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#Doc reads
docholligay · 2 months
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Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Thank you @becauseforoncethisisme for sponsoring this! Regulars know this, but if you're new here, all opinions are mine and it's fine to disagree with me, but please don't get weird about it.
Nonspoilery: 
Good God in high heaven and low hell, this is so much better than the first book. This is both a personal and professional opinion.  The only problem with it being, I cannot in good conscience tell anyone to read the first book in order to get to the second. I don’t think it’s so good as to justify that. That’s a pretty tall order. In all, though, if you read Gideon the Ninth and thought, “Hm. Okay, that’s enough for now,” this might whet your whistle a little bit more. 
Spoilery: 
Wow did I like this better than Gideon, you were all so right and it does not bother me even one solitary bit to say so. I think it starts slow, and I don’t know that I really ever connected with the second person bits--once I figured out what it meant, i wanted it to be confirmed and stop-- and of course Muir’s style occasionally grates on me (Muir and I are the same age. I know we grew up in the same fandom environment, and part of the reason I know that is I recognize elements of her style from fanfics being written then as now. This is stuff from like, sporking days. She’s so talented, and so loves these strange, memey asides even in lovely moments. That being said, i think this book strikes a much, much better balance with that and there were even times I found it fun, so, things are improving) But overall I would say I liked this book just fine, and would consider reading it again on some winter night. LEAPS AND BOUNDS over my experience of GtN
I struggled so hard with the first 150 pages or so of this book. I think it was a combination of how little I remembered from the first book, the taste the first book left in my mouth, and the fact that I am just, too stupid for high-concept fantasy. So all the stuff about thanergy and thelergy and conversion, I just, sat there not possible caring less about any of it. I don’t care now, and I came away liking the book! This is for someone, certainly, but I am not it. If this hadn’t been a commission, I think I would have given up at a certain point. I usually give a book 100 pages and this wouldn’t have done it for me*
At the end of the day, I think one of the things this book can be about--for me, it’s about more than one thing, but this is the easy reach--is about grief. And how being willing to give yourself a Fantasy Lobotomy, if that’s what it takes, to avoid the hurt and loss that grief brings in, and the guilt, only ends up hurting yourself and everyone around you. 
Also, it doesn’t bring them back. Forgetting them in every way possible does nothing to bring them back. Now, Harrow is a special case, so for her it can’t only be about avoiding pain, because what she’s also doing, because of how the whole Lyctorhood thing works, is, in a sense, keeping Gideon on life support. Like is said later in the book, shoving her in a drawer she can’t open, but so long as the drawer is never opened, Gideon is alive. It’s Harrow living her entire life in the doorway where where a policeman stands, ready to tell you someone you loved is dead, and she won’t let him speak. Because it’s not true until he does. 
I like Harrow so much more in this one by virtue of the fact that this book cares so much less if we like or forgive her. Because of the way it works with perspective, and the way it’s trying not to tip its hand to the fact that Gideon is our second-person narrator, we get a much more neutral version of Harrow’s life 
How Lyctors work: Love it. What a choice. My favorite takeaway from the first book, and perhaps the only thing I still think about actively while lying in bed at night, is the necromancer-cavalier system. I think it is fantastic, I love it, it works perfectly for imagining all shades of relationship and is very fun to do to your blorbim. I can’t remember if we found this out so explicitly at the end of the first book--as I said in an aside post while I was reading HtN, the pool scene in GtN pissed me off so much that I had a rage blackout for much of the book and forgot it the second I wrote about it--but the idea that the necromancer can only become this sort of ultimate power by killing this person they, by necessity, have some level of intimate bond with? Exceptional. I love that they are, in a sense, protected and powered by a person who loved them, that they murdered. I am so unbelievably into this idea, and the idea of those who can DO this, and who can’t. Reeled me back to my blorbos all over again. 
Which of course makes the whole thing with Harrow so interesting, because Harrow is someone who can’t deal with the cost of it. In full fairness to her, it wasn’t a choice she got to make, but she certainly does Gideon’s memory no honor by refusing to even acknowledge her sacrifice. She’s spitting on the roast lamb on the altar, so to speak. It’s sort of the murdered children problem all over again, though a million times better done: If an impossible sacrifice is made for you, what do you do to earn it? It’s Saving Private Ryan, and you have to spend your whole life hoping you earned a sacrifice someone made without your consent. And you should! What will you do, to earn your place? I know, i know, we all hate that except for me, but if Gideon died to make you a demigod, earn your power, and take your responsibility. 
Ianthe: I love a good horrible, manipulative cunt, and Ianthe certainly is that. This isn’t even me joking, she’s one of my favorite characters in the book (Though not my absolute favorite)  and also my poster child for “I support women’s wrongs.” I think it’s so smart and great that at the end, Ianthe makes the wrong choice, and that you are sitting there screaming for her not to do that, and yet when she does it, it feels completely correct. Of course this is a thing that she both can and would do. Ianthe is about hedging her bets, and above all else, about Ianthe. She killed Naberius as soon as she figured out the deal. We get the sense that she feels…i’m not sure how I want to say this…it’s not that she doesn’t feel about it, but she feels inevitable about it, also. To her, there was no other choice. 
She is willing to help Harrow destroy herself, shut herself off, because Ianthe loves a good “you fucking owe me” but also because other than how it benefits or hurts her, what the fuck does she care? I love her, it’s how I wish I could write Minako if I could get away with it. She’s clever and fun and terrible. I think she’s also, narratively, a great balance for Harrow’s whole ‘That girl in homeroom in an Invader Zim hoodie” vibe. 
Mercymorn my beloved: If Ianthe is my poster child for, “I support women’s wrongs” than Mercymorn is my ‘tag yourself.’ The longer the book when on, the more I liked her because the more I understood her. As an old lady who has been a part of things for many years, who has seen them grow and fall apart, who has lost people I loved and worked with people I hate, I loved everything about her. I love how utterly done she is with the whole thing. The way she so clearly loved Cristabel, and how she reacts to the pain of that love in a way I understand, and didn’t realize how clearly I understood her until Mercymorn killed the Emperor. Then it all hit at once, I remember that moment pretty early on in the book where it mentions that is you say Cristabel’s name to Mercymorn, she reacts like she’s stung. The way she yells at Harrow to never use her name with her, filled with rage. That is a kind of grief I recognize. I don’t want to talk about it and i’ll fucking kill you if you remind me. 
I felt every ounce of hurt, a plucking of a twin string, when she said, “This is the chance for unloveable Mercymorn--critical Mercymorn--to show you that she is the most capable of her name.” 
And then she kills the emperor. Do I think he was sorry? Do I think he never wanted any harm to come to Cristabel**? Does Mercymorn think that? It doesn’t fucking matter. Whether he feels bad about it or not, it’s academic at best. She murdered Cristabel because a man she trusted, a man she took to be her God, lied to her about it. He told her she, to save the world, had to give up a person she adored. Had to do it herself. I, too, would rip him atom from atom, if I were Mercymorn***. Maybe she does forgive him, but only because he is about to make repentance in blood. 
She’s my favorite character in the whole fucking book, bar none. 
(On that note, sort of, I actually came to very much love Augustine.)
Oh! One thing I loved, so much, and I don’t think anyone I’ve seen say anything even offhandedly about the book, is during the fight with the Sleeper, how Ortus’ BELIEF and PASSION form the basis to call up Mattias Fucking Nonius. Is that not incredible? That faith, can be so strong, that Abigail could call up a man that none of them ever knew, who is basically an idea more than a man, to fight? I think it’s such a lovely little lesson tucked in there, because we have been making fun of Ortus’ belief system for the entire book, mocking the way he recites this, and in the end, his deeply held belief matters, it matters so much, and I adored that as a real reversal of mocking someone faithful. 
I think part of the underlying problem with GtN is I just don’t like Gideon. I don’t like her point of view, I don’t like her character voice, I don’t like her general vibe, and the narrative does like her, and wants you to like her. In this book, it’s fine because so much of it is not from her perspective, but it became pretty clear to me that so much of what I disliked (though not all) of the first book was a Gideon-based problem. And you can’t escape her in the first book. 
This all flew immediately back to me when Gideon is taking up Harrow’s body and also the narrative duties. I cannot stand her character voice. Muir is capable of being so smart and so beautiful in her prose, but not only is Gideon herself irritating, but she inspires Muir to do this…recitation of memes, the one I can think of off the top of my head is “Jail for mother” Tamsyn i will fucking kill you. I will not read Nona, because the back page tells me, threateningly, that Gideon will be back in Nona, and not only can i not handle reading another word from her, but also that will unmake the beauty of telling Harrow that she has to let Gideon go, that she has to let them become one and thus lose Gideon, because of course it does because it’s a fantasy book, and fantasy just Does This A Lot. Stop letting people come back! Kill these motherfuckers and leave them dead! 
The thing about Pyrrha and Wake having an affair with Gideon’s body, and wake having God’s baby in order to open the locked tomb, it’s such a weird aside in a weird moment, that I can see I am going to forget about it. It’s so strange! I mean, it explains why Gideon didn’t die when she was supposed to, and I don’t have a problem with it per se, but I also don’t know that I have any feelings about it other than, ‘hm. Strange.” 
In all: Not a bad book! Enjoyed it more as the book went on, Mercymorn for Lyfe. I hope Ianthe continues being the world’s sexiest and worst person. 
Did you want to ask me something? As long as you’re not a dick about it, ask away! Let’s have fun. 
*I suppose that’s my own personal de jure vs de facto, because truthfully I can’t remember the last time I straight up did not finish a book. Perhaps I’m just lying to myself. I dnf shows and movies all the time, but not books. 
** No, I don’t think that. 
***Although I’m actually not all that sure in my marriage if I’m the necro. I think I’m actually the cavalier. I don’t think Jill would feel a whole lot of patience over having murdered me either, though.
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lgbtlunaverse · 3 months
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There's a version of the "don't go grocery shopping while hungry" rule specifically for writers where you should never under any circumstances be allowed to touch your draft within 3 hours of reading a really good story. Because sometimes when you read something great your head goes "fuck this is so much better than my stuff I should make that more like THIS instead!" Look at me. That's the devil talking and you should close the document NOW.
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sabh0 · 1 month
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The calm before the storm i guess
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starrystevie · 16 days
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“i must have been real sweet on you,” eddie murmurs as he runs his fingers over his husband’s cheek, sleepy and sated, warm in their bed. 
steve chuckles, twisting his head to catch the tips of eddie’s fingers with a kiss. “why are you talking past tense? you’re not sweet on me now?”
the room is peacefully still. years of baby monitors are long gone only to inevitably give way to their daughter’s teenage years of slamming doors and too loud stereo speakers. but in this moment, with the pale moonlight streaming in through the windows and crickets chirping in the distance, the room is peaceful, thick with love. 
“quit your pouting, ‘course i’m sweet on you now.” eddie wipes away steve’s fake frown with a kiss, turning it into a sticky sweet grin. “it’s just something my mom used to tell me. that freckles are all the places your soulmate in a past life kissed you.”
eddie pushes steve back so he’s laying flat on the mattress and dips his head to press featherlight kisses on the side of his neck. across his shoulders. over his cheeks. his fingertips flutter over the spots afterwards, leaving goosebumps in their wake despite the heat radiating between them. 
“must have loved you a whole lot in our last lives to leave so many on you now,” eddie whispers, pulling back to stroke the back of his hand over steve’s face once more, letting his lips curl up in a dopey half smile that only steve ever gets to see. 
it doesn’t take long for steve to tilt his head up and press kisses of his own where he can; under eddie’s eye, the bottom of his chin, right over his heart. it doesn’t take long for eddie to giggle as his sensitive spots are found and attacked with ticklish kisses and fluttering eyelashes. it doesn’t take long for their legs to tangle together underneath the sheets and their breaths to get caught in their chests and their hearts to start beating a beautiful melody of their own making. 
steve lays a firm kiss to the side of eddie’s chest, over jagged white scarring and half bitten away tattoos. over memories that somehow don’t haunt them as much anymore. 
“what was that one for?” eddie asks, eyes half lidded, the adoration in his voice loud across the quiet room. 
another kiss on another scar. “wanna give you some freckles. for your next life and for this one, too. so you know just how sweet on you I am-” kiss, “ -and was-” kiss, “- and forever will be.”
they won’t know for however many more years if it worked or not. but here in this lifetime, they have all the time in the world to try their damndest to make sure it does. in this lifetime, they don’t have to worry, because they know they’ll  find each other in the next one. 
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sleepwalkersqueen · 9 months
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theminecraftbee · 4 months
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you know I swear the hermitcraft fandom doesn’t do enough with area 77 these days. it’s an entire arc where doc and scar worked together to run what is basically canonically the scp foundation. one of the scps is keralis. another one of them is technically grian if you count time travel and villager grian or whatever. also this is when the whole alien that scar kept as a pet and is implied to have at least eaten etho, if not the rest of the nho, showed up. also there’s a whole convex divorce arc. also, like, okay, listen, aesthetically, “scar and doc run a secret military organization designed to secure, contain, and study unexplained and dangerous phenomena” FUCKS as a premise okay like listen why aren’t we doing more with this anymore we need to be doing more with this—
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mattastr0phic · 14 days
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REPRESSED HOMOSEXUALS EXPOSURE THERAPY
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stoneshipper · 22 days
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when I first started self-shipping: maybe this character would like me back. we’re sorta dating. oh, and maybe I’d be friends with this character? they might find me annoying…
me now: this character would always have my back. we’re friends until the end of the line. multiple characters have unrequited crushes on me. my f/o has dedication to me like no one’s seen before. we’re madly in love. we’re best friends. we’re soulmates. it’s even deeper than that.
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aq2003 · 8 months
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ten is aroace for this one sorry society
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finelythreadedsky · 1 year
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my personal list of greek myth retellings that are actually good and do something interesting with the myth:
The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea, Mary Renault
Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays, Christa Wolf
The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason
Here the World Entire, Anwen Kya Hayward
Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles, Jeanette Winterson
Achilles, Elizabeth Cook
Memorial: An Excavation of the Iliad, Alice Oswald
Averno, Louise Glück
Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson
Antigonick, Anne Carson
Oresteia, Robert Icke
Antigone, Jean Anouilh
Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl
Girl on an Altar, Marina Carr
Los Reyes, Julio Cortázar
Hadestown, Anaïs Mitchell
O Brother Where Art Thou, Coen Brothers
honorable mention to Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavinia which doesn't count on a technicality
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docholligay · 1 month
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The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Nonspoilery: This is a super fun read that is very much in keeping with how I like my fantasy. I wish it were slightly more on the con man side, but I recognize that those are very difficult to write because one needs to actually be clever enough to come up with the insanely clever plan that unfolds, and, you know what, I'm not there either. But it absolutely is a fun crimey fantasy novel, well written that expects you can actually follow a line of description and maybe even look up a big word, that tries very hard not to bore you with needing to refer to a glossary or map.
I will say, and I'll talk about this more below: There are basically no women in this novel. it's a little disappointing. I still overall think it's worth it if you like this sort of thing though.
SPOILERS BELOW:
THIS is the kind of thing pitchless draw was made for. You could not have talked me into reading this book. Unless you possess an incredible skill--I'm not sure *I* could have talked me into reading this book, and supposedly no one knows me better.
But I did really enjoy myself. This is a flat out FUN novel, that doesn't mind being long but never feels long. I LOVED the long bits of description in this book, I BEG for flavor in some many modern novels that strip away anything that isn't an immediate moving of the ball. Actually, one of the things I would say that's not a criticism so much as a preference, is that I feel like this book, and probably this writer, remembering his short story from Rogues, is more plot-driven than character driven. I am a girl who loves a really interior novel, and this isn't that, but it did not stop me from having a GREAT time. It's a romp.
I like Locke, and his whole backstory. I wish he were a woman. Specifically, I would love to see a femme con artist, second coming of Minako Aino, Becky Sharp ass bitch. THAT would be my dream for Locke Lamora. And I know my friends who have read this book all want butch Locke and I love that for you, and I know y'all have known me long enough to know I love a butch, but I deserve a treat as well, and I LOVE con artists, and goddamnit, if I could change one thing about this novel, Locke Lamora would be a femme lesbian and I would change NOTHING else. You wouldn't even have to. One fo the great things about Lynch not being a real interior writer is literally any of the mains could be a woman and it would change nothing.
This does segue into the big problem here--there's no women in this novel. It's a 700 page book and I could condense the lines said by women into like two or three pages. I actually DO get it. I think we're reaping a little bit of what we've sown, as a community, with the requirement for perfection in our representation that leads to very boring and safe choices. Everyone is a man. We're only swarthy at best. Can't be criticized for bad identity writing if you don't write them at all! ANd this isn't me being salty, I get how that happens, I have also sometimes fallen into making any character of identity boring as fuck or not writing them at all to avoid any criticism. And no one cares about ME, I'm not a best seller. I do think, maybe, people will get better about this. Pendulums and all. I miss the awkward, good faith 90s where you had the United Colors of Benetton and one character who randomly celebrated Hanukkah. We'll see.
ANYHOW NOT RELEVANT. But I do find it irritating that because of this, we don't see women in this huge story at all. None of the gang, even though it would have been easy as fuck to make, say, Bug a girl. Even doing something like making Nazca Barsavi the actual heir apparent, and to have her marrying Locke because she knows he won't try to be Capa, and she'll let him do whatever the fuck he wants, can play the henpecked husband while being the Thorn of Camorr, could be really fun and would do more for Nazca and also play up their friendship. It could make her death mean a lot more, if they were running their own little Barsavi con.
Anyhow, the really fantastic behind the scenes worldbuilding was how I wish more fantasy novels did it. It didn't often try to explain things to me, it spoke as if I mostly understood them, or had cahracters say them in ways that made sense to the story (In this capacity, Lukas Fehrwright is fucking BRILLIANT as Someone That Must Have Camorr Explained). So I didn't feel like I was being sat down and told the history of a place I barely know, while having stupid fucking vocabulary words thrown at me. We never define any physik or magic beyond what needs be done because fuck you that's why. I love it. Thank you for not telling me what alchemical botany can or can't do. Thank you for dropping literally only what I need to kjnow about wraithstone into the plot. You have a crown in heaven.
Or I know I said I wish it would have been more con-ny and less "kill the new mob boss" at the end there, but oh my fuck, how much did I love the whole job at the counting house. I SCREAMED. It was so good, I had no clue where it was going the whole time and I would never have gotten there, but I LOVED it. What a great time.
One...weakness, for me, I guess I'll say, is that lack of interiority makes it hard to really feel the weight of some things. We don't get enough about Galdo, Calo, or Bug to feel anything for them, and I knew Bug was dead from the time he showed up. Actually, I thought we were going to kill jean Tannen, because that was the only relationship REALLY laden with emotional weight in the book. Didn't bother me enough to not recommend the book, as I'm mostly recommending it on fun, but I did notice.
ANYWAY, uh...any specific questions I'm happy to take!
Unfortunately, this means that @verbforverb nabbed me again. So, I had a great time reading the book but at what cost
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cemeterything · 1 month
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i haaaate breaking in new boots every time i want to go outside i have to wrap my stupid feet like i'm going to war
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chubs-deuce · 2 months
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actually writing out the story I have in my head has been like pulling teeth but even though the writing progress is slow, the mental images don't stop coming lmfao
Alas I made more art woops
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dailyboatboys · 20 days
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[30] heard the words "tour guide etho", blacked out and these dumb doodles were made when i came back
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razzafrazzle · 7 months
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a woman is an animal
[image description: a page of drawings of fionna campbell from adventure time on a lime green background. in this, fionna is drawn fat with jean shorts, ankle socks and boots, and visible body hair on her legs and arms. on the left is a fully rendered drawing of fionna cheering and running with a determined look on her face. to the left are various simple doodles of fionna, including her sitting on the ground with her arms wrapped around her knees and the caption "the Beast", her looking shocked, and various incredibly simplified blob-like fionnas. the drawing is also littered with small drawings of stars. end id]
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milk-lover · 1 year
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Doc and Grian’s dynamic is that Grian is Doc’s greatest nemesis, but Doc is not Grian’s nemesis.
Do you get me?
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