:

Before closing out this pile this is what I heard from your inner child, “Thank you for everything. I love you, it’s always been you that was there no matter what.”

Pile Four (Rose Quartz):

How do you see yourself?

Page of Wands:

As a thrill-seeker, you consider yourself someone who enjoys adventures. In your eyes, you are passionate and free-thinking. You enjoy traveling, especially to exotic locations, and you enjoy socializing with other people. Aside from that, you have a very young heart, which makes you extremely optimistic and joyful. According to you, you are a very forgiving person who is willing to overlook red flags, which makes you an excellent friend.

The She-Wolf:

You see yourself as a person who is not only fierce but also has a great inner strength. In your eyes, you are a survivor, having been through so much and surviving it all. Additionally, you are very protective of the people in your life, willing to do whatever it takes to protect them.

How does your inner child see you?

The Magician:

Your inner child sees you as a very quick person. In their eyes, you have great mental agility. You are considered very magical, you have a strong intuition and are an amazing manifestor. You are seen by your inner child as someone who is very eloquent and highly intelligent.

The Magical Girl:

This is interesting to me because the Magician in Tarot is a very magical card, representing having an innate ability to manifest whatever it is you want. The Magician is very magical and in this Oracle deck, the Magical Girl is essentially the Magician. Your inner child defines you as someone with great abilities and someone who has grown so much over the course of their life.

How does your inner child feel currently?

Knight of Swords:

Right now, your inner child is very aggressive. Almost angry, they are restless and destructive. They are irritated and ready to fight. You have been ignoring your inner child for quite some time now, which has really pissed them off. There is strong firey energy here. In astrology, it seems to be more water or air energy rather than fire signs. You might be a Gemini, Libra, Aquarius, Scorpio, Cancer, or Pisces. It feels like strong Scorpio energy.

What did you lack as a child?

Ten of Wands:

There were a lot of burdens placed on you as a child. It feels to me that you lacked a childhood as a kid. You were expected to be strong and mature and not act your age. You were the one who mainly held your family up which is a lot of pressure to put on a child resulting in a lack of innocence and play.

What is something that has left your inner child scarred?

King of Wands:

The King of Wands is a masculine energy consumed with their desires. Pure passion drives them to focus on their career and hobbies. Growing up, you had someone like this in your life. Instead of focusing on you, they focused on their career, making it so you were the one in charge because they were never around.

How does that thing affect your life now?

Death:

Death is the card of transformation, of shedding the old and embracing the new, becoming a new person. You have not been able to let go of your past, holding on to the old which is holding you back from your transformation. You can’t truly grow if you are not willing to let go of some things along the way. Your guides are saying that yes, you had a rough childhood but you have grown up. Now is the time to treat yourself the way you deserved as a kid, instead of maintaining that negative treatment.

What is something that you can do to heal your inner child?

Five of Swords:

You've been struggling for some time now, trying to regain control of your life. Yet, as we have established, the way in which you were battling for control is detrimental to you. According to you, now is the time to act your age and be mature because that is what is best for you. But you are treating yourself the same way that person treated you when you were a kid. By letting go of the idea that you are doing what is right for you, you will be able to heal your inner child. Instead of ignoring your inner child, embrace them.

Thorns:

A good support system is just as important as self-care. The idea that you only need yourself may have led you to go at life alone. Your guides are saying that you can heal your inner child by giving yourself a childhood. Hang out with your friends. Act like a child and have fun since that is what is needed here.

How can you support your inner child?

Ace of Pentacles:

The Ace of Pentacles is all about building a foundation. So, the way for you to support your inner child is by building a solid foundation for you to freely be able to act like a child in your life. You may not feel comfortable doing this in your life right now, but the key to this is building a solid foundation for you to do this. Surround yourself with people that allow you to do this, make your home a safe place, fill it with things that make you comfortable. The key to success here is your own comfort levels.

Confidence:

You also may be lacking the confidence to truly give yourself a break from the hustle and bustle of life and show your inner child. Your guides are saying that you need to build your confidence so you can support your inner child. The key to feeling confident is feeling comfortable. Make sure you are comfortable with the people you surround yourself with and with the things you surround yourself with.

What does your inner child have to say to you?

The Devil:

The Devil is all things passionate and all things taboo. Your inner child tells me that you avoid all these things because they scare you because your childhood lacked fun. You need to embrace some of the things that scare you. Take baby steps towards having fun. Do things you were never allowed to do as a child.

Additional Messages:

While channeling for this pile, I heard "Have fun...let loose...try new things...be brave, little one." I heard the phrase, "Chicken little," but I have no idea what it means. I'm hoping someone can understand what it means.

Though tips are not required, they are very much appreciated. Thank you!

Venmo: @ aphrostarot Paypal: paypal/aphrostarot

[alch3mic]

Could. Could I request SOFT TM SWAPAROO!BEAST/KING FLUFF??? aa??

The job you had was rather... peculiar one.

It certainly wasn’t the strangest job you’ve ever had in this crazy city, not by a long shot, but it was perhaps the most interesting you've had yet.

You were a personal maid.

That in itself was a pretty ordinary job title, which is why you didn't hesitate to apply for the job when you saw it online one day.

It was described simply as a live-in kind of gig with some rather long hours attached and a rather strange set of requirements, but the pay was way too good for you to pass up.

So you applied.

You were met the very next morning with a very strange phone call from a very callous individual who asked you some very bizarre questions.

The kind of questions you very much never asked for a job interview.

...Which made the whole thing seem very suspicious to you.

Still the money was very tempting so you decided to... very much continue with the job application anyways.

After what felt like more of an interrogation than a proper interview, the voice on the phone had told you to come down to the 'estate' for a face to face, and from there they would decide if you really got the job or not.

At this point you had expected a couple of things.

Like, maybe this was just some kind of prank and you'd show up to an empty lot, or... maybe it was a really elaborate ruse to rope you into some kinda weird pyramid scheme?

Wouldn't have been the first time that kinda stuff happened with all the different jobs you've applied to over the years.

Well, what you hadn't expected was to show up to the most ominous looking mansions you could've ever imagined; complete with deep dark colors, thorny rose bushes and several tacky gothic ornaments that made the whole thing look like it popped straight out of a storybook for a villain.

To top the whole affair off you met the owner of said villainous mansion; one very tall, very intimidating skeleton, who held the same callous tone as the one who spoke to you over the phone.

...A Fell...

And that's when your heart sank.

Seems like your bad feeling was right.

.......Until it wasn't.

The exchange you ended up having with him was actually rather pleasant, and he seemed to warm up to you rather quickly when you made an unexpected friend out of his cat. His sour expression ended up turning.. well.. less sour at the very least, and from there the two of you really seemed to hit it off.

Your job, as he described, would be easy.

Take care of his recluse brother.

......And that was it...?

Alright, you said.

And really, that was it.

You were given a rather cool looking (although also kinda tacky) uniform which completely matched the whole dark and gothic interior of the house, a tour of the place, and a small list of duties you were expected to perform daily along with anything else his brother asked of you.

Anything else, Papyrus took care of.

Cool.

Great.

Stellar, really.

What your new boss failed to mention was how much of a recluse his brother really was.

Like, the guy didn't even leave his room the first few days you were there.

You exchanged very few words with him through a large set of double doors on occasion, and you eventually managed to work out a bit of a schedule where he'd leave his room for a few hours and you'd tidy his space up.

You still ended up never seeing him.

He'd always miraculously disappear before you came in, even the few times you'd shown up just a few minutes early in hopes that'd you catch a glimpse of this guy.

But, no luck.

The whole affair just left you feeling rather curious about who exactly it was you were taking care of. You could tell from picking up his room that he was tall, much like his brother, but also kinda wide.

Built more like a square than a rectangle.

You could also tell he had a variety of interests from the books always messily littering his room. Anything from astronomy to zoology, all of the pages meticulous marked with sticky notes and papers with hastily scribbled notes on them. There was also an assortment of crafty things, like fabrics and chains always hastily thrown together on a desk that he apparently used to make things, such as outfits for himself.

It was cute, in a way.

He even eventually made something for you.

A gold bracelet, decorated with most delicate porcelain red roses who's petals were also trimmed in gold.

A thank you, he said, for taking care of him... and for filling the halls of this home with your singing.

You absolutely adored it, which is why it made you all the more determined to finally meet with him face to face.

Of course though, just like with everything else in your life, none of your plans ever worked out. Every opportunity to catch a peek at him was missed, even on the days where you would slide him things like meals through his door. He was always shadowed by the light in his room, so you could never see his face, and he always closed the door so quickly so your eyes could never adjust.

It was.. a little frustrating but, really it wasn't your place to push why he hid away.

You did happen to ask Papyrus one day when you were helping him tend to the rose bushes, but he all he told you was that his brother was shy around other people.

...Shy your fuckin' ass.

Sure, he was sweet. You could tell that from not only the gift he gave you, but also from the extended conversations you'd have with him on the other side of the door. He was a bit quiet in your first few exchanges but eventually warmed up a lot more to you the more you tried to strike up friendly conversations. He ended up becoming a little more cheeky, and seemed to have a certain skill for making you bust your butt laughing with his otherwise raunchy humor.

Really.. with that kind of smoother talker personality you really had to wonder what he went through to make him so cautious around others.

But.. again it just wasn't your place to ask.

You were here to make a paycheck, not invest yourself into the problems and lives of others... despite how much you enjoyed working for your employers.

Both of the brothers ended up treating you very well.

You were paid handsomely and never felt yourself being overworked. They never asked anything outrageous of you, gave you a rather lovely living quarters all to yourself on the estate grounds and even gave you adequate days off.

The whole thing almost really felt like some kind of fairy tale.

So here you were again, living in a small piece of your own world as you wandered the halls of the estate in the late hour, technically past your shift.

The rain pitter pattered against the window as you traveled with a laundry basket in hand, your last chore for the day. It had taken a while to dry thanks to the damp weather, and even though you were technically due to be off you wanted to have this finished before retiring for the evening.

Just needed to drop it off in front of Sans' room and away you'd g-

"mrow?"

You inhaled quickly at the sound, jumping a bit before turning back to look down the hall at a familiar white cat in the distance.

"Oh stars above, it's just you Doomy," you breathed out, placing a hand to your chest.

The cat meowed again as it trotted closer to you, so you carefully set down the laundry basket to scoop up the white cat in your arms.

"You scared the hell out of me! Didn't Papyrus ever teach you it's bad manners to sneak up on others you silly little cat?" you whispered softly as she purred in your arms.

Oh you could never stay mad at Doomfanger for too long.

She was just too cute, and always liked to keep you company on nights like this when Papyrus had to attend to business in town. Certainly made you feel a lot less lonely, even though you knew someone else was technically in this house too-

CREAK.

You froze again, hearing nothing but silence until the floors creak again underneath someone's footstep.

Then another.

And another.

Closer and closer.

......

Alright well you were armed with nothing but your two fists, some laundry and a cat, but Papyrus had left the whole estate in your care tonight and you would be damned before you disappointed him!

So, you turned confidently to face whoever was stalking these halls before being met with...

"...Sans?"

You're not exactly sure what compelled you to call out his name, considering whoever you were looking at had a blanket covering their shoulders and head, but apparently your guess was right as he froze on the spot.

"...Jeez, both you and Doomfanger are apparently determined to scare me out of my wits tonight," you finally sighed, letting the cat go as she gracefully landed and sauntered her way over to Sans before rubbing up on to his leg.

He still seemed frozen in place, his head tilted ever so slightly in your direction but the blanket he wore over his head still casted him into shadows thanks to the dim lighting of the halls. The only thing you could properly see were a pair of eyelights burrowing into you, one red and one white.

"Is.. everything ok?" you asked, picking up the laundry basket and carefully approaching closer.

Clearly it wasn't considering he was out of his room when you were here but...

"....left.."

"Huh?" you asked, still trying to at least keep some respectable distance between you both but also taking a step in to catch what he was saying.

"i...i-i thought you.. already.. so i......... snack..."

He was fumbling with his words, seeming to shrink in a bit on himself almost in fear or some kind of embarrassment.

"Oh! No, sorry!" you explained with a quick wave of your hand. "I just had this last load to finish but it took forever to dry so I stuck around a little longer to get it done!"

You did your best to smile warmly at him, which you hoped would ease a bit of the tension he was holding, but it didn't.

Instead he became... really...

Red.

Very, very red in fact.

So much so that it actually lit up his face, and for once you could actually see him as he stared back at you, seeming transfixed upon your features. There were harsh cracks and scratches splintered over his face, and just the faintest hint of gold where a tooth would have been.

"...Huh.."

Your words seemed to snap him out of whatever kind of trance he was in and he quickly covered his face with a clawed hand.

"n-no! this...! i.. didn't...! mean to... scare..."

He seemed to be scrambling for words again, but you were still dazzled by what you just saw, unable to keep the sparkle down in your own eyes.

"You've...."

He continued to cover his face with his other hand.

"......got some crumbs on your face."

.............

He carefully peeked at you between his claws, that red eyelight of his slightly enlarged and looking.. incredibly confused.

"Here," you said, tapping your own cheek.

Sans seemed to pause again, carefully removing once of his hands to rather quickly wipe his face.

"Nope, other one!" you giggled, unable to resist the smile climbing over your face once again.

Another attempt and another miss.

You could feel his eyelight bore into you some more when you laughed a bit more loudly this time, shaking your head and setting down the laundry basket once more.

"Oh my gosh, just..! C'mere!" you finally said, taking a few more steps while pulling a handkerchief out of your pocket.

He stared again for a few more moments, hesitating only slightly before carefully bending down to your level and slowly moving his hands from his face.

You lightly placed a hand on one of his rather tense cheeks before gently wiping the other, making note of the kind of crumbs he still had clinging to his face thanks to the red glow that still illuminated his cheekbones.

Slowly you felt the tension he held melt away and soon enough it felt like he was resting his head in the palm of his hand while a gentle rumbling noise made itself present to your ears.

"....Did you eat the last of the cookies?" you asked, glancing back up him only to see him quickly look away from you.

".........maybe," he said softly, letting out a small gruff laugh.

"Ooooh, Papyrus is going to have an absolute fit when he gets back," you snickered.

"...yeah i know..s'fine," he mumbled softly. "..just gonna blame it on you."

"Hey!!"

"...or doomfanger.."

"Oh my stars, do not blame the cat you goober!"

"what? i'm pretty sure you'd both get in less trouble than i would!"

"That's not the point you jerk, haha!"

"..heh.."

Yeah.. this... really was quite the peculiar job, wasn't it?

Strangely though, you liked it.

A lot.

Especially now that you got to see just how cute the skeleton beyond the door really was.

check out my other writings | feel free to drop me a ko-fi!

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Books I’ve Read in 2020

AHello! I’m trying to read as many books as I can during the quarantine, here’s what I’ve finished so far:

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (literary fiction): a son writes a letter about his life to his illiterate mother. Breathtakingly beautiful with it’s way with words this book is lovely and real in the hardest and sweetest ways. The author’s combination of prose and poetry is dazzling and intricate, this book has stuck with me for days afterward. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (fantasy): a money-lender gets in trouble after bragging she can turn silver into gold and is kidnapped and ordered to do so by a fey creature. It may be that I am the perfect audience for this type of book, but it’s my favorite thing I’ve read all year. It’s a book that equally takes on the fantastical and real-world with compelling female characters at the center of the whole thing. A wonderful fantasy journey inspired by eastern-European Jewish folklore. 5 out of 5 stars.

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll (horror graphic novel): a series of short horror comics. Absolutely bone-chilling! This was a really fun type of scary story, especially the last one which made my skin absolutely crawl. Deliciously eerie, this was treat to read if not a little too short. 4 out of 5 stars.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender (magical realism): a young girl can taste other people’s emotions in their cooking and begins to understand her family in new ways. This was a weird book, but it has everything you’ve got to love about that combination of the surreal and mundane. It’s sense of character was electrifying and I had fun engaging with this type of off-kilter real world. I was a little frustrated in parts bc of some characters choices, but that too was true to life. 4 out of 5 stars.

Crier’s War by Nina Varela (steampunk fantasy wlw): about a Made automaton heir to a throne and her human hand-maiden that is trying to kill her. This was an easy read with a lot of tension between the two main characters that I liked, but the writing itself was very weak. There was waaay too much exposition in parts and the dialogue had some really hockey lines. I enjoyed the twists and turns in the middle of the book, but the beginning and end didn’t have much movement. 2.5 stars out of 5.

The Huntress by Kate Quinn (historical fiction): honestly, I’m a little disappointed. This book just did not hit my sweet spots, it wasn’t fast-paced enough for me to get immersed in the plot, and the characters weren’t real enough to be wholly invested in them. That said I adored Nina Markova and the Night Witches, so that did help. 3 starts out of 5.

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White (horror sci-fi retelling): HAND IN UNLOVABLE HAND. A retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein from the perspective of Victor Frankenstein’s wife and my God! The characters! The plot was well-enough, but the characters took the whole show for being complex and compelling. The main character was breathtakingly layered and I was wholly invested in Elizabeth and her story and the triumph at the end of this story was tangible. 4 out of 5 stars! 

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (fantasy): A story of a young woman who lives in a valley where a girl must go live with a wizard for 10 years. She is certain she won’t be chosen, but ends up having to be “uprooted” herself. I enjoyed most of this book! However, I think I liked “Spinning Silver” a lot more just because the ending of this one somehow lost me. The characters were good and plot compelling, but (SPOILERS) the big battle at the end seemed to drag and didn’t interest me somehow. 3.8 out of 5 stars.

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (fantasy): excellent read! A story of a young woman in Jazz Age Mexico who goes on an adventure with a Mayan death God who is trying to regain his throne. A romp across the country absolutely brimming with likable characters and fairy tale twists. My only complaint would be that most of it felt a little predictable due to the fact we knew where we were going throughout the whole story, However, it was still greatly enjoyable for the heroine herself, Casiopea. 4 out of 5 stars!

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (literary): a story of two families in a progressive “planned” community, how their lives intertwine, their secrets, and a central question surrounding motherhood. Deeply empathetic to its characters and introspective, this is an every-day story of people in suburbia that reads like a thriller. I could barely put it down and felt deeply for its characters and situations, 5 out of 5 stars!

Wilder Girls by Rory Power (YA sci-fi suspense): a story of a group of girls at a boarding school on an island affected by the “tox” which alters their bodies in strange ways like giving them scales or an extra spine. This was an eerie, interesting read with a wlw romance! Watch out for the body horror in this one, but it was very gripping and held my interest. Some of the pacing was off in places (like the romance), but had a very creepy atmosphere that did it for me. 3.8 out of 5 stars!

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio (thriller-mystery): A thriller about a group of Shakespeare actors in their last year of college and one of their classmates who turns up dead. I enjoyed the murder mystery part of this novel more than I expected despite the fact I had guessed who had “done it” pretty early on. I really enjoyed the James-Oliver dynamic with its growing homoeroticism, but I didn’t like how the character of Meredith was handled at all. She felt like a one-note aside. I might have given this book four stars, but the ending was EXTREMELY frustrating for me and I did not like the “open-ended” conclusion. 3 out of 5 stars.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (literary humor): a weird character-driven comedy about an old grumpy man and a new family that moves in next to him. Warning for themes of suicide. Anyway, I don’t normally indulge in cliches like “I laughed, I cried, I loved one Cat Annoyance.” However, that’s exactly what I did. I laughed out loud, I cried my eyes out (THE CAT’S HEAD WAS IN HIS PALM), I loved this book. It was sweet and compelling and thoroughly immersive. 5 out of 5 stars!

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (historical fantasy): set in the early 1900s comes a story of a young girl and her experience with “Doors” that lead to different worlds. This book had a lot of great character development and really interesting descriptions, however, I didn’t like it as much as I wanted to. I found it hard to get myself to sit down a read it. There was just something missing with the push to “page-turn,” but it was still a really good book. 3.7 out of 5 stars!

Gideon the 9th by Tamsyn Muir (high fantasy, kinda gay): I AM FILLED WITH EMOTIONS. This was book was definitely a page-turner. I was very confused with it at the beginning, but the characters and their interactions were, forgive the expression, the life blood of the story and kept me wholly invested. The ending has CRUSHED my heart, but damn did I have a good time reading it. 4.5 out of 5 stars!

Harrow the 9th by Tamsyn Muir (sequel to Gideon the 9th): I really enjoyed this book. It was just as strange and twisting as the first book, though I think I enjoyed the first one a bit more since I love Gideon. It was fun ride overall, though the ending was kind of really confusing. So 4 out of 5 stars.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (historical fiction): Overall, I really enjoyed this book! The writing style was personable and grounded in reality. I found myself really liking the main characters and the exploration of the life of a bi main character was really well done I thought. A solid book with drama and glamor to boot. 4.6 out of 5 stars!

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (historical fiction): A story of two sisters during WWII and their resistance to Nazi occupation. To be honest, this book wasn’t my cup of tea. It was compelling, but also wholly depressing and I felt like gloried in the pain of the two main characters too much. The history was wonderful and realistic, but it didn’t make me feel anything good afterward. It was just dark. 3 out of 5 stars.

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (mlm romance): I finally finished this after the heaviness of The Nightingale. This is a story of the First Son of the USA falling for the prince of England. And it turned out to be a very fun and light hearted read! Some of it was kinda generic and too political, and it coulda been shorter, but I thought the romance itself made up for it. It just made me feel so sweet and lovely inside. 4 out of 5 stars!

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman (literary humor): I’m searching out heartfelt books and this one ticked off all the marks on my “sweet” list. A lovely book that made me cry more times than I would like to admit. Compassionate beyond belief, funny and heartfelt. I think I enjoyed A Man Called Ove slightly more, but this book was also dear to me and something I hope to reread in the future. 4.2 out of 5 stars!

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (sci-fi): A post-apocalyptical story about a group of traveling Shakespeare actors and a symphony. Overall, an excellent read that somehow pictures a more realistic or even softer version of the apocalypse. At first, I wasn't happy with the jumping around of the story, but as I progressed I grew fonder and fonder of the interwoven characters and their journey. A very fascinating read about a world that hits a little too close to home. The appreciation of the arts and preserving humanity was somehow very hopeful and I was fully engaged with this story. 5 out of 5 Stars!

Up next: The Hidden Life of Trees by by Peter Wohlleben (nonfiction science), The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin (urban fantasy), The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (fantasy)

[imagine-lcorp]

Enchanted (One Shot)

Request

Can you do one where Lena gets kissed by a girl at a masquerade party aka Reader who works at L-Corp's lab (she had had the longest crush on her boss) and it's the first time Lena has kissed a woman. Lena is smitten by that kiss and the stranger in a beautiful mask and the only distinct recognition she has is a tattoo on their wrist. They dance and talk during the party. Finding common interests and likes. Lena falling for R harder. R plays everything surprisingly cool despite her heart hammering in her chest. Must be the wine. Lena tries to hunt down the stranger in every way she could think of. One day just as she was falling in total despair she frozes at L-Corp cafeteria when she sees a lab worker paying for coffee and their sleeve rise high enough to reveal the tattoo Lena recognizes. The rest is up to you ^^

A/N: Ok so I know I took my time with this one, but it was so much fun and I’m so happy I could finish it!! Guess I’m gonna be really productive this quarantine. Pls enjoy!

Lena Luthor x Fem!R|Modern Cinderella AU//Word Count: 2,550 -------------------------------------------------------

Two glasses of wine in and you're still not sure how your best friend managed to drag you at a masquerade party. Not that you weren't enjoying the glamour of it, with the withe tables, the fine silverware, the music, a surprisingly well done mix of classical music with a great beat, and the overall fanciness of it all, but it definitely wasn't what you were expecting to do on a Friday night. That and the fact that your friend had disappeared a while ago, leaving you to wander around the place all by yourself.

"Come on, (Y/N), I got us invitations to one of the best and most exclusive parties in National City." She had said as you arrived in her car.

She stopped in front of the hotel that was hosting the party and handed you masquerade mask, selected especially for her to go with the outfit she had also chosen for you to wear tonight.

"Whoever thought, having a masquerade party was fun must have a serious obsession with Disney princesses." You took the mask form her hand and looked at it.

"Could be, but I'm not about to question the person who did all of this and who is letting me enjoy it for free." She said adjusting her own mask on her face.

"Didn't you sell your soul to the devil for the invitations or something?" You put on the mask and looked at the rear view mirror making sure you looked as good as your friend had pretended with the outfit.

"Yeah, yours included. Now, shut up and have some fun." She turned to look at you and smiled."And who knows? Maybe you'll find your Disney princess."

It had been a couple of hours already since you arrived and the only thing you had found was yourself back again at the bar, asking for your third glass of wine. You tried to enjoy the party, just like your friend had said, but it was difficult considering you were there by yourself and you had no idea who were all these people. However, you couldn't completely blame your friend for all of this. She was just making sure you had some other activities besides staying at home watching tv or at work... drooling over your boss.

When you moved to National City you had no idea you would actually land that job at L-Corp and you of course weren't aware Lena Luthor could be that awesome in person. You were collaborating in one of the many projects the company had but she was always involved in every single one of them, making sure the team had everything you needed to continue with the research and talking to the heads of the projects at least once a month.

You didn't even talk to each other and there was no real need for that since you were just a lab technician but it was ridiculous the way it made you feel when she was in the same room. It was obvious she was as beautiful as she was smart and that was enough to make your brain collapse. Having a crush on Lena Luthor had been unexpected, just like hearing her voice beside you.

You turned your face and turned it again so quickly it could have given you whiplash, with just a quick glance you were sure Lena Luthor was attending the same party as you. She had walked to the bar along with someone else, and you stood there waiting for your own glass of wine, tapping your fingers impatiently on the marble table of the bar, and panicking over someone the presence of someone you hand't actually meet. Your whole body as you kept waiting for you wine and even if it wasn't your conscious intention your ears only registered her voice.

Her conversation didn't seem enjoyable at all. The man who accompanied her was trying to have some kind of conversation that Lena wasn't even trying to follow, if anything she sounded annoyed, responding with only a yes or no or a nod, as he raised his voice making sure she was listening to whatever he was saying. It was clear she wasn't interested. The man wasn't getting the hint, and you wanted nothing but to take her away from that uncomfortable situation.

Then, you weren't sure if you were going to regret it or not, you didn't know if it was the alcohol already running on your system or the advantage of anonymity the mask on your face gave you but, you did something.

As soon as the bartender put your glass of wine in front of you, you turned around to face them both.

"Hey, I knew I recognized that voice." You said taking the glass on your hand. "How did you find me? I went into the crowd twice thinking I had lost you! Here, I got your wine."

They both turned in your direction, and you could see the confusion through the holes in their masks. She only needed one second to figure what you were doing, and she wondered if she had really sounded as tired of the conversation she was having for someone to come and save her.

"Hey, yes, sorry." You handed her your glass and she took it from you automatically.

"Don't worry, I see you're making new friends." You pulled your best smile. "Who is this?"

"This is..." Lena looked at the guy next to her but couldn't remember his actual name.

"Just a guy she just met." He said with a cocky smile, trying to appear charming.

"Well, nice to meet you." You turned to face her. "Now, if I recall correctly, the next dance is mine. So, shall we dance, madame?"

"Of course." She said and took the hand you offered with a little bow.

"See you around, guy she just met." You waved behind him as you and Lena walked hand in hand to the center of the room, away from him. Your heart was hammering inside your chest and you prayed the hand that was holding hers wasn't as sweaty as you thought it was.

She let you drag her to one corner of the room and when you realized you had walked around for a good minute you stopped and turned to face her once more.

"Please, tell me I didn't actually ruin a potential date for you." You asked.

"No, not at all. His conversation wasn't that compelling to start with."

"So I heard." You thought about your words and felt your cheeks turn red. "Not that I was spying but he was really loud."

"Don't worry. In fact, I think I own you one... and a glass of wine too." She raised the glass to show it half empty. "Sorry."

You smiled at her and responded with more confidence than you knew you were capable of. "Maybe you can repay me with that dance. I also promise to make for an interesting chat."

"Deal." She chuckled, a sound so precious it threatened to melt your heart.

She had let you take her hand, guiding her once more among the crowd, and you found yourselves in the middle of the dance floor, with the thousand lights illuminating it and the music loud enough to fill the whole room. Then a dance soon turned into two and then three and so on, until you both tried a funky waltz none of you were sure how to dance.

"I think," she said after all your dances with a little panting, "it's time for a drink. Would you like to join me?"

"I would be delighted." You said and felt her hand on yours, leading you to the bar.

She was glad you accepted another glass of wine and she was even happier that you had kept your promise of an interesting conversation. Sitting at the bar, you talked and talked about nothing and everything. About the things you loved and hated, what you wanted, what you hoped, the crazy things you did or never did in your youth and the things that were yet to come.

Maybe it was the way you moved around or the way you spoke to her, like you had already met sometime, somewhere, but Lena imagined this connection she had started to feel with you had to do with the masks you were wearing. No introductions were needed. There was no need for a name, especially not a name like hers which people used to run from.

You were just part of the people, that big mass of singular personalities, drinking, twirling, chatting, laughing, without a care in the world, and if Lena ever believed in love at first sight she was sure this could very much be it.

You felt as if you were in a modern fairy tale and made a mental note to thank your friend for dragging you there. Never in a thousand lives you had imagined you would end up sharing the night with Lena Luthor and, even when you felt your heart could cause an earthquake, you thanked whatever god was out there for not making a fool of yourself.

However, every night and every tale has to come to and end and you had to remind yourself of that has your phone started to ring. Your friend's name was announced on the screen along with a message. You had to leave the party right away, she would do the explaining later.

"Something wrong?" Lena asked seeing a hint of worry in your eyes.

"I hope not." You cursed under your breath and put your phone back in its pocket. "Sorry, I really wish I didn't to, but I need to go."

You were leaving your seat when she quickly grabbed you by the wrist. You both looked at your hands and, for the first time, Lena noticed the little tattoo that covered the inside of your wrist. For a moment, it was all she saw but then looked at you remembering she had something to say.

"I'm Lena." She said with a small pause, hoping the revelation of her name wouldn't arouse any sign of fear or disgust. "Lena Luthor."

"Enchanted to meet you, Lena." You replied with a little smile. Then, almost on impulse and knowing this could be the only change you would get at it, you closed the distance between you two and kissed her. "I'm the girl you just met."

Just like that you were gone, and a kiss had never been as haunting for Lena as the one you gave her.

The night ended, and Lena went home already thinking on all the algorithms and possibilities she would need to find you again. Not an easy job, since you only left her with the feeling of your lips on hers, the first woman that had dared to kiss her and the image of your wrist tattoo. Even for a genius like her, it would take so much time to track you down with only the memories of that night to keep her going.

You, on the other hand, were still banging your head against the wall. As it turned out, the night of the ballroom party your friend had faced a little bit of trouble when she decided to steal a few boxes of snacks from the kitchen in the hotel. None had actually noticed but she swore she and the dude who convinced her of doing so were being followed and had to run away from the party before anyone could notice. So you had to drive with a coupe of drunk idiots who had stolen nothing but snack boxes already prepared for the guests.

The next morning, when you were safe back on her apartment and she was sober enough to listen to you, you told her everything that had happened.

"Wait, no. No, no, no." She had said. "So, you're telling me you left her there and didn't even give her your name?"

Yes, that's exactly what you had done and that was something she would never let you forget. The chance of a lifetime lost forever. But it was enough, you had thought. One magical night in the presence of Lena Luthor had been everything you never knew you needed. Besides, what could you had done after that? She was a genius entrepreneur, member of the still most influential families in the world and the owner of the company you worked for. At the end of the day, you were just you. So days passed and you continued with your daily routine with that night printing into your mind as a good memory. Although you wondered sometimes, what would have been if you had told her your name.

Those same days passes for Lena but it was slightly different. She kept looking for you but found nothing more than dead ends. There was no guest list where she could look up for your name, no surveillance that could show her your face behind the mask, and no place where she could look for you. You were a beautiful ghost dancing in the ballroom of her memory, threatening to make her crazy of she couldn't find you.

Then one day, against all odds, she found you.

It had been a busy morning in the labs and you had arrived almost late to your shift. You had been awake until late and needed some sleep. Thankfully, one of your coworkers had noticed your tired eyes and was kind enough to cover for you, so you could head to the cafeteria for a coffee to keep you awake.

You were about to pay for it when you heard her voice beside you.

"It is you."

Lena had been headed to one of the labs when she decided maybe the cafeteria could make for a good short cut. Some employees were already seated or ordering some food, some of them even saluted her. She was half way across the cafeteria when she noticed someone asking for a cup of coffee, nothing out of the ordinary, and she would have continued walking were it not for the mark she noticed in her wrist. The sleeve of her lab coat was high enough that she could distinguish that mark as a tattoo. It was just a couple of seconds but it was enough for Lena to recognize it as yours.

She approached you and just when you were paying for your coffee your sleeve rose again, proving she wasn't wrong.

"It is you." She said.

You had frozen for a moment with your cup in hand before you turned to look at your boss, at Lena, in front of you. The same green eyes that looked at you that night were looking at you right there and there was something in them that told you they had waited for this moment.

The chance of a lifetime that you thought had been lost forever was back at you. This was it, the chance to say the one thing you had forgot to say.

"Guess I own you a name." You said slowly, wondering what could happen now that there were no masks between you two.

"Yes, you do." She said with a tone that you didn't believe possible could sound both commanding and tender. She took a look at your ID and smiled. "Well, enchanted to meet you, (Y/N) (Y/L/N)."

[flying-elliska]

Hey i see that you made book commentary sometimes and Im trying to get back to reading so I wondered if you do some recs for great female protagonist? You really don’t have to of course but thank you so much if you do :)

Ooooh what a great question I love it ! That said it also really depends on what type of protagonists you like, haha, because that can be super subjective. But here are a few cool, complex female protagonists I love :

- Noemi from Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia). My fave book last year, a twist on the gothic lit trope of a young woman arriving at a creepy old manor full of secrets, Jane Eyre vibes but in Mexico. Noemi is confident, frivolous and very sharp-minded, flawed but ultimately badass, which she needs to survive the horror she's landed in. I loved that her lust for life is presented as an advantage when faced with a family of creepy European eugenists who hold her cousin captive. I just loved her inner voice in general, and the book is big on female solidarity and the importance of women being believed and trusting themselves.

- Lyra from His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman) My fave books as a kid, also very readable as an adult. Lyra is wonderful, half-feral, resourceful and very unruly, which serves her well when she's faced with a child-abducting authoritarian church. Her special talent is the ability to make-up stories on the spot to get herself out of any sticky situation. It's such an important message for little girls, that you don't have to be obedient all the time, especially when the world is after you. The series really doesn't do justice to her spirit.

- Jane from Jane, Unlimited (Kristin Cashore.) This book is just so cool. It's a modern riff on Jane Eyre (lol notice the theme) and also a choose your own ending thing, where the book splits at a point where Jane has to make a decision - each ending becoming a different genre (sci-fi, fantasy, crime, horror, romance) and highlighting a different side of her character, which is such an interesting take on the idea that our choices make us who we are. I need to reread it.

- Vasya from the Winternights Trilogy (Katherine Arden) Another feral weird girl (another theme here) in this Russian folklore inspired medieval tale. She talks to horses and sees spirits and sticks out like a sore thumb in her little peasant community ; she's free spirited, reckless, stubborn as hell, and refuses to be cowed by the gender norms of her society (but not in that fake YA kind of way where it makes things too easy for her). She's also deeply kind and compassionate even as she goes through some really awful shit. I love her a lot and seeing her come into her power is awesome.

- Immanuelle from The Year of the Witching (Alexis Henderson). She lives in a fantasy version of a Puritan cult and is somewhat of a pariah because of her mother's involvement with witchcraft before she died. She's very brave and very caring, but also very much a product of her society who was taught women are meant to be subservient. She has to unlearn that and she keeps struggling between her need for independence and truth, and her need to be loved and fit in. It feels very real and very compelling (and also scary, since this is a horror book).

- Tiffany Aching, from the Tiffany Aching Series (Terry Pratchett) She is a witch in training and the books follow her from age nine to her late teens as she grows into her job, befriending a family of rowdy, chaotic miniature fairies. She's down to earth, practical and clever, and her calling is caring for people even when it's difficult or not very rewarding. These books are really a comfort read for me, funny and warm and full of wisdom.

- Diane, Duchess of Tremontaine and Ixkaab Balam from Tremontaine (Ellen Kushner and others). This is a prequel to the Riverside series (fantasy without magic but full of queer people, also awesome) centered around two women who are two equally complex forces of nature : one is a scheming duchess who came from humble beginnings and hides her cleverness behind her beauty, the other is a disgraced trader's daughter who becomes a spy to preserve her family's fortune. The whole thing is written as a serial with episodes by different authors, there are 2 seasons so far (I need to catch up with the last one) and it's a lot of fun.

Honorary mentions to the Six of Crows duology (fantasy heist + gang of misfits found family) and the Diviners series (1920s New York but with magic and grisly murder) who have ensemble casts with great female characters. There are probably others but these are the ones that come to mind right now....I feel like I need to read more non YA books....

[shekissesturians]

Animes Watched Since Quarentine Started ~

So I just sat down and realized... I have developed a problem X’D  BUT it could be worse! So I figured I would share for those looking for something new to watch! Also, what have y’all been watching!?

Full list below the line + reviews! * No spoilers, I promise! I wouldn’t do you dirty like that! *  ;-*

1. Kakegurui 

This show took me by surprise, I had no idea gambling could be so thrilling! Plus let us take a moment to appreciate the facial expressions animated in this show! Beautiful, just beautiful. Beware though, this anime gets dark, and sick, and you will definitely forget to breath at times. It is a thorough joy.

2. Steins;Gate

3. Steins;Gate 0

Honestly, Steins;Gate + Stains; Gate 0 is one of the best animes I have EVER seen. Legit. Also, It is one of the best stories of time travel I have ever encountered. The way it is explained in the anime is brilliant! Compelling, thrilling, emotional, so much amazingness. I watched in chronological order instead of season order which I really enjoyed. Also one of the most moving anime endings I have seen. All the characters you will fall in love with, and their character development is one heck of a ride. A must watch, 100%.

4. Fullmetal Alchemist

This was a nostalgia back flash for me! It was been years and I felt like reliving it all over again. Which I am glad I did, cus boy was there a lot of heavy themes and topics I did not pick up on when I was younger! One of the biggest themes was this existential undertone throughout the whole show that explored the ideas of humanity, authority, morality and race.

5. Fullmetal Alchemist Conqueror of Shamballa

A must follow up to the original FMA series. It just ties the whole story up in a pretty bow. I remember when I first saw this movie, it was my first encounter this the idea of multiple dimensions and it just blew my mind. The whole this felt so exciting and surreal, and I loved the addition of our timeline playing a part. Watching FMA + Movie over again leaves me a bit torn on which is better, Brotherhood or first adaptation. I think both should be watched for a full understanding of the lore. The first anime series definitely has some holes and details missing, but it’s also so nostalgic and they really give you a better development of characters and feels than Brotherhood does, as they rush through that to get back to the main plot.... so grab some popcorn and watch both and just enjoy the ride :)

6. Angels of Death

This anime has such a unique premise!! And morally it is just all sorts of twisted, which I love! The music is fantastic in it and all the characters you encounter are very unique and fun... it’s dark though, don’t get me wrong.. and twisted. BUT a fun ride if you are down for that kind of adventure!

7. Another

WHOOOO BUDDY! If you want to go on a journey THIS IS ONE! It’s a mind bending premise and each episode ends in so much suspense. I literally could’ve watched the whole thing in one day. This anime is like a jar of Pringles, once you start you just can’t stop!

8. Death Parade 

This anime gets the prize for the most misleading opening ever! X’D But it is such a BOP Please watch if you can. The anime overall is a joy, its very thought provoking and touches on the darker topics of death and mortality. Who is really good? Who is evil? Where do they seamlessly blend into each other? Besides the premise being so unique and tantalizing, the artwork is breathtaking! The background and environments the characters exist in are gorgeous. As an artist and a writer, I appreciate this anime on so many levels.

9. Sekkou Boys

Oh god, this anime is a joy. Just pure, clean joy T.T The episode are VERY short so you could finish the whole thing in an evening. But if you are an artist, a Renaissance history lover, or a J-pop fan, you will especially appreciate this joy of a creation. Watch it for your soul, you will feel better afterwards.

10. Kokoro Connect

This is a very intriguing coming of age story to say the least. There is an element of fantasy/science fiction that comes into the picture that stirs all sorts of trouble for our dear group of friends. It makes you really reflect your own intra- and interpersonal relationships and how we perceive and interact with one another. Overall a fun trip to go on.

11. Occultic; Nine

HOLD ONTO YOUR HORSES CUS THIS ANIME IS FAST! Omgsh, if you watch in Japanese like I did, get ready to have tired eyes cus the pace and speech of this anime is like nothing I have encountered before, but it is soooo much fun! It is mystery combined with the supernatural. It’s one of those animes where there is a lot of characters involved and some how everyone is connected in some way, like Baccano! if you have seen it. I would say to watch this AFTER you watch Steins;Gate if you have any interests because it is written by the same writers and there is little things that reference back to Steins;Gate which are really fun to pick up on.

12. School-Live!

I didn’t know what to expect when I started this series. It is not the kind of art style I am normally drawn towards but I am soo glad I watched. The characters are all really fun and cute! Especially the puppy!! <3 You deal with psychological stress as well as a nice mix of slice of life all in the midst of a zombie apocalypse! It’s a combination I never knew I wanted in my life, but now I am glad I have it. Don’t let the cute animation style fool you... it gets DARK. I was full out trying not to sob at one point, but I think that just shows how many levels are involved in this story. Have fun with this ride my friends <3

13. My Hero Academia

GUYS ARE YOU FREAKING READY!? This was the story I never knew I needed in my life, but now I don’t know how I lived without it. Dear god, I binged this one so hard I think I forgot to breath for a week. All of the characters are so dynamic and the overall tone of the series is so uplifting and positive. If you are in a depressive slump just turn this one on. I promise you, you will be smiling and feeling better in no time! It is so motivational as well. Humor, action, suspense, thrilling, emotional- I don’t think there is anything they don’t touch on. Uhg gosh, I could prob write a dissertation on all the themes and undertones expressed in this work. I promise you, this is a journey you will not regret taking <3

14. My Hero Academia: Two Heroes

I’ll be honest, I think sometimes series’ movies miss the mark, or just feel lackluster, like a power hour of filler. This one my friends.... DID NOT. I was really glad I watched it too, because I felt as though it added so much to the main story line. Plus you get to see college years All Might... so bonus! X3 But seriously, it is a very fun movie and it gives you more background to the world you wouldn’t otherwise get.

15. Shiki

First off... THE ART. This anime’s art is so unique and fits so well into the overall narrative. But honestly, I feel like this anime is a work of art, it feels like an old folk tale/dark fairy tale you would elders talking about in a pub late at night. The narrative never went where I expected it to, and by the end I was so morally conflicted I didn’t know what to do with myself. It’s a dark fantasy that really explores all the little nitty gritty grey areas that are often passed over in stories. There were definitely a few scenes that made me so uncomfortable I was squirming. Human nature is truly a sight to behold, and this anime shows it to you.

16. Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress

The Feudal Japan- Post apocalyptic- Steam punk journey you never knew existed! Gosh this anime is amazing. First off the art is breathtaking and many scenes reminded me of Miyazaki. Second, the music is SO GOOD. It’s a concept on the undead that I find to be very unique and truly thrilling. Most of the anime takes place on a train which is such an intriguing element. You also go into human fear of the unknown and how our nature can truly be our biggest hindrance. The characters are great and you get to the point of really rooting for them. Get ready for this feast for your senses!

17. Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress Movie: Battle of Unato

After watching the series I felt like my heart was still missing something. Honestly the whole thing felt like it went by too fast. I still wanted more! This movie helped fill the void in my heart. You get to see relationship begin to form between characters as well as more insight into kabane and all their abilities. Standing alone, this movie is a really fun adventure and gives more insight into the state Japan is in overall.

So THERE YOU HAVE IT! I hope you might have found some new things to watch. I would love to see others lists of things they have watched, feel free to leave in the comments! Or if you have watched any of these, I would love to hear your thoughts! Let’s chat <3

[angel-deux-writes]

Now that Honor Compels Me is finally done, I wanted to do a round-up of all the things I remember that made me say “I feel like I need to tell someone what almost happened here” or “I should probably explain this later lol”, along with my reasons for cutting the last few chapters/what would have happened in them. It’s prob going to be very long, which I apologize for, but I’ll bold the headings so that you can skip to the parts you’re interested in!

I’ll reblog it and add more as I think of them, but for now: 

Dark Dany: VERY originally, like way back in the OG plotline from 2017, Dany was an antagonist, and Margaery Tyrell was Robb’s queen. Dany would have died fighting Cersei in Kings Landing, with the same result (Cersei was ALWAYS going to go out by wildfire lmao). I changed it both because a) it seemed like too many Conveniently Alive people for one story and b) after the shitty ending Dany got, I decided I would try my hand at writing a Dany I could actually root for! For years I’ve been a big proponent/fan of the idea that Dany is eventually going to be an antagonist in the books, but the way it was handled in the show was so irredeemably stupid (gassing her up and gaslighting/scolding her fans later who didn’t see it coming, making her switch at the drop of a hat for the majority of the general audience just for the sake of a twist, etc). I ended up really loving the version of Dany I created. I tried not to soften her TOO much, which is why I had her wrestle with herself even up to the very end (like thinking “I won” after the explosion in Kings Landing and hating herself for it). I didn’t want all the flaws that make me not support canon Dany to disappear just because I started to like her! I do think that writing this story made me like Dany more overall. I still don’t support her canon actions, and I also probably won’t in the books, but I came to find her more compelling as I wrote her. I’m a lot less afraid to write her now than I have been in the past, though I’ll continue to add warnings to all my stories that feature Dark Dany, bc yall Dany stans have been through enough. 

More Death: At various points Dany, Theon, Bran, and Arya were going to die. 

Dany was already pointed out. 

I had Theon die in the Long Night in the plot outline just out of laziness/in keeping with canon, until I remembered that Redemption = Death is stupid and I wasn’t gonna do it. 

Bran was going to die after warging into Drogon and being caught in the explosion of the Red Keep. That actually stayed in until a few weeks ago! I told a bunch of people that Bran was going to die! It was the plan all along! And then I realized that “somebody has to die” was a shitty way of looking at it, and I changed it. I think a lot of this process of changing things was me trying to write what I thought people wanted vs what story I actually wanted to tell. Sure it’s a little fairy tale ending this way, but it’s my story, and who cares? Happy endings are nice. Fuck off. 

Arya...I probably wouldn’t have ever actually gone through with it, because I am a coward, but there was an idea of a VERY heavy-handed “revenge is bad” message with Arya where Arya was much more savage and instead of turning back into Arya, she was turning farther and farther away from her. She couldn’t reconcile with the Lannisters, she rejected her bonds with her family. In the end she would be unable to let go of her list, would refuse to grow and change and realize that she had other things to live for, and she would have set off one of Qyburn’s traps in the Red Keep, igniting the whole thing, killing Drogon and Rhaegal (and Bran) and leading to the deaths of thousands. AGAIN I was like “that’s too dark” and scrapped the idea, but it was definitely toyed with. I love Arya as a character, so this plotline for her would have definitely been more a reaction to fans of her who seem to want her to hold on to that vengeful seed inside of her. 

Prophecies: Listen, I do not give a fuck about any prophecies. I really don’t. Every fantasy universe has some kind of involved backstory that some fans love to get mired in, but I am not one of those fans. Still, I tried to deliver on two of them lmao. 

Azor Ahai ended up being Jaime, with Ice/Oathkeeper and Maiden’s Heart being Lightbringer. Originally, I had Brienne killing the Night King, without any thought to the prophecy at all, but that was another case of “people will like it if Brienne kills the Night King” and I realized that I would like it better if it was Jaime. I’m not sure how it checks out literally, but I figured it worked with a) tempering in water = splitting Ice. b) heart of a lion = Jaime’s change of heart after the Highgarden Battle. c) Nissa Nissa = Brienne’s “maiden’s heart” breaking during the Highgarden Battle. It was Brienne who did the stabbing, but it was Jaime who made it happen, so I figured that made sense. I made sure to mention Brienne’s tears and all the smoke when Jaime was wounded, so he could be “reborn amidst salt and smoke” or whatever, and I had Bran mention a rebirth for him in the next chapter. Which was maybe a little on the nose, but IDK GUYS I FEEL LIKE IT CHECKS OUT! 

I know the show never dove into the Valonqar prophecy at all, and I think we all know that I absolutely HATE the idea of Jaime being the Valonqar, so I would rather not think about it AT ALL. But Bran AND Rhaegal were both kind of responsible for Cersei’s death in the end, so take your pick of which Little Brother actually did the deed! 

Deleted Chapters: I promise you, you are not missing anything with these deleted chapters. They were always messy, and no matter how many times I edited them, they felt too forced and “now let me explain the ending”. 

Sansa: Sansa’s chapter followed Jaime’s and was primarily about her going to Robb and Dany and the three of them talking about the future of Westeros. The Dany/Robb conversation about it was originally absent--the last Robb chapter was added to fill in the gaps when I deleted this and the other chapters--so this would have been the first time it was discussed. It then would have had a time jump and a wedding scene, which I could never make work! It was such a jarring time jump in the middle of a chapter, and I didn’t think the wedding was particularly exciting to write about lmao. 

Tyrion: Tyrion’s chapter would have been Dany being crowned and announcing to everyone that she and her people are going to be dismantling the monarchy and setting up a new government. I think I had her give a period of a few years in which she and Robb would rule, but they were going to be transitioning governments in that time. Kind of the same idea as in What a King Should Look Like. Bronn also showed up, DID in fact get a minor holdfast, and was mocked by both Lannisters for bowing out before he could have earned himself a better one. Olenna found some bastard daughter to legitimize and continue her house.

Brienne: Brienne’s arc was a lot more drawn out in the original draft, and I ended up editing it a few times and making it shorter. VERY originally, this chapter would have been her wedding with Jaime, at which she has the “wow he actually loves me, huh?” realization. Which I thought was funny as I plotted it out, but in execution it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, so I moved the realization to an earlier chapter. The original was also going to be Jaime giving up his name entirely, and Brienne cloaking him, but as we have discussed before, I am in fact a coward, so I just deleted the whole chapter lmao. In all seriousness, at this point the endings just felt like Return of the King, and Into the West was actually the chosen song for this chapter, because I knew even as I was writing it that I was doing Too Much lmao. 

Robb: Robb’s last chapter was essentially just a total wrap up chapter. Just Robb and Dany being sappy, Robb being happy he was still alive, and the two of them planning the future. They were at Riverrun for this part, i’m pretty sure, or it might have been Dragonstone? I had trouble even filling this chapter with enough words for it to be a full chapter, because it was basically just an epilogue. As the story progressed, this chapter felt more and more like I was just performing to the “Robb’s Alive” crowd, which I didn’t particularly want to do, because Robb being alive was always a feature, not the focus, of this story. 

That’s all the stuff I can think of for now! If anyone has any particular questions you can message me or inbox me about them and I’d be happy to talk about it! 

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1316

Monday, March 8, 2021

 Coming up on a year since the pandemic started. I hope you're all healthy and safe. I am hopeful that vaccines will be deployed widely and help us all feel less anxious. I am fortunate enough to be one of those people who is happy as a bug snug in a rug while self isolating. I do really miss my dear friends and family but hugs can wait until we're all vaccinated.

 My thanks to Doug for lending me these comic books to read.

 Batman Annual #5 - James Tynion IV (writer) James Stokoe (art) Clayton Cowles (letters). It's the origin of Clownhunter and it's not very original. If I had to pay $4.99 US I would have passed on this and lived with leaving a hole in my Batman collection. If you're not familiar with this new vigilante, he's an Asian teenager named Bao who decides he's going to kill the Joker and all of the villain's sycophants. The reason he becomes Clownhunter (and killer) is very mundane. I wish they could have come up with a new motivator. Maybe the philosophical discussion about what to do about the Joker might interest some fans but I found this story quite tedious. I also didn't like the way Bao and his parents were portrayed. Did they really have an Asian saying "Ah, so"? Yes they did on page 8. Shades of Charlie Chan, Batman. I was not offended, just disappointed.

 Batman/Catwoman #3 - Tom King (writer) Clay Mann (art) Tomeu Morey (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). I was thrilled to see the town of Port Orange, Florida mentioned on the first page. My pal Al lives there. It's also where Selina finally catches up with the Joker and does what Batman never did. I love this Black Label book taking familiar characters and treating them in a new and interesting way. Here's a future where Selina has survived her husband Bruce's death and their daughter Helena is the new Batwoman. Now I wait to see how mother and daughter deal with the Angel of Death.

 And now, more Future State books.

 Future State: Robin Eternal #2 - Meghan Fitzmartin (writer) Eddy Barrows (pencils) Eber Ferreira (inks) Adriano Lucas (colours) Pat Brosseau (letters). The consequence of Tim Drake/Robin being dunked in Lazarus resin is that now he's immortal. Whoop-dee-doo. Not only is this a boring Robin beats up bad guys issue but the art lacked any logical perspective. This issue takes place on a train but you would think it's in a huge building based on the art. I know it's comic books but I hate when one doesn't make visual sense. I think that's just laziness.

 Future State: Kara Zor-El Superwoman #1 & #2 - Marguerite Bennett (writer) Marguerite Sauvage (art) Wes Abbott (letters). This 2-issue fairy tale was not meant for old farts like me and Doug. With it's soft pastel colours these books should have included glitter and bubblegum flavoured lip gloss. Maybe young tween girls will like this. The moral of this story is "no one is born wise".

 Future State: Dark Detective #3 - Mariko Tamaki (writer) Dan Mora (art) Jordie Bellaire (colours) Aditya Bidikar (letters). There are not one but two Batmans in this issue. You've got Bruce in his new capeless costume but here he's wearing a trench coat to give that fluttering effect, and then there's the new guy in the Bat suit, cape and all. The "uh-oh" point of the story hits here when the bad guys discover where Bruce is hiding out. The Matthew Rosenberg (writer) Carmine Di Giandomenico (art) Antonio Fabela (colours) & AndWorld Design (letters) Grifter story concludes here too with a double cross and a whole lot more of Helena/Huntress. This is my favourite Future State book so far.

 Future State: Superman of Metropolis #1 & #2 - Sean Lewis (writer) John Timms (art) Gabe Eltaeb (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). If you're wondering how a grown up Jonathan Kent takes over for his dad as Metropolis's protector then these two $5.99 US books will satisfy your curiosity. The villain of the story is an evolved Brainiac who is a big multi-mouthed ball now. Metropolis is shrunk ala the bottle city of Kandor, the citizens go nuts but Jon returns things back to normal in the end with the help of Kara/Supergirl. I don't know why Kara's a girl in this story and a woman elsewhere. Each issue has two back-ups so you get your money's worth. One features Mister Miracle and the other the Guardian. They are both dealing with bad things inside the bottled Metropolis. You won't miss much if you don't read them. The Mister Miracle story "The Metropolis Menagerie" is done my Brandon Easton (writer) Valentine De Landro (art) Marissa Louise (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). The Guardian story is brought to you by Sean Lewis (writer) Cully Hamner & Michael Avon Oeming (art) Laura Martin (colours) AndWorld Design (letters). This one got me excited because a villain wants to throw Jimmy Olsen off of the Daily Planet building.

 Future State: Catwoman #2 - Ram V (writer) Otto Schmidt (art) Tom Napolitano (letters). Read this to find out if Catwoman saves the lives of the people on the train. You will also find out if Bruce is freed from the bad guys. Talia Al-Ghul appearing is the deus ex machina in this story. I like the new Cheshire and Onomatopoeia is always fun.

 Future State: Superman: Worlds of War #2 - Phillip Kennedy Johnson (writer) Mikel Janin (art) Jordie Bellaire (colours) & Dave Sharpe (letters). In "The Many Deaths of Superman" the Man of Steel fights in the arena of Warworld where Mongul resurrects him after every death match. It's the typical brutal battle scenes and super villain gloating. What's more compelling is an old newspaper story that Clark Kent wrote that inspired a young woman who travels to Smallville. I was totally confused by the three back-up stories featuring Mister Miracle, Midnighter and the Black Racer because they were not very good. I am a completist and have to finish what I start. I could have stopped reading after the $3.99 US main story in this bloated $7.99 US comic book  but my obsessive compulsive nature wouldn't let me. It's a character flaw I wish I could change.

 Future State: The Next Batman #1 - John Ridley (writer) Nick Derington (art) Tamra Bonvillain (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). All the teasers for this book hyped the fact that this Batman is black. You won't get the secret identity in this first issue but there are a bunch of likely candidates. Lucas Fox is a possibility but it's confusing because he's a bad guy in another Future State book. This is another $7.99 US book with back-ups. These are more coherent than the ones in Future State: Superman: Worlds of War.

Future State: Outsiders by Brandon Thomas (writer) Sumit Kumar (pencils) Sumit Kumar & Raul Fernandez (inks) Jordie Bellaire (colours) & Steve Wands (letters) gathers together some old Batman associates helping Gotham City citizens escape persecution by the Magistrates outside Gotham City's borders. Get it? It was nice seeing Katana in action.

Future State: Arkham Knights by Paul Jenkins (writer) Jack Herbert (art) Gabe Eltaeb (colours) & Rob Leigh (letters) gathers together some of Batman's rogues gallery to fight the oppressive Magistrate. Two-Face, Mr. Zsasz, Dr. Phosphorus, Killer Croc and other ex-inmates of Arkham Asylum are being lead by an armoured Astrid Arkham. It's super villains being super heroes.

 Future State: The Next Batman #2 - John Ridley (writer) Nick Derington (breakdowns) Laura Braga (art) Arif Prianto (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). We learn the secret identity of the new caped Batman in this issue. It's Lucas Fox's brother. He has a brother? This also has three new back-up stories.

"Batgirls" is by Vita Ayala (writer) Aneke (art) Trish Mulvihill (colours) & Becca Carey (letters). Batgirl/Orphan Cassandra Cain gets locked up in the Magistrate Detention Facility where both good guys/white hats and bad guys/black coats are incarcerated. She got caught on purpose because her mission is to find Oracle and Batman and free them. She gets help from Spoiler who is queen of the inmates. In this reality Cass is way more articulate than she used to be. I didn't like that. I also didn't like that in the other Future State stories the Magistrate foot soldiers have a shoot to kill order for any masks that they encounter. Why are all of these masks alive? Anyways, this part ends with the white hats and black coats forming an alliance so Cass can get on with her mission.

"Gotham City Sirens: Ladies' Night Out" is by Paula Sevenbergen (writer) Rob Haynes (breakdowns) Emanuela Lupacchino (pencils) Wade von Grawbadger (inks) John Kalisz (colours) Becca Carey (letters). Catwoman and Poison Ivy spring a domestic droid named Dee Dee (get it?) from servitude and they have a night on the town at a bar. The bar is run by Sam Bradley and both super heroes and villains can imbibe in peace. Fans of Sex and the City may like this. Not a lot of drama until the last page when the joint is raided by Magistrate goons and major characters are shot.

 Future State: The Next Batman #3 - John Ridley (writer) Nick Derington (breakdowns) Laura Braga (art) Arif Prianto (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). This is the "uh-oh" moment in the story where the hero is felled by the villain. A wounded Batman is attacked by the murderer he's trying to bring to justice. I saw that coming.

I like the change with Black Lightning in the Outsiders back-up.

I like the art in the Arkham Knights back-up even though the dialogue is eye roll inducing.

 Future State: The Next Batman #4 - Jace/Batman lives, as if that was in any doubt. This story would have been a lot more interesting if Bruce/Batman was really dead. Even if the Future State line of comics dies out this Next Batman is a cop out. The Batgirls story ends with Cassandra/Orphan saving Barbara/Oracle and the Resistance gaining ground on the Magistrates. The Gotham City Sirens story ends with Catwoman and Poison Ivy helping the Resistance get an advantage in their war with the Cybers thanks to Dee Dee.

 I admit that I was sucked in by the hype for this mini. The Next Batman being black intrigued me. The story itself was meh and I would not have missed anything by not reading it. I was not engaged as a mature reader but I think someone in their teens might like all the stories in these four issues.

[ariainstars]

Star Wars: Fatalism Against the „I Wish” Moment

Here it goes again, the question as to why The Rise of Skywalker sucked. Sigh. It just can’t leave me alone, can it?

After the first two chapters, honestly, I was expecting the sequel trilogy to become as good (or almost) as the original one. But precisely the last chapter set the seal on one of its worst problems: the lack of agenda. 

I love musical theatre. And one of its most beautiful sides is that it teaches you so much about storytelling. Now what makes a story, a character truly compelling? The conflict. Without a conflict, something that has to shift the narrative from A to D going through B and C, nothing makes sense. And in a good story, the conflict is set up right from the start. We meet someone and we are supposed to identify with them due to their agency. 

  Heroes With An Agenda 

To name an example, there is “Into the Woods”, one of my favorite musicals which retells some classic fairy tales with own interpretations and unexpected twists; and it opens with an iconic ensemble number called “I Wish”. (If you’re unfamiliar with it, you might want to check out the 2014 film.) We get to know a bunch of people who all want something, and we follow them through the narrative as some of them get their wish (though not exactly the way they expected it); then are confronted with the backlash, the consequences, the price to pay for the things they wanted. 

With Star Wars now belonging to Disney, it is only legitimate to make a few comparisons with Disney movies.

In The Little Mermaid, Ariel’s song is “Part of That World”, setting up her character as someone who wants for something that fascinates her: the world of humans.

Quasimodo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, wants to leave his tower and live among other humans, even if only in for a day.

Belle from Beauty and the Beast is introduced to us explaining how she wishes to explore the world outside of the small village she’s living in.

A somewhat disappointing Disney heroine was Merida in Brave: despite the films’ title, the story fails at making its protagonist compelling due to her lack of agenda. Merida knows what she does not want, i.e. becoming like her mother, because she’s a different kind of girl: but she does not know what she actually wants from life. It is quite fitting that in the end she manages to restore and improve the relationship to her mother but does not really change her, or her family’s or her kingdom’s situation. Merida does not grow up. Her story is nice enough, but not really compelling.

Disney “princesses” are often criticized for wanting nothing but a partner from life, and sometimes settling down with a man even if that was not their main goal at the start. But we have e.g. Moana, a girl who wants to help her family and her people and to restore balance in nature. Not surprisingly, her story is interesting and convincing.

Antiheroes With An Agenda 

Perspective is hugely important for a narrative: authors can use it in order to manipulate the audience’s perception of a story in order to make us identify with someone although he is a negative character. Two examples I came across with lately are Joker (Arthur Fleck) and Hannah from the Girls TV series. Both these characters have personal agendas that in the end don’t get their fulfilment. 

We know from the beginning that Arthur will become the Joker, but the film follows him and his social background so closely that we watch everything from his point of view, which makes us sympathize with him despite what he becomes in the end. 

Arthur is poor, mentally ill, in charge of a sick mother, friendless; but he believes he can make a great breakthrough as a comedian. He is at the bottom of the social scale and still believes he can make it to the top; it is only all too clear that he is deluded and that none of the people he admires would move a finger to help him. Though he becomes a criminal, his story is a tragedy; he was born and raised under circumstances that hardly offered him room for a simple, satisfying life. His dreams were all he had. Which is why we feel with him, even if from a moral standpoint we know we shouldn’t. 

Hannah is a toxic personality if I ever saw one onscreen; but she officially is the protagonist, she’s female who wants a career, she has “friends”, she is “sexually independent”, so as female viewers we will automatically identify with her, or at least try. (Personally, after a while I came to the conclusion that about 75 % of the other character’s problems would quickly find an end if they simply shot Hannah and buried her without a funeral, with a few silver crosses to make sure she never comes back.) 

However, Hannah is not from a poor family, she has an education, she has friends. She has things she wants, nothing she desperately needs, like Arthur needs employment or medication. Her whole attitude is subject to her desire to become a famous writer, so her story is about exploring and observing other people’s weaknesses, often even eliciting them for the worse. I find it interesting that when we learn how she first met Adam, he caught her stealing. Apparently, Hannah never understood that you can’t simply take but also have to give something back. Their relationship is so typical for the story because it looks like Adam is using her (mostly sexually), while she is using him in order to make “experiences”, playing with his feelings instead of giving him the chance to grow and mature into a responsible man. Girls always had a bleak undertone; but by manipulating our perspective making her the pivotal character, the authors made us care about Hannah although she is someone who did not deserve it in the first place.

My guess: what makes these two antiheroes in the first place, from a moral perspective, is perhaps the fact that both feel entitled to their dream and won’t settle for less. Disney heroes usually get their wish fulfilment because they go through the moment of openly and innocently admitting their dreams without Arthur’s or Hannah’s latent arrogance.

Now to Star Wars... The Classics

One of the reasons why we so easily identify with Luke Skywalker in A New Hope is because he is introduced to us as someone who dreams. He has a personal wish - leaving his home planet, meeting new people, living adventures and contributing to the future of the galaxy. The “Binary Sunset” scene is not iconic without reason: in a musical, this would have been the moment where he would have broken into song. 😊

Don’t kill me, but Disney’s Hercules reminds me a little of Luke in his first grand scene: he also looks at a sunset, saying that he would go most anywhere to find where he belongs. (Maybe Lucas knew well why he sold the rights to Star Wars to the Disney studios of all places.)

This continues through his other two films: Luke always has a strong agenda. He learns the ways of the Jedi through Obi-Wan (who interestingly never actually questions whether he wants that at all) and Yoda, but his first priority always are his friends. Saving who he loves is what drives him on all of the time, even if this may seem foolish at times - like traveling all alone to Bespine where Han and Leia are kept hostage, or wanting to save his father although he is a dangerous criminal. 

  Star Wars In-Between

Rogue One and Solo are well-made, interesting films, too, because the protagonists know what they want. The Clone Wars is one long story explaining Ahsoka’s development from a Jedi to someone who relinquishes the Jedi’s ways. The Mandalorian wants to follow “The Way”, i.e. his code of honor, in order to help as many war foundlings as he can. This is what you need to do in order to make a story compelling. 

  Star Wars Prequels 

One of the weaknesses which I see to this day in the prequels is that we so rarely witness someone’s personal agenda; the stories are more driven by the plot than by the persons. A few desires are hinted at and never pursued. 

“I’m going to be the first to see all of them” (the stars). - Anakin in The Phantom Menace

“At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge.” Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace 

What became of Anakin’s desire to explore the galaxy? And revenge from what, if you please? I can understand that the Sith were a byproduct of the Jedi’s rejection of the Dark Side, their weaknesses all projected unto them: but this also is never explored. 

What did Anakin, Padmé, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon etc. want, after all? When did they ever say or show clearly what they wanted, and what they would do for the purpose? Qui-Gon wants to train Anakin by will of the Force, Obi-Wan wants to train him because Qui-Gon asked him to. The Jedi want to keep the status quo of the Republic and the Jedi Order. There is no actual heart-felt wish from their side. The only person relentlessly pursuing his aims is Palpatine, the mastermind behind the stage. 

Padmé has her political aims, but they are not a really personal agenda for her. She wants to help people who were enslaved or hungry or otherwise suffering, but she does not know such situations from own experience. Her personal wish is having a family, but in her case it is not as passionate as in Anakin’s, who had lost the only family he had with his mother. Add to this that the scene where she talks with Anakin about this desire of hers was unfortunately cut out from Attack of the Clones. 

The compassionate and protective Anakin wants to keep the ones he cares for safe. Interestingly though, the films rarely show us his perspective, we usually rather see other people reacting to him; and since the Jedi always brainwash him not to “let his personal feelings get in the way”, Anakin comes over more as a whiny brat than as a conflicted human being we can sympathize with.

Revenge of the Sith is, though a terrible story, a very well-made film and emotionally very demanding because Anakin finally takes his destiny into his own hands. But it is also not very satisfying, because he wants to prevent things from happening and doesn’t actually have a definite, positive aim in mind. Still when he speaks to Padmé on Mustafar he tells her that he would overthrow Palpatine for her and rule the galaxy according to their wishes; but even in this moment he sounds insecure and confused, and his ideas are everything but clear. 

  The Sequels

The same procedure all over again. Finn wants to get away from the First Order, but where does he want to go? It is only hinted at that he wants a girlfriend (“Do you have a boyfriend?”), and not thematized again. Poe already is a Resistance fighter from the start, no personal aim there either. Rey wants her family back: she does nothing but waiting. On Takodana, we literally see her running from her fate after her vision with the Skywalker legacy sabre. In The Last Jedi, she says she needs someone to show her her place. She says to Luke that she is afraid. Again, she has no agenda.

Kylo was pursuing Luke, but why? What exactly had happened between uncle and nephew before the fatal night at the Temple, why was Kylo’s resentment so deep? He killed his father because he was coerced; he did not actually want it. Later he wanted Rey, but why, if she was almost always aggressive towards him? 

The Last Jedi finally seemed to make up for all of these lacks. Rose was such a powerful character because while she always did everything in her power for the cause, she never forgot or let go of her personal feelings and desires, like keeping Finn safe, inspiring hope in the Canto Bight children, freeing the fathiers. 

The moment Rey ships herself on the Supremacy, Ben kills Snoke and then both team up against the Praetorian Guards is so powerful because both of them, at last, have an agenda, and they pursue it together. It’s a moment of relief for the audience, what we had been waiting for all along: finding out what all of this was about - the Force working in balance. Naively, many of us then assumed this trilogy would be about Ben and Rey finding balance and a happy ending together.

Then The Rise of Skywalker made our frustration flare up again. Rey wants to become a Jedi because Leia expects her to; she kills Palpatine because he wants her to do it; the voices of all Jedi encourage her… great. No personal agenda all over again. Ben saves her from death because he loves her, very well. Then he dies. Han, Leia and Luke all wanted him to come “home”, i.e. back to the Light Side, and they died for the purpose. It seems wanting something is dangerous in itself in this galaxy. And Rey ends up alone on Tatooine. Again, what does she want there?

So It Was All... Fate?

Han, Leia and Luke were much more compelling characters than Rey - their aims were sometimes misguided, but at least they had them and they were clearly defined. Even Palpatine has an aim: it is veiled (typically for him), but it is there. He knows that his spirit will live on in the person who manages to kill him. So, he is still more powerful than Rey. It looks like Rey defeated him, but the truth is that he used her naïve faith that she could erase him by killing him in order to reach his own aim: living on in a younger, more innocent person who believes that being a “Jedi”, she is doing the right thing. 

We may of course argue that the Force is behind all of this; but as intriguing as the Force is, it is not a person. When we follow a story, we want living persons to think and feel and suffer and be hopeful and joyful for. It is all very well if characters want different things or maybe want the wrong things; but at least, their wishes ought to be understandable, and if they don’t come true, we would like to know why, instead of being left with... “reasons”. It is hard to identify with a character if we never learn what drives them after all. I daresay it would be more satisfying to see them pursue an aim and fail, than never to understand what they’re about, what their heart’s wish is. 

I have argued over and over that the ways of the Jedi, i.e. sacrificing everything to a cause, and individual aims are naturally opposite to one another. If there will ever be Balance, future Force-sensitive creatures must find a way in between. But again, this is not openly said and the audience has to either resign to the fact that the films are badly made, or to scavenge them for months searching for messages. Of course, there is nothing wrong with using ones’ own brains. But I would like to leave a cinema after a Star Wars film feeling satisfied. The Rise of Skywalker did not only leave many questions unanswered; in many instances, it did not even start posing the questions.

“Into the Woods” is not a story with a happy ending. One of its messages is that you need to be careful about what you wish for, but I think that’s all right if the moral implications of getting one’s wish are explored. Which with the Star Wars prequels and sequels was not the case - people suffer and die for decades, and in the end, the story goes nowhere. The events of the prequels took place because “they were meant to”; same with the sequels. Anakin turned evil because it was his fate, his grandson the same because it was fate, Rey took over the Jedi mantle although she is not in the least suited for it, but it was her fate so we have to accept it. No wonder everyone is disappointed. 

Star Wars saga, what do you have in store next? After more than 30 years, I dearly hope, someone who actually has an aim and purses it this time. And doesn’t have to die in the process, thank you very much.

[gravityfissure]

Blaze Up : Deirdre & Otto

TIMING: Current. PARTIES: Otto & @deathduty​ SUMMARY: The chaos crew reunites and makes some fae nonsense plans. TW: Mushroom manipulation

Deirdre always wanted to get married; who wouldn’t? A grand ceremony, declarations of love and devotion, there was nothing half-hearted about the affair. She’d read tales of the old fae, who dared to profess their feelings in these ways, bound forever to their love. She glanced over at Otto, dressed dashingly alongside her white gown. Oh, but this wasn’t that kind of a wedding. This was the more realistic sort; the drag-a-human-to-a-fairy-ring sort. And she couldn’t help but to giggle as she led him along. “I’m so glad you came, Otto,” she cooed at him, practically purring into his ear. She was beyond delighted, something inhumanly bubbly. “You’re really going to enjoy it, I know you will. And thanks for dressing up.” Not that he’d stay in those clothes for long, all the fun was in being naked anyway.

Otto had no idea what Deirdre had in store for them with these mushroom rings. In fact, he didn’t really know what compelled him to say yes to even come along with her in the first place. Though considering their last meeting had involved spawns trying to rip him limb from limb the idea of a mushroom circle hardly seemed all that bad, mushrooms could be fun. He’d gotten high on enough of them to know that much to be true. Maybe they’d get around to that naked dancing this time. But as requested, he’d dressed in a trim grey waistcoat and blazer with an accented purple tie and pocket square to offset the colour scheme and keep it tasteful. “How could I say no when you asked so nicely? And you did ask real nice, so I’d never say no.”

"That's why you're the best, Otto." Deirdre grinned, leading him around trees until they reached a clearing. The fae—mostly gnomes, pixies and leprechauns—clapped as Otto appeared in sight. Everyone was naked. Two pixies flew up and dropped a crown of flowers and dirt on Otto's head. "They're happy to see you." She smiled. The ring was right there, staring at both of them. But Deirdre didn't want this to be some rough marriage, of Otto dragged into the center and made to dance. She liked Otto, perhaps not romantically, but just enough to want to be kind to him, even like this. "Okay, Otto," she skipped to the center of the ring, leaving him. "When you're ready for the ceremony, step in front of me, right here." The rest of the fae were careful to keep out of the ring for now. This was Deirdre's marriage, even they knew that.

“You’re so sweet,” Otto laughed as they walked, really having no idea what any of this meant or really what it would mean. Admittedly, he didn’t really care either way. If it was a good time and there was some fun to be had then that was more than enough for Otto to agree. Brushing a bit of stray dirt off his face he fixed the flower crown so it sat a little straighter on his head. “Me? Ha, they don’t even know me.” Man this was weird, granted not the weirdest situation he’d walked into. New York had provided plenty of interesting environments but nakedly dancing fae and mushroom parties? There were a few gnomes - also naked sat on different levels of a nearby tree, some playing little leaf woven drums while others playing a little ditty on wooden carved flutes. It was all rather… merry. Still, he looked back to Deirdre as she skipped into the circle. Was he meant to say something? Fae custom was admittedly lost on him, but it didn’t seem all that bad really. What could go wrong? Still, with a final look around at those gathered assembly he stepped over the boundary of the circle to stand opposite Deirdre feeling a weird pulse of energy as he did so. Weird. “Do I need to say something?” he whispered but trusting Deirdre enough to follow her lead in whatever was going on.

The marriage was complete. Deirdre felt the mushroom magic reverberating around her bones. It rattled and kicked, dancing its own jig inside of her. Three leprechauns grumbled up as Deirdre took Otto’s hands in hers. She beamed at him. The leprechauns jumped up, stacking on top of each other until they were about humanoid height. They clicked and whistled through a speech, which Deirdre didn’t understand, but thought was touching. When they finished, the fae clapped and cheered again. “We’re married,” Deirdre confessed to Otto, breaking into a large grin. “You're going to be a devout husband and serve the mushrooms with me, am I clear, you pathetic human?” Otto didn’t know the mushrooms, and if she were a touch sober, she might have felt bad. But this was the way of the fae; lure them in, make them yours. “Now…” She smiled as the rest of the fae piled in the ring, dancing and creating a mishmash of music that sounded good to Deirdre, who could hear the mushroom tune in her head. “Dance for me, Otto.”

The wash of magic was weird, and nothing like the sorts of magic he’d ever experienced in the past. It almost felt as if some invisible force was wrapping its way around his wrists, around his ankles and yet as fast as that feeling settled it vanished. Distracted by the leprechauns he didn’t initially notice the change in Deirdre’s demeanor up until the declaration. Married? He looked back to Deirdre suddenly, confusion writing itself all over his features and a sinking feeling settling in his gut. “Hold up, married? As in death do us part?” Granted… Now that he looked at Deirdre’s dress and his own suit… And the flowers, he could see the potential misinterpretation and he started to laugh, nervously, “good joke Deir… real funny.” But pathetic human? “Now hold up I’m not even hum-” not fully. He didn’t view himself as just human. Yet despite any protest he wanted to make he found himself compelled to agree. "Crystal." But then Deirdre spoke a further command and some foreign power seemed to overwrite any kind of hesitation or will to question. All he wanted was to dance. And dance he did. After all, she had asked and he only wanted to please her. “Well… it’s no fun if you don’t dance with me now is it?” he said after a jump and a turn holding his hands out as he continued to move to the mishmash of music that seemed to be growing louder and louder.

"Hmm, more like fairy ring do us part." Deirdre giggled, playing with the ends of her dress, swirling about. "We're not actually married, you silly-billy. I'm in love with Morgan, and I don't want to marry anyone but her—but she doesn't like the rings and so I have to take what I can get here, you see." She giggled again, skipping around Otto. He had such a stabbable body. She could sink a knife in there or there or—she tapped his shoulder. Even there. "But we're ring-married. As in you obey me and I think about sparing your life." She hopped back around to face him, laughing as he danced for her. She jumped and clapped, doing away with her white dress as quick as she could to sway with naked purity to the beat. "You're a good dancer, Otto. But I have big plans for you. Tell me—" she didn't command him to stop dancing, he needed to continue until she was bored of it. "—what you think is a good time. Your powers are interesting. I think we can use them in interesting ways and—!" She paused to giggle again. "Let me tell you about the mushrooms. You see, they take over the mind! No more pesky thoughts for me. Only mushrooms. And at the end of it all, you'll join the mushrooms." She kicked at the ground. "As in I'm going to bury you here, but first...we have our fun."

Perhaps Otto should’ve been more alarmed than he was, dancing about under a fae’s control. Maybe he should’ve even been angry, and perhaps later that would be the case. Having his freedom violated so plainly and vicariously. And yet he couldn’t help but feel partly entertained by everything that was happening, it was all very mad hatter esque sans the tea party. And hats. Why weren’t there hats? But Deirdre was talking and he heard what she was saying. Not married? At least that was one relief to come out of this whole thing. “Is this always how this is gonna go when you invite me somewhere? Dress me up all spiffy, then try to murder me? Tell me you don’t do this for everyone Deir. I was starting to feel special...” Maybe he was special, she had invited him to get ring married, after all. He hopped and skipped and even threw in a cartwheel for good measure bouncing back to his feet with glib joy. “A good time? Oh easy, well first you just gotta break into some rich folk’s home and take all their magic stuff they think they have a right to which they don’t. Then sell it for a profit and get piss drunk on the rewards.” There was no hesitation in answering, he wanted to tell Deirdre didn’t he? Anything to make her happy. Anything at all. “That’s funny… ‘cause I don’t even like mushrooms but they’re always on pizza. Who thought to put mushrooms on pizza? It’s like pineapple but worse.”

“I do murder a lot of people….” Deirdre tapped her chin, pausing her dancing to take a jaunty trip down murder-memory lane. But she wouldn’t murder Otto, not just yet. Or, really, she hadn’t decided what she was going to do with him. And then his sprouted his ideas (after cartwheeling into a pixie, which Deirdre laughed at as the pixie flew into a tree in their confusion). Yes. Theft was good. The mushrooms liked theft. They could bring everything back here and dance around it. “You’re so smart, Otto!” She giggled, dashing up to him to join in his dancing, planting a kiss on his cheek the soonest she could reach it. “I like that! Let’s steal from people. Let’s steal a buncha stuff from ‘em! Oh! Oh!” She jumped, joyous and jaunty. “You can take whatever you want. And sell anything you want. I don’t care. But I want the toasters. Ooh, that’ll show those pesky humans! Who's gonna toast their bread now? NO ONE!” The fae cheered around her, as if her idea was the greatest they’d heard. “DOWN WITH TOASTERS! DOWN WITH TOASTERS!” She chanted, “you can stop dancing and start chanting with me, Otto!” Her decree on the end of toasters bounced around the clearing, when she grew bored, she commanded Otto to stop and continued with her disorganized thoughts. “Mushrooms on pizza are bad. You’re so right. Mushrooms aren’t for eating, they’re for worshipping. You’re like, the best fake husband ever, Otto. You’re soooo smart.”

Otto didn’t really care that he just kicked a pixie in the face, all he wanted to do was dance. But it felt good to see Deirdre happy. Yes, because all he wanted to do was make Deirdre his mushroom wife happy. They would have mushrooms all day every day. “What did I tell you I’m a fungi. Ohhh-- can I draw mushrooms on the wall? Can that be my signature? We’ll be renowned.” Anything to please the mushrooms and please Deirdre. “I can? I can!” he cheered happily, oh he would take so many things but the idea of taking toasters. “You’re a genius! We’ll toast them all why? Because we’ll have their toasters!” The urge to dance suddenly stopped, but he immediately launched into a chorus of “DOWN WITH TOASTERS!” in line with the crowd of jaunty fae-folk around them. Eventually it subsided and Otto plopped down while the other fae continued to dance, “mm. You know what we should do? We should build a shrine to them. Imagine it! A mushroom shrine right in the middle of town? Nobody would miss it. We could put lights and flowers all around it! Magic mushrooms in the town plaza! So everyone can see them!”

Of all the humans she’d brought into rings with her, Otto was by far Deirdre’s favorite. But that seem to be his legacy, he was her favorite human she’d taken to a cemetery to play Sudoku with (of which there were only two, but that was beside the point). “You’re a fungi?” She looked at him. He looked pretty human to her, and pretty pretty. “Ooh! Yeah, that’ll be really good. We can steal stuff and draw mushrooms. We’ll be the mushroom bandits---but we’re not stealing mushrooms, to be clear. Unless it’s to free them in the wild, mushrooms should be freed.” And no human, none that she’d ever stolen, gave such great ideas. “Yes,” she plopped down with him. “A mushroom shrine. That sounds perfect! Everyone can see how great the mushrooms are.” She broke into a smile just imagining it. “More!” She slapped her fist into the ground. “More ideas, husband! I don’t have long on this mushroom high and I need to make the most of my time. We need to go big! The biggest!” She gestured with her hands and fell over, giggling into the grass. “We’ll make the shrine huge. It has to be. Maybe we should hang some bodies from it.” She sat up, “what do you think?”

Otto would have been pleased to hear about his newfound position in Deirdre’s list of humans. Or well, human adjacents. Humans were so boring after all. “Yeah, I’m fun and I’m a guy. Soooo… Fungi” he grinned like it was the smartest revelation in the world. Which right now it felt like it was. “Right. No stealing mushrooms. Unless we’re giving the mushrooms mush-more-room,” he giggled as they settled on the grass. This really was pretty great all in all. “Ohhhh hm,” his face contorted in deep thought before it brightened. “Mushroom soup!” he exclaimed wildly, “ but- we fill the local swimming pool with it.” A genius idea really. And the mushroom shrine? Really there was no better idea. “Yes. Or bones. Or bodies and bones and mushrooms! Because bodies become mushrooms right? You’re so clever Deir!”

Deirdre swapped ideas back and forth with Otto. At some point the day dissolved to night, and just talking about escapades turned into actually committing them. It was then she realized that, whatever the two of them were doing---or going to do---it was a very good idea. They had all the time in the world to steal toasters, paint mushrooms, make shrines and fill swimming pools. And she imagined that there was no better pair of people up to the task. “You know, Otto,” she pulled him in close, “I think you really might be my favorite husband.”

[hayingsang]

What I read in 2020

2020 wasn’t a vintage year for reading. I only finished 66 books – my lowest count in recent years – and I didn’t discover anything startlingly new. But I was pleased that for the second year in a row half the books I read were by women and that I came close to hitting my target of six books in Chinese. I would have hit my Chinese target if I hadn’t started a 600-page book in October, but as that’s already going to be one of the top books of 2021, I’m not too upset about missing that goal.

Upping my Chinese reading was probably part of reason for the low overall count – one page typically takes around 10-15 minutes – though also responsible was over-reading during two weeks in home quarantine in March put me off books for a while.

As usual, I mainly read older books – ones not released in 2020 – and for once the amount of fiction I read comfortably exceeded the non-fiction. Of that fiction the highlights were Lydia Davis’s Collected Stories, Angela Carter’s Heroes and Villains and the second volume of The Plum in the Golden Vase.

Davis’s work is short – often very short (many of her tales are less than a page). Prose poetry? Sometimes, but not always. A lot of playfulness. But also with a power that builds as you keep reading, a few pieces one day, a few more the next, and the one after, and so on. Also her repeated determination to experiment, sometime using traditional forms, sometimes with new ones.

Carter’s book, from the late 1960s, moved through much the same collapsed-society territory as Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood, but far more elegantly and to a more satisfying ending. I didn’t like her fairy stories, but this was tremendous.

The Plum in the Golden Vase, Volume Two: The Rivals – as good as the first volume. Better maybe. The best sprawling novel ever?

Aeschylus’s The Oresteia was another standout – read following last year’s Aeneid and Odyssey after consulting Richard Jenkyns’ excellent Classical Literature (an invaluable source of recommendations about what to read from Greece and Rome). No surprise that Aeschylus’s work has survived two-and-a-half millennia with its poking around matters that still bother human beings (families, states, etc).

Of the various books I read on Hong Kong, Kong Tsung-gan’s Liberate Hong Kong: Stories from the Freedom Struggle was the one I found most satisfying. Partly for its exploration of some of the darker, more violent aspects of 2019’s protests, but most of all for capturing the importance of what happened and so why it will be hard for the forces of repression to succeed in the long run. The only problem with this book is that it now seems to be almost impossible to get hold of.

Of the five books I read in Chinese, my favourite was in Cantonese (and so arguably not in Chinese): 麥花臣金將軍與白龍的對談 by  並明. An extraordinary piece of work, mainly about two young men from Hong Kong in Oxford talking about Hong Kong and philosophy, but also including voluminous footnotes on matters such as why certain characters had been chosen to represent words used in Cantonese that don’t occur in standard Chinese. If you have any interest in Cantonese I would say it’s a must-read – it’s the first time I’ve come across a sustained piece of writing using Cantonese as it’s spoken.

I also enjoyed 像我這樣的一個女子 by 西西 (Xi Xi, A Girl Like Me). I had read a couple of her books in English, and thought they were so-so. Actually, the problem was the translation. In English, her stories look simple; in Chinese, even I can tell that there’s a lot more going on, even if I’m not sure what it is.

What pointed me to Lydia Davis was her translation of Swan’s Way, my third version. My first reading was in 1984, when I thought it was amazing. Then, after reading the first two or three books, I decided to save the rest for some special occasion. That never came, so in the early 2000s, I read those first few books for a second time – again finding them amazing. This time round, however, I was rather less compelled.  I enjoyed it, but didn’t care for it. I’m now thinking I will never get round to finishing the whole thing.

The list in full:

Anita Brookner, A Friend from England

Peter Gray, Free to Learn

Richard Baldwin, The Globotics Upheaval

Stendhal, Scarlet and Black

Anita Brookner, Latecomers

Daniel H Wilson, Robopocalypse

Tim Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth

並明, 麥花臣金將軍與白龍的對談

Anonymous, Bhagavad Gita

Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age

Wang Anyi, Love in a Small Town

Nina Bawden, Walking Naked

Anita Brookner, Family and Friends

Anita Brookner, A Start in Life

Angela Carter, Heroes and Villains

Gerald Graff & Cathy Birkenstein, “They Say, I Say”

Mario Vargas Llosa, The Neighborhood

Marcel Proust, Swan’s Way

Ruth Kassinger, Slime

Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee, Machine, Platform, Crowd

Aeschylus, The Oresteia

Stanley SK Kwan, The Dragon and the Crown

陶傑, 香港政局的50個關鍵詞

CS Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

Felicia Nay, Red Affairs, White Affairs

Anonymous, The Plum in the Golden Vase, Volume Two: The Rivals

Julia Lovell, The Opium War

Various, Aftershock

Bruce Aitken, The Cleaner

青永屍, 你個教育制度壞咗呀

Kong Tsung-gan, Liberate Hong Kong

Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal

Octavia Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories

Deborah Levy, The Unloved

Daniel Levitin, The Organized Mind

Elias Canetti, The Play of the Eyes

Martha Nussbaum, The Monarchy of Fear

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Vigil

Ursula Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

西西, 像我這樣的一個女子

Ursula Le Guin, Tehanu

Lydia Davis, The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis

Antony Dapiran, City of Protest

Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

Lydia Fitzpatrick, Lights All Night Long

Michael Taylor, Community, Anarchy, Liberty

Jean Rhys, Quartet

Toni Morrison, Home

Ursula Le Guin, The Telling

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

譚劍, 人形軟件

Adair Turner, Between Debt and the Devil

Amos Oz, Judas

JS Sharman, The Despot’s Guide to Wealth Management

Ursula Le Guin, Tales of Earthsea

Ursula Le Guin, The Other Wind

Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed

Felix Dennis, How to Get Rich

Martha Nussbaum, Woman and Human Development

Alice Munro, Dear Life

Sally Rooney, Normal People

David Grossman, To the End of the Land

Natalia Ginzburg, All Our Yesterdays

Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood

Charles Taylor, Hegel