Ok, I've been thinking. I know the anime is great, but every time I read it I appreciate the manga a little bit more. Not all the time, but usually. So, I'll probably be making a few different posts in the future highlighting some of my favorite things that didn't transfer to the anime for any reason. I could do one big post, but I don't feel like it. My rambler self at least tries to make things essay length.
Sinbad makes a proper sophisticated introduction of his generals in the anime, befitting a king. In the manga he starts off so drunk he can't really remember if he introduced Jafar and Masrur months ago?
(n. 82. photo and scan is from my own copy since I'm too lazy to find a good quality one online right now. I find it hilarious with context of this post that the one thing my camera refused to focus on was Sinbad's dumb drunk face)
It's a really quick gag, yet I find it amusing. I can see why they cut it in the anime for consistency. He's pretty sober for the rest of the conversation it doesn't make much logical sense to be drunk just for a single frame. Or they didn't want Sinbad to be too much of an idiot. Already too late for that, but still.
Jafar's second hand embarrassment is always amazing and appreciated.
That's it. If you haven't read the manga, you should! I'm biased because overall the second half is my favorite. If you can, do so officially! Anything to show that it's still loved and season 3 can happen.
hey a girl can dream
I'll get around to some more manga appreciation soon-ish. I have a couple more specific cases I want to get to though not sure on when I'll complete them with everything else I'm working on.
79 notes
·
View notes
SEPTEMBER 2023 WRAP UP
[ loved liked ok no thanks (reread) book club* DNF ]
The Anomaly | Not the Witch You Wed | A Pale Light In the Black | (My Volcano)* | Klara and the Sun | Our Hideous Progeny | (A Gathering of Shadows) | A Dangerous Collaboration | Empire of Sand | (A Darker Shade of Magic) | Scattered Showers | A Treacherous Curse | Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz | The Hanged Man | Magic Below Stairs | The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy | The City & The City | The Splinter in the Sky
* * * * *
Magic Below Stairs was a charming middle-grade spin off to the Cecelia & Kate series, I had a good time and would be more than happy to read more books in this world!
The Hanged Man was the second in the Tarot Sequence, and still great! Not perfect, but the characters are so fun and the plots are extremely intense, I loved reading this. The haunted ship was scarier than the actual haunted ship horror book I just read.
Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz…bad. You took this amazing set up and look what you did with it! You made it generic and boring and feeling outdated. Justice for the centuries-old, animated, sentient, sorcerous, gender-fluid puppet who deserved better (to be the main character, to start)
(Veronica Speedwell is of course, fun as always. I have unfortunately now hit the books with longer hold times and am very D: about it)
Scattered Showers was a very heartwarming collection! Perfectly (and maybe, best) suited for fans of the author’s novels. Perhaps a little one-note, but a good read. I love the cover design a lot :D
This is the first time I’ve reread the Shades of Magic books since I finished the series in 2018. I loved them dearly. But my tastes shifted dramatically between then and now… ADSOM is ok. A decently solid fantasy novel, but not one that’s delivering what I want these days. A Gathering of Shadows, however, is a hot mess. I already did some yelling about it but there’s really not a plot, the storyline seems forced, and as asexualbookbird put it, it’s really just Book 3: The Prequel. I don’t know if reading it for the first time would be better? Mostly I was bored and irritated and would have loved to quit.
Somebody help me out, was there hype for Empire of Sand? Because I feel like there was, and I was so let down. The world building was beautiful, but it felt like absolutely nothing happened for the entire middle of the book? And the romantic elements weren’t enough to tempt me, I’d have loved this if it had gone full political intrigue instead.
I’m not a Frankenstein person, but I had a great time with Our Hideous Progeny! I’m a sucker for historical fiction with smart female characters, even if I wanted to strangle a lot of the men, lol. I might have zoned out a bit during the denser paleontological bits, but I look forward to future work by the author.
Klara and the Sun is another one I don’t quite understand the love for, it just wasn’t for me.
My Volcano. YES. IT IS BACK AGAIN. FOR BOOKCLUB AGAIN EVEN. This is such a complicated book that only two of us managed to finish it for book club when we first read it last year. Now that we have some new recruits we decided to try it again (no luck alas). BUT I am still not over it, check out my tag for more yelling. Right now I’m trying to convince the group to *not* do a third read next year and maybe try one of the author’s other books (and the author followed me back on Twitter! I got irrationally excited lol)
I was a bit nervous going into A Pale Light in the Black, having had some flops from the person who rec’d this previously, but it was so fun! ‘Space Coast Guard’ is not a thing that would immediately leap to mind as something I’d be interested in, but this goes *hard* on the found family vibes and spends just as much time on the characters’ emotions as it does on the plot, in addition to being super queer! The plot is a little clunky being split in two different directions with the investigation and the military games, but I still had such a good time (and speaking from the future, book 2 does improve on that!)
When will I learn my lesson about contemporary romance? Regardless of the fact that the plot for Not the Witch You Wed could have been ripped from one of the many many Teen Wolf fics I’ve read and enjoyed, we did *not* get along. Sigh.
I’m not sure what I was expecting from The Anomaly, but I think it was something more? Probably because it was a translation? Idk, I don’t find the “are we just a simulation” discussion particularly compelling (and My Volcano deals with related topics in more interesting ways), and the rest couldn’t hold me. Really wish I’d DNF’d this one, but I pushed though in hope.
The actual DNF’s -
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy I wanted to like. I enjoy quirky world building, but it felt like a contemporary romance masquerading as a fantasy - accompanied by all those pesky cr tropes that annoy me. Most of the characters were irritating me as well, and I didn’t want to forgive Hart, even if I understand why he was being so awful, so I decided to quit before I worked myself up too far.
The City & The City had a cool concept, but after 25% I still wasn’t interested. I’d maybe try something else from Mieville, but this wasn’t for me.
The Splinter in the Sky is a book that probably looked fantastic as an outline. But when it came to filling it out and connecting the dots, well…it was lacking a lot. Readable, maybe not worth the effort, but I’d give the author another try on a future work.
9 notes
·
View notes
Dr. Boris' Midnight Experiment
It's a little past 11pm. Dr. J. Damien lays with a pillow over his face, and sheets haphazardly laying over him; he's snoring so heavily that Dr. Grimshaw can hear him from his office directly downstairs. Dr. Grimshaw is writing down the process for new medical spells for Nurse Willow to try out, as well as compiling a list of ingredients on a separate sheet; there always seems to be something he missed the first few times!
Dr. Boris Ivanovich opens the back door, leading to the abandoned graveyard in the forest. He walks heavier than usual, meaning he's found a substantial corpse.
Dr. Grimshaw looks up from his desk just in time to see that Dr. Boris is carrying, not one, but two corpses; a half decayed human, and a fresh deer.
"Oh, bloody hell..." he thinks pausing his writing.
He hesitates to do anything for a second, contemplating if he should; last time he got involved, he got bitten by his creation. Luckily, it didn't cause any damage before Dr. Damien shot it. Dr. Boris wasn't happy that day...
But the last time he didn't do anything, it tried to eat a stray cat outside. Dr. Grimshaw sighs and gets up, following Dr. Boris and his new toys.
"Dr. Boris," he calls, "Your creation better not bite!"
They get to his office; it resembles an old surgical theater. He puts the corpses down on two tables next to each other, then signs, "No. I take lower jaw (of) human corpse, and upper jaw (of) deer. No bite easy."
Dr. Grimshaw sighs, "Well then, make sure it can eat, at least..."
"Yes," he signs turning around and positioning the corpses to be better placed on the tables.
Dr. Grimshaw sighs lightly, but smiles; he enjoys seeing his colleagues happy, even if they get happy mangling corpses to create a Frankenstein's monster type being. Well, granted, it's not like he can complain; it's only a couple steps further than he goes on his favorite (but usually unpracticed) hobby; dissecting the rats that his snake, Balthazar, doesn't eat and making tans of their skin.
Dr. Boris turns back around and signs, "You stay (to) watch?"
He ponders for a moment; "Yes, I think I will. Let me get my mask." He goes back to his office and puts on his mask, coming back.
Dr. Boris gets his surgical tools and begins to carefully dissect the parts of the human that he wants to keep; the lower jaw and upper torso. Granted, some of the muscles will need to be replaced with the deer's fresh ones.
He then dissects away the deer's upper jaw and head, as well as the legs and several muscles.
Dr. Grimshaw notices he doesn't take the tail and pipes up, "No tail?"
Dr. Boris fumbles a bit because he's used to seeing the memes, "No bitches?" and "No head?" on Twitter and Pinterest.
"Sorry! I didn't mean to startle you..."
"No," he signs before turning around, "I see two jokes on internet, similar (to what) you said."
"Oh," Dr. Grimshaw is on Pinterest and Tumblr a lot, "Like, "No head?"
Dr. Boris facepalms, "You (are) old. Why (do) you know (that)?"
"Oh, come now; it's not as if I'm completely technologically illiterate!" he chuckles, "And I believe I was the one who introduced you to Pinterest?"
He hangs his head; "For love of god, why is he like this...?" he thinks. He signs, "Fine." and goes back to dissecting the animal, now getting the tail, just so Dr. Grimshaw won't say that again.
After about another hour and a half of surgery, Dr. Boris is stitching up the new creation. Said creation looks similar to a forest god, or monster, depending on the genre.
He signs for Dr. Grimshaw to come over, which he does, and heal the incision sights, which he also does; he puts one hand at one end of an incision, then "zips up" along it (this is how he gets bitten by things, but at least he started with the mouth this time).
When Dr. Grimshaw's done, Dr. Boris begins using his elemental powers to start moving blood, moving air, and sending sparks of electricity to restart the heart and brain.
After a few minutes of doing that, the corpse begins to twitch, then flex its fingers and hooves, then eyes and jaws.
He continues helping send electrical signals to the muscles so it can loosen up and start moving properly on its own.
It tries to get up, but falls off the table and breaks its upper jaw and nose in half; it groans weakly. Dr. Grimshaw instinctively tries to help it and corrects the broken bone. Several maggots wiggle out of its bleeding nose and fall to the floor.
"Okay, then," Dr. Grimshaw says, "At least that groan means there's some brain activity despite the maggots..."
The corpse starts to try and move on its own. It moves like a deer, but falls to the floor because of the short arms.
It begins to try and scream; it comes out as a low hiss, then gargle. It coughs and a slurry of blood, maggots, and their waste comes out of it's lungs; into Dr. Grimshaw's face (this is why he wears the mask!)
The corpse begins to choke and convulse, hitting Dr. Grimshaw with a few appendages, including an antler, as he gets up and away from it.
It begins to, almost purposefully, bash its head against the ground and table; which causes quite a racket. Dr. Damien rushes down the stairs and both the doctors freeze and turn towards the open door hearing his footsteps.
"What in the goddamn fuck!?" he yells, still in his pajamas but wearing his mask and some slip on boots, "Do you fucking realize it's fucking midnight!?" He sees the, now just twitching, corpse, "Guys, what the fuck...?"
"Sorry..." Dr. Grimshaw says and Dr. Boris signs.
Dr. Damien facepalms and throws his head back, "Ughhhh!" he brings his head back, "Could you at least try to not make creations at midnight???"
Dr. Boris signs, "Only time (to) get corpses..."
Dr. Damian hangs his head, "I need a fucking sound proof room..." and goes back upstairs.
After he's gone, Dr. Boris signs, "Deer maybe sick."
Dr. Grimshaw sighs, "Yes, well, let's clean up, shall we?"
The two spend the next few hours cleaning up the mess ("It's good that Nurse Willow didn't wake up!") and disinfecting the room, hallway, and taking a shower with anti-viral, bacterial, and fungal soap.
They have learned nothing from this and will do it again. Probably within the next week or so. Granted, if Balthazar doesn't eat the next day, it might honestly be tomorrow morning.
They will not learn anything from that either.
2 notes
·
View notes