This is an architecture appreciation blog until further notice

Look, you have to admit that, canonically, Lestat would DOMINATE on tiktok

The Fifth Season First Impressions

Chapter Two

New people In this chapter we first meet Damaya, and then Schaffa, who arrives to escort Damaya to a place that just blew up in the previous chapter, implying that we’re in the past. The conversation between Schaffa and the mom pretty much nails down that Earth wizards are demonized to the point of driving loved ones to sheer madness when they discover someone among them does earth wizard magic. (I really hope this isnt some tortured allegory)

Magic System

Schaffa directly states outright that Orogenes are born with power to control movement and heat, and that the control is deeply connected to emotion. The power is inherently useful to society, but its lack of control demands that its users are separated from the rest of society at an early age. The chapter shows all of this through Damaya before outright stating it, and I think that leads to the lore dump being less boring.

Overview My irritation with the prologue has been entirely reversed. Every strange part that stood out in the narrative is a key in understanding the world, the culture, and the magic.

 “The Stillness” is a cumbersome name for a planet, but makes perfect sense if you live in a world dictated by natural and magical tectonic shifts. 

And that angry man, embodying fire and violence, and furious at soundwaves themselves, is the perfect example of why people would fear anyone possessing magic. He might as well be a propaganda photo for anyone that wants to demonize “Orogenes.”I wonder how common the word “Orogeny” is. If the reader knows about the term outside of the book, do they have a leg up on other readers? So far, as many names as possible are connected to tectonic movement. The Stillness, The Fulcrum. Communities are shortened down to “Comm,” which sounds indistinguishable from “Calm.” (I looked it up, and Palella is a Finnish word “to feel cold.” And I’ll eat my hat if Tirimo isnt an intentionally skewed spelling of Tremor)

Fifth season Chapter 1 First impressions

What I know about everyone Essun - secret wizard lady in a nowhere town.  She fell in a stupor after finding her dead son. Jija - podunk husband of Essun, that doesnt know anything about her wizard powers. He’s described as kind and loving and caring, which clashes with the fact that we know he beat his son to death.

 Nassun- Daughter of Jija thats currently missing, and probably alive.

Lerna - Neighborhood boy who helps Essun out of her weird stupor. Essun keeps describing him in….strange ways. He was a boy, but now hes a MAN. Lerna is aware of Essuns secret wizard powers.

The town they live in plain straight hates wizards, and hate the fact that a wizard clearly  saved their town from a massive earthquake. The fantasy racism is lain on pretty thick. I think that the chapter was formatted very well to make you question why Jija, a kind, loving, husband, would kill his three year old son. When its revealed that his son probably showed off wizard powers, the revelation hits home to the reader just how deep seated this prejudice is. Compared to how other stories do a "fantasy racism," The book is doing pretty well. Magic system. All we’ve seen is that Jija protected the town with a bubble of force, all while in a stupor that prevented her from even speaking. It implies that either this action is easy, or shes just dummy strong. The townsfolk instantly recognize the “perfect circle” around the town as evidence of magics, so this information is definitaly basic stuff that even backwater yokels know. I thin thats called "common knowledge."

Everything seems to be related to the earth. Stones, statues living underground, people starting earthquakes, people stopping earthquakes. People feeling vibrations. The author spends a lot of time on sound, so I wonder how connected that is.

The surroundings. Tirimo is a backwater town made to sustain earthquakes. Theres clear evidence of a caste system, and none of it stuck in my head. Im hoping that any of the relevant facts about the caste system are elaborated on, because I can’t remember a lick of it. In general, the explanation of their society so far has been overwhelming to the point of making me hostile

The chapter ends with Jija taking off to look for her daughter, which is a totally valid action for someone who just reconciled with the death of one of her children. “Go make sure the other one is safe.”

First Impressions “The Fifth Season”  by N. K. Jemisin

First Impressions “The Fifth Season”  by N. K. Jemisin I know absolutely nothing about this book, but the title makes me think its going to be an allegory for global warming

Prologue

Well I already broke my own rule, cause I will have to re-read the prologue of this book.

The story begins with a lot of words above my reading level. We are described a world that is not Earth, but extremely Earth-like. The few towns that exist are on the equator. There's a “display only” emperor that hangs out in a pyramid I think? 

We cut to an angry man and his stone wife who he hates. Angry man talks about stone magic, and how much he hates noise, even from his bitch stone wife who makes no sound, which is also bad. Then he…MAKES VOLCANOES BLOW UP AND BLOCK OUT THE SUN?!

This is when I realized that I had checked out, and I was desperately trying to remember what “the stillness” was, or what a “parlance” is. (I think The Stillness is the name of the planet?)

There are floating obelisks, but the people who made them are losers.

The author references “Father Earth,” so you either remember this isn't regular Earth, or to build up to a possible patriarchy later on. It's distinct enough to have value at least.

I am trying to remember the names of the people and towns, which were all introduced in a machine gun faction, but they're slipping out of my brain as fast as they enter. We were introduced to a woman, and introduced to her son, told he was beaten to death, and then the story just moves on. Stone Lore is more of folk tales than magic. And the world is hinted at superstition and racism. They talk about “Rogga,” which I can only assume is this world's version of wizard. 

After the cataclysm, we’re told of a big, torso shaped rock that, over days, pops open, and gives birth to some weird boy. If someone is born out of a rock, you know that they’re magical. Since the we just heard about a random boy getting beat to death, and the prologue ends with the narrator flat out saying that one story ending is another's beginning, I can only assume that stone boy is either A. Dead boy B. Going to be taken care of by mother of dead boy

C. Endlessly compared to others children who have died (in death we find life)

Now I'm going to re -read the prologue

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I might have some severe reading disabilities, because I completely spaced out on the book starting out on a woman holding her dead son's body. There's something about my own brain, and this book's writing style, that lends itself to information not sticking at all.

My current impression of this world is that I can expect amenities that I find on earth (like asphalt) but in low supply. There IS magic in this world, but it is ALSO in low supply.

First Impressions

In writing my own stories, I get too wrapped up in “Worldbuilding,” and live in the universe for months and years. While this has positive effects, like being able to explore every possible aspect of the world and its magic systems, there are profound negative effects, like not being able to let anyone inside. I get to wrapped up in my own concepts, that the story becomes incomprehensible

What's the point of building a big beautiful house, if you don't have any doors to let people in? And you built it deep in the country without a road for anyone to drive down to get there? “Yeah, it's real great, you just need to walk through marsh land for about an hour, and then you can finally see it!”

This is a serious issue, not just with myself, but anyone that's moved away from  writing fan fiction, and moved into creating their own “Original Content.” Sure, writing all that erotic Dragon Ball Z fanfic allowed you to skip right past explanations of the world, the characters, their abilities, and let you focus on getting good at writing "the fun part," but now that you've filed off the serial numbers and you're trying  to write your stories, you don't have decades of canon to lean back on. GokuxVegeta was only hot because everyone knows their prior history together.  What's so hot about these new boys? You can't just tell me their love is forbidden for "reasons," you gotta prove it to me.

As someone that essentially writes fanfic of his own content, I never learned how to write that part of the story. Not only do I not understand the process, I have active hostility for that part in any fiction. When re-reading books, and re-watching shows, I will commonly skip the first episode or chapter. It's universally the place with the worst dialogue. And yet, you can't have a story without beginnings. And, furthermore, beginnings aren’t just at the beginning. Every new character, new land, and new power, have beginnings. Over and over throughout your story. Its an integral part of the storytelling process

Stephen King says you get better at writing by “writing a lot, and reading a lot,” and so I'm going to twist that advice and try to read a lot, but track my mental progress as I go through the books. Try to see how the road is built(to keep using that exhausted metaphor.) I will keep these write ups posted publicly, for the sake of posterity, and to embarrass myself later on in life.

And now for rules(cause hobbies should always have rules, right? Or is that just me?)

Rule 1. Only read chapter once before doing a write-up

People don't commonly re-read a chapter of a book they're enjoying. They plow straight ahead. It's not uncommon for readers to miss important facts, either due to issues on the readers part, or the author not bringing enough attention to it. In an effort to catalog my own mind, I should try to stick to this, no matter how foolish I come off

Rule 2. Do not look anything up (amended to allow me to look up how to spell fantasy names)

If I don't know a word in the book, or how its used, that just something I have to live with

Rule 3. Lean towards emotional charged impressions

Emotional significance is more important than a factual recounting. I want to see how the story is built, not a census of the world. 

Rule 4. This is not a review of the book, this is a review of how I process the book

This is more of a content warning for any stranger that comes across these posts. There's no grade system at the end of reading the book. The purpose is for me to take apart critically acclaimed stories, and see how they tick. Disregard any negative comments as a condemnation of the novel. If I'm taking it apart here, that means it's probably worth reading

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