#anti ccity 2 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spaceshipkat · 2 years

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Not really an ask more just wanted to talk to someone who has the same opinion as myself. I just got done reading CCity and HOBOOYYY you and I were thinking alike. I’m currently reviewing my questions I gave myself post read and my annotated notes to prep for a good reads review. I regret throwing away my receipt for this book. I blindly bought the sequel and don’t have much interest to read another 800 pages of bs. Yet I want to skim and see how much worse it gets. I cannot believe while reading through your FAQ the amount of accusations you got from a negative review. This is my first SJM book she’s had what 12 books? To improve and still writes this way? Like something off Ao3? I spent $40 for 2 books when I could’ve just logged onto Ao3 for free. Loved your review in good reads. I’m baffled at all the 4-5 star reviews every single one mentions the 600 page filler and LITERALLY attempts to sweep it under the rug. There was no challenge proses no fun in helping the characters solve the mystery. The plot twists became insufferable. The hints dropped were TOO easy. This book boasts a majority of these characters are smart so why did I figure out everything not even half way into this forsaken book?! They are suppose to be BFFs but Bryce couldn’t figure out anything in regards to Danika. The math ain’t mathing. Also so many people had spoilers without warnings?? UGH! SJM had a great foundation built up and if she spent any ounce of proof reading and editing it could’ve turned into a great work. But here we are. The only thing I’ll give her is she got me to read all damned 800 pages. It was like watching an accident play out and you can’t help not looking.

I saw you’re watching the Witcher series but are you also reading it?? I’m the fourth book into the series and would love to here your thoughts if you have the time if not I’m gonna snoop through your Witcher posts regardless. Anyways I’ll die on this SJM’s writing is shit hill with you. I already bought the first book in that court series so I guess I’ll take a gamble at that too. Pray for me.

welcome to the community!

yeah sj///m's books are always touted by her stans as things they emphatically are not, but stans' fervor over her books draws a lot of people in, as well as the art (i've said it before and i'll say it again: sj///m does not deserve her creative fans). people either love her books (for some unknowable reason) or hate them and become antis, in large part bc the standom around her doesn't allow individual thought or valid critique. my best friend has a couple friends who like sj///m's books, so she asked them why (she is NOT a fan of either sj///m or her books, and she's another published fantasy author so she's technically sj///m's coworker) and one of them said bc the books are sexy (i fail to see how but okay) and another said bc they like the mythology sj///m writes (there are so many better authors who write sexy books full of mythology but do it well and respectfully and don't copycat other authors who came before them), which baffles me. idk she's popular for reasons i can't fathom, though sometimes i think that her biggest stans remain stans bc they refuse to agree with us antis.

as for the Witcher, no i haven't read the books! i'm not sure if i ever will simply bc of a spoiler i learned about the ending of the series (for Geralt and Yen), and the writing doesn't wow me enough to make me want to invest time in a long series when i read so sporadically these days as it is. are you liking the books?

ac0tar isn't as bad as, like, ac0fas (the novel-length Christmas fanfic sj///m somehow got published in hardcover), so if you're gonna read any of the court books that's probably a decent one, though ac0maf is arguably better than ac0tar, ac0war, and ac0fas (ac0maf is also the book that made sj///m into who she is now; without ac0maf, she wouldn't be the prolific author who can sell literally anything)

#ask #livewhileyourbloodisboiling #anti sjm #anti hosab

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spaceshipkat · 3 years

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i think so much of writing respectfully and inclusively is being aware of what you’re putting down on the page. what do i mean by this? what better author to focus on than sj///m, right? i’ll start with CCity on this, since it’s the one where it’s most obvious she’s trying so hard to fix her mistakes, but the problem always comes back to her fundamental misunderstanding of why and how her shit is problematic in the first place and what she must do to fix said problematic shit.

i’m sticking this under a cut bc, surprise surprise, i rambled 😌

take, for instance, Hunt: i think it’s pretty widely-accepted he’s coded as a MOC, (potentially an Asian-coded man) since he’s given “golden-brown skin” and “angular” eyes. sj//m was trying to be more inclusive by writing him in such a way that he shouldn’t be perceived as white, but what she failed to realize is two big things: 1) the fact he’s a slave of centuries who is constantly tortured, mutilated, and manipulated by his oppressors, and 2) the fact he lusts after and is demeaned by Bruce, a white girl. furthermore, Bruce constantly makes comments about how Hunt should fight back, shouldn’t allow himself to remain a slave, and taunts him into either disobeying Micah (the man he’s enslaved to) or killing for her. it’s made clear time and time again that Hunt doesn’t like that he’s an assassin for Micah, and yet there are so many instances of him wanting to kill or hurt someone for Bruce, which not only makes his characterization inconsistent, it plays into the problematic trope of the dark-skinned aggressor (a trope that sj///m seems to be particularly fond of, what with the Illyrians).

(on the topic of Hunt, a quick side-note: the idea of the “alphahole” that comes up again and again in CCity and that antis have critiqued up the wazoo (though not with the “alphahole” colloquialism until CCity came along, but i don’t think many antis actually use “alphahole” as anything but a joke when talking about her obvious love of the hypermasculine alpha male). sj///m is clearly trying to call out her past mistakes and work to rectify them going forward, but she completely fails bc she only succeeds at 1) mocking her readers, who are often fans of hers bc they like the alpha male douchebag sj///m is infamous for, and 2) making herself sound like an idiot when she calls out “alphahole” behavior while actively writing “alphaholes” and making them (possible) endgame love interests (i say possible bc it’s anyone’s guess if sj///m will actually subvert everyone and their mother’s expectations by making Hunt endgame). Hunt is an “alphahole,” even if he’s not quite as bad as riceman or rowboat and even if sj///m thinks she’s not actually writing an “alphahole”. with his aforementioned behavior toward anyone who’s mean to Bruce (aka wanting to kill them for her), he still falls under the “alphahole” category.

but i digress.)

another example of sj///m writing without being aware of what she’s actually putting on the page is her inclusion of queer rep. sj///m queerbaits quite a lot with Danika, thanks to lines she has involving Bruce and her relationship with Bruce, not to mention how many times others wonder if Bruce and Danika are “just” best friends and not actually lovers. we have Hunt wonder about it, after all, several times iirc. one that stands out the most is when he says that they have to be more than “just” best friends because Bruce doesn’t mourn Danika like someone mourns “just” their best friend, thus implying that Bruce is mourning Danika like a lover and/or spouse (bc obviously people can’t be torn to pieces over losing their best friend in a horrific attack, right?).

here’s some lines that have romantic connotations bc i am nothing if not a historian who likes citations:

page 38 of my ebook:

Danika just said it. “If he grabs his phone to check his messages before his dick’s barely out of you again, please have the self-respect to kick his balls across the room and come home to me.”

page 45 of my ebook:

But it was Danika’s added “Love you” as [Bruce] slipped out into the grimy hallway that made her hesitate with her hand on the knob.

It’d taken Danika a few years to save those words, and she still used them sparingly. Danika had initially hated it when [Bruce] said them to her—even when [Bruce] explained that she’d spent most of her life saying it, just in case it was the last time. In case she wouldn’t get to say goodbye to the people who mattered most. And it had taken one of their more fucked-up adventures[...]to get Danika to utter the words, but at least she now said them. Sometimes.

page 258 of my ebook (aka the line of Hunt’s i referenced above):

The silence pressed on [Hunt] enough that he asked, “Were you and Danika lovers?”

He’d been told two years ago that they weren’t, but friends didn’t mourn each other the way [Bruce] seemed to have so thoroughly shut down every part of herself. The way he had for Shahar.

[...]

Hunt turned in place as [Bruce] padded around the other end of the kitchen island, flinging open the enormous metal fridge to examine its meager contents. “No,” [Bruce] said, her voice flat and cold. “Danika and I weren’t like that.”

page 696 of my ebook:

[Bruce] swallowed, looking at the ground that was not earth, but the very base of Self, of the world. She whispered, “I’m scared.”

Danika grabbed her hand again. “That’s the point of it, [Bruce]. Of life. To live, to love, knowing that it might all vanish tomorrow. It makes everything that much more precious.” She took [Bruce’s] face in her hands and pressed their brows together.

page 700 of my ebook (and i was torn on including this one, but it’s from Danika, so i think i should):

Danika had whispered, “I love you,” before fading into nothing, her hand sliding from Bryce’s.

page 703 of my ebook (also torn on this, but it does sound a little queer, so):

But it wasn’t okay. Not even close. What had happened, what [Bruce had] done and revealed, the Horn in her body, all those people dead, Lehabah dead, and seeing Danika, Danika, Danika—

Her breathless words turned into pants, and then shuddering sobs.

also, not for nothing, but the fact Danika dies without an actual male love interest to make Her Straightness Obvious kinda also implies she’s queer, but *sips tea*

furthermore, there’s the way sj///m writes Fury and Juniper: we see the two women together in one scene, in which Juniper is fetishized and goes to sleep with some random guy. for the rest of the book, they never interact on-page and thus we are never given the chance to see their dynamic, which would provide crucial context clues to what their relationship really is by the time this exchange happens between Fury and Bruce on page 494 of my ebook:

“And yet you can still talk to Juniper?” Bryce’s throat closed up. “I wasn’t worth the risk to you?”

Fury hissed, “Juniper and I have something that is none of your fucking business.” Bryce refrained from gaping. Juniper had never hinted, never suggested—“I could no sooner stop talking to her than I could rip out my own fucking heart, okay?”

“I get it, I get it,” Bryce said. She blew out a long breath. “Love trumps all.”

i’ve talked about this scene to death, but this is written in such a way that it can be read as “just” best friends or as two women in a romantic relationship, depending on the reader. the fact that Bruce “gapes” (which faerug also does to Mor, and which i talk about below) implies that being openly queer isn’t accepted in this world, that it’s not very likely you’ll see two women holding hands as they walk down the sidewalk or kiss at a romantic restaurant. it also implies that Bruce, no matter that she says about “love trumps all,” might not be as accepting as sj///m would like us to believe. maybe sj///m has never had a friend come out to her before, but if i came out to someone and they gaped at me (and i’ve come out to several people several times now, both about my sexuality and my gender, so i have some experience here), i don’t think i would be very happy with them/want to remain their friend.

on the note of queer rep in sj///m’s work, Mor is another fantastic example of trying to be inclusive through a response to criticism without sj///m being aware of what, exactly, she’s writing. Mor comes out because faerug all but forces her to by not shutting up what a good guy Azriel is and that Mor should just give him a chance. that right there is fucked on so many levels, not just because Mor is a lesbian, but bc she’s supposedly faerug’s friend. no one should ever force their friends to date someone they don’t want to (i’ve had this happen to me! i had to literally snap at my friend to get her to back off bc i wasn’t going to go to the dance with this one guy who ignored my every rejection and bought us tickets to winter formal, just bc he’s a nice guy and i might like him if i gave him a chance), but i don’t think sj///m could figure out how else to write Mor’s coming out scene, largely bc she has no fucking clue how disgusting the scene we’re given is. the problem with Mor being a lesbian is threefold: 1) she’s a woman who was tortured by her father and left to die bc she was no longer a virgin; 2) Azriel spends centuries lusting after a woman who makes it clear time and again that she does not reciprocate his feelings and yet he cannot take the fucking hint, so much so that sj///m has to now dangle Elain in front of him like a piece of meat to get him to let go of Mor; and 3) sj///m was obviously setting up Mor and Azriel to be an endgame couple in ac0maf, as evidenced both in canon and in her pinterest board:

even stans picked up on it, what with their vocal outrage over how Mor “led Azriel on” for centuries instead of just outing herself to a man she obviously does not feel safe around, and posts like these:

and fanart like this:

the tl;dr of this ramble is this: if you want to write inclusively and respectfully, you have to be 100% aware of everything you’re putting on the page. when people ask for advice on this kind of thing, my first comment is to always say they’re already on the right track bc they’re already thinking of this, rather than being unaware of problems bc a state of unawareness is where the problems begin to appear. Hafsah Faizal has talked about this before on her twitter (i wish i could find the tweet, but this is from eons ago), but if you write a character of color when you yourself are white, you have to be wholly conscious of how your white character talks to this character of color. if the character of color is constantly yelled at or ordered around or ignored by the white character, that’s a big problem. if you write a queer character when you yourself are straight, you have to be conscious of how your queer character comes out, is perceived by the reader, and is treated by the straight character. if the queer character comes out by comparing their bisexuality to forced prostitution, as is the case with Aedion and Lysandra in t0g, that’s a big problem.

the moment you share your work for public consumption, it no longer matters what your intentions are (something sj///m has a lot of trouble understanding, hence why she over-explains everything in her interviews and on tours, not to mention why she force-feeds us her opinion of her characters in canon so we’re forced to share the exact same outlook on them) bc all that matters is what you’ve put down on the page. your words, at that point, have no choice but to speak for themselves, and if they do any of the above, your work is going to come under warranted critique, and unless you learn from that critique and do more than half-assed jobs to write more inclusively and respectfully, you’ll run into the exact same problems that sj///m has with CCity.

#anti sjm #anti ccity #anti acotar #anti tog #long post #stans being stans #writing advice #writing tips #sorta

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alectology-archive · 3 years

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Omgoodness I’m black too and I’m so glad someone else pointed all that crap out!!! Like I got into the books because I saw some adorable Feysand art, talked with a few shippers and they told me the basic premise of the books was “first guy pretends to be nice to use the girl for his own ends but he doesn’t really love her, but the second guy pretends to be mean but really loves her” so I was prepared and READY but when I got to Tam's slavery comments I was just like 🥺 And then when Rhysand 1)

2) started all that talk in ACO//MAF about controlling the slaves I was like uh no. He's trash. Imma be honest, I feel like white people are on thin ice if they write about slavery (no offense if you’re white). Anti-slavery people should rarely be vilified, IMO, and certainly not for a guy who feels slavery is merely inconvenient and not WRONG. So why the HECK did S Arab Janet think she could get away with that? It doesn’t sit right with me.

yeah, basically what you said! I still can’t believed bloomsbury let her publish ccity despite sarah maligning the humans who’ve been been oppressed by the vanir for 15,000 years??? with each passing book it seems she manages to get away with stuff that would’ve gotten a less popular author cancelled.

#asks #anon asks #anti sjm #sjm and imperialism #anti acotar

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spaceshipkat · 3 years

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all of sj///m’s activism posts on insta feel fake and disingenuous, but they come across even worse when you remember the fuckery that she wrote into CCity, namely the humans rebelling for their freedom being labeled as radicals and their cause as fanaticism, or how she kisses the fantasy cops’ boots so often she’s the reason the leather is shiny, or how she says that the torture of Briggs, the human rebel leader, is justified and “what he deserves”

now yes it’s good to not base an author’s beliefs on what their characters do and say, but the shit in CCity has existed all along in her other books. CCity just happens to be the best example of it rn bc 1) it’s her newest release and 2) it’s a single book that contains all of the fuckery from her previous two series, if not more so, combined, so it’s hard to not believe that what she writes is what she believes, performative insta posts aside

but no, she’ll never face any consequences for what she writes bc no one but antis is willing to speak up about the shit she writes and peddles

#anti sjm #anti ccity

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spaceshipkat · 3 years

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Has sarah janet ever talked about her research process? I'm scrolling through your anti tags and I'm seeing a lot about plagiarism but also just random references/names (of characters and places) that don't make sense and are obscure as heck (that Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne ask, ect). I totally agree with your comment about her works being an illogical melting plot! I'm wondering if she's ever commented, but also for you as a writer: is this like, normal?? What should the inspo process be?

not in so many words, no. once, when she was talking about the world-building she did for CCity, she used salt as an example of how she world-builds. in essence, she looks at table salt, wonders where it came from, and answers that question in-world. i don’t believe she actually does any research as to where salt comes from, and knowing where table salt comes from is kinda stupid in terms of world-building unless your story revolves around salt in some capacity.

her research process is one i’d love to have her explain to us, though, bc it’s strange how she can use so many real life terms that you’d have to specifically google for to discover unless you’re incredibly well-versed in some ancient society’s culture (of which i doubt on sj///m’s part bc i just don’t see her doing that at all). however, if she was asked about her research process, i doubt we’d get either 1) the truth and/or 2) more than a pointless ramble that, as per usual, rounds right back around to wingspans or some shit.

as for the research/inspiration process, there is no one right answer bc everyone will approach it differently, since everyone will have a different way to understand something. it’s why i hate those “this is the only way to plot ever” editorial services or lectures etc. there is absolutely no one way to plot or world-build or construct characters etc etc. even for me, it varies from story to story. a story i have percolating in the background while i work on revisions and write a different manuscript for fun began with a relationship idea bw two characters. last night, i wrote the first chapter of it (with my writing process, i always write the first chapter without plotting it: i’ll have the first line, a general idea of who the narrator is, and the gist of what’s going to happen in that first chapter) and, like usual, it helped me figure out the world, the voice of the narrator, and also what’s going to happen in chapter 2. now that i have that all figured out, i can dedicate more time to giving color to the world’s sketch as well as figure out the main plot overall. but that’s just my process, and i know some people wouldn’t find my process at all helpful or useful bc their brains work differently than mine.

i think the reason sj///m can churn out so many books is bc her worlds are all the same cookie-cutter shape with the same building blocks, and she simply rearranges the building blocks a little, maybe paints them a different color and calls them bricks instead of blocks to add a bit of differentiation. but since they’re all the same cookie-cutter shape, it allows her to pump out one book after another, since she’s not constantly rewiring her brain while bouncing bw manuscripts. (likewise with her characters, since her female narrators all have the same base personality and appearance and backstory.)

#ask #anonymous #anti sjm #my writing #sorta

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spaceshipkat · 4 years

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Hi, Kat! I wanna add something to the anti sjm discussion. So, thanks to the anti community, I'm not going to pick up any of sjm's books. And I, as someone who's not read the books, want to point out something: it's impossible to tell side characters apart. And I'n not talking about the physical appearance. Whenever an anti would discuss a side character, I'd have to figure out which series they were from. And even though I can tell which series they're from now,... (1/2)

...I can't tell you anything else. For the longest time, I couldn't tell Lucien, Cassian and Azriel apart. All I know now is, Lucien is connected to Tamlin, Cassian is Nesta's love interest (only now distinguishable because of the new books) and there's someone named Azriel. Who is he? What does he do?? No idea. Same goes for Mor, Manon and Maeve. One is evil, one is from tog, and one is from acotar.... (2/3)

oh dear. bc tumblr hates me, it ate your third ask. i’m so sorry i didn’t catch this earlier, anon, to let you know to resend it. if you can remember what your third ask was, do feel free to send it again and i’ll add it to this and reply accordingly

anyway, you are 1000000% not alone in not being able to tell the characters apart, bc so many of them are described nearly the exact same (and they’re all some variant of “gorgeous” or “stunning” or what-have-you). SO. lemme try to explain for you.

yes, Lucien is connected to Tamlin bc they’re both part of the Spring Court and Tamlin abuses Lucien. this is Lucien:

Lucien eventually escapes the Spring Court with faerug (who’s a fucker to him) and flees to the Night Court, where riceman, Cassian, Azriel, Mor, and Amren all are (and eventually faerug, her eldest sister Nesta, and her older sister Elain; Elain and Nesta both become high fae so they’re part of the Night Court in that way, too). from left to right, this goes Nesta, faerug, Elain:

Cassian and Azriel trained with riceman so they’re kinda a trio/cadre (since sj///m likes the term “cadre”). Cassian is the General Commander (whatever tf that means bc that’s two different titles, but why tf not, i suppose) of riceman’s armies and Azriel is a spymaster who is pretty shit at being an actual spy. from left to right, this goes Cassian, riceman, Azriel:

Amren is second-in-command of the Night Court despite the fact she isn’t actually fae (and doesn’t become fae until the end of ac0war) and Mor is third-in-command of the Night Court as well as the leader of both the Hewn City and Velaris. from left to right, this is Amren and Mor:

Manon is a witch from the Thro///ne of Gl///ass series and Maeve is one of the villains in that same series, who is supposedly a fae but is actually a Valg, or a demon from another dimension trying to take over Erilea, the continent that the t0g series takes place on. this is Manon:

does that help at all? heh. she has so many side characters from ac0tar, t0g, and CCity, and so few are fleshed out in the slightest, so they’re very, very easy to get mixed up.

#ask #anonymous #anti sjm #anti tog #anti acotar #anti ccity #long post

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spaceshipkat · 4 years

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a note on an old post of mine made me wonder about Hunt’s future: not so much if he’ll be vilified or made endgame, but how we might be able to predict that based on what comes in CCity #2. like, do you think sj///m would kill him and resurrect him the way she did riceman (and faerug, for that matter)? ofc this is saying sj///m won’t be heavy-handed with making the reader hate him the way she did Tamlin and attempted to do with Chaol (still not over her whole shtick about Chaol being more closely related to alien than rowboat, as if that makes it better? it doesn’t? it makes it worse? especially bc Chaol was obviously going to be endgame prior to fae frenzy taking over after ac0tar and giving sj///m all the freedom she needed to make rowboat and alien endgame instead), since antis have made no secret of our dislike of that and she seems to have been determined to prove all of us wrong in CCity (spoiler alert: she didn’t, she just made everything worse)

course, given our disappointment with CCity’s “improvements” in diversity, world-building, and prose, i wonder if she’ll decide to just throw in the towel bc ~we’re hopeless and will never be satisfied~ and revert to her old ways to pander to stans and write whatever she likes

#anti sjm #anti ccity

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spaceshipkat · 4 years

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Sabaa Tahir is authorizing articles for a series for medium, holy moly the part 2 that was just released has anonymous quotes from ya authors and I swear ALL of them are targeted at sjmess lol

these two stood out most to me! (link in replies)

bc when i’ve talked before about sj///m not having longevity, this is what i mean. sj///m’s readership shrinks with every book she releases and she has nothing to show for her career apart from controversy, isolation, and introducing explicit sex into YA, none of which are everlasting. by the end of the next decade, i highly doubt that sj///m will be at all remembered, let alone still publishing books (at least under her real name). she pushes herself to the limit to produce shoddy work, treats her readers terribly, and doesn’t care about improving her standing amongst other authors, who could be her biggest supporters down the line when her career inevitably topples

and here? don’t have much to say other than sj///m is one of the most unique authors out there for how much her readers forgive. a reader should not have to come up with ridiculous excuses as to why an author’s books are shit, like her stans all have about why the quality of her books has grown worse and worse with every single one published. if she doesn’t get her act together in CCity, i don’t think her readership will remain as loyal. i could be wrong, but given the fact the anti community is growing while the sj///m fandom isn’t...? welp

#ask #anonymous #anti sjm #anti sjm behavior

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spaceshipkat · 4 years

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If you're looking for thoughts on CCity, a booktuber I follow, beautifully bookish bethany, just did a reading vlog of the arc. She's very self aware of s/jm criticisms and addresses a lot of that in her thoughts on the book. Biggest surprise? No smut scene until page 590!

here’s the link, for anyone who wants it! thank you alerting me of it! so imma give some thoughts as i watch the vid, too, bc why not. (this’ll also help if you don’t actually want to watch the vid, which is ~20 minutes long, as i cover every point she makes or thing she shares) also, i am in no way taking this as hard and true facts about the book, am not interpreting what the reviewer says to fit an anti mindset, and am not attacking the reviewer. i’m simply listing what she says and giving commentary, as i do with any vid i watch and transcribe on here. just to get that out there.

color me shocked there’s a lot of world-building in the first pages

apparently there’s a complex political system

there are blank pages for maps and lists of important things to know in the world

there are humans, shifters, angels, demons, satyrs, fae

a blend of sci-fi and fantasy (science fantasy? why not just call it science fantasy, blooms, if that’s what it is? that’s what Gideon the Ninth is and Tor has literally said that’s their most successful SFF debut ever)

Dani, Bruce’s best friend, apparently calls to mind Kate Daniels (Dani is a “super-powerful werewolf shifter”)

Part 1 is 90 pages

powerful friend groups are something that sj///m writes but, imo, not with any skill, so imma take what this reviewer says with a grain of salt

okay so we evidently get more diversity than what we typically find in an sj///m book but…this could mean anything from two bisexual characters and two black characters or it could mean every single character has some diverse aspect to themselves and…i’m leaning toward the former

“one of [Bruce’s] best friends is a dancer who sounds like she’s supposed to be black, another one is an assassin who i think is probably Asian” sigh if it’s not clear, it’s not rep (fwiw, the reviewer doesn’t sound certain)

there’s drugs in this. cowabunga. reviewer says that’s why the book feels a little older than her other YA. i just. don’t know how to feel about this.

please insert every single gif of someone throwing themselves out a window here to understand how i’m feeling about 1) “vampyr” and 2) “purred”

“I don’t do possessive and aggressive” excuse me? since when does an sj///m main character not do possessive and aggressive? is this…is this growth??????

i’m…shoot me, please: Bruce smells like lilac and nutmeg. what. the. heck. kind. of. combo. is. that. JUST STOP ALREADY. so pro tip: when i’m writing and giving my characters a scent or something (that’s never a unique scent, but something that comes from their shampoo or actual perfume or some shit) i look up actual perfumes, colognes, and shampoos to find good combos. I DON’T GO TO MY FUCKING SPICE CUPBOARD AND THEN GLANCE AT MY WINDOW BOX FOR INSPIRATION.

i’m okay. i am. i just. Bruce sounds like she smells unappetizing.

Bruce hooks up with people but so far no heavy smut at page 183

there’s hints that there is something special about Bruce

it’s longer than it needs to be! no one is surprised! a big revelation at the end of Part 2

there’s a lot of scenes that make it clear she had fun writing them but aren’t necessary to the plot. where did all the good editors go? *insert fairy godmother falling backward onto a piano*

over the top banter, Bruce showing off her skills at the gun range with all the guys, she’s one of those “not like other girls” characters

another character has been introduced and is setting up for another side relationship (sigh)

there’s a scene where they’re summoning a demon, evidently

halfway through the book there’s a lot of sexual tension between Bruce and Hunt, and an almost kiss, but nothing more yet (i am shocked. genuinely. sj///m herself had said there’s more sex in this than her YAs, so…what gives?)

yeah page 590 is the first smut scene. not written for shock value, but the reviewer feels that it is a pretty important point for the characters. hmm.

end of Part 3 has more revelations and twists. at this point, i’m not really taking these twists or revelations as anything important or ground-breaking, simply bc the reviewer has mentioned there are twists and revelations at the end of every part and at several times between, so make of that what you will. i, personally, don’t put much credence to it.

there’s a long villain monologue

she gets really long-winded in her descriptions, the first 2/3 could’ve been cut way down

the reviewer wants more fleshing out of the characters of color, some of the side characters aren’t white, we have a couple of queer characters

okay so…we’ve been here before. sj///m has introduced series with diverse representation and never followed through on it, killed off those characters, or wrote them horrifyingly stereotypically. just because she includes diversity does not mean it’s 1) good rep or 2) at all meaningful. i could be wrong! i want to be wrong! but i’ve been burned before. when it comes to CCity, i’m going in with an open mind for quite a lot, but not when it comes to diversity. i’m just tired of her writing appalling diversity and ordering us to accept it.

the typical toxic masculinity thing apparently isn’t as bad, nor are the alpha male love interests

apparently there isn’t a full-on explicit sex scene in this book???? did…sj///m change her mind while editing? she said there’s more sex in this book?? i mean, she’s said that at pretty much every interview or panel she’s been on for CCity??? what happened????

(did she listen to me when i said that Adult =/= erotica???)

i’m not being serious there

unless…?

there are steamier scenes later in the book, though. why does this come across as a contradiction of what the reviewer just said, though?

the reviewer feels this is set in the same universe as sj///m’s other books. apparently t0d and k0a are where the similarities between the universes (t0g and CCity) stem from.

“it feels rooted in things she has done before” okay so there’s two ways this could go: it’s actually set in the same universe or sj///m was just too lazy to make up new worlds that actually feel like new worlds, the way she did bw t0g and ac0tar (since those are basically copy/pasted). imo this will be up to interpretation from reader to reader. laziness or a nod? who knows!

there are a lot of romantic connections between characters. yippee.

this apparently has more of the epic scope of t0g than ac0tar, but i already predicted that (genuinely!)

a lot of drugs and alcohol, the reviewer feels it’s handled in a responsible way, lots of f-bombs (and “other things”???)

through most of the book, Bruce is 25 (can’t wait to see how sj///m butchers people my fucking age) and there are other characters older than that (presumably the angels)

in conclusion, i will be making this sound from now until i read it (and maybe i won’t even stop then, who knows?)

#ask #anonymous #anti sjm #anti ccity #receipts #long post

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spaceshipkat · 4 years

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First of all I really dislike sjm's books anti-racism, sexism, basic world building...we really could go on. But i knew that already, and decided not to read crescent city cause o knew I wouldnt like it. I dont really understand why you continue to read sjm's books when you know they're bad? It's not even that you have rmmnt read cc city, you have/are doing that. Just..DNF. What is that point ragging on a book you hate/dislike from an author you hate. (1)

(2) I honestly font understand what is the point? It just brings negative criticise of her old book. Sjm sucks, and you have actually gone to the point of trying to get interview about her, knowing so much about her interviews you can tell their content! Thata obsession. It's really not healtjy/ and or a good way to approach a book. If you hate sjm, warn people. But you should let her go at this point. signed, concerned and worried anon.

hi anon! i’m gonna say this once and for all, and forgive how aggressive this sounds:

i do not hate sj///m. i just don’t. i wish people would remember that.

so now that that’s outta the way, i went into CCity with an open mind, i really did, and i still hope that the book improves. as i say in my FAQ, i read sj///m’s books bc it’s good to know about the content so i can warn people and so i can spread awareness of the fuckery, and bc sometimes you have to read bad books in order to spread the word. look at the Continent, look at Black Witch, look at American Dirt, look at Cap///tive Pri///nce, look at any problematic book out there today: no one would know that they’re problematic if people didn’t read them.

therefore, here i am. if you don’t want to read the book, fine, don’t read the book. i, however, do, and as this is my blog i can talk about whatever tf i want. nearly all of the early reviews of CCity have been glowing, and have said that sj///m has greatly improved, but the book’s content completely contradicts that, and since those early reviews will likely influence how many readers pick these books up, it’s important there are reviews to shed light on the endless problems.

not to mention that it’s only my time i’m giving up to read this, not anyone else’s, and if people don’t want to see my posts about it, i am always consistent with my tags so people can blacklist them and not spend their time reading about the book if they don’t want to. please do not say that i am “obsessed” with sj///m bc not only is it untrue (look at my blog! look at how much other shit i talk about! there’s only a large number of CCity posts rn bc the preview literally just released), it’s also pretty insulting and is exactly what i’ve heard from stans’ mouths since i started running this blog. i know what was said in interviews bc sj///m is a popular fantasy author and i hope to be a fantasy author myself, and as such it’s important to know what other authors are talking about.

i appreciate your concern, but it is unneeded and not asked for.

#ask #anonymous #anti sjm

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