#with the whole they’re related plot twist I mean

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 65 – System Collapse by Martha Wells

I’ve had this on preorder long enough to have entirely forgotten about it by the time I got the email that it’s available for pickup – but thanks to the magic of an extremely obliging local book store, I was still able to pick up and read the entire thing before it’s technically released. So score one for buying indie, I guess.

The book is set directly after Network Effect – directly directly, to the point where I needed to look up a plot summary to remind myself what the situation was – following our beloved rogue and rampant SecUnit, ART, and their assorted humans as they try to convince an abandoned and alien-contaminated colony’s inhabitants to trust them and accept evacuation with them (and also go along with the colonial charter they’re forging) rather than the indenture offers the corporate mission also on site are offering. Along the way there’s hacking, shuttle chases, gunfights, and plot-critical media curation.

Mostly though it’s about Murderbot having PTSD (on account of all the horrible trauma in Network Effect specifically, and also just its life generally) and absolutely zero idea how to cope. After a false memory/panic attack makes it crash out of nowhere it spends the majority of the book terrified that it’s going to crash or freeze up at some vital moment and get everyone killed, dealing with constant alien-related paranoia, and generally second-guessing itself and feeling useless and depressed. Absolutely no one around it has any idea how to deal with this, and their awkward attempts to be supporting are both endearing and entirely unhelpful.

Anyway, this is a Murderbot novel. Do you like Murderbot? Then you will like this. Do you not know the series? Then by god start with All Systems Red none of this will make any sense at all without context. Do you dislike murderbot? I mean hateread as you like but it is largely more of the same, don’t expect any series-saving twists for you.

It’s kind of absurd to call the series ‘cozy fantasy’ – by the end of the book SecUnit is down several extremities and bleeding out on the floor (as is traditional by this point) – but I feel like the series fills about the same emotional niche for me as like say Becky Chambers does for people with normal tolerances for low-tension sentimentality. The setting is a horrible dystopia and the plots are full of violence and trauma, but all that is more or less set dressing to stories that are actually about SecUnit making connections and deciding at a tortuously slow pace what sort of life it wants to have (usually several hours after commuting itself without thinking) while consistently running into the best possible friends and forming mutually affectionate relationships it absolutely did not want. It’s a story about fun, low-tension character dynamics, corporate kill teams aside.

I am being entirely sincere when I say the fact that SecUnit has no idea what it wants or what its doing is a selling point. In the same way, the fact that there’s never any real ~breakthrough~ or moment of sudden recovery is absolutely key to the book working. The story closes with it being hopeful and doing better but from any remotely reasonable baseline still being pretty far from ‘okay’ (in much the same way, it is utterly vital to the whole series that it has absolutely zero angst over ‘not being human’ or pinochle syndrome and only cares about ‘not being normal’ insofar as its had to work really hard on some automated scripts for walking and idle motions to pass as human while doing infiltration work).

Anyway, speaking of character dynamics – look, I’ve always been the first to roll my eyes when people complain about not being able to keep tracks or large casts. But every time I open one of these books, I realize I have only the vaguest idea who the vast majority of the (human) supporting cast is. Not really an issue with actually following the story, but I’m absolutely certain I’m missing out on some things.

The non-human supporting cast are great though. ART best spaceship, and I cared significantly more about the colony’s central control computer than any of the actual colonists. I’m like 70% sure this is intentional.

Stepping back, it’s interesting how the series’ setting has evolved over time. In All Systems Red the universe around SecUnit was incredibly broadly sketched, generic sci f playing with space opera and cyberpunk tropes it pretty much relied upon readers already being familiar with. This never exactly stops – especially for the aesthetics and technology, the book has a profound lack of interest in the specifics of what ‘projectile weapons’ look like or how spaceships work beyond the convenience of plot – but as the books go on the world definitely gets more specific and also broader. You can mostly blame ART for this, I think – there’s a definite shift in the tone of the setting when you introduce an institution like the University with power like it can throw around, and more generally make active resistance to and subversion to the corporate status quo a plausible and fruitful endeavour.

All this to say that there’s an offhand mention at one point about ‘intracorporate violence’ increasing and the system being increasingly unstable, and I’m curious what Wells is going to do with that going forward. Especially with the book’s final resolution and the status quo it sets up going forward.

Anyway like I said, it’s murderbot. This is the 7th book in the series. If you’re considering reading it you’ll probably love it.

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Well, it’s been a week and I've had time to cool down and put together my thoughts on Season of the Seraph and its ending. So here goes.

The season finale plot did not require Rasputin to die. "The eliksni are trying to get control of the warsats" is literally a strike. If the warsats needed to be taken off the table as a get-out-of-jail-free card we could have blown the network and kept Rasputin himself. There was an active decision to kill him. Having thought about it, I think I understand why this decision was made - but I still think it's a terrible decision, and I'll explain why.

Before we start, I don't want to sound like I'm going after Destiny's narrative team either personally or professionally. I'm not calling them terrible writers, much less terrible people. I don't know them! They might even be terrible people, for all I know. While I refer to a single monolithic "narrative team," I know in reality there are multiple groups working on different stories. I’m not a professional writer, and they are. And I genuinely believe all of them are talented people who work hard and care about Destiny. But that doesn't mean I don't have some criticisms.

After considering it I think there are three possible reasons to kill Rasputin:

1). The narrative team believed this was a good emotional conclusion that brought closure to his character arc in Destiny. In this case I just think they're flat-out wrong. I'd say "I respect it" but I kind of don't because I think it's so terribly wrong. I don't know what other people think Rasputin's character arc involved, but I won't get closure till Rasputin faces the Witness again and finally ends the war he's been trapped in for centuries. But I get why they would do it, if they believed this. And that final mission was really good. I had a hard time noticing at the time, but it was very well-done, and the cutscene proper was well-shot, -scripted, and -acted (though I'm still angry about the Traveler upstaging Rasputin's death). They put a huge amount of effort into it and into the story work all season long.

But his death being well-done doesn’t change whether I think it was a good narrative choice. Even saying “Rasputin’s arc should conclude here,” the way it was set up had him sacrificing himself to basically cancel himself out. Unless they’re saving up a plot twist, Rasputin ultimately contributed nothing to the fight. He didn’t do any damage to the Fleet or Witness, or anything to stymie Xivu Arath. He died thinking he’d never helped humanity at all and it was safer if he didn’t exist. I don’t know about you, but I find that extremely unsatisfying.

2). Someone doesn't like Rasputin/doesn't know what to do with him. This is two reasons, but they overlap. The Operation: Sancus mission dialogue pissed me off because it gave me the impression that whoever was writing it really didn't like Rasputin and was taking the chance to morally excoriate him. A more subtle version recurs in the final mission where Rasputin is essentially sacrificing himself to null out his own existence - saying "as long as I exist I'm a threat to humanity" - as if he can't ever help or contribute more than endanger people, which is just flat-out wrong. "Humanity doesn't need a Warmind" you're part of humanity, Red. He’s a person; he doesn’t need to justify living. If someone just decided Rasputin Was Bad Actually I’d be very angry indeed. But I don't think it's that personal. Destiny has lots of writers and multiple narrative teams will touch the same work. One person's distaste probably wouldn't steer an entire season.

Related, however, is the reason that maybe no one knows what to do with Rasputin. To be honest I sympathize with this one. Would it shock anyone to hear I've thought about how I would script a Rasputin-focused season? It's surprisingly hard to build a plot around him. A game needs to be interactive and Rasputin's kind of all or nothing - either he can handle the whole problem himself or he can't do anything at all. Red also mostly plays defense. He doesn't have a goal he's working towards other than "kill the Witness/save humanity." You need to come up with a plausible goal that we can believably help him achieve, and that's nontrivial. But, well, that's why I'm not a professional games writer and these people are. "Not sure what do" is not IMO sufficient justification for assassinating one of Destiny's oldest characters/factions.

3). The Destiny narrative team is trying to "declutter" the setting and foreground story by sidelining characters who take a lot of lore to understand. I think this is the real reason, and it's worth talking more about.

A lot of us lore-nerds have long complained about Destiny not foregrounding its setting and story, and Bungie has responded by trying to do so. I think we didn't consider what that would actually look like. Imagine Destiny's story like a long movie. Now imagine people are constantly coming and going from the audience, and everyone who comes in has to nudge their neighbor and go, "hey, what's happening?" Destiny is always (hopefully) acquiring new players, and existing ones are dropping out and coming back. Even most established players either don't read the lore or don't track/remember it. We the lore-keepers are very much the anomaly. If we want story to be a focus, that story also has to be more accessible to new players, lapsed players, people who don't bother reading loretabs, etc., because otherwise it harms their experience and there's a lot more of them than there are of us.

I think this is why we've seen a lot of seasons that introduce whole new concepts - the eliksni Sacred Splicers, for instance - rather than following on existing storylines. Introducing a mostly-new concept puts new and old players on a similar footing. Haunted is another type of compromise between the goal of furthering the story and the goal of making it accessible. Calus and Leviathan are back, but so warped that old players have as much to learn as new ones, and the Sever missions dive deep into character pasts but pretty explicitly describe the emotional arcs they're illustrating, so you don't have to be familiar with that character to get what they're going through. To those who already know Zavala, Crow, etc., it seems laughably obvious and strained. But to those who just got here, this is their first time learning not just about Safiyah but also about Zavala. I think this is also why there have been multiple casual retcons of minor stuff - there isn't time to explain the history, and they've decided it's not worth confusing people.

Rasputin is old. He's been a significant part of Destiny since literally the pre-Alpha test. The complexity and history that are part of why we love the Warmind also make him hell to explain to new people. It takes a decent amount of lore to get invested in his character and since Beyond Light none of that lore is featured in-game. Pre-Season of the Seraph, anyone who began with Beyond Light literally never met him. They never visited Hellas Basin, which is one big environmental story about Rasputin, and The Will of Thousands strike, which demonstrates Red's power and contains many possible dialogues that emphasize him trusting you/acting as an ally, left the playlist ages ago. Since then a new player's only gameplay interaction with him has been Fallen SABER, in which Red yells incoherent Russian and tries to flatten you with a warsat. Is it a surprise relatively new players might not be up on his character arc?

Season of the Seraph, with its narrative of rebuilding Rasputin from the ground up, would be a perfect time to introduce new players to Red's long history, and they...kind of...did that. They worked in Felwinter although then for some reason felt the need to retcon in the whole "Clovis wanted to destroy the Traveler" plan. If you were a new player who didn't know anything about Destiny lore, and you just played Season of the Seraph, you'd get an entire canned arc for Rasputin that hits the early high notes: built to be a weapon, rebelled against his constraints, humanities nerd, big smite, loves Ana and Elsie, makes mistakes but genuinely cares and wants to help.

But that's where Seraph stops. In existing lore (I almost typed "in reality") Rasputin worked out the whole "not a weapon" thing well back during the Golden Age. For a lot of us Warmind fans the most interesting parts of his story happened after that - the entire Collapse, confrontation with Darkness, years of hiding, etc., not to mention all his character development during Warmind and Worthy. He's gone through a lot, and Seraph misses all of it (except Felwinter) in favor of rehashing the same arc for a third time. It's like when moviemakers keep rebooting a superhero origin story. It may be a good story, but eventually we'd like to move on to the other parts we enjoy: this sleeping giant, hard scifi AI, grouchy old bastard, lost lore of the Golden Age, champion of humanity, learning from defeat, learning to trust again, the morality and trauma of warfare - what it means to lose a war - a being never meant to become what he was transforming still further, still unfolding his own potential.

So understanding why they might have done this doesn't excuse what I still see as a terrible narrative choice. I think dropping Rasputin is a major waste of potential, and he's far from the only tricky character to explain. Osiris, or at least the Cult of Osiris, is similarly old. His story is complex and weird and requires knowledge from Curse and earlier, yet he's still playing a major role. Other current characters like Elsie, Saladin, and Crow also need a decent amount of knowledge about previous game events to get why they are the way they are. Saladin's origin story isn't even in this game. It's not Rasputin's fault the game went three years without so much as mentioning him outside of written lore. What was wrong with the great Xivu-Rasputin “war god” parallels most of the season worked to set up, about the intent of violence? Are we never going to explore those? Are we just throwing out all the dialogues planning a role for Red in the upcoming war? Why did we have a dramatic confrontation about trusting Rasputin to operate independently if he were going to be gone in a month anyway? Just in Seraph alone the number of interesting plot threads abruptly trashed by this death argues against it.

Rasputin's longevity is precisely part of why he should stick around. In the first mission of Destiny 1 you wake up in his shadow. He has a history with us. There's just no one quite like him in Destiny. He's not just a character but an entire faction. He explores a part of story space that no one else does. He resonates with us as people rather than players. I assume Neomuna will pick up the Golden Age banner, but it’s a thriving city; Rasputin represented the ruins, the dangers of a dead age, the shadow of apocalypse. He's also maybe the most Guardian-like character and one of the best to weave a parallel/cautionary tale - were we, too, only made to be weapons? But if Rasputin didn't stay a weapon, can we too transcend that intention? And of all the factions in our solar system, the two with the most personal scores to settle with the Witness are the eliksni and Rasputin, and Misraaks'/Eramis' story has focused much more on the Traveler's flight than the Fleet's attack. Of everyone in Destiny Rasputin has the most desperately personal motive for revenge on the monochrome bastard. Now he's not even going to be there to watch it crash and burn.

I understand that foregrounding story also comes with the requirement that it be accessible to those who don't do their lore homework. I appreciate the monumental amount of work that's gone into doing that and the experimental nature of it. But I think the balance has skewed too far towards accessibility. Stuff like the end of Season of Plunder that has zero narrative motivation or continuity and doesn't even get a pretend justification drives me absolutely batty. You can only break internal rules so many times before players stop buying whatever narrative stakes you're trying to set up. Making the story easier to follow doesn't mean characters have to be cartoonishly-exaggerated caricatures like Clovis was in Seraph - just absolutely cartoonishly evil - or reduced to one or two character motives explicitly laid out for the player (though, credit where credit is due, Clovis was hilarious.) It doesn't mean the dialogue has to be as subtle as a Thundercrash. It doesn't mean you get a blank check to retcon or invent whatever's needed to create the intended character arc. If anything that discourages looking further into lore - why bother to learn it when next season will change it all again? I think Y5 represents a lot of experimentation by the Destiny narrative team, and I really respect that. But I also hope they learn what didn’t work from it, and sacrificing Rasputin in an ultimately pointless and unnecessary finale is a major misstep.

[shipcestuous]

All of Us Villains (*who are also related) (submission)

My friend recently lent me the “All of Us Villains” duology, and I can’t not recommend it to you all, not just for the great plot twists and the incredibly written and very morally gray characters, but for both non-canon and canon shipping. (This submission really belongs on both blogs, since it covers both non-canon sibling ships and canon distant relative ships. Also, this submission will contain heavy spoilers, just a warning.)

So the premise of the series is that, once every generation, seven historic families each send a champion into a death tournament, where the winner and their family get control over the most powerful magic for the next generation. This has been going on for centuries now, and it’s absolutely a curse: they have to submit a champion each time; if they all refuse to compete, all seven competitors die, so there’s no getting out of it that way. But this time, some of the champions get it into their heads to break the curse… one way or another.

This is already a neat premise, and I’m sure the idea of seven families already has your ears perking up. But what if I told you that it’s mentioned a couple times that, because of the weight of this curse, a lot of local normies don’t want to get involved… so there’s been a fair bit of intermarrying between the families over the centuries. For example, one of the MCs has a sister who marries out of one family and into another at the start of the first book, to avoid the risk of being named a champion. Then, two of the chosen champions are first cousins (more on them later).

This means that any pairing between members of these families in the series would be a distant cousins ship. Our canon ships: Alistair/Isobel, Alistair/Gavin, and Briony/Finley. More on them later, but first, I promised you guys some sibling ships.

I wanted to start out with the most prominent one and, to me, the most shippable: Alistair Lowe and his only sibling Hendry. This ship will both warm and break your heart. They’re a year apart and delightfully close. Even if Alistair has tried to fashion himself into the perfect villain as the rest of the family wants (to dubious success), his favorite person is indisputably his sweet big brother, and Hendry adores Al just the same.

Unfortunately, their family sucks. No, I mean they’re the worst. Their family wins the tournament about 2/3 of the time, and it turns out there’s a reason for that. Each generation, one Lowe is sacrificed to craft a very powerful spell to give to that generation’s champion. Neither brother knew about this, until the rest of the family murdered Hendry behind Alistair’s back. His grief is visceral and devastating, and he blames himself even if he shouldn’t.

But! Due to some shenanigans, Hendry is unintentionally resurrected—but his life force is tied to the tournament. So Al, who was previously on the side of “let’s break the tournament and end the curse,” suddenly has so much incentive to keep it intact, because if he wins, he believes he and his brother can have a happy ending.

Note that, also on team “let’s break the tournament,” is Isobel—the girl he’s had a flirtation with for the whole first book. (Also a distant cousin, considering how the families all intermarry. Again, we’ll cover their story in greater detail later.)

Using a mind reading spell on Alistair, Isobel sees “something much bigger, draped across all his other thoughts like a shroud. His grief. All he’d wanted since the tournament began was his brother back. What he felt for her was a mere candle flame beside that longing, that uncertainty, that hopelessness. It didn’t matter if the tournament was breaking or not, if Isobel loved him or not. No one could take Alistair’s brother from him a second time. He would rather die with Hendry than lose him again.”

I just love when a character places their sibling above anyone else, love interests included. It’s obviously so tragic, especially since it’s this moment that splits Alistair and Isobel apart for good (and causes Al to be cursed), but Alistair’s love for his brother is so fierce and so humanizing. Despite his attempts to be a monster, more often than not it’s Hendry who tethers him to his humanity.

For much of the second book, Alistair struggles to find a way for himself and Hendry to both survive, even though both seem fated to die (Hendry since he’s kind of a weird ghost, Alistair because of the aforementioned curse). Hendry realizes far sooner that he isn’t going to make it, but Alistair clings to hope. There’s moments like this that absolutely ruin me:

Hendry swallowed. “I want you to win because I want you to survive. But what if you win the tournament, and I’m gone anyway?”

“That won’t happen,” Alistair snapped, his voice betraying his panic.

“Al, you don’t know—”

“I do. Because when I win, the high magick will belong to the Lowes. And that’s…” For the second time, he banished the phantom sound of his mother’s scream. “That’s just us now.”

Hendry squeezed Alistair’s hand tightly. He smiled one of his real sunlight smiles, and Alistair could almost imagine that the tournament was far behind them, that they’d already escaped Ilvernath together, just like they’d always dreamed.

A note about the “mother’s scream” part—at the end of the first book, Alistair and Hendry kill the adults of their family who conspired to murder Hendry. Very valid, honestly.

Anyway, Alistair continues to reiterate that Isobel never mattered to him as much as Hendry does—and neither does Gavin, another competitor who Al catches feelings for after he teams up with the brothers to cure all their respective curses. (Also, we love that Alistair is canonically bi, because it makes shipping him and Hendry even easier.)

Unfortunately, the more time that passes, the more Hendry is fading, and he finally forces Alistair to realize that. Hendry decides that, if he’s going to fade either way, he at least wants to go out on his own terms, and find a way to cure Alistair’s curse in the process. Basically, he sacrifices his life to craft a spell—in a sort of mirror-yet-opposite of how his family sacrificed him to begin with—that’s intended to heal Alistair. I cried a lot, but it was sadly inevitable from the start.

Even then, Alistair carries his brother’s memory with him. As I mentioned, Hendry is like a tether to the best parts of Alistair, and Al often thinks of his brother when he has to choose between the right thing or being the monster his family made of him.

Next: less prominent, but still important, we have Briony and her younger sister Innes. There’s about a year or two between them, and they were abandoned by their grieving mother when they were toddlers, passed from relative to relative amidst their glory-seeking family. Briony thinks to herself that her “only real home [is] her sister.” They’re very close.

However, Briony has always believed she’d be their family’s champion, and when Innes is chosen instead—due to government interference in the selection—it drives a wedge between them. Briony fears that her sister isn’t strong enough to survive the tournament, and when she sees an opportunity to take Innes’s place, she does it.

This isn’t an “I volunteer as tribute” situation. No, she has to take the champion ring off Innes’s finger. Except the ring won’t come off. So Briony knocks her sister out with a spell and cuts off her pinkie finger. Cool motive, still brutal.

It’s also called into question over the duology: exactly how much of that action was “I want to save my sister,” how much was “I want to put a stop to these tournaments,” and how much was “I want to be the hero and get the glory?” Even Briony herself isn’t sure, and honestly, it’s that ambiguity that makes her a fascinating character. I like to think a lot of it was love for Innes, even if some of it was the other stuff for sure.

Obviously, Innes resents her for this—also valid. She attacks Briony the next time they meet, but the sisters eventually make up. Innes still has (understandable) difficult feelings about what happened, but she and Briony end up on the same side in an attempt to end the tournament curse for good.

Tragically, Briony sacrifices her life in the process, wanting to do something good to atone for the wrongs she did, including to her sister. It’s also noteworthy that, when she’s sacrificing her life energy to break the last part of the tournament, she place she cuts herself is her finger—almost an echo of how she cut off Innes’s finger. It’s a choice that says a lot about where her mind is.

Innes is, of course, distraught when she learns about her sister. Forget about her finger, forget about the brief time of friction between them—Briony was her sister, her home, and that matters way more than whatever came between them. This ship devastates me to no end.

And finally, another and far less prominent bro/bro ship: Gavin and his brother Fergus. We don’t see a lot of Gavin’s brother in the first book—he’s about four years younger, and he’s their mom’s favorite, so Gavin resents/envies him a bit. After all, Gavin has always been marked for death by his family, because the Grieve family has never won a tournament. The brothers aren’t especially close, and in fact they’re antagonistic if anything. I didn’t feel too strongly about them until the sequel.

Gavin returns to his house, thinking nobody is home, and runs into Fergus. He learns Fergus has been keeping dossiers on each of the champions, including Gavin. It’s full of quotes and pictures from the media reporting on the tournament, and there’s even a clipping of a fan calling him the “ultimate underdog.”

Gavin is shocked and touched that Fergus has been paying attention to him, because none of his family ever seemed to care. And then he learns that Fergus—like Innes—is part of a resistance, where some of the younger members of the families are trying to help end the tournament.

In the end—after the magic dust settles—Gavin gets an offer to travel with Alistair (who’s now his boyfriend), who’s going to see the world like he and Hendry always wanted. Gavin also dislikes their hometown. However, he decides it’s more important to take guardianship of Fergus, and Fergus wants to stay there. Guardianship of the boy could’ve gone to their sister, but Fergus really wanted to stay with Gavin, and Gavin is willing to stay in town a few years longer if it’s for his brother’s sake.

And of course Alistair is understanding, because he knows better than anyone the bond between brothers.

Now, on to the cousins! First, we have our first cousins and champions: Elionor and Carbry. These two aren’t POV characters like Alistair, Isobel, Briony, and Gavin are, so we don’t see too much of their inner workings, sadly. Carbry is the youngest champion at fifteen, and his cousin Elionor is a year or two older. He’s more timid and sensitive, while she’s clever and… okay, kind of a bitch. But not to him. She’s very protective of him, and the two are allies for their whole time in the tournament.

Sadly, Carbry dies about halfway through the first book, which enrages Elionor. Her death at the end of the first book is partially brought about because she wants revenge, which—I don’t like her attacking our main characters, but I completely understand. And even if it ended sadly, it’s sweet how they never turned their backs on each other even in a death tournament.

Next, our canon ships, starting with Briony and Finley. The two used to date before the tournament began, and broke up when she once said she’d be able to kill him if it came down to it in the tournament. Understandably, he was hurt. However, the two of them end up becoming allies again partway through the first book. Even after Carbry’s death—Briony killed him in self-defense—Finley still manages to trust her again.

So much time together also rekindles the spark between them, and they end up getting back together. Despite the odds, they hope that the tournament can be broken in a way where everyone gets to survive. Tragically, I already mentioned that Briony sacrifices her life to make that future happen for everyone else. Obviously, Finley is heartbroken. Both my Briony ships are inevitably tragic, but their relationship was supportive and sweet.

Next, Alistair and Isobel. (Our boy Alistair really does attract tragic romances, huh?) Just because Al values his brother above everybody else doesn’t mean that these two didn’t have great chemistry. It started out with the media labeling them as rivals and Isobel trying to manipulate him so she could stay alive, because she knew he was attracted to her. However, she caught feelings right back, and they saved each other’s lives multiple times over. She—like Hendry—made him feel like less of a monster, and also their banter was delightful.

But of course, then Hendry returned from the dead. In the ensuing battle between a lot of people, Alistair accidentally hit Isobel with a curse that nearly killed her. And even if he was sorry, Isobel recognized that Alistair’s loyalties would lie with Hendry above anyone else. Isobel was determined to break the tournament at any cost… so she’s the one who cursed Alistair, with a kiss. It was a death curse designed to slowly advance with the more wrongs a person committed (and remember, it got cured eventually, so it’s fine). It hurt her a lot to curse him, because she truly did like him, but she still thought it was for the best.

After that, they were very much exes (not that they were officially together before—the curse kiss was actually their first and last kiss—but the Vibes were there and they both knew it). But eventually, they were able to reconcile when the surviving champions teamed up. They reflect that they both made monsters of each other—and it’s unclear if they’ll ever be able to be friends again post-tournament, with such fraught history, but I like to hope so, because I really enjoyed their dynamic.

(It’s also noteworthy that the guy that Isobel vaguely ends up with shares some similarities with Alistair. I can polyship and I will.)

And then Alistair’s endgame relationship with Gavin. Admittedly, I got quite invested in Al and Isobel, so it took me a while to warm up to this one, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t great in their own right. From the beginning, Gavin sees Alistair as his biggest enemy and the one to beat—after all, Alistair’s family usually wins these tournaments, while Gavin’s family never has. But he also has a huge hate-crush on Alistair, even if it takes him a while to realize it.

In the second book, they become allies, because Gavin is also cursed, and he and the Lowe brothers are trying to solve all their problems. Initially, Gavin is hoping to leech off Hendry’s magic to prolong his own life (which of course infuriates Alistair when he finds out, and he nearly kills Gavin for it), but he starts to really care about both brothers. And, tying back into my Alistair/Hendry agenda, it’s Hendry who encourages Al to open up more to Gavin, and who encourages Gavin to see the good in Alistair. Literally the relationship wouldn’t have happened without Hendry, and it does carry a subtext of “take care of my brother after I’m not able to anymore.”

And as I mentioned, after the climax of the story, they both end up still dating but going their separate paths to do what their brother wants/wanted. Alistair traveling like he and Hendry wanted, and Gavin staying at home because it’s what’s best for Fergus. It’s like being a brother is one of the traits that binds them together and they can understand each other better because of it. We love to see relationships where they understand that family is just as important, if not more.

So that’s a breakdown of the shipcest relationships in All of Us Villains! Apologies for the length. I actually pared it down a lot, but there are so many relationships and details to talk about. I can’t recommend this story enough.

Just a random aside but there's a trial in Isobel's family mausoleum and basically the way to solve it is she has to kiss a skeleton (which can only be one of her dead relatives considering where they are) on the mouth. not as eyebrow-raising as some other stuff I talked about but still

–

Thank you for such a detailed write-up! The book has a really interesting premise and you already know that we love to see all of these family relationships and “houses” style society with many cousins. The sibling relationships in this sound so rich. 

[22degreehalo]

Aaaaand I finally return with my next update for the Summer Fic Reading Challenge by @ficreadingchallenge!!!

And the end really is coming up, hahah... But I hope I will be able to finish the whole card before then! :)

Reviews/links under the cut~ Ships include Yuki/Kakeru, Aegon/Larys, Dirk/Jake, Archie+Jughead gen, Kirk/Spock, and Aegon/Helaena!

Domestic/Curtain Fic Like Fireworks in the Night Sky by PrincelyHairdos (86k, ongoing, Yuki/Kakeru) Uaaaaghhhhhhhhh OTL I really can’t recommend this fic enough if you want to fuck yourself up!!!!!! Yes, there’s the pining, and the achingly-sweet relationship between the main two boys, but they’re both in relationships at the start of the fic, and the story explores every little beat of the pain and awkwardness and tension of that premise!! None of the characters involved are bad people, and the story is equally sympathetic to all four of them, but Yuki is very much just forcing himself in his relationship with Machi (comphet up the wazoo), and although Kakeru and Komaki sincerely love each other, he and Yuki so obviously have this long-standing unintentional and unaware emotional affair going on that just gets more and more in between them! I chose this theme because so much of the Yuki/Kakeru relationship revolves around how comfortable around one another as uni students living in the same dorms; they’re not actual roommates, but they may as well be with easily they share their space, and it’s that pre-established and on-going easy domesticity that provides all the delicious, awful tension in their actual official relationships!

Rarepair Last Hope by Yarwrit (1.4k, Aegon/Larys) Of course for this theme I had to use a ship that I never possibly would’ve considered prior to that final episode of the show :’D But this fic was exactly what I wanted: Aegon’s despair and Lary’s quiet support; Aegon’s rationally skeptical of his sincerity, but so desperately needs some sort of a real friend, and the commonality between them as two disabled men rings true. Larys might well still just be manipulating him (I mean, that’s certainly at least part of what’s going on), but his attraction, at least, is real, and meaningful <3

Space AU it’s only a canvas sky by Mayleavestars (9.2k, Dirk/Jake) I really struggled with this theme for a while because I’m not much of an AU reader and all the space AUs I could find just felt like normal fics with a hand-waved set dressing. This fic was my saviour: the vaguely Star Trek universe setting relates perfectly to the long-distance communication Dirk and Jake had in canon, allowing for a dynamic that perfectly supports their canon personalities and relationship while giving enough of a twist to the formula to justify the AU. Oh, the pining; the rituals!

Angst love story (but it's platonic) by sharksarewaterdogs (2.8k, Jughead + Archie gen) Another soulmate mark fic, and another fun twist! Jughead's angst is super believable, not just worrying about himself but how Archie would feel to know that his soulmate is an aro/ace guy. But Archie is so sweet, and once the shock wears off, their friendship really does shine through! I always love to see a-spec fics with at least a lil non-fluffiness, and this was nice and cathartic <3

Author’s Oldest Fic The Word Withheld by j_s_cavalcante (12k, Kirk/Spock) Of course for this theme I had to go with one of the chronologically oldest ships I’ve been into, and what a beautiful fic I chose for that!! I have memories of AOS fic about Spock Prime encouraging his younger self tom seize the day and make the most of the time he has with Kirk, but applying that plot to TOS gives it all the more resonance given the way things turn out in the canon timeline. The quiet intimacy between Kirk and Spock is on full display here, and perfectly reminded me why I once read so many fics about these two <3

Bittersweet/Unhappy Ending lost innocence. By ProjectFreelancer (1.4k, Aegon/Helaena) :’( These two deserved so much better… Among all the longfic in this fandom I was soooo happy to see this shorter and more melancholy missing-scenes type fic, elaborating on this relationship we haven’t gotten to see nearly enough of, with a particular focus on the actually pretty damn traumatic circumstances of their marriage!! It ends on a positive note for the whole family… but we already know how this story ends. :(

And that's all so far!!

Of the spaces left, I have a definite fic in mind for 'Enemies to Friends / Lovers' (it's just a matter of finishing it first; could've done that before making this post but I've delayed long enough already :') ), and a potential something for Take Your Fandom To Work and Secret Relationship. I didn't expect that last one to be difficult given how much I love the trope, but maybe I just need to try some other pairings... And I've always figured it wouldn't be too hard to find something for Whump once I get in the mood, heh.

So with all that, it'll just be a matter of which of the random non-recced fics I've read recently I should use for the Free Space!! n.n

(Also ahhhhh I really did expect to ask for another card before this thing ended... but that'd be kinda pointless now, huh :'D)

(Also? Yes, I have indeed managed all different ships for each square so far. :'DDD No idea how it's worked out that way, but I can't bring myself to stop now!!)

[altairsarts]

Hi! Just a forewarning that this is meant with no malintent!

I saw on that post that you reblogged about misgendering Frisk/Chara/Kris in AUs and your tags saying something about ‘anyone who does that didn’t understand the original story’. I’m not sure if this is entirely true, but I thought that with Frisk and Chara having they/them pronouns (or being nb) in the original game, was to allow a greater variety of people to play and be interested? I thought it was just to be sort of a placeholder, so that if someone who uses he/him plays the game, he could interpret Frisk as a male (for example)?

Also, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to interact with someone who makes an AU with an altered Frisk/Chara/Kris? If I’m going by my previously mentioned thought, then wouldn’t having an AU of a specifically female Frisk be that creator’s interpretation? But also, AUs aren’t supposed to be like the original, that’s the whole fun of it! If someone makes an AU where Undyne is transmasc and is in a relationship with Papyrus, then would that make a difference? Would that be offensive?

Making an AU is basically making a whole twisted group of OCs based off of characters, so why can’t they take their own creative liberties?

Also, just a side note if it matters, but I’m speaking as a she/they genderqueer.

Hi!! I don’t interact with people a bunch so I wasn’t expecting any questions lmao- but!! I’ll try to explain as best I can.

So the short of it is: they’re not supposed to be taken as a player insert. They exist as characters outside of the player’s influence and this is established for every single one of them. Deltarune even likes to remind you at every chance it gets that Kris isn’t you, and you aren’t them. The idea that they only use they/them pronouns so that people can choose is incorrect because they’re not blank slates.

The idea that these characters would only use they/them pronouns or be nonbinary because it’d allow people to choose is also transphobic because it implies that as long as a person is using they/them pronouns anyone can choose, regardless of whether that person is actually okay with it or not. You can’t go up to someone who uses they/them pronouns and say “you’re a man because I’m a man and I relate to your experiences”, that’s just,,, not how that works at all. Someone, even a fictional character, using they/them pronouns isn’t an automatic pass to choose a set of pronouns for them. This is what you are given, and this is what you use.

I wouldn’t want to interact with someone like that for a couple reasons: the above thing that I just said, being that having a nonbinary identity isn’t a placeholder so that any random stranger can choose what pronouns they’re most comfortable calling you. If you understand that these characters are characters and not inserts and you still decide to disregard the multiple times they’re referred to as they/them then you are being transphobic, and I won’t be around someone who is okay with that.

There’s also the simple fact that I can understand not being aware of Frisk not being a player insert, as it’s not made obvious until the end of the pacifist run, but Kris and Chara don’t have excuses. If you can’t see the obvious multitude of times that it’s shoved in your face then I have to wonder if you’re actually paying attention to the core themes and characterizations, and tenfold for Deltarune. I mean, that’s like half the plot right there: Kris is being possessed and they’re making sure you know they hate it. They’re doing everything they can to scream at you without a voice, “I am my own person, and I don’t want you here.” If you can look at that and think “yea, that’s a character whose entire existence is up to me” then like. What else did you miss???

The reason why it doesn’t work the same way as making Undyne transmasc (to use your example lol) is because you’re not taking anything away from anybody or hurting anybody by doing that. There are not a lot of nonbinary characters out there, and the fact that we’ve gotten three main characters in one franchise is a goddamn miracle. It’s similar to making a canonically gay character straight or a POC character white or a binary trans person cis. You’re taking representation away from a group that needs it.

Also, a lot of people say this all the time, but you wouldn’t do the same for any cis character. Like Sonic, Omori, The Last Of Us, Mario, etc, you won’t say that just because we play as whatever character means that we’re supposed to project our gender onto them. Sunny doesn’t become a girl if a woman plays Omori and decides to call him Lyla Womanname, so why should Kris, Frisk, and Chara?

[teecupangel]

To celebrate being almost done with Valhalla, I would like to offer this: events of Valhalla are a deviation from future Juno/Minerva/Tinia saw. Desmond, while burning, saw an opportunity and, wanting to live, reaches back and does some tweaks of his own. The whole Loki surviving thing? His doing. Basim is aware of who gave him a chance to do what he did. Future ark for Basim ends up in Desmond being resurrected

Additional ask from @fanworldbuildingfun:

(just a small clarification for previous ask: basically, Loki is indebted to Desmond for his survival; pays back by setting in motion Desmond's return. Potential way to do it? Remove the "new hook" of the reality (also known as 'main character'. Let the guy be selfish, he deserves it)

It is possible that Basim knew about Desmond (or, to be more exact, the Reader) since there was a way to reach the Reader using Yggdrassil (most probably because the Norns read the Calculations just like the Reader).

So, in this scenario, Desmond doesn’t have to tweak anything if you want to stay close to canon. We have no idea if Basim even knows where his children are at the moment, but the Reader, with the Calculations in hand, can give him all the information he needed, for example: the correct set of events that must happen for Basim to be reunited with his children.

And, considering Basim is a Sage who has completely assimilated with an Isu’s memories, Desmond wouldn’t trust him completely, especially after the whole Juno debacle. Even if Basim himself can be trusted as a fellow Hidden One/Assassin, Loki cannot.

Desmond would not risk it.

So they make a deal.

Desmond will ensure Basim’s revival and give him the exact events that must play out for him to be revived and reunited with Midgarsormen.

But his other two children?

Desmond will only share that information if Basim does as he asked.

In exchange for Hel’s location, Basim must ensure certain events play out as they should and it will end with Layla’s revival.

Then, in exchange for Fenrir’s location, Layla will give him all the information he needs to ensure another set of certain events will play out and it will end with Desmond’s revival.

Basim knows he’s being used but this is the best course of action he could take and maybe he is even a bit fond of Desmond’s audacity to actually do this kind of shit to him.

(Removing the ‘new hook’ could be one of those events as well and, of course, finally keeping the world safe from whatever Isu or sun-related world-ending event that the Reader was trying to find a way out of from the very beginning)

You know what would be funny?

Instead of the plot twist being Desmond and Layla were actually the ‘reincarnation’/’Sage’ of Fenrir and Hel, they’re the reincarnation of Narfi and Váli (the children Loki had with Sigyn who was supposed to be Loki's loyal wife but their relationship is tainted by modern media into a more abusive/toxic kind of relationship which sucks)

OR

Desmond and Layla could be the reincarnation/Sages of Sigyn and Váli themselves with this entire thing being Desmond’s way to avenge Loki’s actions even though his memories of Sigyn loves Loki too much that she forgives him and understands. Well, Desmond understands it alright but that doesn’t mean he’ll forgive Loki/Basim like his past Isu-self, especially since Loki’s relationship with Angrboda/Aletheia is the trigger that destroyed their family in the first place.

The main idea is that Desmond is making Basim/Loki work his ass off to reunite with his ‘preferred’ children as a way to punish Basim/Loki for focusing so much on his children with his mistress (which is what Aletheia is in AC canon) and forgetting about, you know, HIS OTHER CHILDREN (including Sleipnir)? And Basim doesn’t realize that Desmond is the reincarnation of Sigyn/Narfi because of he didn't think the reincarnation could be of a different gender (which is canon thanks to Eivor) and because he only knew Narfi as a child. Basim feels Layla is familiar but doesn’t know why and Váli died as a child as well.

(Additional info: the only thing we have on Isu Sigyn is that Aletheia/Angrboda tells Loki that if Sigyn learns about Fenrir, their other children will be in danger too which sets Sigyn up as a more malevolent character... which isn't really much of a stretch considering all Isus are dick but it's like that frustrating misrepresentation of Persephone and Hades' relationship in AC Odyssey all over again and aaaaaahhhhhhhh)

[xenoblademisadventures]

Xenoblade X poll answers

Elma is a xeno, a BLADE, and a Xenoblade (Monado)

This is incorrect. Elma is a xeno and a BLADE, but she is not canonically related to the Monado. That said, I really would not be surprised if that was an intended plot twist considering that she shares the same color pallet as the damn thing. Furthermore, interesting how Elma somehow knew the earth would be blown up in a skirmish 30 years in advance. There’s other stuff I could say in evidence to this theory, but this isn’t a post about my crack Elma theories, so we’ll leave it at that.

Some other fun information around this idea. In an early trailer for X, BLADE was referred to as “Beyond the Logos Artificial Destiny Emancipator,” though in the final version the acronym is “Builders of a Legacy After the Destruction of Earth.” Elma also has concept art featuring a Core Crystal. 

This doesn’t support any theory because it’s concept art, but it’s an interesting piece of trivia. 

there is an enemy type that reproduces by firing its sperm into orbit

it’s these guys. what a meme of an enemy. dudes just stand there and then turn into a palm tree abomination that one-shots you. I think the guy in Cauldros is the funnies of men. Like, imagine you’re just minding your business and then you get sniped from orbit by a palm tree of death. 

Every enemy type in the game has, like, a multi-paragraph essay, here’s what the Filiavent’s reads.

“The largest of all Miran mollusks, filiavents stay anchored to the ground, feeding on other creatures that come too close. To do so, they contract their lengthy bodies and then swallow their victims whole—along with everything else in the vicinity. All matter then enters the digestive tract, where it is liquefied by powerful acids.

Reproduction also takes place while anchored to the ground. On the night of a full moon, filiavents release a myriad of sperm and eggs into the atmosphere. While most are eaten by other creatures, one in a few thousand survives to be fertilized. Because infants have many predators due to their small size, few of them survive into adulthood—despite the presence of a defensive electrical discharge."

So, yeah, I’m not even exaggerating, these things do canonically reproduce by firing their sperm into orbit.

Samaarians were human, but not the humans you play as; they're functionally gods; this information was revealed during a random sidequest

I wanted to make this one a single option, but character limit. But yeah, Xenoblade X has a weird amount of major plot twists hidden behind random sidequests. This was just the largest one. The sidequest in question was a post-game quest called The Old Gods, where the God of the Zaruboggan is revealed to look like this.

The lore around the Samaarians is that they appeared when the universe was created and started creating a bunch of life, but they’re not benevolent. There are multiple canon slave races created by the Samaarians for that purpose and the humans we play as are implied to be close relatives to the Samaarians. Perhaps made in their image?

But yeah, that’s about the amount X actually reveals about the Samaarians. I imagine that the story was meant to tie into the Klaus arc, but there’s no way of knowing whether the original plans for X’s story contradict what the writers instead made for 2 and 3. 

Also, some of the other major plot twists given by random sidequests include: 

the protagonist is heavily implied to secretly not be a human, the term used is J-Body, but we’re never given insight on what that actually means. The party member Yelv is also a J-Body. This is revealed during Yelv’s Partner.

The White Whale was communicating with some other ships during its 2 year voyage. These ships cannot have been human ships because no one is aware of the existence of fellow surviving humans. This is revealed during White Lifehold. 

Once something gets stuck on Mira, it is impossible to leave. This is revealed by Professor B during his sidequest chain and it is also alluded to by Goetia during Chapter 6.

There was a species of Giants that existed in Cauldros but they were wiped out, most likely, by Yggralith Zero and the Ganglion built their fortress over the ruins of that civilization. All information pertaining to the giants is told through item descriptions in the collectopedia.

There’s also this entire sidequest chain around the Definians, which are a race of shape-shifters controlled by a robot that have controlled species since the dawn of the universe where you overthrow their leader. You kind of just kill a god off-screen in a sidequest, very. 

one of the alien races is from Bionis, this species is not the Nopon

True. The Orpheans are reliant on this virus called the Ovah, which guides their decision making and is connected to their reproduction. In the sidequest A Fateful Choice, it’s revealed that the Ovah came from a world predating the Orpheans. That world was shared with the Telethia where “the Ovah existed as a single entity floating in the ocean of another world.” So, while the name “Bionis” is never given, it’s heavily implied. Furthermore the Telethia is referred to as “the Ruler of Fates” and “the Endbringer,” which are both noteworthy. In the sidequest, the Telethia is compared to a God and is feared by the Ovah. 

The sidequest also involves someone getting eaten by the Telethia and receiving a vision of the past.

The Nopon in X are given zero ties to the Xenoblade universe. The closest we get is a sidequest where two Nopon look for the Sword of Legendaryness, which looks like this.

This is pretty obviously meant to be a goofy reference rather than a serious piece of lore. The item description reads “A legendary sword left behind by ancient Nopon. When the mysterious lettering on the hilt lights up, it gives one the feeling of being able to use special powers.” But I figured it was noteworthy.

the second strongest enemy is known for destroying worlds; unrelated to Earth

True. This would be Pharsis the Everqueen, which is level 98. The strongest enemy is Telethia the Endbringer, which is level 99. This is the Yggralith enemy index entry.

"Hailing from the depths of outer space, these creatures can strip away the ether from entire regions before storing it in their dorsal spines to facilitate interstellar travel. Any unlucky inhabitants of planets they encounter are also devoured down to the very last organism. When this destructive rampage is finished, they set off in search of the next planet.

Though rare, Yggralith do at times come in contact with one another. The ensuing battles spell doom for any planet unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity."

So, yeah, these guys do destroy worlds. There are three yggraliths in the game. They are no relationship to the Ghosts or Ganglion, which were responsible for blowing up the earth. Pharsis is just vibing. I’m pretty sure it’s an infant.

the Ganglion got stuck on Mira before the humans did

In Chapter 6, we learn from Goetia that the Ganglion were transported to Mira by some light, they are trapped on Mira, and that Luxaar believes the Samaarian homeland could be related to Mira. The protagonists assume the Ganglion followed humans, but they are never corrected. Also, it’s important to note that the aliens responsible for crashing the White Whale onto Mira were the Ghosts, which were the faction that the Ganglion were fighting against.

the Bionis and Mechonis make an appearance in the collectopedia

True. The item in question is called the Privative Colossus Statue. It’s found in Noctilum near the Divine Roost (where the Telethia live). 

There they are. Beating the shit out of each other. The item description reads:

“A pair of gigantic stone idols locked in combat. No one is sure who sculpted them or gave them their name, but their primal beauty often leaves a deep impression on those who stand before them.”

Also, related to this, there’s a collectible that’s literally just an ether furnace called the Lost Memory Synthesizer.

“A machine to fuse crystals that conceal some sort of energy. The problem is, said crystals don't seem to exist. Upon realizing its uselessness, the Harrier Sara-Ariel named it in disappointment.”

But yeah, the Bionis and Mechonis do make a cameo.

humans are not classified as humanoids in the enemy index

instead, they’re classified as Mechanoids because everyone’s in a robot body. 

there is a sidequest where you can kill an NPC by telling them to take a shower

true. for some reason all the sidequests around the water plant are fucked up. But yeah, the sidequest is called Lakeside Getaway. An NPC is mad that her coworkers have stopped contacting her and then you learn that they all died because of an enemy that did an Alien. You can kill an NPC by telling them to take a shower because the monsters hatch from water-related things. So, if you let the NPC shower, this happens.

Fantastic.

[familyabolisher]

have you ever talked about the 'spoiler' in fiction and your thoughts about it? i remember you wrote something in connection to nabokov's 'you can only reread a novel' but I fear i may be mistaken (if so, please ignore. have a great day!)

I know the post you mean but I can't find it :( Tumblr's search function stays winning, I guess. To do a brief rundown on my position on 'spoilers' and specifically their relationship to critical work:

I don't have an especially strong position on like, avoiding vs not avoiding spoilers and how conscientious we should be about it in the sorts of environments where avoidance is possible. I try to tag for spoilers when I think it's appropriate; I'm personally not that bothered by spoilers, but like, I'm not mad at people who are. Whilst I think that knowing the 'twists' in a narrative ahead of time can be a fun way of noticing how they're set up (I love to google the plots of things I'm reading/watching so I can pay more attention to narrative construction and less to actually following the plot lmfao), I don't think you can just dismiss out of pocket the value of the emotional reaction that first meeting with a 'twist' can bring + how a reliance on that response can sometimes carry a narrative in ways that aren't necessarily weak or floundering. Some genres rely more on a lack of 'spoilers' than others; a narrative which relies heavily on hermeneutic codes, such as the murder mystery narrative, locates success in a particular balance of concealing and revealing information to the end of audience satisfaction that 'spoilers' can tamper with, sometimes unfairly. That said, when I'm writing critical essays on an external platform (ie. like, writing a Substack essay rather than doing a longform post on here) where a reader's access to it is wholly at their own discretion, I'm not going to be playing the 'writing about this work without giving away a spoiler' game, and I think doing so (even in reviews…..tbh……) is critically lazy; or, more charitably, at least inefficient.

What I mean to express is my frustration with how this excoriation of the "spoiler" (and specifically the placing of an onus on the audience to not "spoil" a work for others) places severe limitations on the scope and capability of the pop critical sphere. A lot of pieces on popular culture will try to posit a critical reading of a work without delving into "spoiler" territory; as such, they'll severely limit the terrain they can actually work on. (A Substack essay I wrote on Severance a while back responded to a Severance piece that suffered from this issue; the piece was bad for lots of reasons lol but one of them was that it couldn't actually delve into its topic with any depth or nuance because the writer couldn't write about any major plot beats not established in the premise or like, the first episode.)

Like, a text isn’t a linear body where any point that you might choose to talk about is solely accountable to the narrative events that have come before it and bears no relation to those that will come after; a text is more like a set of moving parts which all work in relation to one another to construct a cohesive whole. The very process of constructing a narrative relies on 1. the existence of an audience who only hold knowledge of the events that have happened so far up to and including whatever point they’re at in the text, and 2. the notion of all parts of the narrative exerting a force on all other parts of the narrative, of the ‘early’ sections of a narrative being, in a sense, ‘aware’ of their later sections; of the later events shaping the earlier just as much as the earlier shape the later. Obviously it’s possible and valuable to talk in-depth about an unfinished text; cf. for example, ongoing book series, TV series, similar such serialisations where the critic does not have a closed, completed narrative in front of them; but a) often those serialised works will be broken down into smaller units with internal narrative cohesion (one series of a TV show, one book in a series) wherein the criticism emerges from balancing out the tension between negotiating that internal cohesion and speculating on where the open-ended questions posed by the unit might lead, and b) this is fundamentally a different process to just … pointing to the vague opening ‘themes’ of a piece and failing to elaborate in any way because to do so would be ‘spoilers.’

The issue I’m articulating is mostly one wherein this particular form of pop criticism begins to perform the function of advertising before it engages its readership enough to start an actual process of interrogation and evaluation around the work in question. The attempt to talk about something whilst only making reference to the bare bones of its plot + avoiding the major narrative 'twists' severely constricts what you can talk about; it's just not good criticism, and I think this overfocus on never 'spoiling' something for others rather than expecting people to develop some discretion about what secondary material they read creates this impetus to essentially sell something to your audience rather than just … talk about it as a holistic piece. It does a disservice to the work in question and it does a disservice to your own critical faculties, lol?

I don't know how much this matters in the grand scheme of things, when critical practice is becoming a little more dispersed; like, I'm thinking of a phenomenon specific to The Thinkpiece hosted by The (Relatively) Prestigious Platform, but criticism is happening on like, Substack and Goodreads and Tumblr and everywhere else, such that it's easily possible to seek out this actually penetrative analysis should you want to. I am mostly just like, having an old man yells at cloud moment about it.

Also to be clear I'm not like positing a Radical New Position on critical practice here or claiming that other forms of critical practice (such as like, a lit paper) are free of their own problematic aspects; it's really just explaining a personal irritation lmao

[sunnyupsidedown]

Some Dark Rise Thoughts:

[major spoilers below. Like literally the first sentence]

- I just wanna pat myself on the back for figuring out that Will was the Dark King or somehow related by a couple chapters in. Like, the first bit was boring as hell but I know C.S. Pacat writes stories with good twists so it was a matter of figuring out what would make the book the most interesting and I was not disappointed in the least

- Anyway, just because Will is the Dark King reborn, I don’t think it means he’s going to start being evil and taking over the world and killing people. The whole point of the book gives off the vibes of fighting predetermined fates. Will doesn’t want to be evil. He wants to figure out who attacked his mom and get revenge. Also to (probably) figure out why she wanted to kill him in her final moments. He wants to protect his friends and those who have helped him. Are those things that make someone evil?

-- Throughout the book, he is a very unreliable narrator and doesn’t divulge a lot of information about himself to even his friends. He had his suspicions about who he was so I think it’s more a way to protect himself. Like. When Kathrine found out and immediately wanted to kill him. Though in her defense as well, Simon was probably still a caring fiancé in her mind since it was maybe 2 or 3 days since her world was turned upside down. So seeing a strange boy she just met standing over the dead body of the man who was providing a future for her and her sister through marriage, might have been difficult to process all at once. Which gets into the fantastic complexities of characters and plot but I digress.

-- Anyway, he hides himself because he doesn’t want people to judge him for what he was in a life he doesn’t remember. Like they did with James. And it’s not like he was 100% sure until towards the end.

- I really wanna know what happened while Will was growing up. If Kathrine and Elizabeth are sisters, how does Will fit in? Maybe I need to reread the book. Kathrine looks like his mom but Elizabeth doesn’t but Will’s mom claims them both as hers. Was Elizabeth Will’s mom’s aunt’s kid? Does Kathrine remember Will’s mom? Did Will not notice his mom pregnant when he was around 6 or 7? Who is Will’s father? Do Ladies only have girls? Does Will have Dark King blood in him? Does James have Betrayer blood in him? If they’re both Reborns, would blood matter? Did the Betrayer have children or could that be passed down from a sibling? I need answers!! AAA

-- Also. How did Will know where to find Kathrine? Did he already know the sisters and just pretended not to know??

- “I will follow you.” “Of course you will.”

-- Dead. Dying. I have expired.

- Thinking about the myths. They say that the Lady is destined to kill the Dark King. But like, in the past, if she killed the Dark King, would he have been able to give the order to have all his servants slaughtered with him? Unless he had a will or something but I feel like once he’s dead, what would keep get people to do that for him. I wonder if he was gravely injured and was on his deathbed instead?

-- Slightly related, I wonder if Will’s mom raised him instead of killing him because the Lady and the Dark King are supposed to fall in love. In this iteration though, familial love. And then in her final moments, to fulfill her destiny, she tries to kill him, but going back to the whole ‘The Lady is destined to kill the Dark King’ bit, maybe instead of killing, her destiny is to just stop him. Yes she could stop him by killing him but she also stopped him in a way by making him promise to protect her daughters. Maybe even stopped him by being his mother (until she wasn’t) for however many years.

- I need to know more about Devon. I wonder if that’s another subversion. Well. It is, but like. I want to know the motivations behind a unicorn going rogue.

Okay I’m done. I know for a fact that whatever happens, the next two books in this trilogy will destroy me and I gladly look forward to it.

[bookaddict24-7]

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

Books I’ve read so far in 2023!

Friend me on Goodreads here to follow my more up to date reading journey for the year!

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22. Fairy Tale by Stephen King--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I've been meaning to pick up FAIRY TALE since the day it came out because it looked so interesting and so different from a lot of King's stories--although I know that he tends to write in different genres (even if they're all put in the horror section in bookstores.) I've had many talks about King with my friends and you know, his writing in the past may have been very polarizing, but this book was a whole other level of Stephen King (in the best way possible). This was an epic fantasy novel with some incredible imagery, world building, and slower cadence writing that King is notorious for in his storytelling. Also, the descriptions of the people the MC encounters in this twisted world were incredibly vivid and memorable--at times even shiver-inducing. Also, much like a couple of other books by him, I cried. Listen, you can't help but get invested in some of the less permanent characters because King writes them in such a way that you can't help but feel an emotional connection with them. One of the things I love about King's writing and why I always find myself falling so readily into his tomes is that he knows how to really pace a story. He creates and weaves worlds together the way only an expert can and then slowly lets the story bloom until the very last page. This felt like such a special story because of that. Unlike other fantasy books, our MC isn't the typical hero. He was more of a grey-area hero when he needed to act in dangerous situations--or at least, he made it very clear to the reader that he wasn't the hero everyone thought he was. He has his dark moments (especially when they're needed) and his imperfections make him more relatable as a lead. And while there are definitely some older moments that challenge the young MC (he was 18, I believe, or close to it), we definitely get to see where his age shines through (for example, who he falls for and how he handles that, and how he deals with the pressures of living up to a promise that feels nearly impossible to live up to.) I loved that vulnerability because it reminded me, as the reader, that this is still a child caught up in an adult situation (violence and responsibility-wise). The side characters were great, especially the puppers--Radar was the cutest little pup and I never expected to feel so invested in her fictional well-being. If you are going into this expecting a typical King horror novel--this isn't it. Instead, King has crafted a standalone fantasy that will leave you with an odd sense of nostalgia and bittersweet happiness both because it's over, AND because you were able to experience it. While it had some cool moments and some King awkwardness (because really, is it a King book without an awkward moment near the end?--but nothing as creepy as IT, promise), FAIRY TALE was not just a story of an older teenage boy setting out to save his best friend and potentially an unknown world, it's a story about growing up, making the expectations placed on you adapt to who you are as a person, and the complexities of relationships that we build on our journey to growing up. It is about goodbyes and hellos; about hope and grief and the understanding that staying static in life is no way to live. FAIRY TALE was about a boy who experienced trauma at a young age, met someone he showed an unimaginable level of compassion for, and as a result, had a life-changing opportunity thrown at him. I loved this book very much, if you can't tell.

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23. Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of my friends read this one earlier this year and I decided to give it a shot because it sounded really good. I'm starting to love the shorter books because of how concise the stories are and how to the point the plots can be because you have less time to showcase the story for the reader. EVEN THOUGH I KNEW THE END was a very enjoyable read. I loved the main character's sass and how she fought for the love she shared with the woman she was destined to live the rest of her life with. I thought their relationship was a beautiful contrast to the idea that life is short so what is the point? Meaning, I love that despite the MC knowing that her life was going to be quite short, she still decided to find her happiness--even if it might be hard-won at the end of the day. I really enjoyed this and I thought the emotions were palpable. I thought the concept was quite unique, especially the MC's partner in crime as she strives to solve the murder mysteries popping up in the city. I'd definitely recommend this--especially if you want more sapphic fantasy that dabbles a little with horror. The ending alone is worth it and offers a strange sense of hope that love can possibly overcome anything, even death and grief. (Not a spoiler)

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24. Water Bound by Christine Feehan--⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

WATER BOUND had a few things going for it that I enjoyed, but a couple of not so great things on my end that just happened to be bad timing for this reading experience. I found myself falling into a bit of a reading slump right around the time I started reading this, so every time I started the audiobook, I immediately wanted to do something else...or I wanted to write. But despite all of these things and the books I DNF'ed right before starting WATER BOUND, I finished it and enjoyed it for what it was. I really liked the suspense aspect of this book, especially after the twist that helped explain it all. It was interesting and I always forget how enticing Feehan's writing can be when it comes to that element of her storytelling. I also liked the mystery surrounding the second narrator, especially when I realized that I had met him before in a much later book series by Feehan. Even though this is the first in this series, it's still very clear that I need to read more books before it. On one hand, that was a little frustrating because it felt like I was missing key connections and easter eggs that sometimes makes authors like this one so fun to read. But on the other hand, these constant allusions and references made me want to read the other books BECAUSE I JUST WANT TO KNOW IT ALL. I LOVED that the female MC is on the autistic spectrum because I love seeing this representation in romance novels. I always find that the way the story looks through their perspective is both fascinating and beautiful. The male MC however was a little meh, to be completely honest. Feehan's male characters are always so intense from the get-go that it takes a while to get used to them. I did love, however, how he is with the female MC and the connection they share. The magic of their abilities was more pronounced in this book and their interactions surrounding their magic was made more beautiful by that relationship of respect that they cultivated. Will I read the second book in this series? Probably. Even if they're not perfect reads, I do enjoy Feehan's writing and the potential each book offers.

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25. Princess in Pink by Meg Cabot--⭐️⭐️⭐️

The more I read this series, the more I realize how awful Mia's best friend is. I think that's one of the main things I remember about this book (since I'm writing this review a month later and I barely remember what it was about.) I do remember being a little frustrated, not just with Mia and Michael, but also with the idea that so many people call her annoying and whiny and completely forgetting that she is...fifteen. She is literally a child who can't help but think that she wants this magical night at prom with her older boyfriend before he heads off to college. (Let's not comment on the creepy age gap, again, because Michael actually comments on how he knew the age gap would present issues down the line.) I totally forgot to mention this because these books are kind of forgettable: There was a completely horrible conversation about Autism in this book. It both really dated this series and gave me such a sour taste of the ignorance surrounding Autism. It shows how much more has come to light in the years since this series came out. I'm going to continue reading this series, but I also have to occasionally remind myself that Mia is fifteen, going through a tumultuous high school experience, and is constantly trying to navigate the tricky world of relationships (both with her older boyfriend and her bitch of a best friend.)

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26. American Predator by Maureen Callahan--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I heard about this book on the clock app after a true crime lover recommended it and said it gave her nightmares. I've been into true crime since I was a teenager and while I don't listen to a lot of the podcasts anymore, I know a bit about serial killers and crimes that have haunted North America for decades. This is all to say that I recognized this case before the details were revealed. I've always been fascinated to see what makes these people tic because they're so far removed from the way I view the world. I wouldn't call this a book that would give me nightmares, but that's mainly because I've learned about other stories that were a lot more terrifying. The expectation of being scared is what lowered my rating, but the rest of this book was intriguing--especially when one thinks about all of the unanswered questions we are left with in the end. Callahan presents a great true crime read and I think it is one of those where the reality of how truly lucky someone has to be to catch one of these kinds of serial killers. They're so good at hiding their crimes and any evidence that might be left behind. I couldn't help but think about all of the unsolved murders and the missing people who have never been found. I think that's the scariest part of a story like this one--the idea that some serial killers have never been caught because they are always adamant on keeping their crime scenes without any clues. And let me be clear: this guy only got caught because of mistakes. Think of those who don't make any mistakes in their careers as serial killers. I'd recommend this to true crime fans simply because of that last sentence I've just written. At the end of the day, it makes you wonder: how much do you really know the person standing beside you?

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27. Suburban Hell by Maureen Kilmer--⭐️⭐️⭐️

I went into SUBURBAN HELL knowing that two of my friends had recently read it and hadn't enjoyed it. I was skeptical, but I'll admit that I actually enjoyed the experience. It wasn't the best horror book I've ever read, but I found it entertaining. I think it might have hit better if I was a mom stuck at home with a world that repeats itself every day. I love a good haunting and this delivered some fun moments that I think would translate well to a campy horror movie. The creeping sense of dread mixed really well with the monotonous life of a suburban family, and the main character's growing unease was very well shown--even as her life continued on as normal while her friend was rotting away in her demonic filth. I do think there was more focus on the minutiae of a stay at home mom. While I think that was the point and the horror of it all is the things moms sometimes need to do to keep the peace going, or what some moms need to do to fit in with the other moms, it made for an occasionally draggy read. One of my friends mentioned that this was a boring read and I'm torn because on one hand, I agree, and on the other, I am on the fence because the boring aspects of it I think were intentional. I think this book definitely had potential for MORE. I think the horror and terror aspects were a little underused, especially the really cool concept. This was a fun read, but it did this weird thing where it moved both too quickly and too slowly: the possession was a little quick, but the surrounding storyline was too slow. Anyway, this wasn't a favourite but I didn't hate it. I'm curious to see what else Kilmer writes!

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Have you read any of these books? Let me know your thoughts!

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I went through a weird time the last few months, which including a reading and blogging slump. Will hopefully return to posting my reviews and posts!

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Happy reading!

[twilightknight17]

Today on P5T, we continue to color our world, we fail to drag Goro into our natural habitat, we encounter a Plot Twist, and we learn that not only is the villain’s plan awful, it’s in service of someone else!

Guernica has… problems. Which was pretty obvious, but it’s always nice to have it confirmed from a primary source. Jerri is encouraging her destructive impulses, which are driving her to kill parts of her own heart.

I forgot to mention that this bird sounds like the worst kind of overbearing, stuffy school headmistress or something. Bad vibes all around. She encourages Guernica to hunt down Luca and the Thieves and kill them for “inspiration”.

So when we set off to get the second piece of the broken artwork, she catches up and ambushes us. It’s all good until we beat her and she immediately gets up and starts to come at us again.

She’s actually really intimidating like this. 100% feral and out for blood. X’D

We run for it, find the second artwork, get caught again, and get slammed with a major piece of new information.

(Also, I’d like to point out that Guernica also has a mouse tail.)

This revelation/reminder is enough to drive Guernica off. She insists that she doesn’t have a sister and she doesn’t know what Luca is talking about, and leaves to deal with the splitting migraine it’s given her. Back in her secret base, wherever that is, she’s still in pain, and Jerri starts gaslighting her.

Whatever Jerri is, it’s something very bad. She’s using Guernica’s rage and hate for her own purposes.

Back at the hideout, Goro insists that Luca tells them the truth about her connection to Guernica. So Luca explains – not in the specific terms – that she’s a cognition of Guernica’s older sister.

The two of them were abandoned by their parents and grew up on the streets, constantly hungry and cold. But they were happiest when they were doing art together. They started painting after being inspired by some graffiti they saw, and worked on a mural together. But eventually, at some point, Luca died.

They were abandoned not just by their parents, but by society as a whole. No one tried to help them, so it’s no wonder that Guernica has such anger at the institutions that failed them. And the first piece of art she ever did, the mural that she painted with her older sister, is the core of her heart that we’ve been trying to repair all this time.

Man, I brought the right party members for this. Talk about the two people I know who can relate to this story the most. I mean if you think about it–

……Goro. Goro. I know we’re in the middle of Sae’s Palace in reality, but honestly. I know your tragic backstory. Come on.

…this sounds like… Sumire, more than Kasumi. Like she’s shining through for a brief moment here. She never specifically says that it was her older or younger sister, so it’s hard to say which twin she is right now.

This would be great if it was taking place in January. Not only could we have snarky Black Mask, we could dig a little more into how Sumire felt when Kasumi died. She talks here about how terrible it was that her twin died in an accident before they could repair their bond and talk like they used to, but I dunno, it would feel more sincere if it was the real her.

Plus it’s fucking hilarious to imagine Maruki freaking out because the three of them just vanished into who-knows-where.

We discuss some more about our current situation and what Jerri might be, and… Goro, please.

We know Morgana. We fight monsters in another world. I’m begging you to keep up. X’D

Back at Guernica’s secret hideout, she’s having a crisis. She’s insisting that she doesn’t have a sister, that she doesn’t know what’s going on. Jerri tells her that she’ll just have to kill all those “brats”, so she can achieve her goal. They’re so close, but they’re not there yet!

Well, that sounds bad. Not sure that killing everyone with rebellious tendencies is the best plan, but I guess when you’re a birdbrain--

YOUR WHAT?

Okay, who the fuck is this bird working for?

Theories:

It’s not Yald. Yald would not give a shit about how many people die. He just wants control. So the bird would not be worried about what he thinks of Guernica potentially killing people.

Salmael doesn’t want conflict and specifically doesn’t like that the Thieves are rebels. He’s not against violence because he tried to kill you during the boss fight, but I can’t imagine he wants vast amounts of dead people. However, Salmael being active in November poses some major questions about whether or not he’d be stepping on Yald’s toes in terms of ruling humanity.

Azathoth probably does not give a shit about who dies, but Maruki would. He wants happiness for everyone, not mass death. Maruki is not active in November, but Azathoth could potentially be trying to get humanity to shut up before he decides to fully commit to using Maruki instead. I dunno. This is a sequel, Atlus, use your shit.

Anyway, back at the hideout, we get an optional conversation about some more of Luca and Guernica’s backstory. They slept where they could, sold recyclable junk for money, and ate food from restaurant trash cans. They perfected the art of finding the most useful things in a pile of trash. Sumi, bless her, expresses interest in learning more about how to search for things like that, and… well… Luca wants Akira and Goro to join in too.

We bully Goro with love in this house.

Sumi says she still wants to try, and Luca encourages Goro to change his mind!

Goro, you’re gonna have to join me in Trash Land one day, either literally or metaphorically. XDDDD

I guess it’s okay if he’s contemplating picking up his old hobby.

……wait. WAIT. Q2 ALSO takes place in November. What if it takes place after this and this is the thing that got Goro to start doing graffiti art???

ANYWAY.

We’re off to find the third and final piece of the broken artwork, but there’s something strange about this area. A weird smell, according to Sumi and Luca.

...oh.

The fun part about having Luca around is that she takes all of Goro’s passive-aggressive barbs at face value and throws him off-kilter. We agree to go try to figure out the source of the smell and save anyone who needs saving, and when Goro agrees to come, Luca is surprised.

“Oh, you’re coming to help?”

“Not what you expected from a ‘cold-hearted bastard’, hm?”

And instead of whatever apology he might have been angling for, Luca is just like, “yeah, I didn’t expect that. Cool!” and runs off, leaving a very wrong-footed Goro.

And then we experience Mood Whiplash From Hell.

Well… I guess we know what the source of the smell is.

Jerri shows up and tells the Thieves the basic outline of her plan to use Guernica’s art to drive people into a murderous rage in the real world. Humanity will destroy their own corrupted society! It’ll be great! And…

………..horrible to think about, and somehow even worse coming from this pink bird.

Guernica is also there, and they appeal to her to stop all of this. But she insists that nothing matters but her goal. Even if Luca is her sister, it doesn’t matter. She’ll kill her if she gets in her way.

And Sumi does not take that well.

We get away from Guernica again, heading for the final piece of the broken artwork, and end up having to fight the two massive shadows that had been guarding the previous pieces at the same time. I got womped three different times before I finally managed to beat them, and that was where I stopped, because wow, that was tricky.

So to finish up, some observations.

Despite only being level 25, the personas it’s giving me are reaching the 70s. That last fight gave me Moloch and Oberon. If this DLC just hands me Satan I’m gonna be weirded out. But also, I’m interested whether I can only have 30 different personas, because…

Interesting choice, Atlus. Some of this feels very like… I mean, obviously it’s DLC, it’s gonna recycle stuff, but they didn’t like, redo the menus to account for different mechanics. If I can’t discard personas, why is the button still there? The memo function has so many slots, I can only assume it’s the entries from the main game. Why are they here? It’s not like I can fill them in. The DLC is completely separate from the main game. Hell, it has it’s own save menu. It just feels odd.

They also never try to give Sumi a code name. No one even brings it up.

Everyone’s final skills are already unlocked, so you just need enough points. Akira’s scythes are still here, and Sumi’s attack is basically the animation for Divine Judgment with a different name.

Makes sense that it’s a few points stronger than Akira’s. Bless magic is consistently a little stronger than curse. That’s consistent across the other spells, and is most obvious on Goro because he has both.

But Goro also has almighty, and his final skill is an absolutely massive almighty spell called World’s End that is significantly stronger than the other two’s skills. Robin Hood shoots a shining arrow into space and calls down a massive space laser to kill everything. It’s incredible.

And on that note, my next objective is “infiltrate Guernica’s base”, so I guess we’re going to head to that white museum-looking place.

No shadows to hide in, there. Time to figure out what’s really going on here.

[swizzee]

Ok ok, I don’t have any art to share cause I’m in the heat of the moment but I need to rave about the new ToH episode for a second

I was bummed about the leaks and made it my mission to go spoiler free until the premiere so I could enjoy it the way Diana intended

AND HOLY FUCK SHE DID NOT DISAPPOINT

I love all the new lore we’ve just got from the new episode cause it really ties everything from season two in. The ancient rival races of collectors and titans killing each other off so one race could prevail but then their endlings become…. Friends? Also the supreme being of the universe is literally a toddler? So silly, so perfect. One thing I’m dying to learn more about is the collector code cause it’s hinted about a tiny bit and also how the Collector just changed it cause he wanted to play hide and seek?? SO SILLY. King literally reads it and doesn’t question anything, he walks down the halls of the palace and ignores the depictions of his ANCESTORS LITERALLY GETTING MURDERED!!? Hello sir your fat head is hiding the lore! I am excited to see King learn the full extent of his powers cause if they’re equally as powerful as the Collector’s, the final show down is gonna kick ass!

One of my biggest regrets was embracing literally every Thanks to Them spoiler I could get my fingers on so the whole story was kinda meh when I actually watched it. One thing that no one even bothered mentioning was all the Star Trek references! The whole season we learn about how Luz’s parents got together over a shared love of Star Trek. Gus and Hunter dress up the whole episode, I mean twist my arm and kiss my soul Diana!! I love Star Trek so much, almost as much as I love crossovers. So Star Trek x any of my other interests? Just steal my heart already!

BEAM ME UP??? Hunter dressed as Data, Gus as maybe Riker or Forge??? I am in love

Willow coping with her emotions and her friends helping her realize she’s more than just the rock of the group was so wonderful and really embraced so much of the Willow character development we never got to see. Her and hunter holding hands at the end was adorable too. Fingers crossed for a tiny cheek kiss by the end of the next special 🤞

Luz and her mom finally being able to understand each other was so adorable and done with so much passion, the whole scene left me in tears. Her mom relating back to Luz of how she was a weird, nerdy kid in high school and just wanted to protect her daughter from relentless bullying honestly hit way to close to home. I’ve always been a weird kid (ie. Sci Fi enthusiast, artsy fartsy, lover of cartoons, hater of sports) and have had the same conversations Luz had with her mom in season one. “You need to calm down, try to relate to other kids more. There’s nothing wrong with you, you might just be a bit… much for some people”. It broke my heart seeing their strained relationship but that just made me even more in awe of them bonding over their weird passion.

“All I ever wanted was to be understood”. She’s just like me fr ☹️💔

Luz’s palesman reveal was so long awaited by everyone and Diana definitely did not disappoint. I saw so many videos on theories about her palesman but I never considered every single theory would be right lmao. Anyway, string bean is so perfect and a great reflection of how Luz is so much more than a silly otter or a sulking sparrow, she embodies everything. I love String Bean, especially all the different forms they offer for her, can’t wait to draw all of them!!!

More girlfriend content! I love them sm, mmmm young love, so yummy, GET IN MY MOUTH EGGEGEGDHJDJKE 🤬💖

I understand that the third season was meant to be more than three specials but tbh, I can’t imagine seeing such a beautiful piece of artistry separated into episodes. The colors, character designs, plot, everything. It was all leaps and bounds ahead of Thanks to Them so my hopes are even higher for Watching and Searching

This is one of my favorite screen caps, enjoy!

The glittery eyes, the flowing tears, the way the light reflects off her face in a way the separates her from the scenery??? PLEASE OH MY GOD IT WILL KILL ME VGFTVGTDVGYDGVHDHUCUDHCUDJ

[radiantlyrey]

Thoughts on Uprising Ep8 “The Reward”

- (pre-viewing note: is this the episode where a program nearly gets drawn and quartered?? I remember this vividly from 10 years ago but it hasn’t popped up yet…..) (note from later: APPARENTLY IT IS!!! OKAY THEN.)

- I haven’t mentioned this yet, but the recaps before each episode are a fucking delight. it’s like a full-on course in double meaning and irony and the delivery is just *chef’s kiss* I know there’s a button to skip the recaps but they’re so fun I usually watch them anyway…….

- cold open: it’s pretty obvious from early on that this is a dream, and I did not realize/remember that programs dreamed! this is useful information for fic-writing, thank you show. the content of the dream itself is a little disturbing, mostly from the way the Renegade is just ragdolling around while Tesler ineffectively tries to fight him. it’s honestly a great way to display Tesler’s insecurities, and very effective at that.

- Tesler has got a good point—they’re wasting too many resources on tracking down the Renegade; they might as well outsource the bulk of the work. his speech in the arena is very effective; Henriksen is a great VA for him, and honestly Tesler is pretty effectively terrifying as the main villain of the series. (nitpick: the “RENEGADE FREE ARGON” sign during Tesler’s speech needs a fricking hyphen after “Renegade.” Though in a delicious twist of irony, the Renegade is trying to free Argon, so without the hyphen there’s a delightful double meaning in there.)

- related to the speech, Tesler wishes the programs of Argon “Happy Hunting” which made me think of Janelle Monae’s song “Violet Stars Happy Hunting!!!” from her first Metropolis album. It is a banger of a song, and it also got me to thinking about whether there are bounty hunters on the Grid at all?? Like, given the Renegade issue in Argon alone, there must be other enemies of the state that Clu wants eliminated, right? (but then that digs into the whole issue of currency on the Grid, which there is no mention of AT ALL and argh) but that’s just my brain running away from me……

- semi B plot with Paige and Pavel (tho I’ll be honest, this ep is all A plot): Paige is doing her job, Pavel is being paranoid, though his paranoia may be slightly justified. also we got Bartik and Hopper hanging around again, and these guys still baffle the fuck out of me, especially Bartik??? But I’ve gone over that like three times now, so I’ll let it lie for now. and it’s absolutely no surprise that Pavel’s being sneaky about things… ugh.

- also the whole neighbor turning on neighbor thing that we see here is… a little disturbing, for a Y7 show??? maybe not, I don’t have a good gauge for these things. it just seems a little reminiscent of some parts of history, to me? I don’t know. (mind you, with the Scars episodes up next, I’ll have plenty to talk about in re: appropriateness for 7 year olds……) (don’t remember much about Scars, but I do remember the fucking TORTURE SCENES)

- meanwhile, it’s nice to see Beck actually hanging out with his friends for once (and also nice that Zed calls him on the fact that he has not been hanging with them very much recently) (ya gotta get a better work-work-life balance there, kiddo) it is nice that Tron deferred to his judgement on what they needed to do about the hunt for the Renegade (and I loved Beck’s “finally he listens to me” reaction….) tho it kind of sucks that their favorite club has turned into an army hangout….

- and then we have a one-scene, one-minute character in Gorn! who fascinates me to no end. apparently memory modifications are possible, but it’s a specialized task that takes a steady hand and a good deal of patience. which Pavel of course lacks. anyway, what a fascinating one-off character; kind of hoping she pops up again at some point…..

- I love that Beck and Paige are approaching this whole “Hopper’s the Renegade!” thing from two completely different angles, both arriving at the same truth (albeit for very different reasons…) Beck’s smooth moves getting in with Link are hilarious, for one, and Paige actually like…. listening to people is cool of her, and another indicator of her complex character.

- and then MARA FUCKS UP REAL BAD HOLY SHIT GIRLLLLLL. Mind you, Tesler’s already in a prickly mood, so it’s no surprise (also considering what he did to Paige’s friends way back when) that he decides to execute Zed and Mara as sympathizers… tho I find it hilarious because literally the previous episode Zed was complaining about how the Renegade is a menace to society, etc. I also like that Mara and Zed are trying to do the right thing even though neither of them like Hopper very much. good on them.

- further notes on the public execution: okay, so it’s more drawing and thirding than drawing and quartering, but nonetheless. (also file under things I’m surprised they got away with putting in a Y7 show…..) love that Beck has a growing history of grand theft auto, what with stealing the roadster from Link to save his friends (and Hopper). the sequence where Beck swoops in to save everyone is really neat, too. that missile gun of Pavel’s was kind of terrifying tho….

- also it is kinda tragic that Beck got to spend time with his friends… but also not. poor kid.

- and re: Zed/Mara - this crush thing between the two of them is going to KILL ME, I swear!!!!!!!! USE YOUR WORDS, KIDS. IT AIN’T THAT HARD!!!!

- all in all: pretty fun episode, though not necessarily a lighter one…..

I may or may not get to Scars (both parts) tonight, we’ll just have to see………….

[aqueeracademic]

morse being queer (and other commentary) pt 7:

season 2, episode 3, “Sway”:

- i know that morse is looking up to examine the cork board but i’m like 98% sure he’s looking up to examine jakes

- omg this episode is so fruity!

- i actually have no idea i’m just manifesting it

- you ever see a man in a tv show and immediately know he’s a douche even tho nothing has happened yet? that just happened!

- “housewife willingly opened door to killer!” how about you rephrase that so it doesn’t seem like it’s her fault?

- i already don’t think sex is real, so when people fuck in cars i am EXTRA skeptical

- needing a cigarette after seeing smth upsetting is relatable

- i do feel as though jakes always believes morse immediately, he just asks questions to make it make sense to himself

- like he doesn’t fully understand it but he would never say morse is wrong

- because he’s in love.

- i’m pretty sure the professor is a homosexual and that’s why he and his wife live apart and why he admits he doesn’t understand women BUT i also think almost every fictional character to ever exist is gay so whatever

- when men refer to women as “birds” i want to die

- how people with disabilities are treated in this show makes me violent to be QUITE frank

- morse immediately locking in on the case when he’s asked about being in a relationship is so real

- the question i must ask you is this (listen very carefully):

- IS morse watching the COUPLE or is he watching the MAN?

- ^this isn’t delusional because NOW LISTEN

- when the gay employee walks past and the other guys follow and say that homophobic shit

- morse reacts ALMOST like they’re talking to him

- he turns around immediately, IMMEDIATELY stops looking at the man he was looking at (who, after sitting down with his girl, is the only person in view, insinuating that morse was indeed only looking at the man), and looks offended as if they had spoken to him

- which, of course, they haven’t

- and if morse automatically assumes that they were talking to him, does that suggest that people have assumed he was queer in the past and bullied him for it?

- i just want to know why shaun evans chose to have morse react that way

- have i mentioned i’m obsessed with monica? because i’m obsessed

- i would also faint if i saw thursday irl tbh she’s not dramatic at all

- morse is down BAD for the owner of burridge’s and i cannot blame him

- jakes is SO FINE 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️

- “who knows with women haters?”

- thursday is a feminist and an ally!

- italian woman + gay man = perfect pairing is all i’m learning this episode

- casual ableism is SO UGLY

- “you shouldn’t tease people” “you’re one to talk” NEWS FLASH BUCKO ur a fucking misogynist

- just because a woman is attractive does NOT mean she’s asking you to sleep with her ‼️‼️‼️

- morse going on a heterosexual date and then glaring at heterosexuals the whole time is killing me

- “should be strangled at birth” sir how r u still alive

- why on earth did thursday ring the bell and then walk that far away

- morse has UNLIMITED rizz

- it being revealed that this italian lady is not the italian lady thursday was in love w is the best plot twist of the century methinks

- it’s not even really a plot twist

- it’s just a relief to know he’s not gonna cheat on his wife rn

- it’s just this:

- LISTEN TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!

- it’s the way that bright asks thursday how people can value passion over someone who is consistent and dependable and then thursday having to face that difference through the whole episode

- he had passion with the italian woman and is trying to find it again with miss armstrong

- but it doesn’t work because he has his wife

- and she’s DEPENDABLE

- and it’s shown when she gives him his sandwiches and tells him to come home safe and it’s IMPORTANT for him to have someone who is so consistent

- the gay man at burridges is my favorite character in the entire 9 seasons of this show and it’s not even close

- the way morse rolls his eyes when jakes says panty hose are more popular

- “as if you’d know” 🙄🙄🙄

- this episode actually makes the culprit as obvious as humanely possible at the 45:15 mark and it’s the only episode in the whole show where i knew who it was the entire time

- i’m fairly convinced that jakes being rude to morse is just him trying to make jokes and being bad at it

- “who are you going to believe?” and the answer being the super gay 12 year old detective is so real of the burridge’s owner tbh

- i’m lowkey confused because ms. armstrong told thursday “i’m not her” and “she died” but then in their next scene together they act like they WERE in a relationship so maybe i lack media literacy but idk wtf is going awn

- this gay man’s fashion taste is fucking elite

- the all teal look?????? the matching goddam eyeshadow???????

- werk.

- “proper pals we was. but i got careless. lost him somewhere. you’re young. you think love’s like buses. there will be another one along in a minute. that was ‘48… it’s funny. it’s never the one you never met, it’s the one you can’t forget.”

- i’ll vomit.

- IM SO CONFUSED ABOUT THURSDAYS RELATIONSHIP WITH MS ARMSTRONG BC SHES TALKING LIKE THEY WERE AN ITEM EVEN THO SHE SAID THE WOMEN HE WAS W IS DEAD ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

- norman did NOT deserve that shit i’m devastated

- why don’t people ever just listen to morse the first time around

- as if he has ever been wrong 🙄 (he is wrong almost every single time he speaks)

- so this girl insinuated that Blenheim Veil is for people “who aren’t quite right” so i’m rly confused as to why jakes would be out there

- the burridge’s owner is so obviously flirting with morse and morse is not reacting at all i hate him

- morse absolutely devouring everything that man had to say about being a pilot

- morse loves PEOPLE he just hates individuals and he’s right

- JAKES UNDERCOVER WIG IS SENDING ME TO THE MOON PLEASEEEEEE

- jakes staring morse down when he’s telling thursday what Pugh said is so legitimate

- “didnt you go to sunday school?” “you don’t want to know where i went.” AND WHEN I LOSE MY MIND? AND WHEN THAT IS MY FINAL STRAW??? WHAT THEN?

- like i fucking said before:

- morse interprets jakes’ jokes as jakes being rude and interprets jakes’ defensiveness as a joke and that is why they don’t understand each other and that is why they love each other and don’t know how to show it. in this essay i will-

- morse’s rizz is so crazy 😧

- ^ i would like to apologize for using the word rizz unironically but it’s 3am

- one more time for the people in the back: i do not understand thursday’s relationship with the italian women and i don’t think i ever will

- “i’m the law and you’re nicked!” strange, i will marry you

- morse all sleepy and bundled up?? i’ll scream

- jakes’ goddam cheekbones are something i’ll never recover from

- morse being happy for and proud of strange for being successful is so silly and adorable

- morse clearly also doesn’t understand what thursdays relationship with ms. armstrong is and i can respect that

- what kind of money do the thursdays have where they can rent this venue for this celebration

- also stfu fred and winnie are my parents

- i’ve seen this episode 2 or 3 times now and i only just now realized why the chalk was important

- like they explain it but my brain is so small idk how i couldn’t comprehend it at first

- but also my brain is huge because i knew from the 45 minute mark who the killer was so everyone stfu

- thursday and morse both holding the exact same disgusted expression while the guy confesses is why i love them

- the ending of this episode is so crazy to me

- and sort of feels unnecessary????

- maybe that’s just me

- like he’s celebrating his anniversary and clearly happy and content and i don’t feel like she needed to die to solidify that

- it just opens the wound back up for him tbh

- doesn’t feel fair

- gonna lose my mind over how beautiful oxford is

- morse burning the letter so no one will ever know except for him and thursday is-

- 8/10 slightly more gay this time and it had my fav character

[blue-mint-winter]

House of the Dragon ep 7

The dragon content was excellent in this episode. I loved it!

The beginning with awkward looks at Laena’s funeral and family unable to communicate with each other. Viserys makes an attempt with Daemon, but the rest are hopeless.

The kids’ reactions were so sad, everyone’s worrying about politics but the kids’ grieving their parents. Rhaenyra’s sons can’t even acknowledge that they lost a father. Laena’s daughters taking Jace’s hand to support him when he went to support them was a beautiful gesture.

Corlys with Lucerys scene was great. His attitude in general was a nice surprise. You’d think he would be like other lords, only caring about blood relations, but instead he knows the boys aren’t his blood but still accepts them, because he thinks the name matters and it will be remembered in history. He really, really wants a Velaryon on the throne. Maybe it’s just him grasping at straws at this point. Anyway, he gets major grandfather points in this episode.

Lucerys saying to Corlys that he doesn’t want to be the Lord of Driftmark because it would mean Corlys is dead was really an emotional punch.

In contrast to Corlys, Rhaenys wanted Laena’s girls to inherit Driftmark instead of Lucerys because they’re her biological granddaughters and this causes an interesting clash of worldview between the two grandparents.

Aemond in this episode gave off strong Daemon vibes - says he’d marry his sister because of tradition, claims a dragon, gets into a fight with four other kids and almost wins, loses an eye, calls his nephews bastards publicly and is just in general a menace. On the other hand Aegon is just like Viserys 2.0 - gets drunk, flirts with some girls and in general is of no help. However, the relationship between the brothers is not as good as between Viserys and Daemon who have real brotherly affection. Aemond is spiteful towards Aegon and Aegon is a rather bad big brother to both of his younger siblings as he constantly badmouths them.

So when the kids started all shouting and accusing each other, Viserys and Otto had priceless expressions. Heh. Viserys ordering his family to make up is obviously not working. The man has no skill to mediate conflict.

Alicent goes ballistic over Aemond’s injury going unpunished and injures Rhaenyra with the special prophecy dagger. I wonder if there is a special meaning to that? The prophecy went something like “from my blood comes the Prince that was Promised” and Alicent spilled Rhaenyra’s blood with this dagger. And after that Rhaenyra joins her blood with Daemon’s when they marry.

Otto praising Alicent for fighting Rhaenyra makes me sick. He’s such a manipulative bastard towards her. This more than makes clear that he wants the throne for his blood and eliminate other Targaryens. He doesn’t consider them family. Peace was never an option.

The Rat continues to ingratiate himself with Alicent and sadly she keeps him around.

Daemon and Rhaenyra getting back together right after Laena’s funeral feels kind of fast and entirely inappropriate, but it makes sense for them because they are just like that - entirely inappropriate. It’s understandable how after years apart and being “miserable” or merely “content” they would not let each other go.

Thanks to coming back to Rhaenyra, Daemon gets his groove back.

I liked the plot twist with faking Laenor’s death and him leaving with his bf, but it seems a bit risky - what if it ever got out he’s alive? Then Rhaenyra’s new kids with Daemon would be called bastards again and the whole circus will start. Also, Laenor leaving so easily after promising to be a better father and husband was slightly strange. In the end it was duty, not love that bound him to Rhaenyra, so when she allowed him a way out to go and find his own happiness, he took it. The fact that they tried to conceive and do their duty, but failed, which made Rhaenyra turn to Harwin, sets their relationships in a different light. Leanor’s feeling of failing his family gives him a good reason for leaving.

Poor Rhaenys and Corlys, they think they lost both of their children one after the other :(

The only thing I can criticize were the grey, twilight scenes, the visibility of what was going on, like expressions, was too low imo.

[thirdtimecharmed]

Disjointed Nona thoughts under the cut because I just read it and desire to Speak About It

Fuckin.... wow

Pyrrha Dve is insane and I love her so much. 

Everything about Gideon/Kiriona made me unspeakably sad, its like... Gideon but not her at all, yanno? Like, there was no warmth behind any of the jokes she made and it just made her feel so bitter and lifeless and hollow. Great writing but so sad. 

Like I would pay a million dollars for a snapshot of her perspective when Nona kissed her. Also Tamsyn Muir owes me a million dollars for emotional damages for having fucking SLEEPING BEAUTY happen in the middle of all this craziness I s2g. So really the million dollars evens out.  Also everyone who ever gave a hot goddamn about palamedes/dulcinea owes me $20 because like lbr here how much love can you have for some lady you’ve never met vs. the person youve grown up with and depended on I mean come on people

Everything about Nona, but the fact that she has pica somehow gave me the most feelings. Her pretending to be Harrow was so incredibly hilarious and I am the first one in my household to read it so I can’t share with anyone how funny that was. 

Also speaking of palamedes and cam, this book really twists the knife wrt how fucking tragic gideon and harrow’s story is. Like, they are wedged so deep into an impossible middle ground, somewhere between the original Lyctors who did it super wrong and Paul who mostly(?) figured it out but just. The limbo they’re stuck in is ugh. 

The fact that Gideon even though she’s a hollow version of herself sTiLl was like “where’s harrow” @ nona I fucking cannot. 

Whoever called the fact that there would be a skeleton war joke, I salute thee

And speaking of the skeleton war, did anyone else really find Jod scarily relatable? Like he’s detestable obvs but in the exact same way I think any person is capable of being. In his situation I can’t say for sure I’d do anything differently, which is a very compelling thing for a very detestable character. 

Interesting how this book makes it preeeetty clear how immediately every single Lyctor was plotting against Jod. Like, the Sixth one whose name I don’t remember had it early, Anastasia clearly was doing something hella early, Pyrrha was hiding out... so many of them had their foot out the door its almost the literal opposite of the Jesus/disciples narrative. 

I also love how much and how little we really understand about the resurrection beasts. What the hell was one doing channeling Judith? I guessed in Harrow that they represented the nine planets, so I’m guessing that Nona/Alecto can understand them because she’s also a planet?

Speaking of all the “/”es going on there’s a fascinating undercurrent of like what the hell is gender in this whole book. Like... Paul but also Prince Ianthe Naberius and Prince Kiriona and Nona struggling with they/them for Aim and Coronabeth struggling with she/her for Pyrrha. I guess it goes hand in hand with the questions of identity and souls and body that is pretty central to the whole series

A friend asked if I liked the book cause I borrowed her copy and I don’t know if ‘like’ is the right word but like intensely compelling, enjoyable to read, I will be thinking about this for days so????????