#both from an in-universe POV and from a narrative writing POV

[hanzajesthanza]

also regis swearing at stygga is so meaningful to me because he swore over milva’s dead body and also in front of angoulême (and assumedly cahir too)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#txt #especially because milva was like… not only his friend but he cared for her medically… #i mean he did for everyone (including cahir and dandelion’s head injuries) but #idk regis seeing her dead when he had saved her life under the bridge and counselled her about pregnancy and abortion #and (i guess it’s headcanon but) when her ribs were broken by the druids and she was healing from that he was there for her #milva was beat up by the narrative but regis was always there with bandages lol #so to see her DEAD completely DEAD with no possibility of healing her #also because *he was off* and he paused for a drink (or two—who knows how many) #of course he’s like ‘fuck this place. i’m going to fuck this shit up’ because how shitty of a surgeon must he feel right now #and if he can’t protect his friends now with medicine well the only other option in his arsenal is Fucking Shit Up #his NOSEDIVE begins early in the halls of stygga castle and he just starts losing it #milva: dies | me: oh… oh they’re *all* gonna die huh… #who knows if regis had returned to the rest of the company and milva was still alive. who knows. maybe he wouldn’t have continued to drink #and maybe he wouldn’t have made that suicidal leap towards vilgefortz in the end #i think that in the loss of the rest of the company regis had nothing left to live for #both from an in-universe POV and from a narrative writing POV #because remember that there were previously written versions in which regis survived and lived #so paying attention to not just when he dies but when he starts to go on this downward trajectory is relevant #because sapkowski intentionally devised a way in which he would die that would be plausible for his character #which means that his death isn’t just random. this version was a specially crafted version to ‘allow’ for his death #i love how AS was like well yeah of course milva and cahir are going to die. but yeah i admit angouleme and regis are just stupid #(to clarify he said angouleme dies stupidly) #but i think saying ‘there were other versions in which the vampire survived’ = this is the version where he is stupid #c: regis #analysis #IN THE TAGS lol #book: lady of the lake

[rocaillefox]

if you are writing fanfic about a story that has Themes and you say something in the exposition thats Directly Against These Themes, well. depending on what youre saying i may keep reading BUT the point is you are on some Thin Ice. (about if i will keep reading)

#ramblings #mar does reading fanfic #spoilers for orv in tags past this #the theme in question is: in orv the universe is a kid's subconscious #it isnt inherently cruel despite the text outright stating that at times; there isnt some secret orchestrator making it bad #and the acceptance of that allows for kindness to be extended even to the being keeping the universe going #kim dokja is an unreliable narrator #and the way the universe is created in terms of the things that are harsh #is at least partially informed by the kid's previous experiences #the whole thing is both a narrative about finding out that bad things happen for no reason (and cruelty is a reason) #and that fiction can help people regardless of the number of readers #plus so many other things but anyways #simplifying it down to 'the universe is cruel' may work if youre still writing from kim dokja's pov #but not necessarily so when writing from Everyone's pov #the term cruel implies intention. which the universe does not have #and in fact in orv specifically if the universe has any intention Especially towards kim dokja it is kindness #if you keep in mind his position as an overpowered mc who chooses his own story repeatedly #which isnt to say he hasnt gone through his own hardships! he Absolutely has and a lot of his choice was taken asay from him #but regardless of choice there are those who tried just as hard as he did and didnt end up with the same result #this kinda derailed . and is also about not Too big of an issue

[headspace-hotel]

I think that middle grade books tend to have more complexities to them first of all because there's less publisher focus on them, there was a YA boom not a middle grade boom so they're not as... squished into a money-making formula. And secondly because there's a lot less romantic plotlines "allowed" in middle-grade books, romantic subplots aren't inherently bad but they're a lot more likely to be forced into a book that doesn't need or want them because they "boost engagement" or be written by people who don't want to be writing because Love Triangles Sell. Middle grade books can't have the sort of "heaving muscles, sexy body, no/awful personality but I just Want Them" thing that can kind of absorb a book's interesting aspects and devour them, it's not safe for the kids!

Also middle grade worldbuilding might not always have pressure to make sense because it's "just for kids" but it's more likely to try and get exciting or weird or fantastical with it because it's For Kids, so people who have an interest in a world they're writing might have more freedom to do what they want with it leading to more novelty if not universally higher quality.

I think the romance thing is part of it.

I think this is evidence that the way romance is treated in "teen" novels has a ripple effect on every level of the web of character relationships and interactions in a YA novel.

In a "teen" novel, other characters the MC's age are almost always being courted by the narrative as potential love interests. This can starve the book of other character interactions through pure overcrowding.

"Love triangles" were common throughout the YA boom, and I'm convinced it's partly because it's a money-making strategy. Manufacturing a "ship war" is a way to get people to talk about your book even if there is really nothing there worth discussing. I've seen small fandoms have a sudden explosion in activity after a "love triangle" plot was introduced.

But a triangle needs three points, and a "love triangle" means you need to devote a lot of "page time" to the romantic subplots because...you have to develop at least two love interests. There are many YA novels that have the MC torn between more than two possible love interests.

This got even worse when multiple POV's became the norm in YA, because then multiple MC's needed to be "paired up." So you had books where the MC's were romantically involved with each other and also each had something going on with another character, or books where EVERY POV character was paired with another POV character.

For one thing, this crowds out other character interactions just because there's limited space in a book.

For another thing, it's almost always bad when every character in a book is either a POV, a love interest, or both, because mains and love interests are virtually always the least interesting characters in the story.

The protagonist has to be "relatable" above all else, and love interests in YA are unbearably generic and stripped of all unique qualities. Part of it is the "attractiveness" requirement; there is only one "attractive" body type (thin with muscles) from this point of view, and in general "hot" means such a narrow selection of things that all you can ultimately do is shuffle hair, eye and skin colors. And they rarely ever have distinct personalities. They're just kinda angry and broody but also protective but also angsty. Or they're just generically nice.

(You also almost always can't have them be nonhuman in any meaningful way, because, idk, that would be Weird I guess.)

So...you don't have enough characters that are fucked-up weird gremlins. When your story is dominated by a huge love polygon that somehow involves 5 people, none of those characters get to be ugly, and that can be devastating.

Middle grade characters have to be interesting, not so much attractive or relatable. So you have characters that are weird, gross and nasty. You can have things like sentient kitchen appliances or telepathic Pegasi as important characters because you don't have to spend so much story RAM on characters that are acceptably hot. You can have scrungly trolls and giants with hairy nostrils and warts. You can have all your characters be cats.

#middle grade fiction #young adult fiction #books

[sclfmastery]

Quickfire hot take but, even though I totally grasp each of us having favorite regens of the doctor and the master, both individually and together, as symbols of their ever-evolving positions along their personal and relationship journey.... I will never ever understand fan (or canon...) portrayals that draw such a sharp line of favoritism from the characters themselves.

Missy said "they're all the Doctor to me" when recalling a memory to Clara, and to me that encapsulates the enduring nature of their intense bond. To me that is THE line. Regeneration is a form of death and rebirth, but certain core traits are immutable, particularly to two people who are narrative foils, who have known each other for centuries (or possibly millennia) and keep being thrown together by fate again and again and again.

Bottom line is, every Doctor is the same person, and so is every Master. Acting as though one of them only cares for select versions of the other is just so strange to me. They aren't us. To them, it's just like loving (or hating, or both) someone through the eras of their life. Their same life, broken down into stages od evolution and devolution. It's the same person.

I can point to the exact episode (a lol very polarizing episode in Series 10) where I think this "they're not the same person from face to face" trend got exponentially more pronounced, but anyone who knows me knows what that episode is. I truly believe it's a disservice to every version of every Doctor and Master involved.

And I really don't think that Spydoc, which came soon thereafter, is just the playing-out of the consequences of a MASSIVE miscommunication between soul mates. It IS that, but not JUST. I think all of the writing about Thoschei that followed the exacerbating episode was trying to force this inaccurate distortion, this illusion of separateness, which is part of what made the events in Power of the Doctor so painful to Thoschei fans. The Doctor walked away from the Master (literally and figuratively, ironically inviting his inevitable despair--and her own demise) partly out of understandable hurt and rage and caution, but also out of a cold, repulsed misunderstanding: "Missy was willing to change and you regressed, you're a different person than she was, and you have angered me to the point of indifference; I am able to turn off caring about you because you are unrecognizable from her, the version of you that I could control save."

Maybe Whittaker's response is intended by Chibnall: we're supposed to recognize that she's wrong but HAS to be in order to survive another betrayal by the Master, which is what makes it all so tragic.

But I think fan reception has taken the whole thing ( "each Doctor and each Master is an entirely discrete self-contained being") too far, and it bothers me, so much, I think, because it's a trope that enforces the idea that love is transactional and contingent (in such a way that also perhaps unwittingly targets the socially, culturally, and economically marginalized). If you're the "good, small, manageable version" of yourself, then you're easier to love, and it's worth the investment. Otherwise, "you gambled and you lost," and you deserve to die lying in the filth of your own poor decisions. I get why that's an appealing, vindicting plot device, from the POV of an audience member who has felt hurt or even abused IRL. I understand it, I've BEEN the Doctor many times. It just doesn't sit well with me. Maybe that's just me. I could be at peace with that, as a Whovian :P.

But, in-universe, it's based on a premise that's factually erroneous! Dhawan's Master IS Missy IS Delgado IS Simm IS Jacobi IS Ainley IS Roberts IS Beevers etc etc etc. Just as Whittaker's Doctor is a RESPONSE to Capaldi's, but ALSO still IS Capaldi's. And Tennant's. And Baker's (x2). And Eccleston's. And Gatwa's. And Pertwee's. Etc etc. Dhawan's Master was the Prime Minister of the UK and also made chairs that eat people and also cried remembering the names of people she killed. It's the SAME PERSON.

Lol, not quickfire at all. It's an old bone to pick, I know. I just can't stop finding the whole trope...very itchy.

(ok to reblog...dunno if anyone would, LOL, but feel free to reblog and to comment).

I'm gonna tag some ppl I know I've chatted about this with before to see if there are new insights. And feel completely free to disagree with me on any count. @natalunasans @mostincrediblechange @drummingncise @modernwizard @nickcagestrufflehog @rearranging-deck-chairs @koschei-no-more @likeacharacterinamusical

#meta #thoschei meta #or just kinda me yelling lol)

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 50 – Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

I read this book over the course of one day and two flights,, which on the one hand was probably not the best way to do it but on the other is kind of appropriate given the prominence of travel and dislocation to the narrative. Anyway, reading so quickly and then spending a week on vacation without time to work on this review does mean that my thoughts are all a bit vague and muddled, so apologies about that in advance. Anyways!

The only other work of St. John Mandel’s I’ve read was Station Eleven, which was easily one of the best things I read last year and good enough to put this on my TBR as well. I went in basically entirely blind, beyond the basics of ‘time travel’ and ‘COVID novel’. It might just be that my expectations were too high, but frankly I found it a fairly disappointing read, and pretty strictly inferior to Station Eleven in just about everything – the later even manages to be a better pandemic novel despite the handicap of being published in 2014. My main reaction to finishing it was something along the lines of ‘that’s it?’ and then going back to staring down at the clouds.

The book jumps POVs a fair bit, but the deuteragonists are an author on a global book tour in the days before a pandemic sweeps the world (and moon) in the 22nd century, and a bit of an aimless failson in the 23rd who gets a job investigating a temporal anomaly through the power of nepotism and goes back to interview her and a few others across the centuries who were touched by it. The detective is the one who drives essentially all of the plot and makes all the choices – none of the POVs are really filled with a surfeit of passion or drive, the author is the only one who seems to particularly like her life – but by wordcount and focus I very much got the sense that the author was far more of the book’s emotional heart than the 20th or 21st century POVs. (Which is something of a shame, because I found both of them rather more compelling in the screentime they did have, being honest).

The plot is, well, thin. Our 23rd century POV (a hotel detective) is repeatedly told that he will be tempted to do something (save the author from her scheduled pandemic death) and warned of consequences if he does, repeatedly promises that he will not, and then as soon as the chance presents itself does the thing with basically no warning or introspection, after which he faces almost exactly the consequences he was warned of. He is then saved through the power of a supergenius sister ex machina, and the whole anomaly is tied up in a neat time loop in a vague reality-as-narrative sort of way. As a work that’s more literary than genre the characters all felt kind of flat and static, no one ever really surprised or fascinated me.

And as far as it as a science fiction novel goes, I don’t know – there’s a decent chance it’s a much more impressive read if you haven’t zoned out scrolling past dozens of pages of earnest debate on the simulation hypothesis and read/watched however many different time loop stories before? It could have all fit pretty nicely in a mid-season Doctor Who episode, honestly, and I don’t really mean that as a compliment.

Emotionally, the experience of living through COVID is pretty clearly at the heart of the thing. Both the sense of pure terror at realizing your survival is a matter of luck and statistics, the isolation and alienation from the world that’s part and parcel of lockdown, the sort of awesome horror at looking back across history and realizing how totally unremarkable seeing such mass death around you is over the centuries, how in a generation it will be nothing but a bit of trivia. This stuff was definitely more compelling than the rest of the book, though it did fall prey to a rapidly growing pet peeve of mine and just kind of forgot all the ‘essential workers’ who weren’t doctors or nurses and just kind of write them out of the universal pandemic lockdown experience.

Anyway yeah, not in any sense a badly written book, but I found it a disappointment.

#book review #sff #sea of tranquility #emily st john mandel #lit

[bookish-monster]

RECOMMENDATION

Providence Girls

by Morgan Dante - find them on Twitter and Instagram as well

The StoryGraph link contains information such as publication date, page count, and community-created content warnings

Providence Girls by Morgan Dante is a standalone sapphic novella set in H. P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror universe in the 1930s and 40s. The story is a slow burn buildup of the romantic relationship between Lavinia “Vin” Whateley, an SA and incest survivor who fled from Dunwich, Massachusetts to East Providence in Rhode Island, and Asenath “Azzie” Waite who abandoned her hometown of Innsmouth for East Providence in an attempt to escape the slow transformation of her body and mind into an eldritch being of the sea.

I really loved this book! The prose is luscious but curt, using a lot of short, sharp sentences full of vivid description. The opening scene of Vin fleeing her murderous father (who intended to sacrifice her to a Great Old One after she bore its hybrid children at his… behest) and getting lost and delirious in the wilderness of New England is beautiful but unforgiving. Everything is described, from the bird calls and inquisitive wet nose of a bear cub to the infected cut on Vin’s foot that oozes pus and blood.

The chapters bounce between the first-person POVs of Vin and Azzie, who are both writing down their thoughts of each other. They often address each other in their respective sections, reflecting on their relationship with one another and how it developed over the course of less than a year. The story is very slow in the beginning and middle, focusing on the humdrum daily affairs of Vin learning to be her own person outside of her abusive father’s shadow and Azzie slowly opening her heart to her new housemate as her transformation progresses. The tension between Azzie and Vin grows stronger with every page, and feels realistic for two women who have been deeply wounded but nonetheless crave intimacy and trust. 

A lot of this book concerns itself with the misogynistic violence that was present in the earlier half of the 20th century in America, as well as with the misogyny that is present in Lovecraft’s writing and universe. Both Vin and Azzie rail against it in their own ways, but are constrained by their gender and society. A quote: “[The doctor] was only here to ensure you weren’t dead. Women disappeared sometimes, and their fathers and husbands were never questioned because what they did with their women was their business.” Azzie is mentioned as being the only woman to have graduated from Miskatonic University.

The entire book feels less like a love letter to Lovecraft’s work and more of a critique of it, an exploration of the women who so often fall through the cracks in these narratives. We see this in Azzie’s unnamed mother, a Deep One who forsook the sea and the eldritch glory of the ocean floor in order to be exiled to the attic of her human husband’s home—all for the sake of watching her daughter grow up on land.

Overall, I absolutely adored this book. The romance between Vin and Azzie is beautiful and heart-wrenching at the same time, as Azzie’s transformation drives her to the edge of death on land—and yet she, like her mother, does her best to ignore the sea for the sake of a loved one. There is definitely sapphic monster fucking here, as well as discussions of what it means to be a monster in someone’s eyes. Providence Girls is a delicious, slow burn meditation on the Cthulhian mythos and sapphic romance within it, and I greedily devoured every word.

Find this book on Amazon Kindle (US)

#monster lover #monster romance #bookblr #terato #book lover #book recommendation #human x monster #sapphic books #lgbt books #queer books #wlw fiction

[the-sun-and-the-sea]

I saw you recently did one like this but I still wanted to ask, (sorry) because I like your blog very very much. Do you have any other recs that take place during Annie’s games, with like the development in the relationship between Annie and finnick? If the ending is with Finn 💀 that’s ok but preferably not… it can be short or long

Love your writing style btw

Hi, thanks so much for your interest! I don’t know how many new recs I’ll be able to give you since I just did a similar list, but I’ll try. I also might be mentioning fics I’ve put on previous lists, but they were from a long time ago so you might not have seen them. If you haven't already, I would strongly recommend looking at my other lists because there are many stories there that fit your request!

The first two have been mentioned on other lists, and the rest are new.

Breathe by The_Twisted_Kingdom - This is a long one that starts at Annie’s Games. I like the dramatic irony in here because they don’t know each other and Annie doesn’t know what Finnick is doing in the Capitol. I will mention that it's incomplete and hasn't been updated for about three years, so just a warning about that.

Just Us by Nanyoky - This is another one that I really like and it's similar to the one above. It is completed (and canon compliant, sorry) but the story wraps up nicely. This could be a good read if you haven't checked it out yet.

this little universe between our backs by electrumqueen - This is a short one but it fits your request and is so beautiful. There's such a strong command of language here that really makes it a compelling read.

(no) hope in the water by rhllors - This is in a similar style to the last one. I really like how it portrays the brutality of the Games and Annie's resilience through it, as well as her and Finnick's relationship.

Five boys who were not Finnick Odair. by sakurasencha - This is a cool take on Finnick and Annie's dynamic, as well as Annie's history. It's a nonlinear narrative dealing mostly in flashbacks, but the central point of the story is Annie's Games and the aftermath. This could be a good read if you're looking for something unique.

Where the Sun Meets the Sea by sunflowersmile - This one really fleshes out Annie's life and her relationship with Finnick outside of the Games, although the Games are a focal point. It's alternating POV with Finnick and Annie so it's also cool to see both sides.

Not About Heroes by EmilyRose34 - This is a fic with the classic premise of Annie's Games, but what I think makes this one unique is the dynamic created between Finnick and Annie. It really helps illustrate the "she crept up on me" line because they don't really register each other right away. I really like the slow burn here.

I hope you can find something, and feel free to reblog with additions or self-promo if you want!

#asked and answered #fic rec list #thg fic #odesta #finnick odair #annie cresta #thg #the hunger games

[miatartistry]

For your decision-making purposes!!

Honestly, I adored the fact that Laurence went blind. It added an additional limit to his character, as well as some twisted irony: for someone who places a lot of value on looks/first appearances, how would he have coped with not being able to see reflect on him?

It made me super angry when his blindness was just cured, straight out, even when I was younger and first watching through the series; it didn’t sit right with me. I understand that it’s a universe where magic exists, but magic should also have some limitations, so that would be a neat way to expand upon those limits!! Especially with Zoey, who’s magic is primarily healing-based; you could even go into something deeper, in which Laurence’s sight might be something that he wants but not necessarily needs.

There’s also not a whole lot of canonically disabled characters within the series, anyway, so to have part of the main cast be disabled in any manner would not only be a point for representation, BUT it would also be super fun from a writing and character building standpoint!!

How would his fighting style reflect with his lack of sight? Would he adopt one of Aphmau’s dogs as his own as a seeing eye dog/partner, seeing as his sister took one of her dogs as her own (or heck, maybe Ungrth would stick around more often, “acting as his eyes”)? How would he interact with Garroth, and how would Garroth interact with him, considering his hang ups in the beginning about showing his face? Etc etc

SO SORRY, this got long, I just feel super passionate about this subject specifically lol, and also Laurence; he’s one of my biggest comfort characters. I’m currently writing a blind character of my own, as well, so I’ve got some experience with both it’s challenges portraying it correctly + how it would fit into the narrative :D

Thank you for this amazing response!! I agree that him being blind adds a lot to his character, as someone who takes his own looks very seriously. But that’s not all that it could add. I’m not gonna spoil anything for my rewrite, but I’ll give you a hint: Laurance has a huge affinity for the earth. With this blindness, his senses would be heightened and he would notice just how uncanny this connection of his is (something he even had before this blindness but just wasn’t noticeable). As you said, vision being something he wants but he doesn’t need, just because of this natural connection he has with the Earth. Also, I just think it’d be funny if he could dodge a ditch perfectly but then run into an actual human being right after 💀

More under cut:

I also totally agree about having representation in the main cast. It felt a little weird that his sight was just healed with little to no explanation on how it was done, it almost felt like Jess thought it was an obstacle she wouldn’t be able to write around. Me personally, I’ve never written from a blind persons perspective before, except a little bit from Laurance’s POV in the first chapter of TBATD. It’s a challenge that I really do want to take on though, not only because of the representation (that I hope I can get right, if you have any sources, advice, or experiences you’d want to share let me know!), but also from a character building standpoint:

You brought up how his fighting style would be affected, which I’m thinking about too. Not only would he have to learn how to sense the battlefield, he’d also have to learn new skills and techniques. I’ll do my research and look more into how blind people can fight, but for Laurance I think that’d take a huge toll on his mental health. He has trained basically his entire life, he was the head guard of Meteli. He gets frustrated easily (not only is it just his personality, but his emotions can get sort of out of control because of his Shadow Knight situation), and the beginning of learning how to fight blind would not be easy. Of course he’d have help, presumably from Garroth (more friendship development for those two. They despise each other in my rewrite), but it’d still be super hard and he’d probably be depressed about it.

And more on his his relationship with Garroth, yeah I saw someone post something about Garroth taking off his helm off and for the first time, Laurance just silently feels his face and I think that sort of sealed the deal for me at that point. If you don’t know already, Garroth and Laurance will have a romantic relationship in my rewrite (well, as romantic as rivalry can get), so I can already imagine some really cute scenes for them if Laurance stays blind, as well as some angsty scenes.

Laurance is an amazing character and I’m happy you’re just as passionate about him as I am. He’s a comfort for me definitely lol, ever since I was kid. For your own character, update me on how it goes!! Thank you again for this response. <3

#sorry it got so long #I just live laugh love Laurance daily #minecraft diaries #aphmau #mcd #laurance zvahl #mcd rewrite #minecraft diaries rewrite #fuck it’s a minecraft roleplay #The Blessed and the Damned

[myrfing]

i think. ok. sitting on my hands for a bit thinking about how to say this. america is something of an outlier in the world as far as their experience with war, nationalism, and militarism goes, in terms of our psychological and physical proximity to it and our history and the kind of power we experience from it. american people making media crit who are otherwise brilliant tend to straight up forget or not fully realize this. they think that War Is The Same across the world and how they experience it and how it impacts their thinking and worldview must be a universal human thing that has variance, but within the same range of perspective. but warfare is extremely abstract for most americans. the point of the way we conduct warfare is to make it abstract for us and as the “blood is rarely shed on ‘our’ soil” country we are always looking from the pov of the guy holding the axe, but like, as a dot on a gamescreen. and so the way we parse narratives about war is skewed, and we are susceptible to having our understanding of it shaped by fiction. which is why so many people have trouble grasping how, say, japanese stories that have a “war is bad” tempo to it, may still be structured around imperialistic notions. the white american antiwar narrative has largely been centered around the trauma it inflicts on american soldiers for ultimately nothing and so when americans see this trauma thing in any story, including any foreign story, they’re pretty quick to deem it as unequivocally antifascist and anti-imperialist: see, look, the story tells us how millitarism dehumanizes us and leads to all sorts of bad shit, how can this be xyz. it is obviously a cautionary, condemning tale about Humanity (<- no examination of a whole other culture’s differing definition of humanity). but then this is said by someone who has little to no clue on seeing in action how the self-inflicted trauma of war and it’s suffering and horror and humilliation can actually create justification for its continuing. the logical, easy two step assumption taken as granted is always that if something is bad and hurts, you stop doing it. this is like. different for the people of countries with extremely extensive long periods of modern warfare on their soil and inflicted on their people, who do not have an extremely wide berth to the violence they both perpetuate and experience. like i.e. what it actually means to dehumanize is mythological itself to a lot of white americans, and then they do shit like assume all grotesque imagery is pointed inward because that’s easy to say for people who have no real stake in it. Wat ever actually i got tired of writing this post the context is i just watched another a0t is actually good analysis vid and it did not change my mind

#also i have to say the easiest way to tell when a story is like that is when it takes its war narrative utterly seriously #and does not have an element of human absurdity and humor to it. #not a 100% thing but you can smells it yes

[mihrsuri]

Superlatives of my Stories: 2023 Edition

I stole this meme from @petralemaitre

Leitmotif of the year: You get to be a survivor of sexual assault! You get to be a survivor of sexual assault! You get an OT3 and a Found Family! Or ‘that is yours, I am not’ across multiple fandoms.

My best story of this year: I think probably There’s Blood (On The Side Of The Mountain) which is the West Wing ‘CJ was kidnapped not Zoey’ AU, written from the POV of an outsider OC - it unfurled exactly how I wanted it to - an atmosphere of ambiguity as to what happened, what’s happening and what’s going to - also very narrowly focused.

My favorite and/or truest story of this year: My absolutely favourite thing I wrote was a tie between two Grishaverse stories - a Hunger Games AU and Get Wrecked Tante Heleen (tm) - Never Again (It’s Not An Act Of Love) & Karma (Is My Family)

They are both stories about found families, about how the narratives of those who abuse and hurt you aren’t true, about love as partnership - all kinds of love as well, about the gift of choice. Also stabbing some fuckers.

Story of mine most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: I think they’ve all been incredibly appreciated considering - actually possibly uneasy (with the semi divine) which is about Rings of Power Gil-galad and his attitude towards Elronds biracial identity which wasn’t not me as a biracial person having Feelings about it.

I would also always always love more comments on the Tudors OT3 Verse. More content in the OT3 verse in general but I understand it’s niche content.

Most fun story to write: Every single bit of You Belong With Us which was an absolute joy - there was so much love and trust and happiness (and then an undertone of sadness at not being able to express that love openly that I hope came through as well)

Story with the single sexiest moment: For me personally it’s House This Love (Of Ours)

Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: Did I write Scarlet Pimpernel OT4 fic with a definite villain Chauvelin who is in love with both Blakeneys? Yes. Did I also manage to write (fictional versions) of Robert Dudley/Elizabeth I knife kink fic? Also yes. I maintain both of those are fine ;).

The Thomas Cromwell/Anne Boleyn/Henry VIII Harem AU is the most Dead Dove Do Not Eat in all honesty - I was having a lot of very personal trauma feelings in that one.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: I wrote the Bartlet Daughters in I Tried To Rewrite It (But I Can’t) and I think that really made me think about both Ellie and Elizabeth Bartlet in a way I never had before - even though it’s obviously an AU verse it got me to recognise things about them and about the way they approach their parents high profile in very different ways.

Hardest story to write: It could have been the Knife Kink fic (because kink (all kink) is a giant personal trigger for me) but I think it might actually have been the OT3 verse fic because there’s so much thought and preparation that went into it - though the actual writing of the story isn’t actually the hard part.

Biggest disappointment: have not in fact written more of Crown Of Ashes, the Tudors OT3 Verse AU AU of ‘what happens when Mary Tudor gets everything she thinks she wanted and it turns out it absolutely sucks and turns to ashes for her’

Biggest surprise: Did not expect to be writing knife kink and also did not expect to fall headfirst back into writing West Wing fic but for the latter I have to credit the lovely Discord People and also @miabicicletta in particular.

Most unintentionally telling story: It is almost certainly In Our Bedroom (After The War) or the giant Grishaverse Cuddle Pile ficlet.

Best title: Only Wore This Doublet (So You Could Take It Off) is the aforementioned Elizabeth I/Robert Dudley knife kink fic and honestly I am so proud of that title. A+ use of Taylor Swift lyric.

Story I haven't yet written, but intend to: The Sam/Donna/Josh fic told in social media posts.

*

#meme

[pemokiandkenacia]

A More Thorough Introductory Post:

Hello, friends, and welcome to our semi-official P&K content blog. I'm @smzeszikorova, and I'm working with @adrielcastlyre on a series of four books, currently titled Pemoki & Kenacia, though that name may be subject to change. We've spent about ten years world-building and character-building. Not an ideal timeline, but I regret nothing. The joy's in the process.

We've laid out the foundations for all four of our books—made the transition from pantsers to planners. The outline's all there, and though there's a few important details to work out, we know what direction we're taking. Phase one's complete. Once I've submitted my thesis (UPDATE: SUCCESS) , we'll be set to hammer out our drafts.

For newcomers:

Pemoki & Kenacia's a bit ambiguous, genre-wise. The closest thing to it's probably hard fantasy. As for our target audience, I'd go with "adult". our POV characters' age range is pretty broad, and their interests and concerns vary accordingly, but they're written with adult readers in mind. I'm cautious to reduce P&K to a string of TikTok tropes. That said, here are some things you can expect to find here:

Multiple protagonists. Our cast is large. We've got approximately 90 named characters in-universe whose appearances in the end product are more or less guaranteed. Granted, most of these aren't central to the plot. But our main cast is on the large side. Each book generally has one to two protagonists; they change from book to book.

Multiple POVs. And to ensure that each character's arc comes to a satisfying conclusion, I switch between points of view somewhat regularly. (My tendency's to head-hop. For college degree reasons, I read a lot of old-timey Russian literature in the vein of Anna Karenina, and it influences my style, but I know head-hopping's a bit of a controversial writing choice these days. Whether we'll try to shift toward a purely omniscient style is currently under debate. Regardless, expect to get to know a lot of characters.)

War and international conflict. Our story's very concerned with the personal struggles of our characters—familial conflict, romance, friendship, betrayal, etc.—but it all takes place within the broader backdrop of these warring countries we've invented. And the war takes center stage often.

Deep worldbuilding. This universe is large—well suited for such a large cast. Currently, it involves five multinational regions, eleven countries, and nineteen cities. With limited space to explore all these places, we highlight what's essential and let the rest inform the narrative in subtler ways.

More reality than fantasy. People who’ve had a look at our works in progress say that we’re pretty grounded in reality for a couple of fantasy writers. All our main characters are human. Magic is a genetically-inherited phenomenon with rules loosely based in science. And while none of our fantasy regions, ethnicities, or religions are meant to be read as directly analogous to any real-world ones, they do draw influence from the real world at times. I’m sure you’ll notice this in the Russian-based languages of the Sitrii Elariny, the English-based language of Kenacia, and the language of Qhiron, which draws from both but perhaps not quite so obviously. In our worldbuilding, we make a point to give our invented nations believable complexity, heterogeneity, and political and economic motivations. We’re not too big on the “This region is inhabited by the stouthearted, down-to-earth Welverpeople who universally prefer farming tools to swords, are warm and inviting to outsiders, practice simple domestic magic, and make for extremely loyal allies” vibe.

Conlang. Fairly self-explanatory. Usually I'll just say, "[Insert sentence here]," Character X said in Pemokese. But now and again, when I feel it enhances the narrative, I'll leave it in my invented language and let readers draw their conclusions about the meaning.

Problematic characters, dark topics, and complex, incomplete redemptions. It's very important to us that we approach our darker topics with caution and sensitivity, but we're not writing Aesop's fables. Don't expect comfortable, obvious answers to the ethical questions we pose. Folks looking for escapism or retributive justice narratives should probably look elsewhere.

Queerness; disability; ethnic, racial, and religious diversity. Our story isn't really about these elements, per se, but our characters come from a variety of backgrounds, both real and invented, and it does inform the story. (We're both white and culturally Christian, and in terms of our relationships with queerness and disability, we'd both make for lousy representation, so we're operating with the understanding that we're gonna need hella beta reading once all this is done.) And on a similar note . . .

We take some unusual liberties with our world. Fake religions (Dzulyan, Kvotian, etc.) coexist with real ones. And though our languages and cultures are obviously influenced by the real world, they're all explicitly invented. We're not too concerned with making our universe consistent with real-world history, so while we do touch on issues related to queerness, ethnicity, etc., we don't go out of our way to align the experiences of our cast with those of people living within a certain real-world time period. When we decide what scientific knowledge and technology to include, our key is internal consistency. We'll guide you through the rules of this universe as needed, but if at any point you find yourself wondering what time period we're supposed to be in, just know that the answer is "none of the above".

Now, with all that said...

What are you likely to find on this blog?

Updates. If you want to know how P&K's coming along, here's where we'll ramble about the process.

Art or other related side projects.

Requests for beta readers, once we get to that stage.

This blog's a writeblr of sorts, but we won't discuss anything unrelated to P&K here. My coauthor's not very involved with social media in general, and I'm in and out of the writers' community on this site. So if you're here for tag games, community events, etc., @smzeszikorova's where you'll find all that. This blog's essentially a dumping ground for P&K materials. I can't imagine it'll be too effective as a hype builder, but once our books are released, everything we post here will be available for our readers to see. And on the off chance that our books get big (which I'm not counting on, but it'd be pretty cool), those of you who join in the fun now will have special clout. "We were here from the beginning." Do with that what you will.

We take asks! If you're interested in putting our characters in (non-erotic) situations, feel free to send in an art prompt.

As for the books themselves, I've tried to be sparing about plot reveals. (That'll be truer from here on out than it was on my other blog. Current mutuals, I swear I'm not kidding when I say all those art posts, quotes, and snippets I used to post are basically void. That's how much we've changed over the past few months. But the first book's premise remains the same:

As the threat of war looms on the horizon, Catherine Leures, an impoverished Kenacian woman living in the north of Pemoki, enlists in an effort to pull her family from the depths of financial ruin.

(I think I'll hold off on descriptions of the other books for now. They'd be pretty spoilery. But I'll post more thorough blurbs as I start getting these published. We do have titles for the second, third, and fourth books: Fledgling's Descent, Stirrings of a Silent War, and The Fallen Star of Thaeryvon.)

What do I mean when I say everything's changed, then?

I mean the process of filling plot holes, removing extraneous plotlines, and accounting for sensitivity in our characterization has resulted in a good number of our characters' personalities, relationships, and arcs being completely revamped. Lucky you! Aside from knowing the names, national and moral alignments, and general appearances of most of the first book's main cast, you'll be on about the same page as new readers if/when P&K gets published.

Before I go, a couple updates about P&K:

Since I started writing my thesis, my writing style has changed significantly. We've been making stylistic revisions to our original draft. Thankfully for our future editors, our first draft's gotten a lot more concise.

All the canon events are essentially set. The "outline" I did for my thesis is basically one long synopsis. All that's left for our first draft is to fill everything out with dialogue and detail. (Easier said than done, but I'm excited anyway.)

My coauthor and I have been playing with the idea of a character narrator: someone with a personal investment in the story. We're not sure yet, but it's a fun experiment.

If you've gotten this far, thanks so much for reading this incredibly long post.

#writing intro #writers on tumblr #writeblr #creative writing #introductory post #blog intro #fantasy writers #writeblr reintro

[nattikay]

ok so um. There’s certainly plenty to be said about Way of Water, plenty of lil comments I want to make...but before I can post about any of that (separately), I just need to ramble about Neteyam a little bit. Bear with me. ;_;  (yes, this will be spoilery)

so the idea that Neteyam was going to die had already been pretty prominent in the fandom for several months. At first it seemed to me to be based on nothing but wild speculation for potential sad plot points. But the more and more promotional material came out, the more and more plausible the theory became, much to my dismay. By the time we reached release day, I had already (if reluctantly) resigned myself to thinking that yes, it was probably going to happen. 

And sure enough, it did.

Even going in knowing full well it was extremely likely to happen, even going in having 100% accepted that it was bound to happen and fully expecting it....gosh it still hurt to watch.

I will admit, I did not cry nearly as much as I expected to during this movie. I teared up a bit multiple times, definitely felt the physical heartache plenty, but nothing spilled over. I thought this was kinda weird, given that previously I’d shed tears even over certain shots from the trailer.

When Neteyam died and I absolutely felt my heart breaking in two yet tears still didn’t fall despite the emotional pain I was absolutely in, I realized why: I was just really dehydrated ^^;

see, worried about having to use the bathroom during the long runtime, I’d been very careful to drink as little as possible throughout the day. Well....it technically worked I guess. I certainly didn’t need to go to the bathroom. but it looks like it dried up most of my tears too (maybe not a wholly bad thing given that this was in public, I suppose).

....and yet despite that, DESPITE my dehydration........that ending???? that ending?????? let’s just say I STILL managed to leave the theater with a tearstained face

“bittersweet” is certainly A Word

just

m a n 😭

and I mean. from a writing perspective, I get it. I really do. The “before your birth, after your death” etc theme ran throughout the movie. Using an unrelated character to do it wouldn’t have as strong an emotional impact as using one of the core family. I get it. As a narrative choice, it makes sense.

but from an in-universe/character-pov perspective....gosh golly that hurt. that hurrrrrrrttttt and I don’t know if I’m ok. ngl i legit feel vaguely ill ;_;

My current job is fairly mindless work, so while I’m working my brain can wander. Naturally today my mind was on the fact that I’d been seeing the movie later so of course I thought a lot about it. Like I said earlier, I was already aware of the Neteyam-dies theory (well, no longer a theory I guess) and at that point had accepted it as inevitable, if depressing. I’d been trying to come to terms with it for a while already.

Those who have followed me long enough might know that there’s another movie I like called Wolf Children. It’s a beautiful movie, honestly, one that I appreciate very much, but have only watched a small handful of times because it makes me sob every single time. It’s about a woman who meets a...well, basically a werewolf (except that the transformations are voluntary), they fall in love and have two kids, but right after the birth of the second one the father dies in an accident, leaving the normal-human mother, to raise these two wolf kids on her own. And that’s most of the movie, following the family as the kids grow up until at the end of the movie all three characters go their separate ways. The ending always felt a little bittersweet to me because, even though both children are alive and well living their own lives, the mother is alone again, with only her memories. We saw the whole childhood, that special time as a family unit, and now that period of their lives is over.

That is, essentially, what I was expecting to be done with Neteyam. Watch his whole life, from birth to, well, in his case death. We see the whole thing and then it’s over, no more future with the rest of his family. Which hurts. And yes, that’s...more or less what happened.

While the two scenarios are not perfectly comparable, mentally framing Neteyam’s (then-impending, now-confirmed) death in terms of Wolf Children did actually help me cope with the then-theory. 

I have to remind myself that even though his story is over, and that it ended tragically, that what we saw...wasn’t everything. It was snippets. We saw only very few snippets. For long stretches in between those snippets. For roughly 15 years the Sully family lived more or less in peace. Neteyam had a happy childhood. He lived all that, even though we only saw it so very briefly. I have to remind myself of this, repeatedly.

because even knowing that, watching the tragedy...it’s...it’s hard...

i just...

i just...

and then that. that ending I--

I just--

my heart is broken, it is aching, i cannot ;_;

#awow spoilers #avatar #avatar 2 #the way of water #neteyam #i'm sorry for rambling so much about this I just. i need to cope #i have many other comments to make about the movie both silly and serious but this... #idk man this is just weighing particularly heavy on me right now; my heart is legitimately still hurting #there was so much good and/or interesting stuff to discuss in this movie and #i really really don't wanna let my heartbreak over neteyam's death negatively color the whole thing for me #especially when I went it very much expecting it #so i just. i just need to Cope #bear with me please #it's getting late though...i'll post other more lighthearted comments and such tomorrow #but i really needed to get this one out of the way first #man. just.........man #ow ;_;

[mswyrr]

@currymanganese​

I grew up on a lot of cheesy action movies myself (and “dude genre” stuff generally) and there’s genuinely some good stuff there! Some of them have some real vibes about masculinity and wanting to be a good person in a cruel world. Which is why I referenced “Hard Target”--with its themes of fighting back against the rich exploiting homeless veterans--and I’m going to name-drop the first “Universal Soldier” at some point (maybe in sequel one-shots?) as well as the “The Equalizer” (2014)* which is just a perfectly paced, characterized, and structured action movie imo -- there’s some neat stuff with the way Mikey was like -- a father to Carmy as well as an older brother?? Which added to the stress Mikey felt and how he felt he couldn’t share his burdens with his baby brother. 

I was thinking of the sharing of these pop culture narratives about what it means to be a good man, between the two of them. A good man (and gentlemanly - strong and gentle) is something Carmy seems to really want to be. But, like with so many things in the story - where do you get that info/model? He’s learned from kitchen culture (both terrible and good things), but I wanted there to be something more re: pop culture and Mikey too. And for that to be something Emmanuel and him could find a chill guy thing to do together eventually.

(IMO outside of their art, where they’re AWESOME, neither Sydney nor Carmy have a very “sophisticated palate” - they simply don’t have the time for it, with how hard they’ve had to work at their area of expertise. So I don’t think either of them is a snob about movies etc!)

Once I’ve got the core narrative of my multi-chapter down, I plan to do some one shot stories here and there 🤞

*I rewatched it while writing my fic actually - because the way the widowed male lead there feels about his wife is so intensely romantic and resonates with how Carmy feels about Sydney in my story. (And the lead there is also neurodivergent). The story is all from Sydney’s pov but I kind of had to figure out his whole pov and arc going on “off screen” and under the surface so the characterization would track!

#my writing #misc text posts #my meta #the bear meta

[mendedrum]

My discworld review after the first 17 books

1. Rincewind Series

I think the writing got stronger over time as the narratives became more plot driven. I still like the mystery/nondirectional aspect of TCOM and TLF though. There was an unpredictability about it that would be challenging to replicate with a main character that isnt like Rincewind: i.e someone who pretty much wants to live in boring times. Sourcery still bothers me the most. Firstly because the Wizards didnt get true repercussions about the damage they did. Secondly, while Sourcery ended on strong note, the sequel Faust Eric betrayed everything we've learned about Rincewind and the Dungeon Dimensions. It cheapened the drama invested on Sourcery and I found that aspect annoying. Interesting Times tho, picks up Rincewind's characterization once again and puts it back on the track, except that it doesnt explain what happened to Rincewind's status as a demon-bound-to-a-mortal kind of creature. It was great to see Rincewind showing off his political skills though. It's a good nod to his character being more attached and connected to the wider world compared to his wizard colleagues.

2. Wizards subseries

It's great that they've been fleshed out over time and over so many books. I like that since they're in Ankh-Mopork, they'd eventually get involved in many of the events that happen there. I like that their politics and power struggles are contained to mostly their own and don't really bother with the rest of the world. It's a refreshing POV to be in. Most surprising were their involvement in Mort, Moving Pictures, Reaper Man, Lords and Ladies, Men at Arms and Soul Music. They help expand the worldbuilding better. I still dont like The Bursar's characterization being sacrificed to make Ridcully a bit more respectable tho.

3. Death

Why is it that every major Death story just revolve around the thesis of "what happens when death gets distracted from his job"? Like I know why of course, he's so damn efficient that without him doing the work, everything in time-space just falls apart and tries to correct itself. Anyhow. Pratchett's Death is still the best take on real world death for me. It has helped me go thru difficult times, over grief and over the celebration of life. Death being one of the heart of Discworld is what makes Discworld truly a gift. You'll probably have to pull teeth for me to finish Reaper Man tho.

4. City Watch / Night Watch / The Watch

I haven't gotten far in these subseries but I do know that whenever cops are involved their ought to be high stakes suspense/thriller/action and drama. It's where Pratchett can truly flex on his whoddunit writing style. I find a lot of the narratives pretty standard action-thriller wise. Samuel Vimes is still my favorite of the bunch. I just cant get behind the character of Carrot, unfortunately (stop chasing me with pitchforks)

5. Witches

I'm gonna be honest. I dread the Witches subseries the most not because they're bad but because they tend to be dragging. With the exception of Equal Rites, the coven trio of Esmeralda Weatherwax, Gytha Ogg and Magrat Garlick leads the reader to familiar fairytale paths only for it to get upturned at the end. There are always lessons in the ongoing battle of what it means to be good, to be evil and most of all to be human. That's what make them slow at first. Reader must endure that feeling of "yeah ive been here before" for quite a long while. The payoff is always interesting nd thought provoking though, which makes everything worth it. I still dont know what to feel about Esmeralda Weatherwax being the universe's ultimate trump card. (Kinda same like rincewind and they both hate it)

6. Industrial Revolution

My favorite of all the subseries. Not a lot of people like them and they always get skipped in most reading lists but I often find the stories as the most shocking and creative. I like how they expand on the worldbuilding. I like the blatant parody on how the real world works. I like it when new character, beliefs and industries are introduced. I always thought I'd prefer the other subseries more but here I am lol. Cant wait to read the others.

Anyhow these are my discworld thoughts afer reading the first 17 books. Up next is Maskerade (which is making me groan coz i just finished Witches Abroad, which was very cool in fact and Maskerade is still Witch-centric)

But you can always not read them in publication order, one might say. But i wont do that. I'm a masochist unfortunately.

#heli and discworld #spoilers #if anyone wants to read anyway

[greenerteacups]

have a few questions for u! i loved your latest chapter, i believe it’s my favourite one to date together with the yule ball special :)

01. since u’re writing a (very intense) re-write of book 1 to 7 canon, how happy/sad were you about draco’s arc in the books and films? it always bugged me that him and the slytherins didn’t get to shine that much in both aspects, and that’s why we never really got to appreciate them a lot when the books and films came out. would love to hear your take on this!

02. not sure if this has been asked before, but what thing/s inspired you to write lionheart? i recall reading it was because of your love for to all the young dudes, but i’d love to hear you talk about this more

03. if j* r****** weren’t as awful a person as she was (and so terribly closed minded too) do you think there would have been a way for draco and hermione to be together in canon, or at least be some level of friends, if not together romantically?

04. i’m a narcissa black-malfoy apologist and stan, and can i just say, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for writing her in such a beautiful and heartbreaking way. i cannot wait to see how you write her arc in books 5-7.

05. an absolute, absolute shot in the dark - but since friday’s last update was sort of a cliff hanger - would you be open to a double update or an earlier than usual update this week? we aren’t entitled to anything but i swear to you, i was biting my nails and at the edge of my seat fr the minute i ran to the friday update. draco and sirius’s conversation was too real and too beautiful i sobbed so much.

i love you!!! may the universe bless you with all the good karma (is my boyfriend, is a god, is the breeze in my hair on the weekend)!!!

hello! thank you for all the questions, wow!! will probably answer some in separate posts because tumblr usually censors my craft glitches out when i write long asks BUT

how happy/sad were you about draco’s arc in the books and films?

[looks at 400,000 words of AU fic about draco's arc] oh yeah i feel normal and care a regular amount about it

Man, it makes me sad. It makes me sad that almost all the Death Eaters are also children of Death Eaters, establishing this as a familial cycle of violence and hatred, and that's just... left to sit there in the narrative, implicating.

Draco’s arc in particular is a flat downward descent from schoolyard bully into a fascist death cult, and it’s bleak as fuck. like, if these books are written from Draco’s POV, it is some gruesome and deeply cynical stuff, guaranteed. which is a shame, because I think “reluctant and begrudging reformed villain” is an amazing character type that he could have fulfilled perfectly. doesn’t even have to go on tour with the Golden Trio, either; because I lost hope for Redemption Arc after the end of book 6, my ideal world going into book 7 was just having Draco stuck in Grimmauld Place, being bitchy and ill-tempered about the Order’s witness-protection equivalent, while the others treat him like a house-elf. “oh, yeah, that’s Draco, he used to bully us but now he has to ask us to buy the tea he likes at the grocer’s,” etc. I mean, full redemption would have been great, and by far the most rewarding for him/me personally as a reader, but I kind of figured by the end of HBP that it wasn’t in the cards. JKR writes characters in a particular way when she’s interested in them as people, and Draco was just never written with that level of attention or care. 

he’s not even given a particularly rewarding antagonist arc. he doesn’t follow through and kill Dumbledore, thus giving him something irrevocable and life-scarring to repent for; but neither does he join the Order (e.g., Disappearance), meaning his ultimate contribution to the war effort is just this listless, choiceless trend of enabling. he’s forced into the plot with the Vanishing Cabinet, but can't kill Dumbledore; he tries to hide Harry’s identity from Bellatrix in Book 7, but it doesn’t work; he tries to catch Harry in the Room of Requirement and fails, then has to be saved by Harry from fiendfyre his own incompetent sidekick conjured. cringe failson. it’s also hilarious put in contrast with this fanon we have of hypercompetent draco — it’s like we all saw him and were like god bless can we please get this man a skillset. jesus christ he is getting killed out here.

but anyway tbh I think the most character development we see from him in all 7 novels is when Hermione slaps the shit out of him in POA (call that spell of Shutting the Fuck Up the way he doesn't even try to retaliate). The bathroom scene in book 6 is huge, because it’s the first time we get a modicum of sympathy for him, but that’s not followed up on — we just sort of leave him with “yeah, that’s tough.” we don’t even know why the Malfoys go back to Voldemort, because by all accounts, they seem miserable. Lucius seems miserable even before he hits his Flop Era in book 6-7, but he’s also broadly miserable all the time when we see him (likely bc we only see him when he’s plotting/scheming/exploding in rage when Harry manages to yet again Scooby Doo one of his plots, but who knows). I think the seventh book subtly implies the Malfoys are so close with Voldemort because of Bellatrix, and [spoilers incoming] I myself lean heavily on that thread in later sequences in Lionheart, but in the books it’s up to the reader as to how much the Malfoys really believe in the Dark Lord versus just comply with his orders from fear.

#greenteacup asks #draco malfoy #lionheart #thank you! i hope karma is a relaxing thought <3 #sweet like honey etc etc

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 52 – The Gods Are Bastards Volume Three by D. D. Webb

Okay this is properly a review for Books 8, 9, and 10 of the gargantuan serial – which I’ll freely admit I read more than a month ago in one week-long fugue along with all the books before them and the next few after. Which is to say I really shouldn’t have waited this long to write this review, and my apologies for all the vagueness and inaccuracies that are going to result. Which is a pity, because this is the best volume of the serial I’ve read and it isn’t even particularly close.

The serial continues the story of a Dungeons & Dragons-esque generic fantasy world advanced a couple hundred years and in the throes of a magical industrial revolution. The story theoretically stars the now-sophomore class of almost comically privileged and powerful students at what’s basically Adventurer University, but compared to the previous volumes they get barely any screentime in this one. Instead you get the Bishop of the god of thieves, the Archpope of the Universal Church, their respective pet openly-plotting-and-near-mutinous adventuring parties, political intrigue in the goddess of war, and a huntsman we’ve never met before learning the secrets of creation and also that his god was always just kind of a dick. It’s great! Also, to reiterate, the students get barely any screentime!

Really I kind of get the sense that I’m a deeply atypical fantasy reader, in that I find 90% of both involved romance plots and drawn out action scenes deeply tedious and basically the price you pay to get at the good parts of the story. In this case the good part is incredibly byzantine and too-complicated-by-half political shadowboxing carried out by proxies only barely kept on their masters’ leashes. Also several thousand words of pure exposition about the deep lore of the setting delivered by a malfunctioning AI.

Because yes, the big massive reveal of the volume is that the elder gods who were overthrown millennia before the story began had actually pulled a Lord of Light. The world runs on generic fantasy tropes because it was created by powermad demiurges who were also specifically insufferable 20th/21st century earth fantasy nerds. The different types of magic were just the results of them folding and rewriting physics, the fact that mortals can only access four is down to the vast majority getting wrecked when their creators died in the Titanomachy. Gnomes are an apparently successful attempt to perfect humanoid life.

This is, first and foremost, an absolutely hilarious bit of worldbuilding. Like, I actually burst out laughing. Knowing that orcs existed because the elder gods were big Tolkein and Warcraft fans may have permanently damaged my ability to take the setting seriously on its on terms but like, honestly? Probably worth it. Also just an excellent excuse for any shotcuts of contradictions in the worldbuilding and for all the kind of lazy fantasy worldbuilding tropes.

While it hasn’t happened yet, I hold out some hope that the increased pivot to the divine and Deep Lore means the serial will start to live up to its title and foreground the gods and their bastardry more – as I’ve said before, a narrative where the literal lords of creation are present but only because they just show up sometimes to descend to earth and make the protagonists lives easier is just boring. Which is why Archpope Justinian, the scheming mastermind who wants to overthrow heaven and earth and works exclusively through needlessly convoluted schemes that don’t stop a single person from knowing he’s to blame. I’m sorry but ‘somehow brainwashed the gods into making him their high priest so he can use the resources of their church as his personal power base’ is such a great bit. Also he’s opposed by literally every major POV so of course I need to root for him. (Honorary mention to Basra Syrinx, who is literally just The Worst in an incredibly entertaining way)

#book review #web serial #sff #the gods are bastards #d. d. webb