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persepholline · 3 years

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I've read that article about the romanticization of the Darkling and while I absolutely understand people who are pissed off/sad and I agree that it's shitty, I find LB's attitude towards Darkles stans very funny in a "girl what are you doing" sort of way because it's so petty like I've never heard of a bestselling author writing a portion of their fans into their books as a crazy cult before, it clearly hit a nerve

I'm new to the fandom but the feeling I get is she wrote something problematic ten years ago and became very embarrassed about it afterwards so she turned on the fans that liked it as a way to absolve herself. Especially since fandoms in general have become a lot more focused on discussion of what constitutes healthy/acceptable relationships to write about. And in a way I get it I had a huge Twilight phase in high school and afterwards I was super embarassed about it because of how problematic and cringe it was. But now with distance and more maturity I'm able to both still see why it was problematic and also why I was drawn to it (mostly the very unhinged representation of female desire) and like...it's really not the end of the world and no it never made me believe that breaking into somebody's room at night to watch them sleep was actually ok in real life lmao. This feels so obvious to me but apparently it needs to be said.

(More under the break this is turning into an essay, I've been thinking of this a lot recently)

And of course it's good to have these discussions about how historically romance tropes have echoed social dynamics of men's shitty behavior being romanticized and excused. But these days they often are so simplistic and focused on chasing clout that they become this weird new puritanism and moral panic about oh now women are reading novels it's going to make them hysterical or something

So you have these weird assumptions that you can't like a character and also be critical of their actions, or enjoy certain parts of a character and not others, or wish they were written differently and like them more for their potential (which I'm sure stings a bit for an author lol) - it assumes that if you like a character it means you would approve of their actions in real life, or that people just stupidly reproduce whatever they see on TV. That tendency to treat fictional characters like real people is the thing that actually worries me, to be honest, because it indicates a lack of distance and critical capacities regarding how stories are used and received. But people - fans and authors - are so scared of being called out as problematic and harassed for it that they're going to shy away from any nuance.

And yeah I think that it's good that standards of what constitutes an ideal relationship are evolving and becoming more feminist and communicative and all that and we definitely need more of that. But not all fiction has to be aspirational! Sometimes you just want to read about fucked up shit, because it's cathartic or fascinating, even healing at times because with fiction you are absolutely in control and can choose when to close the book. Toxic relationships in fiction can have an appeal specifically because they go to extremes of feeling that we don't want to go to in reality, in exactly the same way as horror movies or very violent action movies - which I don't see a lot of people besides fundamentalist Christians argue that they turn you into violent psychopaths (and that feels very obviously sexist). And for women, who are often taught growing up that love is the purpose of life, the "saving someone with your ability to love" can be a power fantasy in the same way that being a buff superhero who saves the day with their capacity for incredible violence can be a power fantasy for men. Still doesn't mean those women are going to fall in love with actual murderers or that those men are going to start beating up people at night. And love is scary, and weird, and weirdly close to horror at times, with all the potential for loss of self and being vulnerable and overwhelming feelings and potential for being horribly hurt and it should be possible for stories to explore that without anybody screaming about how this is going to Corrupt the Youth or something

And I mean I get it LB wanted to write a cautionary tale for teenagers, but it just did not work for reasons a lot of people have already written about - the fact that the Darkling is the leader of an oppressed minority and is the only one with a real political agenda to end that oppression in the first trilogy, the fact that he helps Alina come into her own power while her endgame LI is someone she keeps herself small for, that she's shamed for wanting power after growing up without any, a generally very wonky conception of privilege, and a lot of other stuff with yucky regressive implications to the point where stanning the villain actually feels liberating and empowering which is a surefire sign that the narrative is broken (unless it's a villain focused story lmao). But of course that Fanside article makes almost no mention of the political dynamics, it's all about interpersonal stuff which is an annoying trend in YA, there are those massive events happening in the background but it's made all about the feelings of the hero(ine) ; war as a self-development quest (which is kind of gross). Helnik is kind of an example of this too - I like them, I think they're fun ! But Matthias spends a big part of the story wanting to brutally murder Nina and her kind, and he mostly changes his mind because he finds her hot. Like you don't feel there is some sort of big revelation that his entire moral system and political framework is completely rotten ; it's all better because of feelings now.

As a teenager that kind of sanctimonious bullshit would have annoyed the hell out of me ; I read those books in my early twenties and I found the ending so stupid I wouldn't have trusted any message or life lessons coming from them. And I liked reading/watching dark stuff as a teenager, as a way to deal with the very intense inner turmoil I was dealing with - and I turned out fine ! Meanwhile I've seen several times women in very shitty relationships being obsessed with positive energies and stories ; they were so terrified of their life not being perfectly wholesome they ended up being delusional about their own situations.

Like personally I think the Darkling is a compelling, interesting, alluring character and also a manipulative, murderous piece of shit and that Alina should get to punish him (like in a sexy way) - but he's also the end result of centuries of war, oppression and trauma and reducing that to "toxic wounded boy" feels kind of offensive ngl ESPECIALLY since the books don't offer any kind of systemic analysis or response to oppression beyond "the bad guy should die" and "now the king/queen is a good guy our problems are solved!!!!"

In Lives of the Saints, we see how Yuri is abused extremely badly and almost killed by his father, and so when his father dies when the Fold swallows Novokribirsk, he thinks the Starless Saint has saved him. Later in KoS/RoW he's turned into this fanatic who explains away all the Darkling's crimes. The other followers talk about how the Starless Saint will bring equality for all men. Then the Darkling comes back and actually thinks his followers are pathetic, which feels again like a very pointed message to his IRL stans. Which is absolutely hilarious to me. Like oh no, if he was real he would not like you and think you're pathetic ! Yeah ...but he's not. Real. Damn right he would not like the fics where Alina puts him on a leash. I'm still going to read them. What is he going to do about it, jump out of the page ? Jfjfjjdhfgfjfj

Anyway I think the intended message is "assholes will use noble political causes for their own gain and to manipulate people" and "being abused/oppressed is not an excuse to behave badly." Which. Sure. But that's kind of like...a tired take, honestly ? A big number of villains nowadays are like this ; either they've been bullied as kids, or they're part of an oppressed group, or they have "good ideals but too extreme". This is not surprising because a lot of mainstream heroic narratives present clinging to the status quo as Good and change as chaotic and dangerous. And like sure in real life people often do bad shit because they're wounded and in danger. But if you want to do a story like that, you have to do it with nuance, talk about cycles of violence, about how society creates vulnerable people to be exploited, about how privilege gives you more choices and the luxury of morals, etc. The Grishaverse does not have this level of nuance (maybe in SoC a little bit but definitely not in TGT). So it kind of comes off as "trauma makes you evil" and "egalitarianism is dangerous" and "if you're abused/oppressed you're not allowed to fight back". And ignores the fact that historically, evil generally comes from unchecked privilege.

I guess my point is that there are many things I like about LB's writing, she knows how to create these really exciting character dynamics, and the world she has created is fascinating. But these stories are not a great starting point for imparting moral lessons. And her best characters tend to be, at least in canon, the morally grey ones. I hope one day she'll be at peace with the fact that she wrote the Darkling the way she did and leave his fans alone but in the meantime I'm just not going to take this whole thing seriously I'm sorry

#darklina #the darkling #alina starkov #aleksander morozova

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battlingbooks · 4 years

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book battles: the art of saving the world

the art of saving the world by corrine duyvis

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free ebook in exchange for an honest review! this has not affected my review in any way, all opinions are mine.

2.5/5

hazel spent her entire life confined to a 1.5 mile radius to keep a dimensional rift under control, until her 16th birthday, when the rift moves, more hazels appear, and everything hazel thought she knew changes drastically.

[click to read more, there are no spoilers in this review!]

we're starting with the things i liked because that's easiest. i did end up liking the conflict with the powers that be. i wasn't sure how deep that line would go, so i appreciated where it went and the characters' reactions to it. without going into any spoilers, i thought that aspect was really interesting and THAT was a part of the story i really liked and wished it hadn't taken so long to get to. (the resolution i'll talk about later) i liked how the hazels were so different but similar, but maybe that's because i'm in a child psych class and interspersed reading this and reading about how we develop from our environment as well as genetics. i liked the hazel dynamics! i thought they were a fun group and got attached to them very quickly. i thought how the magic weapon came about was interesting. and, hey! dragons are fun! the sexuality rep was pretty good, and there were some funny lines and moments!

but also.. there were so many frustrating moments where it was just...an exposition dump. both the reader and hazels have information hidden from them for so many pages and then it's just all revealed because ??? we're given a reason, but i personally didn't find it satisfying, and it made hazel prime passive for a huge chunk of a story where she was meant to be becoming MORE active after a life of passivity. i'm ALL for passive characters, but the way hazel's active- or passiveness was handled became frustrating. i think it just fell a little too much into the telling over showing for me. it also made the pacing feel really uneven. the first 2/3rds were really rough in that regard for me, while the ending really picked up the pace and i found to be the most enjoyable part.

also i think this was an attempt to subvert the "chosen one" trope, but it fell flat to me. while i truly did enjoy a lot of the anxiety scenes around the concept — the clapping scene in particular i found i really liked — it didn't really feel like ALL that new of a take on the chosen one. maybe that could've gone further? i'm not sure.

this is a tiny thing, but it really bothered me that four never got a name. i can't say colors are all THAT much better, but they at least were identifying factors (before red changed out of her dress). even alpha got a different name. but four was just...four. and four NEVER got a distinct personality in my mind. i can think of one (1) difference between her and prime, and that really bothers me. there was so much exploration of how the hazels were different and a few identity crises, so it felt like four n e e d e d to be more distinct by the end and she just! wasn't! like what did she add to the story other than being fourth? i literally couldn't tell you. i get that there's l i t e r a l l y a conversation about this about 2/3rds through the book but it doesn't matter because it still deeply bothered me

the resolution to the climax made me mad and the ending just left me...sad and empty feeling. i wasn't expecting things to end perfectly, or tragically. they honestly ended very realistically but it just didn't....hit right? it felt not impactful enough and just a touch too real for there to be anything satisfying about it. i got the point but...i don't know. it was sad, but not cathartic. if hazel prime had changed more i'm not sure if that would've been a better ending. i don't know if there IS a better ending. i'm just left feeling like...yes this is how anxiety works. this is realistic. and i struggle with it every day. maybe that's why it's upsetting, because it's just too similar to me. there isn't enough of a change, it's just some small steps. maybe i'll feel different about the ending tomorrow but right now, right out of this book, i feel upset and conflicted

i think, in the end, the struggle this book has is that it both wants to be plot driven and character driven. and it can be both — there are plenty of stories that have adventurous plots entertwined with deep character exploration — but i think this book missed the mark for the majority of it. it came together toward the end, but that means you have to get through the clunkier beginnings to hit the smoother parts. for at least the first half, to explore hazel, or the hazels as a collective, the action would stop dead. i think there was a way that this exploration could happen alongside the action of saving the world without the sometimes jarring switches between action and character, but unfortunately, we didn't get it

while reading this book, i spoke to friends about it, as it's kind of in my nature to liveblog things i read and watch. and at some point around halfway through, one of my good friends said "ngl i cant tell if you hate the book" and that might be a good stance to stand by.

it was interesting. it was fun to talk about. i don't know if i actually liked it, and so i've had to look at it more from a craft point of view, which i don't actually do for most books. most of my ratings are based on my emotional reaction and mine to this one was just sort of... eh. so a 2.5/5

(also random fun fact, i know they're all blonde but rainbow, but i literally couldn't stop imagining red as dahlia hawthorne from ace attorney because they paired dress with the word red. i know her dress is red. i know she changes out of it early on. i tried so hard to unsee it. i failed miserably)

goodreads page for the art of saving the world

author's website

#the art of saving the world #corrine duyvis #booklr #book reviews #book review #full review #arc #earc

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miyaio · 7 years

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desu2!!

desu 2 meta brings out the tl;dr beast in me b/c i’m always thirsty to talk excessively abt this game.

My favorite parent-child relationship

- i think otome and koharu win by default, tho io’s brief scene w/her mother and the background we get on her relationship w/her parents is v heart-wrenching. i love the way otome’s single mom status is depicted–it feels very nuanced and sympathetic, without shying away from the way having parenthood thrust upon her would realistically impact otome’s life and koharu’s. when otome mentions in tri arc that she misses being koharu’s mother, despite how selfish that would be (as it would come in exchange for her cousins’ lives), i teared up, ngl. koharu herself is also really precious, tho i wish we had a consistent appearance for her–it seems to change between vanilla desu 2, ds2a, and tri arc?

runner-up goes to airi and her dad, despite the fact that she thinks he’s dead. the dera-deka sub-arc is well-worth doing at least once, imo. it made me bawl, and it’s also necessary for 100% compendium completion.

My favorite sibling relationship

- can i say saiduq and the other septentriones? yamato and miyako are the only sibs we see onscreen (tho airi mentions having a little brother), but tbh, i’m more interested in miyako’s side than i am in yamato’s. what goes on in the septentriones’ minds–if they even have “minds” as people would perceive the concept–is fascinating to me, and i really wonder what saiduq thinks abt his former “siblings”. does he simultaneously pity and envy them for lacking his autonomy? does he see them as extensions of polaris’ will that deserve to be beaten down by humans? the denizens of the akasha stratum are one of my fav aspects of desu 2′s worldbuilding, so i’m always hungry for meta on them.

My favorite family relationship (other)

- airi and ronaldo in a found family situation……… i love the way their dynamic develops, w/neither one aware of how strong a connection they really share. i do wish we’d had more of them bonding over their memories of airi’s dad (which i’ve always hc’d as happening at least on egalitarian route), but seeing how similar the two of them really are is always cute. airi loves her gay uncle 2k17

My favorite friendship between two people

- uffff this is so hard b/c i like a lot of my ships b/c of their friendships…….. ig i’d make it a tie between hibiki + daichi and jp’s trio’s dynamic as a whole? even tho jp’s trio isn’t two people, haha. one thing i really like abt hibiki in comparison to like, every male protag ever, is that it’s p heavily implied that he’s not popular at all. the one thing ds2a did right was hibiki’s backstory, which i think still fits in w/gameverse!hibiki’s description as someone w/a “blank” past. his friendship w/daichi and the relationships he forms w/the main cast mean a lot more in the context of daichi really being his only close friend at the start of the game, imo. s/t i love abt hibiki + both daichi and io is that their friendships are based on equity, abt hibiki supporting the others and working w/them as equals to help them realize what wonderful ppl they are in their own right, rather than him being the ultra-charismatic authority who’s always Cool and in control. like, this is the guy who has such Serious dialogue options as “RAINBOOOOOOW!!” and “tell everyone yr gay for yamato”. hibiki being really isolated from most ppl aside from daichi feeding into his decision to pursue the human admin end of br is a meta for another time, ig.

jp’s trio’s various relationships are all v interesting, in terms of the spokes of the triangle and all three of them together. it’s really refreshing to see that kind of dynamic between adult women who are professionals–their bond feels a lot less?? transient than it might between yet another group of high schoolers. you get the sense that all three of them being adults is what lets their friendships bloom and be so important to them, as the people they were in high school are hardly the same people they are now. the event in tri arc where fumi and makoto take care of a fatigued otome and tell her that she can lean on them, too, really made an impact on me. all three of them play off of each other so well in a variety of settings, and it lends a v mature, multifaceted air to their dynamic. otome taking a different faction than fumi and makoto, and how different fumi and makoto’s own reasons for joining yamato are, is also worth mentioning in that the three of them aren’t always in agreement, and that’s a part of friendship, too.

My favorite friendship between a group

- team nagoya……… i’ll be the first to say that i dislike both the extremist routes. whether or not the writers intended to make the player feel that way is subjective, and may well depend on where a player falls on the smt alignment continuum, or even on desu 2′s version of that continuum. either way, i at least liked egalitarian better than meritorious b/c team nagoya has such a strong rapport w/one another, compared to the cognitive dissonance-riddled mess that is team osaka. based on their dialogue from any daichi route, the members of team nagoya definitely know they’re not necessarily vying for the best solution to their very legitimate concerns. they’re a lot easier to sympathize with b/c their grievances are very real–as joe says in “dream’s end”, while society may be growing less prejudiced over time, for many people, there is no time to “wait for things to get better”. the problem lies much more in going thru polaris to make a change, as the ending p clearly (and horrifyingly) demonstrates that polaris just uses team nagoya’s passion for its own ends.

at any rate, the interactions between the four of them are great, from ronaldo and airi’s aforementioned dynamic, to joe and otome’s complimentary playful attitudes, to how airi represents the future that all three adults are fighting for. it’s really telling that team nagoya consists of three adults and one teenager–otome puts it most clearly in her post-defeat dialogue on daichi routes when she says that she was fighting desperately (yet short-sightedly) for the future of the world’s children. imo, airi really represents that future to the three adults, as a teenager who has already had so many doors closed in her face due to inequity. airi’s own stubbornness, selective self-flagellation, and issues w/moving on aside, schooling in particular really is s/t that can shape a child’s entire life, and i’m sure ronaldo, joe, and otome realize that. so seeing how well all four of them interact w/each other and how airi represents both the best and the worst of team nagoya’s ideals def makes them my fav faction.

My favorite mentorship

- speaking of airi’s interactions w/the adult cast, makoto + airi is so good….. i love how constructive makoto is w/airi, giving her the tools she needs to move forward in life w/o telling her to get over it, or denying that airi’s been screwed over by forces well beyond her control. makoto’s not a perfect mentor, but (as her name suggests), she’s honest w/airi, and owns up to it when she reacts too harshly. i think it’s great to see makoto helping someone in a way she knows for sure is right, in contrast to how uncertain her cognitive dissonance abt other issues in sep arc must be making her feel. on the flipside, airi gets to begin moving forward w/life again, which in turn contributes to helping her reconsider her own alienating abrasiveness (can you tell i like airi b/c she and severa are so similar……). the moral of airi and makoto’s mentorship isn’t “never ever give up on yr dreams b/c you can only ever have one True goal in life”, nor is it “there’s no need to challenge injustices done unto you b/c if you don’t rock the boat, life will move on eventually”. airi’s sub-arc comes to a more nuanced conclusion, and i don’t think she could’ve gotten there w/o makoto’s influence.

My favorite rivalry

- does hinako and yamato count? i love how often she calls him out, and how she’s not afraid of him in the least. while i doubt yamato sees hinako as much of consequence, she makes her beef w/him plain, w/o going “DIE HOUTSUIN MY JUSTICE IS SCREAMING” ala ronaldo www her voice is much-needed in a lot of situations, too. her confrontation w/yamato over whether or not he cherrypicked the results of the medium compatibility tests to get rid of io is really well-done, esp if you infer that hinako knows abt io’s own disastrous confrontation w/yamato earlier on friday.

My favorite hatred/antipathy

- while i know miyako and yamato don’t straight-up hate each other, their dynamic as enemies (or at least in opposition to one another) is great. i’m not just saying this b/c i love seeing yamato get dragged, i promise–there really is just s/t satisfying abt miyako not taking his shit at all, despite her own cognitive dissonance and his valid points abt the futility of her plan. yamato -> saiduq is also fairly interesting, tho ds2a bloated itself so much w/a tepid exploration of how their dynamic could potentially be explored that i’m not too keen on meta-ing it more. yamato is kind of a hate sink amongst the cast, tbh www saiduq’s own rebel angel-turned-usurper dynamic w/polaris is p unambiguous hatred, but it’s v interesting, given how saiduq feels he has no choice but to die as polaris’ sword on every other route. really seeing him shuck that alcor designation (ppl who call saiduq by that name when he explicitly says he dislikes it still drive me bonkers in 2017) and take up heaven’s throne is v satisfying.

My favorite potential relationship between characters who never talk in canon

- do u have a moment to talk abt how we were robbed of more io-joe interactions……… if anyone’s actually read this far, you probably do lmao in any event, i think this is mostly a limitation of how the fate system is constructed, and you can see the writers stretching and experimenting w/it in tri arc. if future desu games expand into s/t like fe’s support system, where you can see the fate system-equivalents between all characters, sometimes w/o the protag even present, i think that’d be a great step forward. i bring this up for one area in particular where i really wanted to see more joe-io interactions: on tuesday, after io’s parents die. joe has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it line in his own fate system w/hibiki abt how his own parents are dead, but it’s not framed in a more genre-typical “tragic orphan backstory” way. it really raises the question about when someone whose parents have died is too old to be called an orphan, given that joe is only 25.

this dialogue suggests that the losses are then fairly recent, tho joe writes them off w/his patent-pending brand of escape-avoidance. for all his flakiness (his term), tho, joe really does try to fill a big brother role for tokyo trio, and this is where i think he and io could have some v fruitful interactions. i think that most of the cast isn’t really faced w/the immediacy of the high likelihood that their families are dead, w/the exception of chars like joe, jungo, airi, and keita, who all lose parents prior to the game. io, on the other hand, watches her mother die in her arms. she displays astounding resilience and focus in how quickly she draws herself back together after the loss, despite her r5 confirming that she had pretty constant suicidal ideation throughout the rest of the week (and quite possibly before the game, too). as joe is the closest to io out of the four aforementioned characters at that point in the game, i really, really would’ve loved to see his take on providing her comfort and guidance in the wake of her sudden loss. i think it would’ve been a good set of conversations for both of them, especially if you buy into the reading that both joe and io let themselves die should the player fail to prevent their death clips. in this respect, i’m interested in the similarities between joe and io, and i think a good heart-to-heart between them early on in the game would’ve led to a variety of other interactions.

#usamimi desu

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