#which is not narratively essential but it is an interesting perspective and I missed it.

[fairandfatalasfair]

Saw Dune part 2

It is... really obvious that this is a story that is suffering from having not bothered to set up the essential pieces of its worldbuilding, and also not having thought very much about how the pieces it did use are supposed to fit together...and as a result they made a story that never quite makes complete sense, and doesn't really engage that effectively with its themes, and the relationship dynamics fall flat.

And like... I get that the worldbuilding of Dune is very complicated and it's hard to fit all of those details in. But the result is a narrative that's not really grounded in cause and effect and instead is just grabbing for cool visuals and playing up the religious fanatic imagery, and I found it fell flat.

Like it's fine. And Chalamet continues to do a better job with the character than I was expecting. But the writing is just all over the place.

[supersoakerfullofblood]

Point of View: the Biggest Thing You're Missing!

Point of view is one of the most important elements of narrative fiction, especially in our modern writing climate, but you rarely hear it seriously discussed unless you go to school for writing; rarely do help blogs or channels hit on it, and when they do, it's never as in-depth as it should be. This is my intro to POV: what you're probably missing out on right now and why it matters. There are three essential parts of POV that we'll discuss.

Person: This is the easiest part to understand and the part you probably know already. You can write in first person (I/me), second (You), and third person (He/she/they). You might hear people talk about how first person brings the reader closer to the central character, and third person keeps them further away, but this isn't true (and will be talked about in the third part of this post!) You can keep the reader at an intimate or alien distance to a character regardless of which person you write in. The only difference--and this is arguable--is that first person necessitates this intimacy where third person doesn't, but you still can create this intimacy in third person just as easily. In general, third person was the dominant (and really the only) tense until the late 19th century, and first person grew in popularity with the advent of modernism, and nowadays, many children's/YA/NA books are written in first person (though this of course doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't write those genres in the third person). Second person is the bastard child. Don't touch it, even if you think you're clever, for anything the length of a novel. Shorter experimental pieces can use it well, but for anything long, its sounds more like a gimmick than a genuine stylistic choice.

Viewpoint Character: This is a simple idea that's difficult in practice. Ask yourself who is telling your story. This is typically the main character, but it needn't be. Books like The Book Thief, The Great Gatsby, Rebecca, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Sherlock series are told from the perspective of a side character who isn't of chief importance to the narrative. Your viewpoint character is this side character, the character the reader is seeing the world through, so the main character has to be described through them. This isn't a super popular narrative choice because authors usually like to write from the perspective of their most interesting character, but if you think this choice could fit your story, go for it! You can also swap viewpoint characters throughout a story! A word of warning on that: only change your viewpoint character during a scene/chapter break. Switching mid-scene without alerting the reader (and even when you do alert the reader) will cause confusion. I guarantee it.

Means of Perception; or, the Camera: This part ties the first two together. If you've ever heard people talk about an omniscient, limited, etc. narrator, this is what they mean. This part also includes the level of intimacy the reader has with the viewpoint character: are we in their heads, reading their thoughts, or are we so far away that we can only see their actions? If your story is in a limited means of perception, you only have access to your character's head, eyes, and interpretations, where an omniscient narrator sees through all characters' heads at once. (This doesn't eliminate the viewpoint character--most of your writing will still be in that character's head, but you're allowed to reach into other characters' thoughts when needed. You could also be Virginia Woolf, who does fluidly move through everyone's perspectives without a solid viewpoint character, but I would advise against this unless you really are a master of the craft.) Older novels skew towards third person omniscient narration, where contemporary novels skew towards first person limited. You also have a spectrum of "distant" and "close." If omniscient and limited are a spectrum of where the camera can swivel to, distant and close is a spectrum of how much the camera can zoom in and out. Distant only has access to the physical realities of the world and can come off as cold, and close accesses your character's (or characters', if omniscient) thoughts. Notice how I said narration. Your means of perception dramatically effects how your story can be told! Here's a scene from one of my stories rewritten in third-person distant omniscient. The scene is a high school football game:

“Sometimes,” he said. “Not much anymore.” “It’s not better, then?” She shivered; the wind blew in. “A little.” His tone lifted. “I don’t know if it’ll ever be better, though.” She placed a hand on his arm, stuttered there, and slipped her arm around his waist. “Did it help to be on your own?” He raised an eyebrow. “You were there.” “Yes and no.” “And the guys, the leaders.” “Come on,” she heckled. “Okay, okay.” Carmen sighed. “Yeah, it helped. I don’t think—I don’t know—I’d be me if they’d fixed it all.” She grinned. “And who might you be?” “Oh, you know. Scared, lonely.” He fired them haphazardly, and a bout of laughter possessed him which Piper mirrored. “Impatient.” “And that’s a good thing?” “No.” He sat straight. “Gosh, no. But I don’t want to be like him, either.” He pointed to the field; Devon recovered a fumbled ball. “He’s never been hurt in his life.” She met his eyes, which he pulled away. “You don’t mean that," Piper said. “Maybe not. He’s too confident, though.” The cloth of Carmen's uniform caved and expanded under Piper's fingers.

With distant-omniscient, we only get the bare actions of the scene: the wind blows in, Piper shivers, the cloth rises and falls, Carmen points, etc. But you can tell there's some emotional and romantic tension in the scene, so let's highlight that with a first person limited close POV:

“Sometimes,” he said. “Not much anymore.” “It’s not better, then?” Frost spread up from her legs and filled her as if she were perforated rock, froze and expanded against herself so that any motion would disturb a world far greater than her, would drop needles through the mind’s fabric. A misplaced word would shatter her, shatter him. “A little.” His tone lifted. “I don’t know if it’ll ever be better, though.” She placed a hand on his arm, thought better, and slipped her arm around his waist. “Did it help to be on your own?” He raised an eyebrow. “You were there.” “Yes and no.” “And the guys, the leaders.” “Come on,” she heckled. “Okay, okay.” Carmen sighed. “Yeah, it helped. I don’t think—I don’t know—I’d be me if they’d fixed it all.” She grinned. “And who might you be?” “Oh, you know. Scared, lonely.” He fired them haphazardly, and a bout of laughter possessed him which Piper mirrored. “Impatient.” “And that’s a good thing?” “No.” He sat straight. “Gosh, no. But I don’t want to be like him, either.” He pointed to the field; Devon recovered a fumbled ball. “He’s never been hurt in his life.” “You don’t mean that.” She spoke like a jaded mother, spoke with some level of implied authority, and reminded herself again to stop. “Maybe not. He’s too confident, though.” Piper felt the cloth of his waist cave and expand under her fingers and thought: is this not confidence?

Here, we get into Piper's thoughts and physical sensations: how the frost rises up her, and how this sensation of cold is really her body expressing her nervous fears; how she "thought better" and put her arm around his waist; her thought "is this not confidence?"; and how she reminds herself not to talk like a mother. Since I was writing from the close, limited perspective of a nervous high schooler, I wrote like one. If I was writing from the same perspective but with a child or an older person, I would write like them. If you're writing from those perspectives in distant narration, however, you don't need to write with those tones but with the authorial tone of "the narrator."

This is a lot of info, so let's synthesize this into easy bullet points to remember.

Limited vs. Omniscient. Are you stuck to one character's perspective per scene or many?

Close vs. Distant. Can you read your characters' thoughts or only their external worlds? Remember: if you can read your character's thoughts, you also need to write like you are that character experiencing the story. If child, write like child; if teen, write like teen; etc.

Here's another way to look at it!

This is a confusing and complex topics, so if you have any questions, hit up my ask box, and I'll answer as best I can. The long and short of it is to understand which POV you're writing from and to ruthlessly stick to it. If you're writing in limited close, under no circumstances should you describe how a character other than your viewpoint character is feeling. Maintaining a solid POV is necessary to keeping the dream in the reader's head. Don't make them stumble by tripping up on POV!

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - Epilogue

what in the biblical language is this, it’s such a contrast to Nona’s narration. love a good TLT epilogue shift to a completely different perspective and narrative style

Alecto’s first word is ‘You’, which presumably connects to the end of saying ‘i still love y-’ in the poem at the beginning?

HARROWHARK NONAGESIMUS is back baby!! my girl is finally in the same room as Gideon for the first time in two books. i cannot wait to see Harrow’s reaction to Kiriona Gaia in AtN

‘I only die in longing for thee’ ok so the language here is definitely coloured by Alecto’s narration style, but i love that Ianthe’s response to Harrow calling her ‘bitch’ is to apparently say something extremely romantic

THEN PERISH

pfff and Alecto just tosses Ianthe aside. the last third of this book has not been great for Ianthe’s ego 

ok so the the attitude of Alecto to Pyrrha here is very interesting to me, specifically the mention of ‘appeasement’ - Alecto says that John ‘laid [her] down’ to appease ‘them’, presumably the Lyctors, which fits with what we know about the situation of Alecto being put in the tomb already. but what stands out as slightly odd here is that Alecto also says ‘he fed you to them as an appeasement to them’ - the Lyctors seemed more upset by the whole ‘consuming the souls of their cavaliers’ thing, rather than ‘appeased’. again i think there’s a lot more to the original ascension than the reader knows yet

‘and now all he has done is teach me how to die’ well that’s ominous. and also horrifically sad that this is clearly something learned as Nona, who had accepted her death, in contrast to Harrow’s assertion in John 5:4 that the only thing that scared Alecto was death

between Ianthe and Alecto Harrow just seems to be extremely kissable 

also Alecto biting Harrow as her understanding of a kiss vs Nona having an innate understanding of body language … its so sad. i miss Nona so much already

‘Get in line thou big slut!’ listen that cannot be anyone other than my girl Gideon!! i have a feeling that Alecto being in service to Harrow is going to cause Tension in the next book

‘At which John awakened and said, Annabel, good morning’ WHAT. what the hell is going on right now

that is one hell of a line to leave the book on, and pretty fitting given that the book has essentially told both of their stories (Alecto as Nona, John via Harrow’s dreams), and ends with them actually being on page together for the first time. also it is just like John to be totally, annoyingly chill about his kinda ex stabbing him in the chest smh

[saintsenara]

I come to you with this question because, having read all your other metas, I think you'd be the right person to ask. Id love to know what you think about Regulus because I have a very hard time understanding his character. Partly because of fanon characterization of him makes him seem like some secret rebel against Voldemort and partly because I just can't really understand any of his motivations. But regardless, I think what we know about him in canon is so interesting - i just can piece it all together. I'd love to know what you think!

(Sorry for the longish ask)

thank you very much for the ask, @hauntingpercival! regulus is a character i also find a bit of a mystery, and so thinking through this answer was really fun.

i'll start by being clear that i'm certainly not a regulus fan. by which i not only mean that i don't vibe with the fanon!regulus of the marauders fandom, who is essentially an original character - and you can read my views on jegulus here... [spoiler alert: i do not back it] - but that when he appears in my own writing in ways i'd like to hope feel influenced by his canon form, i always find myself focusing on aspects of his character which are rather unlikeable.

there is a little bit of a discourse-y reason for this, which will be pertinent to the rest of this answer...

i really don't like the sort of "omg aristocracy is so hot and sexy and interesting" tropes which are so prevalent in writing around the black family. this is firstly because i don't think that aristocracy is in any way these things - and i find it distasteful to imply otherwise - which is because i'm a prole who lives somewhere still bearing the scars of british colonisation who also went to the sort of university where one sometimes encountered aristocrats and they were all cringe and unbearable.

but it's also because it's not - and i will genuinely die on this hill - an accurate reflection of how the blacks are presented in canon. not only does it take sirius' comment that his parents considered themselves "practically royal" to be a statement of fact [sirius is quite clearly taking the piss out of his parents' pretensions], but it also misses that the purpose sirius' discussion of orion and walburga's politics serves in the narrative of order of the phoenix is to show how mainstream their blood-supremacist views were.

sirius tells us that his parents were not death eaters, but that they nonetheless thought voldemort's overtly sectarian political aims were correct. in this, they hold the political views order of the phoenix emphasises belong to cornelius fudge - unimaginative, deferential to the class system, casually prejudiced, and so on. orion and walburga function as a way of showing us just how entrenched the death eaters' manifesto is, how close voldemort came to winning the first war, and what an uphill struggle the order faces to unravel the roots blood-supremacy has in the wizarding world.

[and they also show that the baffling vibes of grimmauld place - while these are made worse by it being three different gothic literature tropes in a trenchcoat - are wizarding norms, rather than evidence that the blacks were uniquely immersed in dark magic. the decor at grimmauld place - and the family's collection of dark artefacts - is the same as that found in malfoy manor, even at a time when lucius malfoy is considered eminently socially respectable. this is a point we will come back to...]

i think, then, that it's crucial to approach regulus not as a swaggering aristocrat, but as someone from an upper-class background which - while still posh, rich, inferring enormous social capital, well-connected - was unremarkable within the circles in which he moved.

by which i mean that hogwarts is based on real-world institutions - britain's elite boarding schools - which are so exclusive and expensive to attend that the student body are from a class-background which seems inhumanly exclusive, affluent, and powerful from an outsider perspective [i.e. from the perspective of someone from the majority middle- and working-classes] but which seems completely normal within the student body itself.

[i.e. nobody at eton with princes william and harry will have been astonished to have been at school with a royal, because they will have been familiar with their social circles, cultural experiences, level of wealth, and expectation of knowing someone with considerable social influence from childhood.]

while hogwarts appears to be a state-funded school [although it also expects an enormous amount of financial investment on the part of parents - such as buying all the textbooks], the fact that its real-world parallels are so elite [and, therefore, come with a specific "look" in the british cultural imagination] means that the student body is incredibly well-heeled and working-class students stand out enormously in a way very rich students do not. hogwarts also exists - like real-world elite schools and universities - as a way of propping up the status quo of the class system by which the wizarding world functions. its pupils have an expectation of procuring jobs in the civil service and other influential professions - using not only connections established at school but connections they possess through their [male] relatives. many hogwarts students we meet in canon are related to someone who occupies an elite position in the wizarding executive or is otherwise socio-politically influential.

at school, then, regulus would have been completely, perfectly average in terms of social position. i also like the idea of him as perfectly average in terms of intellect - and as a good, but not exceptional, seeker. this provides a really interesting point of contrast with sirius, who - while he's also not socially unusual in terms of class [and i will never vibe with tropes like him being followed by whispers going "omg, he's a black, that means he's important"] - stands out in that he's the first black in generations not to be in slytherin, that he's precociously intelligent, and that he - and the rest of the marauders - are class clowns and show-offs.

and i like the idea that this would give regulus a desire to stand out - to be considered the most important person in the whole school. we can get a hint of this in canon - the picture of sirius and his friends harry sees in deathly hallows is immediately contrasted with a picture of regulus sitting in the seeker's position in the team photo. the seeker who acts alone.

and i think this desire for notoriety is what drives him to sign up to become a death eater - that he decides he's sick of having parents with the perfectly normal level of social influence and a brother who is more popular than him, and that he thinks that he's cleverer and more worthy of attention than everyone else in the castle and the world better start showing it.

[and i've never bought - i'm afraid - the idea that he and sirius are close. it's clear from canon that regulus had no issue being thought of as "a much better son" than sirius, and that he colluded with his parents against him. sirius can love him - and miss him, and regret how they were never able to repair their relationship - but i don't think this means that he feels he's lost a bestie.]

that he holds sincere blood-supremacist views is a given - because within the world in which he lives, these are completely normal and held completely casually [i.e. that slughorn is shocked lily could be muggleborn because she's clever]. the more virulent expression of these views - saying "mudblood", etc. - is clearly considered ill-mannered, but not something which might have any real impact on one's social standing [draco malfoy uses the term with impunity while at school, and nobody ever considers that informing a teacher of this would result in him being punished; equally, nobody from the crowd who witness the event reports snape for calling lily a mudblood].

and so i think it's clear that he becomes interested in joining the death eaters - and starts putting together his terrorism pinterest board - because his mainstream belief that being pureblood is better crashes into his desire to be special to form a conviction that riding the coattails of voldemort's ostentatious malevolence is the way he can become famous.

[in this, he is very like snape.]

my assumption is that regulus is one academic year below sirius, meaning that he was born in 1960-1961. my assumption is also that he receives his dark mark while still at school - probably at some point in his newt years [so the academic years 1977-1978 and 1978-1979].

the standard view - expressed vehemently by various order members in half-blood prince - is that voldemort has no interest in death eaters who are still at school.

the order is wrong about this, obviously - not only when it comes to their refusal to accept that harry's right about draco malfoy being marked, but also in the fact that several of the death eaters who are very young at the end of the first war, barty crouch jr. [who is still young enough to be described as a "boy" in 1982 at the earliest], chief among them, must have been taken on by voldemort prior to graduating.

but it seems fair to say that admitting teenagers into his inner circle is unusual for voldemort, especially when those teenagers don't really offer him anything useful. crouch, for example, could be put to work informing on his father's movements. regulus is - as i've said - just ordinary.

and so my view has always been that regulus is marked by voldemort as a favour to bellatrix. i think this partially because i'm bellamort trash, partially because i think it's a nice narrative parallel between regulus and draco [who are very similar] to have bellatrix be responsible for regulus' recruitment when she's canonically vociferously in favour of draco's, and partially because realising that voldemort thinks of him as just some guy who warrants [essentially] a pity dark mark would be a big blow to regulus' conviction that joining the death eaters would make him impressive.

[i also think regulus is recruited before 1978 because i think there has to be a shift in voldemort's modus operandi at about this point, in order for the fact that sirius says that his parents got cold feet about what the dark lord was prepared to do after regulus became a death eater to make sense. my view has always been that voldemort's violence prior to c.1978 overwhelmingly targets state institutions and people connected to them and/or people with known anti-voldemort political views, meaning that ordinary citizens can regard these people being killed or injured as reasonable risks of their jobs and/or behaviour. and then that after c.1978, the dark lord begins targeting civilians - including upper-class pureblood civilians - indiscriminately, which makes his casual supporters start to waver a bit.]

so, let's suppose that regulus leaves hogwarts in june 1979 and finds himself expected to participate as a full death eater, after having been let off all the dirty work by virtue of being at school...

as i've said, regulus has an enormous number of narrative parallels with draco malfoy. and i think that the best way to think about him is to write him as sharing draco's canonical attitude to voldemort's cause - that he believes whole-heartedly in the message of blood-supremacy the dark lord promotes and that he has no problem with people he considers subhuman [mudbloods and blood-traitors] or unimportant [faceless families massacred in their own homes] being subjected to violence in the name of that message, but that he lacks the character traits necessary to perform that violence himself, to see it done to people he likes, or to witness what it actually involves versus the image he has of it in his head.

and so i imagine he starts struggling pretty quickly with the fact that being a death eater isn't quite as easy as he thought it would be when he was making voldemort fancams on tiktok. and that part of the reason he's primed to turn against the dark lord is because of the tension he feels warring within him at the fact that he's still a blood-supremacist, still desperate to be important, and yet growing disenchanted.

i don't however, think this is why he does what he does... so let's get into that:

why does regulus turn against voldemort?

let's be clear about one thing - regulus turning against voldemort has nothing to do with him having some sort of damascene conversion against blood-supremacy.

[or, at least, that's what i think.]

the outline of regulus' defection that we get in canon goes as follows:

voldemort asks someone to lend him a house elf. we know that regulus volunteers kreacher, because he told kreacher so - and so i imagine voldemort mentions at a meeting that he wants to procure an elf [although, of course, he doesn't elaborate on why] and regulus immediately jumps up and says "pick me, my lord" because he sees this as an opportunity to get voldemort to finally notice him.

his assumption must be that voldemort will use kreacher for a purpose which is considered normal in wizarding society - i.e. that he will require him to do something akin to domestic service, perhaps preparing potions ingredients.

it evidently does not occur to him that voldemort would transgress this social boundary and harm kreacher. not - to be clear - because i think that regulus was some kind of abolitionist legend, but because we see several characters express the view in goblet of fire that how barty crouch sr. treats winky is his own business, and that it is impolite for respectable wizards to comment on how anyone else treats his slave. this sort of social behaviour will have a second part - that it is impolite for respectable wizards to treat anyone else's slave in a way which goes beyond what wizarding slaveowners see as normal.

or: that it's fine to be lent a slave to serve you, but very much not fine to nearly kill that slave [someone else's property!] for your own gain.

kreacher informs regulus what voldemort asked of him, which makes regulus suspicious about what the object voldemort deposited in the cave was. regulus then decides to investigate.

kreacher tells us that regulus goes away for an indeterminate period of time and then returns to grimmauld place "disturbed in his mind".

dumbledore claims in half-blood prince that voldemort appears not to wear or display the objects the horcruxes are made from after he turns them into horcruxes. i think we can agree with this or not without it affecting the story - i quite like the idea that voldemort doesn't make the locket until the later 1970s [maybe after the murder of dorcas meadowes, the only person in the first war other than james and lily to have canonically been killed by him personally], but we can also say that he might have worn or displayed it when it was already a horcrux. certainly, regulus must have seen the locket - either on voldemort or somewhere in his lair - and, after kreacher tells him what happened, he goes to see if it's still there.

when he discovers it isn't, he comes to an important conclusion. one which requires a little detour...

how does regulus know what a horcrux is?

i complained at the start of this answer about the black family being portrayed as unusually immersed in the dark arts - rather than some sort of familiarity with the dark arts being perfectly normal for people of their social class.

and i am sure that you might think I'm about to have to eat my words, since i'm not going to try and deny that regulus was able to identify a horcrux all by himself...

but, actually, i'm just chucking malevolently at the opportunity to clamber onto my soapbox and say:

horcruxes are canonically not magic which only a handful of people know about. where voldemort goes beyond the theory of horcruxes which a wizard of regulus' class-background would be familiar with is that he makes seven.

this doesn't mean - to be clear - that i think it was ever common to make a horcrux [i don't think the wizarding world is quite that lawless...], but that it was reasonable to know they exist, in the way that we might have some general understanding of something macabre - like techniques for disposing of a body - which would enable us to suspect if we saw a neighbour behaving strangely while doing one of those things...

after all, slughorn can suggest [even if he doesn't believe this is what he wants to do] that voldemort could justify his interest in horcruxes by using the excuse that he's working on a project for defence against the dark arts.

that harry, ron, and hermione don't know about them is a result of a combination of their own lack of interest in the theory of the dark arts, the information blackout instituted by dumbledore at some point after voldemort graduates [and my theory as to why dumbledore hates horcruxes even in the forties? grindelwald made one - hence why dumbledore is so hopeful at king's cross that the rumours of his repentance might have been true...], and the fact that they don't discuss their mission with anyone [tonks, kingsley, and moody, who literally have to specialise in dark objects as part of their jobs, would one hundo have known what a horcrux was].

[what they would not have known is what voldemort's horcruxes were likely to be made of and where they were likely to be. it's this - rather than the idea that horcruxes are completely unknowable magic - that is why it has to be harry in charge of hunting them down: he's the only person in the series who knows voldemort well enough to realise that, for example, he'd have hidden one in gringotts because of his jealousy at being excluded from this pillar of wizarding normality.]

so, regulus has a little rummage, works out the locket has disappeared, and has no trouble - especially because voldemort mentions in goblet of fire that he'd told his death eaters he couldn't die [which regulus might not have thought was him speaking literally] prior to 1981 - guessing what it's being used for.

and so, regulus turns against voldemort.

and i think that he does this because the horcrux makes it impossible for him to pretend any longer that voldemort's aims are - when the ministry is forced to the negotiating table by his paramilitary activities - an oligarchy in which upper-class pureblood families benefit and muggleborns and blood-traitors become second-class citizens, but which doesn't deviate too much in terms of its overwhelming norms from the way wizarding society functioned at that time. instead, he is confronted with the undeniable fact that voldemort intends to reign forever as an immortal absolute monarch, and that he has never had any intention of elevating regulus and people like him to the positions of importance he so craved.

[we see something similar happen to draco, whose increasing fear of voldemort throughout half-blood prince and deathly hallows is clearly driven by him realising that voldemort isn't joking when he says that he'll kill him and his parents unless he obeys orders, but is joking when he says he'll be considered a valuable servant should he manage to kill dumbledore...]

and so his death - and his threat to destroy the horcrux - is a repudiation of his beliefs. but, specifically, it is a repudiation of his conviction that voldemort was a primarily political figure who would act as a champion of the pureblood class-system. it's him recognising that voldemort would not stop with a takeover of the ministry - he would kill and kill forever, concerned only with how much further he could venture beyond the norms of magic.

[jackwhiteprophetic]

Idk if I've said this before but Buck's season 4 arc is so fucking interesting and the way they CHOSE to have it essentially "completed" in the finale by Eddie is so intentional and beautiful AAAAAAA

So basically we open with Buck in therapy, this leads to his parents coming and Buck begins and such, where Eddie is consistently there for Buck to go to, and we have the iconic "I know you did", where we as the audience see how much Eddie understands this side of Buck, and how Eddie gives Buck the space to talk and to be angry and process without pushing him to be anything else (which contrasts to Maddie this season, though I love Maddie and I don't think the effects of her childhood on her have been given enough time in the show).

And he doesn't properly finish this self sacrificing thing here, when his mum says "you're doing what you were born to do" this is exemplified, and Buck is affirmed in his purpose being the saviour.

And then we have a kind of cyclical arc with the shooting, where Buck has to confront again how he feels like he's a shitty replacement for something, and that he's reckless and he immediately reverts to his learned perspective of "I shouldn't be here and someone else should and I now I have to make sure that it's only me that gets hurt" that he picked up in his childhood, even when not knowing about Daniel. But this time Eddie stops him, and he tells him that he's not expendable, and that he has a family who need him, and that he has a permanent place in their life.

Which is literally all Buck has ever wanted.

ALSO the conversation with Bobby in 4x14 is so interesting because it feels like there's something missing, when Bobby only reprimands Buck for being reckless and is so nearly at the point, which is that Buck does not value his life and he needs fucking help, but he MISSES it, and the audience sees that, and the scene feels incomplete, and this is simply because they wanted to save that line for Eddie. ANYONE in that episode could have pointed it out, have been given that line, because it was obvious to the audience what Buck was doing. And the writers very deliberately let our frustration at the other characters for missing it build, so that the will conversation was massively highlighted and very narratively satisfying and conclusive.

It has been SO intentional and I am obsessed with it so much

[cripplecharacters]

Feel free not to answer this question as it's more a research-type question, I'm just not sure how to go about finding what I need: do you happen to know any fiction books with portrayals of medium to high support autistic people that are considered realistic and positive? All I can find is rep of low support autistic ppl (unless it's in semi-educational children's books) and it's making it harder to figure out how to write medium to high support autistic ppl myself.

Hello!

When I was diagnosed, it was before the levels were used (Or at least before they were used where I lived). I suspect that I would be considered 'level one autistic' today but would likely have been 'level two', bridging into 'level three' as a child. This is all just to explain my perspective with this.

That being said, here are some of my recommendations:

A Step Toward Falling by Cammie McGovern

I just finished this book earlier today and while it isn't specifically about autistic characters, it does feature several autistic characters with high support needs as well as other disabled characters. The book is written from the perspective of two characters, one of which is developmentally disabled (Belinda). Although her disability is never specified, I do see a lot of autistic traits in Belinda. The premise of this book is a bit heavy. It's about two characters (Who are not disabled) who end up volunteering at a centre for adults with developmental disabilities. One of the things I appreciated about this book was how well rounded the characters are. Each of them has their own stories, interests, and ideas. I also like how it discussed sex and relationships in the context of people with developmental disabilities. Something to note is that this does have some sensitive topics such as ableism, sexual assault, and bullying. It is also written by a parent of an autistic child but, as far as I'm aware, the author herself is abled. I did have some conflicted feelings about specific parts of it but I'll leave that for you to make your own decisions about. Target Audience: Young Adult

How to Speak Dolphin by Ginny Rorby

I also read this book recently and I personally really disliked it. There were several scenes that made me feel very gross and I found that the autistic character was dehumanized very often. One line that stuck with me was another character about a blind character, essentially saying, "I thought she was going to drown herself. If I was blind, that's what I would do." Although the character does get to know the blind character and changes her mind, it really felt awful to read and seemed so unnecessary -- especially given the target audience. The way it talks about blindness in general bugs me. That being said, I have seen several autistic people recommending the book (Which was why I read it in the first place) so I'll include it here anyways since my opinion seems to be in the minority around this book. Target Audience: Elementary/Middle Schoolers This is a brief review from another autistic person. [Link]

Planet Earth is Blue by Nicole Panteleakos

This book centers around Nova, a young autistic girl with high support needs. Nova is a foster child who is missing her older sister and the story is told through a mix of narrative, letters to Nova's sister, and flashbacks. It's been a while since I've read this book but I remember really enjoying it (And maybe crying a little bit too). The author is autistic herself and also consulted many other autistic people with a variety of experiences, which I appreciated. Target Audience: Middle Schoolers This is a more in-depth review on the book from a reader who (I believe) is also autistic. [Link]

These are also a couple books that I've seen recommended but can't personally recommend as I haven't read them myself yet:

Real by Carol Cujec

Remember Dippy by Shirley Reva Vernick

I know it's not very much but hopefully it's enough to get you started! If anyone has any recommendations for anon, feel free to mention them in the notes.

Cheers,

~ Mod Icarus

[ilyareads]

short books recs (under 200 pages)

1. Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa

This book follows Sentaro, who runs a dorayaki stall, and his friendship with Tokue, who makes killer sweet bean paste. It is a heart-warming and endearing story that brings you comfort. I love the friendship between Sentaro and Tokue, especially seeing how it develops. The ending feels a little rushed. I kind of wished it was longer. Kind of sad. I cried. 10/10 would read again.

2. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The Funiculi Funicula cafe provides a time-traveling service, and the book, divided into four parts, retells different characters' experiences traveling in time. I always associate time-traveling with angst and regret, and this book has just that. I love how each part explores different relationship dynamics, so the time-traveling experience varies for each character. Very heart-warming, but very emotional as well. Cried a lot. It's a series but you don't have to read other books. But if you want more info on the cafe and the characters' backstory, then I highly recommend reading the other books.

3. Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

This book revolves around two students, who are victims of bullying. Due to their shared struggle, a friendship blossoms between them. The depiction of bullying and its impacts is raw and authentic, the story providing the perspectives of both the victims and the perpetrators. It was a rage-inducing but thought-provoking read.

4. The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa

This book follows Nana the cat as he embarks on a road-trip with his owner, Satoru. Now, cats are my absolute weakness. I love cats. I WOULD DIE FOR THEM. Which is why reading this book was hard and painful. The writing is witty, since it is written from the perspective of a cat. The plot itself is kind of predictable, but it doesn't make it any less painful. Tldr; Shredded my heart into pieces. Cried so hard, I couldn't breathe.

5. Almond by Won-Pyung Sohn

The story follows the main character, Yunjae, who suffers from a rare condition called Alexithymia that essentially makes him unable to feel emotions. Due to that, he couldn't understand social cues so people shun him. The development of the story centers on the people Yunjae are going to meet, and how his relationship with these people develops. The ending felt a little anticlimactic, but I loved it nonetheless.

6. Eartheater by Dolores Reyes

The unnamed protagonist can locate missing people and find out their fate by eating dirt, so people seek her to know the fate of their missing loved ones. It was definitely an interesting read, with elements of magical realism in relation to the protagonist's ability. It is also an intriguing depiction of femicide, a reflection of a system that continuously fails women. I felt rage for the women failed by the system and the sufferings they had to endure at the hands of hateful men.

7. A House is a Body by Shruti Swamy

This book is a collection of short stories, which is a raw and authentic depiction of what it is like being human. I enjoyed certain stories, while some left me utterly confused. The narratives are enticing and poetic, so despite some stories not hitting that hard, I enjoyed the writing.

8. The Vegetarian by Han Kang

After having a bizarre dream, Yeong-Hye declares that she is turning vegetarian, and this sudden change concerned her family. I made the mistake of thinking that this book is merely a depiction of what it's like to be a vegetarian. HELL NO. It utterly deviates from my expectation. I could only describe the book as bizarre and spooky, in an unconventional way. It depicts the complexity of the human mind when the contraint of societal expectations is disregarded.

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Where Kazuki and Rei Live in Fukuoka City

Over on Twitter, a Japanese fan noted that the park Kazuki and Rei are walking through at the end of Episode 9 is Seiryu Park in Nakasu, Fukuoka:

Here is Seiryu Park:

Here you can see that statue:

Since they are walking back from Miri’s daycare that means they live in the general area. Nakasu Ward is the red-light district of Fukuoka City. Now, in Episode 7, we saw Kazuki heading back to their place with a paper bag filled with groceries, and then he ran into Carol and Dorothy:

Since he was walking back from the store, it indicates (to me) that Rei’s apartment is likely located in Nakasu then. And that makes sense. They are hitmen, so living in the red-light district fits. We also know that Kyutaro’s café is in walking distance from their place, so it is likely located in Nakasu too, which also makes sense, since there are lots of shops and restaurants in that area.

But, this also makes Kazuki’s surprise at the amount of daycares and preschools in the nearby area also make a lot more sense:

He likely didn’t think that there would be any located next to or nearby where they live, since it is the red-light district, but there are a lot. I’m going to take a guess that that is because Nakasu Ward is next to Hakata Ward, which is where stuff like:

The government buildings,

Fukuoka Airport,

and Hakata Port are all located.

So Aozora and the other daycares are likely all located in that nearby (neighboring really) ward. That would be fitting and the most logical assumption to make.

I remember I mentioned how I thought that the first daycare that they went to in Episode 4 looked like a refurbished government building of some kind, so that guess probably wasn’t too far off, lol.

But yeah, it seems that Kazuki and Rei reside in Nakasu, the red-light district of Fukuoka City, which is really interesting. It puts a lot of things into perspective. Like this woman that Miri saw in Episode 5:

She is likely an adult entertainer of some kind (similar to Carol and Dorothy). Her outfit (lowcut tops that show cleavage aren’t common in Japan outside of the entertainment industry - adult or otherwise, it is more common for women to show off their legs more) and heavy makeup also imply this, so it would make sense that she would be in this area of the city.

Kazuki fear of some creeps getting Miri or her getting in harms way is an expected parental fear when a child goes missing, but even more so when the area they go missing in is essentially the red-light district.

Of course, I could be wrong on this. They could be locate in Hakata Ward. I’m not familiar enough with Fukuoka City to say any of the above with 100% certainty, but it would fit with their jobs and other narrative things we’ve seen. I’ll also be keeping an eye out for any further clues that can confirm (or deny) this more concretely in future episodes!

Also, if anyone has anything else to add to this post, please feel free to do so! :D

(I’ll link to the sources of the two Seiryu Park images in the comments below.)

[scarlet--wiccan]

There have been arguments on twitter against Pietro being part of the nexus being lore and that it takes away from Wanda. Essentially they seem to want Pietro to keep being the "lesser twin" that the Griver mocks him to be or will argue that he deserves better than to be a factor in Wanda becoming the ultimate nexus. I'm not sure I agree with either of these (though the latter argument has some merit) considering the issue makes it clear both twins are the nexus but interested in knowing if I miss read or any other opinions you have on it. Is it really bad writing?

I shared my thoughts on #2 and the development of nexus being lore in this post.

To be clear, when an author makes a decision that you don't like, or that doesn't align with your desires as a consumer, that's not necessarily bad writing. A decision that doesn't make narrative sense, creates plot holes or undermines character development and important themes would be bad writing, but I don't think that's what's happening here. So far, I feel like Orlando is doing a very elegant job of weaving together older mythologies, that were in desperate need of an update, with some of the newer, more recent worldbuilding. That's categorically good writing, in my opinion, and I actually think that the execution is noticeably stronger than his previous Scarlet Witch outings.

I've noticed that this fandom acts very entitled towards these characters and is hypercritical of Orlando's writing, not from a craft perspective, but because he doesn't indulge their headcanons and juvenile desire for M C U-esque "feats." I, myself, have plenty of criticisms for Orlando, but there is a reason he is the writer and y'all are the fans.

As for Wanda and Pietro-- the apparent discrepancy between them, in terms of both power and significance, has always bothered me, and I like how this development balances things out and gives room for Pietro to further expand his own powers. The text hasn't been totally clear, yet, on whether Pietro himself is also a nexus being, or if having a twin is part of what makes Wanda, potentially, the ultimate nexus. SW&Q highlighted Pietro's powers and framed him and Wanda as equal opposites in such a way that I think it would make the most sense if the "ultimate nexus" was the two of them, together.

In some older comics, Wanda is said to embody the powers of both science and sorcery-- it's what makes her such an enticing vessel for Chthon, and it's also, seemingly, what makes her a Nexus. In SW&Q, Orlando invokes a similar dichotomy, but here, Wanda represents magic and Pietro, physics, separately. If you want my opinion, I think they should both embody these powers equally. Even in the previous version of their origin story, I thought it was odd that Chthon only chose mark to Wanda, and so, when Pietro did become Chthon's vessel and even had his soul briefly bound to the Darkhold in Mighty Avengers (2007), I took it as confirmation that he at least shared his sister's magical potential. In their current backstory, they should have both inherited magical gifts from Natalya, which, coupled with the Evolutionary's experiments the influence of Mount Wundagore, should have given both twins more equal powers.

[giriduck]

Been processing the recent Nintendo Dream Web article some more. Hot takes under the cut.

Of course Ganondorf would be sexy—just about everyone on BotW and TotK is conventionally attractive. The stated sexiness goal for Ganondorf feels really bad though—not only only because he’s the villain / antagonist of the game who also an in-universe POC, which opens a whole can of worms around fetishization, racism etc. (that many others have written about far far better than I ever could)—but it’s also jarring to hear about a design goal of maximizing sexiness in a LoZ game at all. They literally said the quiet part out loud—and that feels so weird and gross.

Thought experiment: take the excerpt below, but imagine this was about BotW Zelda.

Doesn’t that feel odd framed in that way? An interpretation would be along the lines of, “As a real departure from prior titles, we gave Princess Zelda pants in this game! The pants of a person who really takes care with their appearance: tight-fitting, to show off her curves and figure, like a real princess, whom men and women could fall in love with!” Although they never said that, it has a ring of truth to it, given this new context.

Only Zelda in BotW got to be a character with enough screen time to have real depth, because it was a story that used her as a lens to understand both her life and the world, whereas Ganondorf in TotK was (once again) treated as a disappointingly generic villain. Ganondorf’s lack of narrative development was not only a miss with regard to him as a character, but as an opportunity for some interesting, central-to-the-story / universe, world building. Given this, the interview only makes it extra disappointing that a goal was to also make him appear heroic in his art design, but the final game (as far as I’ve played, anyway) never expanded on that very interesting concept beyond a quick line mentioned in passing.

Evil for the sake of evil and/or sexy for the sake of sexy ends up being disappointingly shallow and reductive. Add in the complexities of real-world racial inequality and trauma, and this can quickly become disrespectful to players. At the very least, if the game creators were inspired by or going to potentially code characters in a way that is evocative of cultures outside of Japan, please bring in a diverse focus group to look at the content and provide feedback. As a large and influential content creator, please do the work to catch (either conscious or unconscious) harmful and frustrating stereotypes before you commit them into your final product.

I actively avoided Breath of the Wild for five years because I was so irritated by the newer Gerudo character designs—specifically the nonsensical lack of clothes and the desert high heels. I was immediately put off by what felt like a fetishy objectification of “exotic” women.

So it is extremely irritating to realize that they consciously did the same thing with Ganondorf.

Personally, Ganondorf’s character design in all his appearances throughout the franchise has been interesting to me—particularly his clothing, jewelry, and everything mentioned in the interview that he presumably would choose to wear—because it’s precious little for us to work with with regard to building our versions of this character in our minds. Accessories and clothing are a window into a character’s preferences. But in my opinion, his art design is also the least of what makes him interesting as a character. Sure, we got glimpses of his pecs and biceps in TotK, but what about his motivation? Canonical insight for why he does the things he does? His perspective on the political / power dynamics of the ancient era? Unlike Zelda in BotW, we never “rode with Ganon” to understand this essential character to the game and franchise at all.

The biggest takeaway I am feeling from the interview is that I really wish that they had spent as much care giving him depth as they had done on his character design.

[indigochromatic]

Ok ok, system experiences: weird forms of amnesia edition

Alright, like the alterhuman folks have all been saying today, lemme try to actually write some of this personal experiences stuff instead of only reblogging posts about how it'd be a great thing to do, lol Bit of rambling about one of the few forms of amnesia/(amnesia-adjacent-thing? idk) that we experience, and don't hear other systems describe as much.

So, as a system, we don't (as far as we know) have a lot of amnesia, especially not amnesia around events or blackouts between switches. We do have different emotions and perspectives about stuff, and different degrees of emotional attachment to different memories and concepts, but most of the time we have access to the same memories, and can tell who's front-POV any individual memory was from when either of us recalls it.

We did get a bit of a reminder today that we do actually experience some form of narrative/episodic amnesia...kind of? We don't hear it talked about a lot, so hey, I'll talk about it, and I'd love to know if anyone reading this recognizes it (either from their own experiences, or if they happen to know some kind of official term for it or something). Essentially, it's like...temporary, stress-induced memory shutdowns? Kind of like how when we're having a really out-of-it day, we can just mentally afk and miss 50%-80% of what someone says when they're trying to have a conversation with us, except it'll extend beyond just immediate short-term recall and make it hard to access practically anything from the whole week/month/etc. A key thing about the experience for us is that it doesn't feel like...a "blackout", and (as far as we've been able to tell from getting better memory access back later) it's not centered around specific extra-upsetting events or anything, it's more like...really, really bad internet connection while trying to search our brain for answers to stuff. "What did we do this past week? idk, it was normal stuff, though. How are we feeling, I know intellectually it was kind of a rough week? idk pretty chill probably :)"

Also, we can kinda start getting recall back if we're prompted about specific details and stuff, but too much trying-to-remember effort (especially in situations where we're being called on to do emotional work, like therapy sessions) can also turn into a headache--like, oh yeah, here's the memory, but if we get more than "a sentence or two into the first paragraph" of recalling it, we'll get a nice little dissociation headache and suddenly something else seems way more interesting to think about.

Anyways, thought that might be a useful experience for other folks to compare notes on? It doesn't feel from the inside like amnesia in the "traditional" sense, really, not only because it's in transient episodes but also because we still have the strong sense that the memories are actually there and that there's no lost time or anything Really Bad that's been redacted. It's also it's pretty overtly obvious that it's protective mechanism due to stress/mental overload, even though it's not deliberate, and not under conscious control. In that way, it feels like a pretty apt comparison to say that it's like we're having a speech shutdown episode, except for about memory instead of talking out loud--we didn't lose the memories, the mental filing cabinet drawer just got stuck; we didn't lose our verbal processing, we just can't get the words to happen out loud right now.

If we had to guess, just from how it feels body-wise, the mechanism is probably similar to what happens in catatonia? Also--forgot to mention this earlier, but if we keep getting pressed about stuff, either externally or from pushing ourselves internally, it'll almost always end up triggering a switch (usually to me, which is exactly what happened earlier today in family therapy, lmao). Do I remember the week better than L does, when that happens? Hm. Kinda? The catatonia-like "mentally underwater" feeling goes away for sure, and it's more like...I can get to the bare minimum content information more easily, (like the bullet points info awareness), without getting lost in the fog about it--but I still don't have really any better recall of the narrative stuff. That's my current theory, idk, could be wrong. Anyone else know what I'm describing? Lmk!

[writingfarintothedark]

so based off my general feelings about season 2, and my post about what Simon's storyline/presence might be in Season 3 based on the trailer, I do hope that Simon is written well this season, the way he was in season 1. It's not just a personal want as someone in the fandom who adores Simon, but something I actually I think is necessary from a writing perspective/for the quality of the show.

I remember one of things the show got praised for after the amazing first season was that Simon was not just portrayed as the prince's love interest- rather, he was a full deuteragonist, we saw his internal struggles, and we saw he had a storyline outside of Wilmon.

Essentially, he was a complex and well written character in his own right in season 1. As the fandom saw, that was less the case in season 2- some stuff about him/his struggles was implied, but it wasn't focused on directly, and honestly, that meant a lot of the general audience likely missed those things. Simon was more of a character in relation to Wille in season 2 was the general consensus (which I agree with).

Part of the charm of Wilmon that people fell in love with that first season is exactly because they were portrayed fairly, as narrative individuals- we saw their individual stories and viewpoints and fell in love with them/their relationship. Their story as a couple felt earned because both characters were treated with narrative respect individually, and as a couple. I feel like if we do not have that season 3, honestly, the Wilmon relationship will feel less earned or healthy. I think we'll all love their moments because Edvin and Omar do an exceptional job of portraying that relationship, but it won't be the same without the writing component. A big part of why people fell in love with this relationship so hard was BECAUSE the writers did a brilliant job fleshing them out as individuals in season 1, and if that is all lost, especially in the final season...I don't know.

Looking at Young Royals as a three-part series, I would be willing to understand that season 2 needed to serve a specific purpose, and that they needed to get where they were going, if we see that season 3 fleshes out Simon in the ways season 2 lacked.

So here's to rooting for us to delve deeper in Simon this season!! Rather than just comforting Wille, I hope we see how HE is doing individually, how all of this affects him, because that's only realistic. I felt season 2 was unrealistic in showing how Simon would be impacted by the video, especially when his face was the one shown. It would be nice to see how he is doing internally, and if he gets a plot separate from Wilmon.

[the-ill-omen-of-hope]

Usually I don’t post anything that link to my personal accounts, but I am so proud of this I couldn’t not share.

This is the discography from Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks’ and Lindsey Buckingham’s solo works, (missing Buckingham Nicks and Extended Play on Spotify). They are songs that have either been directly confirmed on indirectly hinted by either SN or LB to be about each other. They also include songs that have been widely speculated by fans to be about each other or mention each other. Honestly, they are also songs that have been confirmed by either parties to be about other people and some of us just collectively said “bullshit” (looking at you “In our Own Time” and “The Highwayman”)

Essentially, the playlist is biased as hell and includes almost every single of their songs anyway because we will never know their complete history and I believe that 90% of their song is about each other. Take it with a grain of salt of course, but I hope you enjoy the narrative of their love and pain for this everlasting longing/straining draining love as it weave through the playlist.

Most of my evidence I got from @buckinghamnicks-ff and @buckinghamnicksinfo on Tumblr, who was my saving grace in my obsession for Buckingham Nicks, as well as Webmistress’ interpretation on Buckingham Nicks net, which once again, so detailed and awesome.

P/s: I have a version of this on YouTube if anybody is interested, let me know and I will finish it. And let me know if you have a different perspective on songs that you think should or shouldn’t be on it.

[motheatenscarf]

Beat Heavensward!

It's getting harder and harder to stop and post my thoughts as I come across them because... idk, I'm in a bit of a funk. And also because I find myself more and more just mentioning these thoughts to my friends who are also playing through the same story as I am and we all appear to be enjoying it differently and are having lengthier discussions there and I wind up not having the energy to post it here.

So, I'm gonna make a few posts in a row based on some screenshots I'm going through!

My most recent/immediate impressions are as follows;

I REALLY liked Ysayle and I was sorry to see her die but I saw that one coming a mile away. Also, god forbid they have any interesting women in this game. Sigh.

Lucia, all my hopes are on you, don't die, and Alisaie, maybe don't grow up anytime soon, I don't think they'll kill a little girl but all of the interesting women are doomed :T

But yeah, Ysayle did nothing wrong, she had nothing to atone for, her death makes sense from a character perspective, I understand why she FELT like she had to make up for her mistakes, but she did nothing wrong and I liked her a lot and am sad she's gone. I wish the narrative acknowledged her passing as sorrowfully as it acknowledged Haurchefant's, but I also get why it didn't do that.

At least Estinien commented on her passing favorably.

And uh, yeah, lol, the Estinien thing getting overtaken by Nidhogg's fury thing kinda came out of left field. I know it was something that had been telegraphed, but I was talking with my friends moments before I watched him turn into a dragon and saying, "Yeah, I really thought there would be more of a thing with him struggling to control his rage, but I guess they had other things they wanted to focus on." And uh... then he transformed out of no where once he had the second eye of Nidhogg.

And rather than taking it seriously, I just made.... .SO MANY jokes about Estinien and his balls because it was a deeply unearned dramatic moment.

But yeah, I was coming around on Estinien, we'll miss him, oh well lol.

Speaking of coming around on characters, I DID, grudgingly, come around on Aymeric and it makes me so angry lol.

I really wanted to hate him because he was a cop, but he's a good dude. It's a fantasy story, we can ride dragons and there can be ONE good cop who is actually tragically idealistic and morally upstanding. And we have to protect him or Isghard is gonna stay in the dark ages forever. I really wish we could have seen him confront his father in the final showdown, but that's an old issue I have is making the WoL face enemies alone.

I liked Y'shtola's mentor as well, but she was there for 5 seconds and my favorite thing about her was her enchanted broom that quoted Mr. Sparkle (there are A LOT of good classic simpsons references in this game, the Fates especially Jesus Christ), and also she uhhhhhh didn't matter apparently. I hated that whole time wasting detour and the fact that Y'shtola is here and she is as unflappable and emotive as a fucking rock despite essentially getting a terminal diagnosis for her time in the lifestream. Just not a single emotion behind those dead, dull eyes.

Which, to me at least, speaks to the VAST improvement in the quality of writing that Y'shtola, the best character from ARR's scions, is notably the weakest element here. Alphinaud's gone through some great character development, Tataru is utilized well as an endearing element, and the new characters from Isghard are all of them genuinely interesting and compelling, even the cop whom it took me forever to come around on, I like Aymeric, I liked Estinien and Ysayle and Haurchefant. I LOVED the Dark Knight class story. The Paladin class story sucked, but even just regional questlines like the hunters in Tailfeather and the Vath and the dragons and the soldiers in cloudtop or Falcon's Nest or even the moogles in Moghome were all interesting!

Which is I think why I get so frustrated by the pacing sometimes is because it has all these fantastic elements if it would just give them the attention they deserve and not bounce around like crazy or handwave things that deserve time and focus.

It's fun and it's pretty good but it could be AMAZING if it would just fully commit to itself.

[rhetoricandlogic]

REVIEW: The Last Blade Priest by W.P Wiles

July 25, 2022 By Fiona Denton

One of the latest publications from independent SFF house Angry Robot is The Last Blade Priest by Betty Trask Award winning author W.P. Wiles. The Last Blade Priest is Wiles’ fantasy debut. It is a brilliant epic multiple point of view novel with an original and inventive story that uses some of my favourite fantasy features exceptionally well. I think that The Last Blade Priest would be an excellent choice for fans of John Gwynne, R.S. Ford, or Daniel T. Jackson.

Unlike a lot of multiple point of view novels, Wiles only has three perspectives in The Last Blade Priest. However, the first third of the novel follows two of the trio. Firstly, there is Inar, a Master Builder with the extraordinary skill of ‘feeling’ stone. He is drafted to work for the League, a group who invaded and conquered his homeland. Then follows Anton, a pacifist mountain dwelling Blade Priest who is reluctantly part of a bloody religious order. This order has performed human sacrifice for generations to honour massive corvus demi-gods, so in the unlikely event that chapter one of The Last Blade Priest did not grab your attention, then chapter two most certainly will.

I was very impressed with the novel’s opening, but with the first hundred or so pages only switching between the narratives of Inar and Anton I did struggle with the pacing at the start. I love jumping straight into a story that grabs and runs away with you as a reader. However, a slower pace was actually essential here. Wiles’ world building is outstanding, but with the absence of any tools to assist a reader (such as the oft used map, glossary, or dramatis personae) all of this complex world must be conveyed through the narrative. There is a huge realm being introduced in The Last Blade Priest, with an intricate religious hierarchy, numerous factions, and an expansive geography. It is a testament to Wiles’ skill that this opening part of the novel is a successful slow burn that maintains the reader’s interest and does not overwhelm or confuse them.

Once the narrative perspective starts to follow Duna, a young woman whose magical skills hold terrifying possibilities, the pace of The Last Blade Priest significantly increases. When it does, the slow immersion in such a thoroughly established world is proven well worth the wait. Any plot predictions I had made were wrong, so Wiles’ writing ended up being superbly surprising at every twist and turn. I also really loved that the two main characters felt like relatively ‘normal’ people without world altering qualities or messiah-like roles to play. It gave the story a relatable humanity which can sometimes be missed in epic fantasy. Additionally the fact that The Last Blade Priest only follows a few points of view meant that tertiary characters were also well developed and all felt essential to the story. I am hoping that this may mean that some of these minor characters have a bigger role to play in later novels.

The Last Blade Priest is billed as ‘Book One of The Holy Mountain’ and Wiles has created a brilliant foundation for what I can only hope is the first in a series of novels. This has turned out to be one of my favourite new releases of this year, and I am incredibly excited to read what happens next. I am very grateful to both Angry Robot and W.P. Wiles for sending me an advanced reader copy to provide are view for Grimdark Magazine.

[semper-legens]

32. 1984, by George Orwell, adapted by Fido Nesti

Owned: No, library Page count: 222 My summary: A graphic novel adaption of George Orwell’s 1984. Winston Smith lives in Oceania, one of the three big powers in the world and home of Ingsoc, English socialism. Citizens of Oceania are watched through telescreens, must guard their minds from thoughtcrime, and cannot go against the Party in any way - unless they want to be detained by the Party, that is. But for Winston, everything changes when he meets Julia, a young woman who shares his anti-Party convictions. It’s a matter of time until they’re caught. But while they have it, they’ll share the love they’ve found. My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

1984! Classic literature. I wrote an essay on this book in high school, that and Handmaid's Tale, of which I've also talked about the graphic novel version. I'm a sucker for a dystopia, and 1984's the ur-dystopia - I mean, it probably wasn't the first, but it codified so many of the ideas we have around tyranny, dictatorship, and what a dystopia looks like that it is almost the brow from which many other dystopian novels have sprung. It's an interesting book, and a disturbing read. At work, I kept seeing this graphic novel version on the shelf, staring at me. Of course I checked it out.

As ever with this kind of thing, I'm going to talk about this book as an adaption of the original. Instead, let's talk art! As ever, I'm not an art understander, but I really liked the art in this one. It was moody, almost monochromatic at times, but with a stark atmosphere that really just added to the bleak oppressiveness of Oceania. Colour is used in a very striking way to highlight people and things, like the red sash around Julia's waist highlighting her in a crowd. The background detail of the buildings and environments around Winston and Julia is really helpful, as well, seeing everything be run-down and barely holding together drives home just how deprived the citizens of Oceania are. And when things slip into dreams, warped perspectives, fantasies, or otherwise the surreal, the art was able to convey that very impactfully.

What about the story, then? How well was that adapted? For the most part, great! It hit all the major beats from the novel; I'm not absolute in my knowledge of 1984, but I didn't have any great sense that anything was missing. I'm also pretty sure the narration was lifted straight from Orwell's prose. There was a lot more narration than I would usually like in a graphic novel, but I think it works for this one - Winston's internal monologue is essential to understanding him, the world, and the overarching themes of the novel. The one major gripe I did have was the Book. To be fair, adapting the part of 1984 where George Orwell drives the ongoing narrative to a screeching halt to give us pages and pages of exposition from a book ostensibly written by a revolutionary group is difficult in this format. But just shoving the typewritten book in there is maybe not the best solution? Then again, that's more Orwell's fault. And it's a reasonably minor gripe with an altogether pretty solid adaption.

Next...it's like I'm in an abusive relationship with this terrible vampire series, I swear.