#why did i try to write a fantasy epic novel????? what the fuck is wrong with me???
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every time i try to write more noble pining i end up banging my head against a table bemoaning ‘why did i choose to write something with plot?’ my hubris will be my downfall
#it's 75k long now and still not done and half of me wants to give up and the other half knows casey will for real kill me irl if i try <3#so. we're here and we're powering through#i hate plot i like to write silly little get togethers where people dont and then do talk about thier feelings#why did i try to write a fantasy epic novel????? what the fuck is wrong with me???#the other thing keeping me afloat is jamie's threats to bind it when/if i finish and like. i would life to have it tbh. so.#i guess i have to write it#its just silly bc there are. a generous three people beyond myself that will read this shit when its done#jvnskjvnsfkjbns so! you know!
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fuck it. have the five page essay-ish thing i wrote on hoax.
it's so underrated and contains so many references to taylor's one great true love... that she lost.
(but there's also a bit about what the album cover means since i just think it adds to the evidence of something)
Let me take you on a journey, more specifically, the journey taylor’s music brought me to.
But fine for irl context, and disclaimer as well, I’m a new swiftie.
Yes, folklore was the one that really really pulled me in.
I’ve always loved her music, those that I knew of anyways, and she’s always held a special place in my heart and some part of me always knew that I was always going to explore her discography someday… and those days and months of exploring aforementioned music finally arrived.
So, for context, I’ll say that I mostly loved her bops. I always knew and loved her as that teenage girl feeling of wanderlust, and just wonder, and sweetness, and love…
That was what taylor was to me, the feeling of love.
It’s only when I very quite recently really really grew up and at the same time, taylor’s most popular music at the time, folklore, also happened to be really grown up, is when I realized and found out that taylor always had this depth to her.
So, for me, debut to speak now and half of red will always have that child-like wanderstruck look of awe and love vibe and feeling to me, cause nostalgia, it’s what I spent my life thinking of it and her as.
Also it’s been some time since I fully listened to those albums, so the journey/throughline narrative that I see from taylor’s discography is
Debut – young kid figuring it all out, emotional but sweet
Fearless – growth, ambition, dreams, complexity of wanting someone you know you’re not supposed to
Speak now – cinematic movie like quality of storytelling, these are fantasies, epics, novels all on their own, legend
Red – reckless abandon, intense extreme adult love, and also growth
1989 – true love, actual adulthood, scandal, gossip, hiding, protecting what’s important, dwindling mercurial highs
Rep - …
One thing that I started to notice only on 1989 and then it looked to be the case for the ff albums too, is that the latter half of one album oft bleeds onto the next one
So like the sound of I know places and even kinda wonderland to some extent, is very similar to reputation’s sound.
Then idk, new year’s day being a really sweet love song transitioning into lover
And then it’s nice to have a friend’s simple acoustic nostalgia & daylight’s nature imagery transitioning into folklore
And theeenn I’m betting the lakes as a positive song is a foreshadowing for the more softer positive outlook evermore is going to have, compared to folklore at least
But I honestly believe that if you look at the albums themselves, debut to speak now and red all seem to be about fleeting romances that pass and go
But 1989, that’s when things start to get real, and I believe, that’s when taylor really starts to get her muse…
Cause if you look at from 1989 to folklore evermore heck even to the rerelease of fearless and red…
These songs seem to be stemming from one relationship
A relationship that’s secret, that’s fragile and delicate, and complicated and complex
And correct me if I’m wrong, but…
Is king of my heart the first time taylor ever used the term, the one???
The one real thing you’ve ever known?? All too well
One touch you are in love??? One step one night
Point is, I think starting from 1989, most of the songs taylor wrote and sung about could all be attributed to just one person.
A tumultuous complex but nevertheless real and true love.
And I bring up the one connection because the one clearly parallels king of my heart
And all at once, YOU ARE THE ONE I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR
why would taylor write about losing someone that she thought she was the one if the person you think it’s about is still supposedly with her when she wrote it?
And finally, in taylor’s announcement of folklore, she wrote about an exiled man walking the bluffs of a land that isn’t his own, wondering how it all went so terribly, terribly wrong.
And in its music video, you get the same imagery?
…
…
…
You know where, … you… also… get… the same… exact… imagery…?
The folklore album cover.
Where it’s taylor, walking, in the middle, so small in the grand vast bluffs of a land that wasn’t her own.
In every single music video for every folklore song, the only ONE, THE ONLY ONE, where you get the same imagery, the same color palette as the album cover, is exile.
Which is about someone, a man walking the bluffs of a land that isn’t his own.
So if taylor is the man, then she’s
I can see you standing, honey
With his arms around your body
Guess who she has a close relationship with, who betrayed her, who got married to someone else?
*regina george anger screaming*
Me is a breakup song.
Taylor rereleasing red second has so much more weight to it now.
“In the land of heartbreak, moments of strength, independence, and devil-may-care rebellion are intricately woven together with grief, paralyzing vulnerability and hopelessness.”
moments of strength, independence, and devil-may-care rebellion – me, I PROMISE THAT YOU’LL NEVER FIND ANOTHER LIKE ME.
WATCH MISS AMERICANA AND I DARE YOU TO NOT SEE ME AS A SPITEFUL/VINDICTIVE/REBELLIOUS BREAK UP SONG
grief, paralyzing vulnerability and hopelessness – FOLKLORE.
Then I guess, fine… we’ll get to why hoax is so fucking meaningful yet you don’t understand why it is.
Yes, my only one.
Smoking gun.
I saw someone call this a reference to the fire and ash in mtr, but I also think of this as someone being your one weakness…
Think about it like this, in reputation
And what if the one person who kept you alive through all that
Betrayed you too.
Taylor talks so deeply and passionately over how much this person matters, they were her smoking gun.
Because they were what kept her going through the death of her reputation.
When no one trusted her that one person did.
They were her smoking gun.
My eclipsed sun.
Lover ended with daylight.
Taylor called reputation as night time.
And now what once was daylight has now been eclipsed over, by betrayal grief sadness desolation.
(darling this was just as hard as when they pulled me apart, folklore is as dark as rep)
Winless fight – ma & thp, fight that someday we’re gonna win.
They or she didn’t.
Frozen ground brings me back to holy ground and to doht, my love had been frozen
The imagery of hoax’s lv, is of a cliffside overlooking an ocean
Which brings me back to gorgeous, of OCEAN blue eyes looking in mine, I feel like I might sink and drown and die
Screaming, similar to mtr’s I still talk to you when I’m screaming at the sky
(sidenote might not related to taylor references, but that line gives me hopelessness give me a reason to live vibes, and what with gorgeous’ line of sink and drown and die and this is me trying’s Pulled the car off the road to the lookout Could've followed my fears all the way down…
Anw… the sidenote is cause that feeling of hopelessness just really resonates with me personally, kind of the type screaming at the universe, at whatever’s out there why… sigh…)
Faithless love – false god
Hoax – illicit afairs
Blue… rep (delicate)
Best laid plan – dbatc, paper cut stings from our paper thin plans
Sleight of hand???
Five whole minutes pack us up leave me with it???
Could barren land also be bluffs of a land that isn’t his own?? Idk… *shruggie*
Ash from your fire mtr
New york, DBATC, 1989, false god, cornelia street
Hero died, remember when I said I’d die for you? False god
What’s the movie for, exile, I think I’ve seen this film before
You knew it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart
Like I said, reputation… who was her saving grace/smoking gun from all that
THEY WERE THE ONE, THE ONLY ONE, TAYLOR HAD WHEN SHE WAS PULLED APART
SO THEY KNEW, THEY KNEW HOW MUCH IT HURT HER
BUT THEY BETRAYED HER ANYWAYS.
Password let you in the door, I knew you’d come back to me, front porch light cardigan
What you did was just as dark, just as hard
Why wouldn’t it be?
They were the one she had throughout all that turmoil… yet they betrayed her too…
Kingdom come undone – komh, we rule the kingdome inside my room
Beaten my heart – KOMH, dbatc
The feeling of thinking you found the one, the one you’re going to spend the rest of your life with… the one you would throw away all of this for…
Don’t want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do
You don’t want anyone else but them if they were the one you were going to throw it all away for…
You don’t wanna say goodbye…
You just wanna keep feeling the pain, the love, the conflict that you had with them…
You don’t wanna say goodbye
#hoax#folklore#hoax taylor swift#taylor swift#i love you taylor#gaylor swift#writing#songs#music#love#<3
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Of Books, Brothers, and Broadway (Creativitwins College AU) Chapter One!!!
Word Count: 1771
TW: So Remus, obviously, swearing, ocean mentions, sea creatures and reptiles, and I think that’s it!
Pairings: None yet. This chapter is just a ton of platonic creativitwins!
Notes: This is three pages that I wrote last night. I’m now at ten pages of this. I don’t know what I was possessed by but I’m not about to complain. Its a college AU, I mention it I think, but Roman is a theatre major and Remus is a marine biology major with a minor in creative writing. I’m excited for you guys to see more of this!
Summary: “Bro!!! Bro I found a giant ass lizard in the yard look at it bro!!!” Roman and Remus Reyes live together. They figured it would be cost effective to do so while in college. Roman deals with Remus’ reptiles and fish tank, Remus deals with Romans singing at 3 in the morning. They’ve had an interesting relationship, and when Remus reminds Roman of a deal they made years ago, hes ready to start crying. Can a couple of kids from Florida make a Broadway musical?
“Bro!!! Bro I found a giant ass lizard in the yard look at it bro!!!”
Roman was done with his brothers bullshit. He doesn't know where he got the bright idea that the two of them should cohabitate in an apartment during college, but as he panickedly climbs onto the kitchen counters to escape him he knows he must've been on some sort of drug. He released a scream as he backed into the corner of the room as his brother held out a lizard that was definitely going to jump and attack him.
“GET IT AWAY!!! ITS SLIMY AND GROSS AND MALICIOUS!!!”
“This little guy malicious? Nah bro, that's a you problem. He's so cuteeee look at his scales they’re almost a holographic!”
That caught Roman's attention. He stopped panicking to actually look at the critter in his brother's hands. Remus was right, he was almost holographic. Roman gave it a weak smile and Remus beamed.
“See? It's not that scary! I'm gonna keep him! He's gonna be named fred!”
Roman chuckled softly as his brother finally left and brought the lizard to his room. He slipped off the counter and followed at a safe distance.
“Don't you think you have enough reptiles? If you keep getting more you'll need more heat lamps and i'm giving you more of the electric bill”
“Ok fair point but hear me out, have you ever seen a collared lizard quite as colorful as this one? I mean he's such a pretty one aint he?”
Roman took more steps forward, relaxing once the lizard was placed in the terrarium. The lizard was quite colorful, and Roman couldn't deny, it was one of the prettiest ones Remus had captured. It immediately scurried around and dived into the water bowl. Roman laughed at it.
“Besides, he was just begging to be brought in! Like really this time! He kept bumping into my feet, he started climbing my pants leg, it was so cute you should've seen it!”
“I'm sure I would have cried.”
Remus chuckled as he moved to the other wall of his room covered in a giant aquarium that Roman was still amazed fit through the doors. Remus grinned at all the fish swimming around, tipping a good portion of fish food into the tank after turning off the filter. He then made his way to his bed and sat on the twin sized mattress covered with octopus blankets. He grinned at his brother and Roman rolled his eyes.
“When are you finally kidnapping an octopus huh?”
“I'm glad you asked! You know my internship right?”
“Of course, the only time you don't talk about the marine institute is when youre talking about your reptiles”
Remus popped up and grabbed Roman's wrist and dragged him to the whiteboard calendar that hung on the outside of his door, pointing excitedly at tomorrow's date while bouncing on his toes.
“Well they just got an octopus buddy in that needs constant care that they don't have the time for! She's real fucked up, she needs meds twice a day, she needs to be hand fed, its a real fucked up case, they were rescued from a seaworld copycat, the poor thing hasn't been healthy since it hatched we think. There's a chance that she won't even be able to be released cuz she's been so dependent on humans for her whole life. But they opened up for applicants, and I was the only one willing to take her in. they're coming and checking my tank tomorrow and if it is good enough, which i'm certain it will be, and then they'll hand her over and i’ll be her caretaker!”
Roman grinned at the excitement his brother had. He ruffled his hair quickly.
“That's cool rem. I'm happy for you. She got a name?”
“Mhmm! Her name is Cephanie! But I've been calling her Cephy. She's so pretty ro, i can't wait for you to meet her! And she's so friendly!”
“You know every day I get less confused at your choice in major. And more confused about your minor”
Remus grinned at Roman and released his wrist, skipping over to their kitchen, relishing in the fact that Roman followed still. He poured himself a cup of coffee and jumped onto the counter with a grin still plastered to his face. He took a sip from his mug, the one with a tentacle handle, and kicked his feet.
“I don't know why! It's totally sensical to have a minor in creative writing ro! It's not like you can expect me to be your playwright if i don't know what i'm doing! Besides, i can write epic lovecraftian horrors that aren't incredibly racist and who doesn't want that?”
Roman blinked. He had to process what Remus had said and he was still confused. His head tilted like a dogs.
“My playwright?”
Remus giggled, it was funny when Remus giggled, it wasn't a sound that you would expect to come out of him. And yet he did it often.
“Did you forget? Aw ro, you can't back out on it now, you asked me when we were still in middle school to write you a book for a musical, and you were gonna write the music and you kept saying you were gonna get it on broadway. I've held up my end of the deal! In fact, I actually have a story started, I think you're gonna love it! Course, i haven't written it all out yet, it's gonna be my final”
“Wait, you remembered that? Rem we were like 10!”
“And now we’re 21, what's your point?”
“We, we can't get on broadway! We’re a couple of idiots from florida! I’m, i'm not a musician, I'm barely even a dancer, what are you talking about? That was a fever dream from a couple of kids, it's not like we can actually do it!”
Remus frowned. He set his mug of coffee down and hopped off of the counter. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave Roman a serious look.
“Do you know when lin manuel miranda wrote his first broadway musical?”
“No i-”
“His sophomore year of college. Who says we can't do the same? Roman you under sell your talents. You're a theatre major, you may not be amazing at any instruments other than your voice but damn bro, your voice is good enough on its own. I've seen you dance, you're one of the best dancers i've ever seen and you're in your fourth year of college. We have potential. I know we can do this if we try, but i can't make it happen alone. I need your help”
Roman looked lost. He wanted, oh so desperately he wanted, to make it happen. It had always been a dream of his to make it to broadway, but he wasn't wrong, they weren't lin manuel miranda, they were some twins from florida, they had no idea what they were doing. And yet. And yet he held out his hand to his brother.
“Ok. ok, we can try this. I can, I can make a score. We can do this”
Remus grinned again and took Roman's hand. He tugged him into the living room. He sat on the couch, pulling out his notebook and flipping to a bookmarked page. Roman sat next to him and looked over at it. There were a few doodles around a plotline that was both gorey and Romantic a la sweeney todd but also quite similar to ella enchanted. Remus grinned at the book and then started explaining.
“Ok so the main character, played by you presumably, is an author”
“Did you just write out your personal fantasy Remus?”
“No, shut up! Ok so he's written several books, like neil gaiman or terry pratchet level several, but those aren't all the stories he's made, he has several stories that have never seen the light of day. He writes his stories in notebooks and journals ordinarily, waiting until they’re fully developed to make them digital. In one of these notebooks there lies a bit of magic. So he writes in this unknowingly, writes of a powerful magician, and as he sleeps it awakes. The magician escapes and brings each of his hundreds of creations to life just the same as him. The characters run amok and the author awakes to see the most beautiful man he's ever met at the foot of his bed. It takes him seeing the magician running through his home to realize that these are his characters. And the man is the protagonist from his most famous novel, one he wrote as a guilty pleasure, writing of a man he had met in his dreams. And he finds that these characters were pulled from different points in their books. The character had been pulled from the early pages, after he had suffered a major trauma and had no clue of the powers he possessed. So now, with his dream man in his living room, in pain from an event he had written, and gifted with emotionally driven powers, he has to fix this mess with the added hurdle of the character creating villains and fiends ready to destroy humanity as a whole with no way to stop. Along the way, some of his characters suffer mortal wounds at the hands of heinous and violent creatures, and all the author has is one magic notebook to fight them off. Romantic plot between the author and dream MC, with angst from the reality of once everything is dealt with, he will have to go back to the book. Thats what ive got so far, what do you think?”
Roman is starry eyed. It's far less violent than Remus’ normal brand of writing, it doesn't inherently include any sea monsters or snake men, and it's something Roman can really appreciate. He loves it, he can already feel the gears turning for songs and dances. Now that he heard the actual story instead of just going on the drawings, he saw far more nutcracker vibes from it.
“Oh, and there's a happy ending or whatever that the author gets to like, marry the other MC, and everyone lives happily ever after. I know you like the cutesy shit”
“Remus this is amazing! I can't believe I hesitated, I already have some ideas for the score! Remus you're a genius. I love you!”
Roman launched into a hug with Remus, which had the other laughing. Remus hugged him back.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
It was Roman's turn to turn into a giggling mess.
Taglist: @fivebyfive-finebyfive @tacohippy56900 @analogical-mess @crookedlyoptimisticdestiny @angels-and-dreams @fandomloverangel
Let me know if you want to be tagged in my writing!!!
Thank you for reading I will see you later ladies lords and nonbinary royalty!!!
#roman sanders#remus sanders#duke remus#college au#familial creativitwins#creativitwins#tw swearing#tw cursing#my writing#my fanfiction
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Realm of the Quarantine Reread End-of-Book Questionnaire: Assassin’s Apprentice
Any differences between your first/previous reading experience and this one?
Uhhhhh yep!! I can’t even believe how different it was. Every scene has taken on an entirely different colour and flavour in my memory. I skimmed far too much the first time, yes, but also I just went into it with the wrong framework. I think I’ve mentioned this before but my mum recommended me these books on the basis of my love of A Song of Ice and Fire. She directly compared them and said how similar they were. Because of RotE’s length I had been putting it off for years, and only finally picked up Assassin’s Apprentice because I was itching to do an ASOIAF reread but was (and am) trying to wait until Winds of Winter to do it.
So you can imagine the difficulty settling into a book like Assassin’s Apprentice when you’re expecting Game of Thrones. I remember my overall impression on my first read being that it was a pretty standard fantasy novel with the only really exceptional thing about it being the characters and their relationships. Characters are always my top priority so it was enough to keep me invested and progressing onto the next book and the rest of the series, but I did so not having absorbed nearly as much as I should have from the first book in the series.
Now, just from revisiting that first book, my understanding of Fitz and the world he operates in has exponentially increased and I know that will transform my experience of every book going forward. I really made sure to make myself slow down and read every word; absorb descriptions and just be in each moment without racing to the next one. Overall this book (and all the Fitz books) are much more concerned with the human condition and the effects of abuse and trauma and deep loneliness than being an epic fantasy. In fact it barely reads like fantasy at all; it’s incredibly grounded and focused. Of course the elements are there, but while Assassin’s Apprentice may not be as subversive as the rest of the series, it is certainly not generic fantasy. This book just feels alive to me now in a way it didn’t before against the rest of the series. I can regard it as a beautiful piece of the puzzle in its own right instead of just the setup. I wanna reiterate I always really liked Assassin’s Apprentice but it just paled in comparison to my unholy obsession with the rest of it. Idk this reread just really shifted a lot of things into perspective for me and I’m excited!!
Something you can’t believe you forgot
So so much but most ridiculous GALEN IS QUEEN DESIRE’S BASTARD am I dumb??? I didn’t even remember until it was explicitly stated lol
Favourite character introduction moments/scenes
It’s gotta be a tie between the Fool, Kettricken and Patience (realising there is a common theme here of Fitz making an idiot of himself). I genuinely was laughing so hard when Fitz is like, actively making himself smaller and so pleased with himself trying to help the Fool, and of course the Fool’s iconic “listen you idiot” ugh it’s just chef’s kiss baby, that’s what we in the biz call a meet-cute! (I know they have seen each other before, but this is the first time the Fool talks to Fitz). Then of course we have Kettricken who poisons Fitz at their first meeting, and Patience who Fitz continuously embarrasses himself in front of before even realising who she is. The fact that all three of these people end up being some of Fitz’s only genuinely loving relationships makes it even better.
Favourite character arcs
I think I’ve gotta go with Verity and Burrich. Verity goes from kind of a bloke’s bloke (he was so different in the beginning than I remembered!) to being a proper King-in-Waiting. He is self-sacrificial but not for pride; he genuinely cares deeply for his people, as a whole and as individuals, and will do anything it takes to protect them. He is far from perfect, and he could have done a lot more for Fitz when he was younger, but once Fitz is in his eyeline and he is confronted with the life the boy has led he seems suitably shamed and tries to do his best for him. He’s a good boy and I love him!
Burrich of course is just. unlucky. His health deteriorates due to injuries. He gets saddled with some kid and is burdened to bring him up to an impossible standard he has set himself (to not shame a man he has an impossibly high opinion of). He’s deprived of a job he loved and was good at, and most importantly he’s deprived of his boyfriend I mean lover I mean “master”.
His arc is not a happy one at all but it is compelling, and I can’t help but love him and feel for him despite also disagreeing with him on almost everything :)
Favourite quote/s
Unfortunately I don’t have any tabs atm so I couldn’t really keep track, but my heart exploded when Fitz said to the Fool after going into his room, “I wish I had a place that were as much me as that place is you.”
Favourite relationships
Fitz/Fool obviously. Even though they don’t have that many interactions in this book I loved every single one of them. The Fool volunteering to care for Smithy after Fitz has endured a long day of horrendous abuse is just!!!!! Kindness! What a concept! I could really see why they develop such a deep bond so quickly.
Fitz/Burrich is just so real and so compelling and it hurts me but I love it. Fitz/Chade breaks my heart bc Chade is manipulating his way into Fitz’s heart - I think without realising it a lot of the time bc he is lonely too, but the power imbalance is not okay when he is the centre of Fitz’s world for a long time and the closest thing he has to a friend. Knowing how Chade behaves not too much later just makes it even worse when he is so nice in this book because it just shows why Fitz has such a hard time being his own person and saying no to Chade ever.
Fitz/Verity for obvious reasons. Fitz/Hands!! They’re cute but it makes me sad that Hands betrays him in AQ. Weirdly I liked Fitz/Molly way more this time but more their friendship than anything. And next is Royal Assassin and their deeply toxic romance soooooo.
And Fitz and his puppies BUT WE DON’T TALK ABOUT THAT.
Favourite setting
Do yourself a favour and read the description of the Mountain Kingdom and specifically the palace. It is STUNNING and something I completely skimmed over the first time cos I’m a dumb idiot bitch I could have been picturing a city of huge colourful tulips all this time but fuck me I guess!!
Favourite chapter
As a rereader I think I’ve gotta say chapter one. There’s just so much to pick apart all crammed into one chapter. It still holds a lot of mystery even when you’ve read the entire series.
Most loved character
At this point I’ve gotta say Fitz. That’s who my heart is with during this book and he NEEDS IT
Most hated character
Okay I found Regal a much better villain on this read and hated him A LOT but whomst I despised even more w the very fibre of my being was Galen bitch disgusting!!!!!! Verity was so like, smug?? when he killed him and it was so satisfying. It’s what she deserves!!
Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimised by Robin Hobb (most heartbreaking and/or visceral moments)
Literally this whole book was so harsh and I was perpetually emo throughout but off the top of my head, Fitz’s depressive episode after Shrewd and Chade test his loyalty fricking broke me, as did the entirety of Galen’s abuse/training; since I was paying so much more attention this time it hit a lot harder that he is an absolute textbook abuser and the psychological torment he inflicts on Fitz is just. deeply upsetting to say the least. It really got under my skin.
Details, observations, spoilery notes made with the benefit of the full picture
Okay this is where I just dump all the notes I took while reading that don’t fit anywhere else. It’ll be long lol so strap in.
- It’s never not funny to me that Narrator Fitz comes across as like a hundred years old when in actuality he is like twenty. Also that he looks back on himself with such a sense of wisdom and superiority, yet we know there is dumbarsery aplenty to come. Amazing.
- I’ve never really registered that for the first six years of his life Fitz had a mother who loved him and I don’t know how to feel about that
- REVELATION THAT SEEMS REALLY OBVIOUS IN HINDSIGHT: Fitz most likely only spoke Chyurdan when he was abandoned, which would have played a huge role in why he was not only quiet but unresponsive to what was happening around him. He probably didn’t even understand that he wasn’t going to see his mother again until much later, and he didn’t know how to ask questions. When he goes to the Mountain Kingdom and Kettricken comments that he speaks Chyurdan like someone remembering the language he doesn’t comment on it, so it’s likely that future Fitz doesn’t register that he didn’t always speak Six Duchies(?). He mentions in the narration that the memory of being abandoned is incredibly stark but not necessarily reliable, and possibly shaped by the Skill, which to me opens up the possibility that his memory is essentially auto-translating for him things he didn’t understand at the time. We also know that at the time of writing this he’s given up his memories of his mother etc. up to the stone dragon, so obviously his recollections of these traumatic events are going to be warped by that. Anyway thanks to my sister for pointing this out and being much smarter than me.
- According to Fitz’s grandfather, Chivalry always knew about Fitz. Don’t know how trustworthy a man desperate to yeet his grandson out of his care is but there ya go.
- Weird and hilarious that Shrewd tries to see Fitz on the day he arrives but then just like. What? Forgets about him? For years? lol
- Chade literally tells Fitz that he is a king’s man now and that’s the most important thing about him YIKES
- Chade becomes the closest thing Fitz has to a friend for quite a long time and that is fucking depressing
- It’s interesting that Chade had to be convinced to teach Fitz. It’s hinted at that there was an ~incident~ the last time they tried to train someone, followed by a long period of Chade being left to rot in the walls.
- Not to be out here diagnosing fictional characters but like.Fitz. Literally has depression.
- Fitz having to turn down Fedwren’s offer of apprenticing for him is so sad. It’s the life Fitz should have had.
- The Fool’s non-binary gender is mentioned as early as Chapter Nine! (Published in 1995! We have no choice but to stan!)
- “So quickly we were all made accomplices in our own degradation.” OOF.
- I really realised this time that the reason Fitz seems so shit at things he trained his whole life for later is because all that training was interrupted by many months of isolation, deprivation and abuse. All at the age of like 13-14. He got out of the habit of subconsciously acting in a way that Burrich or Chade would approve of. For a long time the only person he needed approval from was Galen, and he became completely single-minded about it because that was his means of survival. And you don’t just recover from that - especially since neither Chade or Burrich would give him the time of day for an extended period *after* his training was done. When Chade did finally talk to him again it wasn’t to recommence training really; he just gave him a bunch of tasks to do. By the time Fitz got to the Mountain Kingdom he was completely out of practice, and still managed pretty bloody well in spite of it.
- Kind of related to the last point: I love that while Fitz isn’t a savant at anything he’s a pretty realistic jack of all trades. He not only has an aptitude for learning almost any skill or subject but a genuine broad curiosity too. It’s one of the few things that is just him, ya know? It’s just his personality and something he can find joy in, even if it does also factor into his being used by others.
- Imagine being Burrich and finding out that your son thought you were a dog murderer for like ten years lol ouch
- Fitz thinks about the Fool soooo often in the Mountain Kingdom, pointing out things that remind him of him, or things he would like. It’s v soft tbh I love them so much!!
- Another dumb thing I forgot is that Regal is convinced that Shrewd had Fitz poison his mother to death, which adds a rather important layer onto his motivations lol
Anyone doing a reread feel free to fill this out! You don’t have to use the tag :)
#rote#realm of the elderlings#realm of the quarantine#robin hobb#this has taken many days to finish bc tumblr has been a bully!!
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The ever wonderful @mintjamsblog asked for some of my favorite books, so in no particular order:
1. Passing - Nella Larsen
You know, it’s been years since I’ve read this novel/la, but it’s one that’s left an impression. Passing encapsulates the complexities of early 20th century race relations in America through Clare’s racial (and sexual?) passing. There’s a lot happening in such a short book.
“Money's awfully nice to have. In fact, all things considered, I think, 'Rene, that it's even worth the price.”
2. Call Me By Your Name - Andre Aciman
I first read this back in 2011/2012, and I didn’t think it could ever be adequately adapted into a film. (I was wrong). Aciman has this incredible ability to articulate the most difficult to express emotions/yearnings, particularly those associated with young love. I also love the impossibility of it all (which the film as conveyed). Happy endings are great and all, but give me realism almost any day of the week tbh. I have fan fiction for the curtain fic.
“Did I want him to act? Or would I prefer a lifetime of longing provided we both kept this little Ping-Pong game going: not knowing, not-not-knowing, not-not-not-knowing? Just be quiet, say nothing, and if you can't say "yes," don't say "no," say "later." Is this why people say "maybe" when they mean "yes," but hope you'll think it's "no" when all they really mean is, Please, just ask me once more, and once more after that?”
3. The Winternight Trilogy - Katherine Arden
Technically three books, I suppose. Winternight is a great series for people who are uncertain about fantasy, but who are fans of historical fiction. The series features a lot of magic on the periphery of the real world, which is a trope I LOVE. And the magic isn’t high fantasy magic, but comes in the form of Russian folklore. The heroine is lovely and the romantic subplot satisfying.
“All my life,” she said, “I have been told ‘go’ and ‘come.’ I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me.”
4. The Book of the Ancestor Trilogy - Mark Lawrence
Oof, THIS SERIES. This series is in the same vein as Harry Potter in terms of premise in some sense. However, instead of a wizarding school, our heroine goes to a nunnery where they train assassin nuns. Magical assassin nuns. LOOK, it’s just good, okay? The first two books were perfect. The final book could have been another 100 pages or so, but still felt like a solid conclusion. Also, girls in love.
“IT IS IMPORTANT, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men.”
5. Mysterious Skin - Scott Heim
This book is a trigger-palooza, so be warned. I mentioned this book at some point last year. It’s been a few months, but whenever it pops into my mind, I automatically think “fuck”. The thing that Heim pulls off masterfully in this novel is the reader is more knowledgeable than one of the main characters in the WORST way possible. As Brian slowly starts remembering bits of his abuse and thinks it’s alien abduction (but you KNOW it’s not it at all and can piece what really happened in this alien abduction scenarios...fuck), there’s this overwhelming sense of dread. I need Heim to write a sequel to this book where Brian and Neil get loads of therapy. Like, so much therapy.
“It was a light that shone over our faces, our wounds and scars. It was a light so brilliant and white it could have been beamed from heaven, and Brian and I could have been angels, basking in it. But it wasn’t, and we weren’t.”
6. The Masquerade - Seth Dickinson
This is an in-progress series, so I’m not sure what the final book count will be. It’s non-magical fantasy that digs deep into issues of colonialism and sexuality. There’s a war going on, and we see that war happen through the eyes of the most unlikely of all fantasy POV characters: an accountant. Yes, a whole epic series about war told from an accountant in service of the empire who settled her island home. The narrative is so complex that sometimes it makes ASOIAF feel as straightforward as Dr. Seuss. I struggled to keep up at times. It’s one of those books that you just have to let happen and try to hang on for the ride. I promise twists and turns like none other.
“Honor,” Apparitor murmured, “is just a credit rating for violence.”
7. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Much like Winternight, what I love best about American Gods is the folklore and magic-at-the-periphery. As the title suggests, this feels like a uniquely American story to tell where Gaiman asks the question: what happens to the gods/beliefs of all those who immigrated to America? What happens when we no longer believe in those gods? (The STARZ adaptation does some stuff I really like, but drops the ball in other areas).
“Back in my day, we had it all set up. You lined up when you died, and you'd answer for your evil deeds and your good deeds, and if your evil deeds outweighed a feather, we'd feed your soul and your heart to Ammet, the Eater of Souls"
"He must have eaten a lot of people."
"Not as many as you'd think. It was a really heavy feather. We had it made special. You had better be pretty damn evil to tip the scales on that baby...”
8. Angels in America - Tony Kushner
So this is a play, not a book. However, I think it’s one of the most important pieces of fiction of the 20th century. Angels follows the story of Prior Walter, a gay man newly diagnosed with AIDS. I can’t quite explain exactly why I love it or why it’s so important really. I think it combines the uniquely American story (that I’ve mentioned in American Gods and even Passing) with complex storytelling and emotions (a la Call Me).
Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?
Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice. God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.
Harper: And then up you get. And walk around.
Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.
Harper: That's how people change.
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Michael After Midnight: Dragon Age II
Dragon Age is a series very near and dear to my heart; ever since playing Origins back when I was in college, I have been inspired by the stories, characters, and lore. Hell, Origins alone is a huge inspiration to my writing, and why wouldn’t it be? It has great locations, deep lore, a core main party without a single weak link with each and every party member you have being unique and entertaining in their own right, and an epic story with all sorts of twists and turns. And it only has two really shitty segments in the whole game! It’s truly a great first entry in a series.
But despite my love for it, I put off playing the sequel for most of the decade, only playing it for the first time this year. And why is that? Because… the critics said it was bad… yes, unfortunately in my younger years I took what critics said without any grains of salt. Dragon Age II was not very popular back around the time it came out, mostly because of its radical departure from the style of the first game, with more hack-and-slash-esque combat, a much more simple and self-contained story, and a cast of characters far more divisive than the first time around. It’s only over time that people have started to give it the respect it deserves, but much like fellow fantasy series The Legend of Zelda it comes at the cost of the current game being bashed.
So how is this red headed stepchild of a sequel, anyway? Did the critics have a point, or is this really an underrated gem? Well, I’m happy to report that this is indeed a fun and fantastic game, and I heavily regret being kept apart from the lovely Merril for so long due to poor critical reception, but there are a lot of problems too. For everything it does really well, it kind of shits the bed in other areas, and a lot of that can be contributed to a rushed development cycle that got this game churned out just over a year after the first one, leading to things like all items lacking the detailed descriptions they would get in the first game, which doesn’t sound like much, but then you get an item called something like “Uncle Horky’s Spanking Rod” as a magic staff and there’s no explanation as to why it’s called that and you have to imagine up some ludicrous backstory for it.
The lack of flavor text is a minor gripe, though, compared to the obnoxiously repetitive environments of dungeons. Reusing and flipping dungeons around and reusing assets would be one thing, but here they literally just take a map, flip it a bit with no changes to the details of the level, and just block off doors that lead to areas they don’t want you going. The worst part is on your mini map you can see the blocked pathways you likely saw ten minutes ago in another dungeon, which just makes a lot of the missions feel bland and samey. It also doesn’t help that enemy types are rather paltry, so you’ll be fighting a lot of the same mooks in the same maps over and over as you grind for items, gold, and EXP.
And then there are some of the characters. The worst of the bunch are sadly two characters who are returning from the first game and its expansion Awakening – Anders and Isabela. Isabela is arguably worse, because she honestly seems rather fun and nice at first, if overly and aggressively flirty, but as the story goes on, it’s revealed that she is actually the cause behind some of the biggest issues in the first few acts, which she neglects to tell you until it is far too late and unless you decided to maximize your friendship with her, she will run off and never return to your party. I can’t deny that this completely soured me to her, and at the end of the quanari invasion of Kirkwall I was only upset I couldn’t find her in act three and kick her ass for what she did.
Then there is Anders. Poor, poor Anders. In Awakening, he was one of the most funny and charming characters, a nice little substitute for Alistair that I actually ended up liking for than the Weenie King of Ferelden. Here though? Anders can not go one fucking conversation without bringing up how oppressed mages are and how much the templars suck and blah blah blah. The worst part is I do agree with him, but he’s just so whiny and obnoxious about it I left him behind all the time, dooming my party to having no healer even as I fought high dragons, blood mages, and Corypheus. It was worth it to not hear Anders bitching about templars and insulting Merril and Fenris. Oh, and Anders nukes the chantry and sets off a civil war. Isabela may be a nasty bitch, but Anders definitely comes out looking like a huge cunt by the game’s end.
The entire endgame is kind of an utter mess too, seeing as no matter whose side you join you end up fighting the same two bosses, with one of them just not making any sense whatsoever. And then the game just sort of ends on a very unsatisfying cliffhanger. And as much as I just complained, all of this stings because really, the rest of the game is quite good, and the story is fun if scaled back from the epic tale of Origins.
Let’s get the obvious best part out of the way: Varric. Varric is literally the best part of the entire Dragon Age franchise. He’s a snarky, wisecracking surface dwarf with no beard who writes best-selling novels, constantly has his shirt open to show off his magnificent chest hair, and has a crossbow named Bianca that he is uncomfortably attached to. He is one of the greatest characters ever created, and there was not one single moment I left him out of my party, because he is a blast to have around, and what’s more, if there’s ever a situation where the dialogue wheel pops up and you can let him talk… you’ve won. This guy can talk his way out of any situation. There’s nothing bad you can say about Varric, and he is in fact the only companion in the game I can wholeheartedly stand behind as a paragon of great writing.
I love the other characters, don’t get me wrong, but they have their issues. Aveline and Fenris in particular, with Aveline being a bit too by-the-books at times to the point where she exacerbates the quanari conflict by demanding that elves who killed a guard who raped one of their own be turned over to her after they converted to the Qun. This is all despite her knowing full well that the poor elf girl would have otherwise gotten no justice seeing as how city elves in this setting are second class citizens at best. Still, she has a rather adorkable romance questline where you hook her up with one of the guards, and she’s not a bad person, just a touch misguided at times.
That last sentence can also apply to Fenris, but on a grander scale. He’s a cool, edgy, brooding elf who absolutely fucking hates magic with every fiber of his being. He is the Anti-Anders, though he’s far less annoying about it, and it’s hard to really blame him for being bitter seeing as he was a sex slave for an evil wizard for most of his life and then just had misfortune after misfortune piled on him. I really hated how mean he was to Merril, but otherwise I warmed to him and befriended him.
And that brings us to a very special girl, Merril. Merril is an adorable, klutzy, scatterbrained blood mage elf who is hated by her people due to the lengths she is going to repair an ancient artifact to bring a piece of her people’s heritage back. While she can be a bit arrogant and stubborn about the whole thing, it’s mostly due to how no one around her seems to believe in and support her; naturally, I believed in and supported her, and while things still managed to go south, she seemed at least to learn a little bit. Overall I found her to be an absolute sweetheart, and she never left my party, much like Varric; frankly, I was going in expecting not to like her and was going to romance Fenris instead, but as it turns out Merril won my heart immediately and my Hawke went lesbian this playthrough.
On that note, as much as I like how Merril, Fenris, Isabela, and Anders can be wooed by either gender in principle, I do kind of feel making everyone bisexual with no rhyme or reason kind of cheapens things. It’s weird for me, a bisexual myself, to be saying that, but it just feels off to be able to get together with everyone, with everyone being Schrodinger’s Bisexual until a romance is initiated. It’s nowhere near as bad as Skyrim, but I just feel it kinda cheapens the romance options. I prefer Origins and Inquisition in that regard, where you don’t have all the options but you do have some unique choices. But, hey, at the end of the day I’m hardly complaining that my Lady Hawke got to polish Merril’s Eluvian, if you know what I mean.
Aside from the characters, I think the game’s real strength lies in its story, which is fitting since the entire game is framed as a story being told by no less a storyteller than our pal Varric. It has a three act structure, with each act detailing a different year in Hawke’s rise to become the Champion of the city of Kirkwall, which is a crime-ridden wretched hive of scum and villainy. The first act mainly has Hawke making a name for themselves, living in the slums with their uncle, doing dirty work to try and get back a little prestige, and recruiting all of their allies, with the act culminating with a trip to the Deep Roads, every DA fan’s favorite location. It’s a nice setup for a lot of twists and turns later in the story, and choices you make in certain dialogue options or quests actually can change what sort of quests you get later. Then again, this is Bioware, so this sort of “action have consequences” gameplay is expected.
Act two deals with just how Hawke becomes the Champion. Rich from the expedition into the Deep Roads, Hawke gets to do all sorts of fun things, such as track down a serial killer who ends up murdering their mom, being stabbed in the back by one of their friends, accidentally inciting a race war that nearly burns down the city, and having to duel the warrior leader of the qunari to the death in combat. Yeah, act two really piles it on to Hawke, but it does tie into the game’s themes of how no matter the level of success, great actions will also come with great consequences, even actions meant to better one’s lot in life, which also resonate in the personal quests of characters like Merril and Fenris, who despite ultimately achieving their goals in the third act feel hollow, lost, and even broken by the end, and that’s not even getting into what Anders does. However the conflict with the qunari is resolved, Hawke is declared the Champion, and things seem ok.
But then comes act three, and boy do things go wrong. Knight-Commander Meredith has gone cuckoo for Coco Puffs and conflict between templars and mages seems inevitable; this act is basically wrapping up hanging plot threads and companion quests until Anders finally nukes the chantry and all hell breaks loose, leading to the final battle. The ending here isn’t particularly happy, with Hawke ultimately ending up a fugitive in the epilogue, and things can get even worse if you make poor choices in Inquisition, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
Here’s the thing: everything I just said? It could be entirely different from my playthrough depending on the choices you make. Sure, some things are inevitable, like Anders committing terrorist acts, Hawke’s mother dying, and Meredith going absolutely bonkers and making you fight statues, but depending on how you play, maybe you’ll like/romance Isabela, maybe you’ll resolve things with the Arishok differently, maybe you’ll side with the templars… the story ends the same but there are so many ways to make your story different. Throw in some great lore, some fun DLC that reveals some shocking truths about the lore, and the fun albeit simplified combat, and you’ve got a game here that has a lot of replay value if only to see where all the plot threads can lead.
I definitely think this is a good game, even a great one. It has its share of problems, but so did Origins, and frankly I’d sooner put up with the backstabbing pirate hooker and the pissy mage terrorist again then go through the fucking Fade and Deep Roads one more time. If you liked the first one, definitely give this a shot; you may end up liking or disliking some of the stuff I dislike and like. That’s the fun of these Bioware games, different aspects are going to appeal to different people. The question is, do I find it better than Origins?
In some respects, yes; I much prefer the simpler combat here, and I like the more down-to-earth story in this one, but at the same time Origins just had stronger characters overall and I’m a sucker for “save the world” fantasy tales. While Origins infamously had some real mind-numbing slogs in the form of the Fade sequence and the Deep Roads, while those environments were tedious at least they weren’t boring. But on the other hand… Origins didn’t have Varric.
It’s really a tossup, frankly, and I love both games a lot. I think each of them has their place and each of them brings something interesting to the table for the series. It’s one you really need to play for yourself to get a good grasp on; don’t be like me and put it off for nearly ten years, give it a go right after your done with the first game and see how you feel. Your experience is going to be a lot different than mine, that’s for sure.
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Book Love part 5 - Brothers (Brothers Book 3)
Brothers was the fifth novel in the fantasy world of Dahrè, and the conclusion to the Brother’s Trilogy. As I was writing Gin, I knew that his book wouldn’t be able to conclude the story of the brothers and so what originally started out, my original intention to write a short story for each brother turned into a bit of an epic tale. More and more the brothers revealed, their families revealed, the world revealed, each book taking on a life of its own. Book 3 was no different considering it came close to 200,000 words.
With this book, I had to find a way to bring Rum and Gin back together as one force instead of rushing about on their own. That was was a big challenge with this book. Getting them to stop blaming each other for their issues and see each other for who they had become, to be able to trust each other. They needed to stop fighting so they could gain the vengeance needed against those responsible for the murder of their parents. Plus a few adventures on the way where often times interesting secrets were revealed.
-- Fun Fact: Well maybe not so fun. This third book was originally titled Vengeance. But I had a thought, well it’s actually about the brothers and so titled it thusly. I often wonder if I should have kept Vengeance because I’m afraid people might get the wrong idea about this book.
With that said, I introduce:
[Image ID: Image of three, three mast ships sailing in the middle of the sea, the sun setting, two ships sail in one direction and the third ship sailing towards the other two as if to attack, with the word Brothers written across it]
Vengeance would be theirs.
With their treasures by their sides, nothing could stop the brothers from their Blood Right.
Except themselves.
Rum and Gin must get past their differences if they are to gain their rightful vengeance and destroy those responsible for the murder of their parents.
Book Three of the Brothers Trilogy
Story contains strong language and explicit sex.
192,000 words
Amazon / Smashwords / Kobo / Apple / BN
A preview of Brothers can be found under the cut.
Gin stood rooted to the deck as he watched his twin leap across the distance separating Treasure Hunter and the boat known as Graceful. Rum landed in a crouch upon the railing, hazel eyes drilling into him.
“What do ye do here, Rum?” He had never quite seen that look in his brother’s eyes.
Rum continued staring at Gin, knowing it to be him despite the change in hair color from blond to dark brown, he still had their mother’s blue eyes. He would know his brother anywhere, even had he changed eye color. Temper aroused, his Lyndian brogue was thick, his U’s dipping and his R’s rolling, as he growled, “Hide all you want, brother mine, ‘twill not stop me from finding you and thrashing you well.”
For reasons he knew not, Gin took a step back, his hand going to his hair. Surely he was not hiding. “Excuse me?”
“Think you ‘tis acceptable to cease our connection with nae warning? To leave me dangling in such a fashion?” Rum launched himself at Gin, tackling him.
Gin rolled with Rum trying to gain the top position, but Rum fought back and overpowered him, forcing him onto his back. Gin struggled, refusing to lose, and felt his own anger begin to rise. He hated that Rum—fragile Rum, delicate Rum, scared Rum—could win in this instance. As the older brother, he, Gin Py, should always beat his little brother.
“Ye bastard, married ye were, I needed not knowing what went on ‘twixt ye and him.” Gin continued struggling and managed to roll Rum over. “Why would I wish to know yer lustful activities?”
“Then you need not crawl about my head while I fuck him! Nearly did I die and never would you have known. Wonder I do if you would have cared.” Rum forced Gin onto his back once more before pulling back his fist and striking him.
The brothers’ eyes went wide, both too surprised to react for a moment—it had been years since either had struck the other. With the shock wearing off, the pain hit Gin.
“Fuck!” Gin’s hand flew to his jaw. “Ye hit me!”
“Aye! ‘Tis something you deserved from me.” Rum went to hit his brother again, but Gin blocked him.
Gin holding Rum’s fist, lunged up and elbowed his brother in the jaw, knocking Rum off of him. Sitting up, he shook his head, trying to dispose of the stars circling his vision. He expected pain from the elbow thrown, but none came. Instead Rum looked to be the one suffering from the elbow, just as he had suffered Rum’s fist.
“How?”
“The High Keeper of all Keepers, removed she did Perta’s curse nigh a fortnight past.” Rum crouched, readying to spring, not done with the fight.
“She said naught to me when last I saw her.” Why that hurt, he knew not, other than the van Wyrn had shown a preference for his brother. But then his brother’s words sunk in. “What mean ye, ye almost died?” He looked for Suede Boots and found that he had boarded Treasure Hunter. Rum’s husband stood at the railing. “Ye were supposed to protect him!”
“Both horribly hungover Rum and I were that morning next with nae memories of the night previous.” Suede crossed his arms over his chest, doing what he could to keep from the fight. He did not want his husband injured, but ‘twas always best not to try to separate brothers fighting. Besides, Gin deserved all Rum could throw at him. “Even had I remembered, doubt I do I would have seen the spell that harmed my husband for ‘twas hidden within the cobbles of the street outside yer townhouse. Not even the van Wyrn saw it.”
“And what were ye doing going about…”
“You think so little of me.” Rum sprung, tackling his brother once more. “I am nae longer that lad, I am not fragile!”
Knowing that he no longer felt the pain upon striking Rum, Gin did not hold back, allowing all of his resentment to flow through him, and started swinging his fists as if this were any other fight and not his brother.
© A. Jane
Book Love: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
#© A. Jane#A. Jane#Book Love#book promotion#my writing#Brothers Trilogy#Brothers Book 3#Brothers#Rum and Gin#pirates#magic#fantasy romance#story snippet
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So I have a question about writing. How in the diddly heck do you come up with an interesting plot and everything in between? My dream is to write my own novel but I have no clue where to start plot wise
Tbh, I honestly have no idea where most of this shit comes from. TLMA was just supposed to be a pornographic one-shot about Julian being rawed to hell and back.
Then Plot happened.
Granted, it took a few chapters for a plot to form. After deciding to make TLMA a string of interconnected smut scenes, things started to coalesce around chapter 5, and things really got going with the first Worm appearance.
An appearance that wasn't planned. At all. In any way, shape, or form.
Once that happened, I took it an ran. Around that same time, I was nerding-out about Tolkien and decided that hey, why not, let's make TLMA a epic.
Now, I have a very loose outline of events that I wanted to happen. I wanted the Idiot Duo to go on an Adventure™. I wanted them to have both happiness and stife, so that they would have the foundations to build a relationship on trust and respect, but I also didn't want it to be a super angstfest. I still have an arc where they get captured, overthrow the government, go thru a mountain chase (where yes, there WILL be a character death: I'll post a warning in the notes for that chapter.), a run-in with Morga, and then something related to Ty's Tragic Backstory™ will cause them to split for a few chapters before they get reunited. Then they overthrow ANOTHER corrupt government (I'm starting to see a trend...), before journeying back.
Which will have it's own set of fuckery, but not nearly as angsty.
Oh, and Ty's Ma, Ionith, will literally bitchslap the horns off the Devil after a bit of angst regarding that whole Masquerade thing.
And the whole Worm thing is going to cumulate in a big kaiju battle with help from Vlastomil. Not saying who he's helping, though :)
I will say, most of this stuff just popped up into my head. BUT! I also read a lot of various sci-fi and fantasy series. A lot of HOW I try to dream, create, and balance my story is influenced by a number of authors and specific books:
Phillip Pullman, "His Dark Materials". Idc that it's technically YA. The amount of sheer imagination and world CREATING this man does is far beyond what most "adult" sci-fi/fantasy novels has. Yes, I'm also pitting it against GOT/ASOIAF. Suck it, Martin.
Ursula K. LeGuinn, and everything related to Earthsea.
Madelein L'Engle (anything by her. Some of her stuff is incredibly surreal).
Deerskin by Robin McKinley. It does have some very disturbing imagery (rape, incest, and a miscarriage), but it is a very fine example of what I would consider a Modern Fairytail. It has a good balance between the mundane and magical, and turns a lot of the modern tropes onto their head. (Yes, it has a happy ending where the love interest's mutually love and respect one another.)
Ann Bishop's Black Jewels or Pillars of the World series. Both are also heavy on darker theams, but also do a good job of protraying the sheer, incadescent RAGE many of the wronged feel. It's really hard for me to describe just what about her writing satisfies me so, but it may be that yes, not everybody has a Happy Ending, but they have a Right Ending. It may not be a good ending, but it IS right.
And Tolkien. Because my Papa read the Lord of the Rings to me as a little child for my bedtime story. I will fight anyone who wants to denigrate him or find him problematic. Was the man born with a silverspoon up his ass? Yes. Did he benefit greatly from the labor of the women around him? Yes. Guess what, though? So did rich female writers of the time. If anyone's going to bash him for that, then bash the rich female writers as well.
I also watch(ed) a lot of sci-fi/fantasy movies. Star Wars (A New Hope) was my intro to Space Opera's when I was eight. Hayao Miyazaki is one of my favorite animation autor's. FF7 was my introduction to long-form storytelling via video games.
Because I have a literall treasure trove of influences, I really and honestly believe that it allows me to come up with the scenario's that I do. Thru the media I consumed, my writing is shaped.
All I can truly recommend is exposure. Read and watch EVERYTHING that you can get your hands on. Don't be afraid to push your boundries. You think "Oh, there's no way that THAT will be believable!" Who say's? Fuck it, just do it. Hell, "Nausaca of the Valley of the Wind" is fucking wild. "Oh, a toxic forest that grew after humanity set fire to itself using giants, and mutated rolly-pollies into literal moving mountains just isn't really plausable."
Bitch, fuck that. Do it. You want to add airships? Add some fucking airships. You want a female Jesus figure? Have her walk over a field of glowing tentacles. Fuck anyone who say's not to do something!
#ask tulip#tulip answers#sorry for rambling#i just have a lot of feelings#fuck the man#raise your freak flag high#write what you want#just fucking go for it babes
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The Worm Reads: Empire of Storms, Ch 42 - 43
I AM ACTUALLY SPEECHLESS HOLY FUCKING SHIT
Manon Blackbeak cracked open eyelids that were too heavy, too burning, and squinted against the flickering lantern light that swayed upon the wood panels of the room in which she lay.
HHHH I’VE BEEN DREADING THIS. Please kiss the Manon we know goodbye, because we’re likely gonna never see her again after this chapter.
[Manon] bolted upright. Abraxos. Where was Abraxos—
Unghhh their relationship is too pure and wholesome for this shitty novel. I seriously want Manon to leave this series and go to HTTYD, it’s what she deserves.
(...) the chains now around Manon’s wrists, around her ankles—anchored into the walls with what appeared to be freshly drilled holes.
FRESHLY DRILLED HOLES. What did they use to drill those holes? Don’t tell me they popped down to Home Depot and picked up a brand new screw gun I am l aughing
Alien is there and already I’m seeing red please SJM i am begging u keep Alien’s crusty ass 100000 miles away from Manon
[Aelin] jerked her chin toward the floor. A pitcher and cup lay there. “Water’s next to the bed. If you can reach it.”
YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE YOU’RE GOING TO LET MANON DIE OF HYDRATION IF SHE CAN’T REACH THE WATER?? FUCK YOU, ALIEN, YOU MASSIVE PIECE OF SHIT.
And as it turns out, Manon can’t reach the water and passes out soon afterwards. Fuck Alien I can’t think of one character I hate more than her fucking selfish ass.
Even unconscious, Manon’s every breath, every twitch, was a reminder that she was a born predator, her agonizingly beautiful face a careful mask to lure the unwary to their doom.
idk this seems weird... Manon is passed out from pain but they’re all splooging over how hot and dangerous she is... idk...
They were nearing Banjali now—and Dorian had tried and failed not to think of his dead friend with every league closer to the lovely city. Tried and failed not to consider if Nehemia would have been with them on this very ship had things not gone so terribly wrong.
*sobs* I miss Nehemia.... she deserved so much better....
“Hello, witchling,” [Dorian] said.
[Manon’s] full, sensuous mouth tightened slightly, either in a repressed grimace or smile, he couldn’t tell.
What the fuck is up with SJM making all her men horny for the women’s lips during situations that are in no way sexual?? Like Manon is a prisoner tied up and dying of hydration, why is Dorian thinking about her mouth this is so fucking weird
Dorian didn’t feel like mentioning that he’d been the one who’d jumped into the water [to save Manon]. He’d just … acted, as Manon had acted when she’d saved him in his tower. He owed her nothing less.
Ungh SJM is totally gonna make this a thing ain’t she. Like Dorian is just repaying her here but you know, you just know SJM is gonna use this for them to hook up.
Manon asks Dorian about Elide and the Thirteen and Dorian is like “who the hell are those guys” and Manon gets all sad and I’m :(((((
Whatever had happened, whatever [Manon] had endured … Dorian draped an arm along the back of his chair. “It’s coming in a few minutes. I’d hate for you to waste away into nothing. It’d be a shame to lose the most beautiful woman in the world so soon into her immortal, wicked life.”
Heh, that’s typical Dorian for you. Hey, maybe this ship won’t be so bad! Maybe they’ll become really good supportive friends who bond over all the trauma they went through and-
“I am not a woman,” was all [Manon] said. But hot temper laced those molten gold eyes.
[Dorian] gave her an indolent shrug, perhaps only because she was indeed in chains, perhaps because, even though the death she radiated thrilled him, it did not strike a chord of fear. “Witch, woman … as long as the parts that matter are there, what difference does it make?”
WHAT
THE
ACTUAL
FUCK
SJM. ARE YOU EVEN FUCKING KIDDING ME. DO YOU KNOW TRANSGENDER PEOPLE EXIST?? THAT NOT ALL WOMEN HAVE VAGINAS??? ARE YOU FUCKING SAYING TRANS WOMEN ARE LESS OF WOMEN IF THEY DON’T HAVE BREASTS AND VAGINAS??? BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT IT FUCKING LOOKS LIKE TO ME.
I CANNOT FUCKING BELIEVE THIS IS IN AN EPIC FANTASY SERIES. SJM WROTE THIS, EDITORS EDITED IT, AND THEN IT WAS PUBLISHED, AND NOBODY THOUGHT “oh hey, the implications of this are reaaaally bad, let’s cut it”
DJFHSJDFHAFJ THIS IS SO BAD THIS IS REALLY REALLY BAD HOLY SHIT I THOUGHT THIS WAS JUST A BOOK WITH SHITTY PLOT AND WRITING AND CHARACTERS BUT NOW WE CAN ADD TRANSPHOBIA TO THE LIST THATS JUST GREAT.
Sorry about that little tangent but my jaw actually hung wide open when I read that line. Holy fucking shit this novel is going to put me in the ground six feet under.
Dorian offered a lazy grin in return. “Believe it or not, this ship has an unnatural number of attractive men and women on board. You’ll fit right in. And fit in with the cranky immortals, I suppose.”
I’m so heartbroken but... I have to disown my baby boy. Dorian was once one of my few favorite characters but SJM has killed him and replaced him with a transphobic asshole. I’m so sorry my baby boy, you flew too close to the sun. You are hereby demoted to Dorito.
Assdion rears his ugly ass head to be rude to Manon and kiss Alien’s ass before leaving. Bye bitch, hope you fall off the ship and drown.
“Then I suppose you and I are both heirs without crowns.”
Remember last time Alien said this and I defended Dorito, saying he deserved his crown? Oh, how I took those earlier chapters for granted......
The rest of the chapter is Manon angsting about all the shit she’s been through lately. Since I like Manon and she has reason to be upset, I don’t have anything to make snarks about so next chapter.
Lorcan was still wondering what the hell he was doing three days later
Oh fucking great, I just witnessed the murder of my son Dorian and now I gotta read in Lorcan’s POV? Just keep kicking me while I’m down why don’t you, SJM.
“It’s going to rain.”
[Elide] slid a flat glance at him. “I do know what thunder means.”
Just fucking stop. This isn’t entertaining at all to watch two people bicker and made snarky remarks 100% of the time to one another and yet we’re supposed to believe they’re bonding I want to d ie
“Drink,” Elide commanded him.
Lorcan debated telling her not to give him orders, but … he liked seeing this small, fine-boned creature in action.
What the fuck does that mean?? Fine boned?? Is that really a way people describe others???? What the fuck am I reading???
So Lorcan drank and watched [Elide] while she watched others. So many calculating thoughts beneath that pale face, so many lies ready to spill from those rosebud lips.
I’m so tired like. You guys have done nothing but argue and avoid each other and now Lorass is getting horny at the sight of Elide’s lips I’m so tired.
[Elide] was going to leave. Tomorrow, whenever the carnival rolled out.
She’d likely hire one of these boats to take her northward, and [Lorcan] … he would go south. To Morath.
:(( the girl I emotionally abuse is going to leave after we both lied to one another :((( this is so sad can we get 100 likes
Elide talks to some people inside a tavern about Alien.
“Seems like the queen has a habit of showing up where she’s least expected, unleashing chaos, and vanishing again.
FINISH HER
Elide walked out of the third tavern, Lorcan on her heels. They hadn’t spoken once since she’d gone into that first inn. He’d been too lost in contemplating what it would be like to suddenly travel on his own again. To leave her … and never see her again.
I am utterly baffled you two have been nothing but assholes to each other!!! Like seriously you haven’t done anything nice for each other!!! Like wtf SJM is trying make us all :’((( about them splitting up but I can’t wait until this stupid subplot ends!
Elide reveals she can’t read to Lorass and he tries to compliment her, but...?
He wondered if he would have ever noticed if she hadn’t told him. “You seem to have survived rather impressively without it.”
I mean, good on him for not judging her, but like, she was locked up in a tower doing maid work? Reading skills really wouldn’t have made much of a difference there.
Turns out their carnival co workers ratted them out and sent guards after them. Lorass hauls Elide over his shoulder and makes a run for it.
“The gates at the city entrance,” [Elide] gasped as muscle and bone pummeled into her gut. “They’ll be there, too.”
Holy shit that sounds painful. She’s not a sack of potatoes Lorass, try some gentleness.
Lorcan pocketed the axe he’d thumbed free
You literally just took out your axe like two paragraphs ago on the same page. What was the point of this?
They find some rando and force him to get them the hell out of dodge on his boat. Elide hears a splash but doesn’t think anything of it until she sees Lorass again.
[Elide] glanced at the hatchet at [Lorcan’s] side as he strode out of the cabin. “You killed him, didn’t you?” That was what the splash had been. A body being dumped over the side.
So, just to recap, according to Lorass.... killing an innocent man who helped you escape the guards; completely justifiable. Stealing something you suspect is bad from a woman you don’t even like; evil, unacceptable, crossing a line.
“He might have had a family depending on him.” [Elide]’d seen no wedding ring, but it didn’t mean anything.
I was about to get tilted but SJM corrected herself. I hate the mentality that if you don’t have a spouse, you clearly can’t have a family who depends on you. Kids from previous relationships, parents, grandparents, siblings, they’re family too y’know.
Lorass finds out the Wyrdkey he carried is a fake and loses his shit.
Then Lorcan flung open the door, so violently it nearly ripped off its hinges, and hurled what looked to be the shards of a broken amulet into the river. Or he tried to. Lorcan threw it hard enough that it cleared the river entirely and slammed into a tree, gouging out a chunk of wood.
I enjoy his misery tbh. Lorass is so pissy he reveals to Elide that Alien was Celaena, or as I like to call her Celery, at one point.
“You knew, and you didn’t tell me. Why?”
“You still haven’t told me your secrets. I don’t see why I should tell all of mine, either.”
I mean, yeah, hate to agree with Lorass but fair enough. You’ve both done nothing but lie to each other’s faces, why would he tell you that? I want to like Elide but all this shitty drama and bickering is making my affection for her wear thin.
Then - holy fucking shit, there’s like a bunch of huuuuuuge paragraphs of Lorass and Elide bickering and they’re so fucking big. This hurts my eyes to look at. I’m gonna screencap one of them, just to show you how fucking huge they are.
HOLY SHIT SJM BREAK UP YOUR BIG ASS BRICKS OF TEXT PLEASE. My eyes started to cross trying to read this, it took me like three tries.
tl;dr because of some bullshit Lorass is staying with Elide because they both have business with Alien. Fuckin’ great, I love everyone’s agendas revolving around the main special snowflake, just fuckin’ great.
There’d been nothing inside the amulet but one of those rings—an utterly useless Wyrdstone ring, wrapped in a bit of parchment. And on it was written in a feminine scrawl:
Here’s hoping you discover more creative terms than “bitch” to call me when you find this.
With all my love,
A.A.G.
Maybe I’d find this amusing if Alien wasn’t a walking shitstain, but... I’m tired. I’m so goddamn tired.
[Lorcan]’d kill [Aelin]. Slowly. Creatively.
Damn wish you would fam, but Alien’s got plot armor bigger than her fuckin’ ego. Lorass ends the chapter by saying he’ll kill Alien, which we all know won’t happen. I’m betting money that there’ll probably be a Lorass/Rowboat/Alien love triangle once Lorass sees what an ~uhmazing~ queen Alien is. Don’t give me that look, you know SJM would.
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DNF Review: Throne of Glass
Final Rating: */***** or 2/10
After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.
Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her ... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.
Then one of the other contestants turns up dead ... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.
Throne of Glass isn’t the worst book I’ve ever read, but it certainly was one of the most infuriating, which is why I was only able to read about 50% of it.
Since I didn’t finish it, I am only going to review the issues and things I disliked within the first half I read of it.
I also wanna note that I did read spoilers for the ending to confirm some thoughts I had and will be touching upon those.
Since this is my first DNF Review, I am gonna discuss why I picked up this book in the first place, the writing style (which is something that, for the most part, doesn’t really change from beginning to end), the premise (rather than the plot since I didn’t finish the book), the things I liked about the book, what I disliked about this book, and finally why I put it down.
Why I Picked Throne of Glass Up
So. A year or two ago I wanted to get back into reading. Due to a lot of issues and things in my personal life, I completely stopped reading for pleasure during my Sophomore year of high school, which meant I had stopped reading for... about 4 years? Which made me really upset as I had always been an avid reader! And since I was getting really passionate about writing, I figured I should get back into reading.
So I made a post on tumblr asking what YA books people recommended. I had been reading YA when I stopped reading (well... a mix of YA and MG, but mainly YA) so I figured that’d be the best place to start.
Numerous people recommended me different things, but one anon recced Throne of Glass to me. It was a fantasy (a genre I mentioned liking in my post) and they told me that though they hadn’t read it themselves, they had a friend who adored the series and that it was really popular so it was probably pretty good.
The. Really popular bit made me nervous, but nevertheless, I went onto Amazon. Bless me, actually, because I decided I’d try and read the little promo Amazon gives you before buying it.
I DNF’d it after half a page. I had never DNF’d a book so fast and so hard. The first time, what made me DNF this book was Celaena complaining about her looks while being in a prison. Like... girl...... priorities....
Months later, I started seeing people talking about this book a little as I got back into reading. Getting curious, I read some reviews, both bad and good, and decided to give this book another shot.
It was as bad as I thought it would be, if not worse.
The Premise (What was this?)
Honestly, I still don’t really know what I read. What even is Throne of Glass? What is life, in fact? What is the universe? I don’t know, but I feel like I’d figure out the latter two questions before I figured out the first.
So. The premise, or basic story idea of ToG is basically... Cinderella... mixed with Assassin’s Creed... mixed with the Hunger Games.... I dunno about anyone else but when people describe a piece of media to me as a mix of two or more random-ass things, I start getting nervous.
But honestly I have no idea how else to describe Throne of Glass. I couldn’t tell what this book wanted to be! And that was really what fucked me up. It wanted to be a big epic fantasy. It wanted to be a mystery. It wanted to be about girls in pretty dresses kissing pretty boys and having to choose between them. It wanted a princess aesthetic but with a character that has to be nasty to be an assassin. ToG, to me, is a long book of wants that didn’t deliver.
But said that, nothing was as poorly thought out as the plot. The plot is what confused me most, ground me to a halt, and said, “wait, what?”
Okay, the plot is basically Celaena joining this competition to win her freedom to become the king’s champion. Only issue is... a king’s champion is a real thing. And is something for mainly knights if I recall.
Back in the olden days of yore, when kings needed to fight against one another, or if someone wanted to challenge the king to a duel, they would have a champion to fight in their stead. If you’re a king, you don’t wanna fight your own duels, that’d be nuts! What if you died?! Then what would happen to your kingdom? That’s what a champion was for.
The champion is basically chosen/hired by the king. The thing is, what Celaena is... describing is well. Not a champion. Not really. I mean... I guess it’s kinda champion-like? It’s really vague in the book and it boils down to “you do dirty work for the king” so basically a hitman?
Thing is... the king is a king... why doesn’t he just hire an assassin? One who hasn’t been caught (looking at you, Celaena!). I mean, in the long run, that would be a lot cheaper than hosting a giant competition with a bunch of criminals who aren’t loyal to you, who will turn on you at any moment, and can’t be trusted? I mean, just ‘cause he has them swear to be loyal to him don’t mean jack shit, c’mon.
The entire plot of this novel falls directly apart as soon as you know what a king’s champion is! And honestly, the fix to this would be so easy. You could still have the competition, but instead make it between knights or wannabe knights or something. Have Celaena be a knight instead. She acts like it anyways; being all brash all the time and desiring the center of attention 24/7. Or if you really want her to be an assassin, fix her fugly personality and have her be an assassin pretending to be a knight.
And the king being “”crazy”” isn’t an excuse. Using crazy as an excuse is... one kinda insulting and gross and two, lazy. It means nothing and is a cop out at this point. Also, he did nothing in this book to seem crazy to me, really. He’s an asshole and abuses his kid but... besides that he’s basically nothing. He’s an evil king. He doesn’t even have an actual name. That’s how bland he is. There was no thought put into him at all. And again, this too could have had an easy fix. Rather than saying he’s crazy to excuse his nonsensical actions, all that had to be said was: he and his court want entertainment. That’s it. That would have given the competition the perfect excuse to exist in the first place. Sure, it’s not the most interesting of reasons or anything, but it’s better than the book being completely silent of why there’s a competition in the first place. Why does a king need a competition? Why between criminals who will stab him in the back? It’s never explained and it’s dumb.
God. There are SO many ways where ToG could’ve been better. Just. Better in general. There is so much lost potential here with the plot, which is where half my frustrations come from.
So. The premise falls apart after thinking about it for over .2 seconds. The second part of the actual plot of the novel (well, at least what’s described on the back of the book, not what I actually got) is a mystery. But... this mystery is really cliche. Someone taking out the competition. Wow. Never seen that before.
Also, I did spoil myself the ending to see if my guess of who it was was correct and welp. Winner winner, chicken dinner! It was indeed Cain. As soon as he swaggered on stage, and the narration hated him, and Celaena hated AND was a lil racist towards him, I knew it was him. His detailed magic ring and the fact he kept getting bigger apparently every time we saw him also clued us in. There was less foreshadowing in this book and more “beating you over the head with a Cain.”
Also, none of the other members of the competition really got... anything? Most were unnamed or Celaena dismissed them right away. Why even have these characters in the book if they aren’t even gonna be named? I get it’s a big cast, but still. Hunger Games was able to do the bare minimum of this, I mean at least all the tributes had names. Big casts are hard to write, so why not shrink it down a little? It won’t affect the story, in any case.
So instead of a cool mystery and badass competition, the premise of the competition fell apart, was mainly summarized and not seen from what I read, and in general the tasks were boring. No real fighting, nothing with a lot of tension or excitement. Just boredom. The mystery wasn’t even lukewarm. It was ice cold. I don’t even really know what the pages were filled up with... random bantering that told us nothing more about the characters than we already did. Celaena not knowing what guy to choose. Her wearing pretty dresses. Her reading and playing the piano. Her shittalking about girls with this other chick. Just. the most random stuff. It was fluff. Which is fine. I like fluff! I like pretty dresses and romance and all that!! But not in a book that promised me a MURDER MYSTERY and ACTION.
Maybe the action would’ve picked up if I kept reading. But something tells me... not so much. If excitement doesn’t happen before the rough halfway point of your book, something is wrong. At least, to me it is.
The Writing
A lot of people thought the writing was pretty it seemed. Numerous negative reviews praised the writing. I admit, there were some pretty quotes in there. But most of it was clunky and reminded me of Eragon (not good) or just. Laundry list. I can’t pull up the quote right now, I don’t have the book, but I remember when the library was shown to us, the narration just listed everything inside in a sentence with commas. The same was done in the king’s chamber besides a little extra detail on the fireplace. None of the descriptions of the settings were any good.... and neither were the pretty dresses! It was just “this dress is cut bad” “the fabric is ugly and feels bad” and such. What was the fabric made out of? What cut was the dress? There were so many little things like this that bothered me throughout the writing.
Lots of filler paragraphs that led to nothing were everywhere too. Sentences that danced around world building were common too. Again, don’t have the book, but at one point Chaol and Celaena were discussing books they liked and instead of name dropping some titles, giving us an idea of what sort of books these two like to read, it was just “Chaol listed some titles to Celaena. Celaena nodded approvingly” or something like that. Lazy. Boring. Pointless. Filler.
There was so much filler writing in this. And so much... passive writing. Especially when Celaena was traveling to the castle and beyond. “Celaena felt” was used so often that I nearly started counting how many sentences began with that. Sometimes, yes, telling is alright. But SHOW us how she feels! Don’t tell us she finds the castle breathtaking but daunting or whatever! Show us! What’s her expression look like? Her body language? What is she thinking? The moment she saw the castle was supposed to be powerful and tense but it wasn’t because the writing was passive when it shouldn’t have been. Passive writing isn’t the worst thing ever, but where the writing would’ve benefited from being active, it was passive instead, which also made the book a kinda bland read on a technical level. The writing stayed the same throughout. Sentence length wasn’t played around with much, sentence type didn’t change much. The only stand-out pieces were mainly dialogue.
I like active writing. I like an active writing style. Throne of Glass was passive. And you know what? I get it. I write in third person too. It’s hard.
But writing is hard. Publishing is even harder. This is a published book and I expected better, especially with how popular it is.
And yes, this is a debut novel. I kept telling myself that when I was reading this. But... I’ve read better debuts. I’ve read better fanfictions online. This is a New York Times best seller and a favorite of many. It should’ve been better.
The (little) Things I Liked
Gonna bullet point all this, hope none of you guys mind~
Celaena being feminine and proud of it. Haven’t really read a character like this yet and as someone who is writing several proud feminine characters, it was nice to see
Chaol. Just him in general. Best character and I loved him.
SOME of the banter was pretty fun.
That one scene with Celaena working out in her room was A Good TM
Some of the one-liner descriptions were pretty good and I enjoyed them.
I actually liked some of the traveling bits in the beginning. I thought it would skip straight to the castle but we got to savor a little in the journey there. It was nice (tho it went on too long and got annoying and boring to read)
The (many) Things I Disliked
A longer bullet point list, hope you all are ready! I’ll try and go in a somewhat chronological order
The plot made no fucking sense
Dorian. The only Dorian in my heart is Dorian Pavus and also he was so one-note that I almost cried.
The world building? The little world building that was like. Actually present was so bland... it read like Typical Fantasy. Listen. If I wanted Typical Fantasy I’d go play one of the many re-releases of Skyrim, okay??
Celaena was just unlikeable and her entire character was contradictory. She acted more like a mercenary for hire or a thug than an assassin. Assassins wouldn’t wanna be in the center of attention, people!
Also Celaena acted really dumb in parts and it made me cringe.
Chaol as the captain of the guard made no sense. He’s too young!
In fact, Celaena as the best assassin made no sense. She is also too young. Also, if she got captured and is KNOWN, she is hardly the best. The point of being an assassin is...... being unknown... c’mon.....
The tests. The back of the book made them sound really cool but they were just? Running around a track? Some softcore parkour? The archery contest actually made sense I guess but it would’ve been cooler if they were hitting like. Actual moving targets rather than just. Bulls-eyes.
Also most the tests were just kinda brushed over? At least The Hunger Games was.... well most the book took place DURING the Hunger Games so like.
The king had no fucking name what the shit who doesn’t name their fucking VILLAIN?!
Cain. Like. He was so stereotypical. I looked up to see if he would end up as the villain at the end and I was right, how disappointing. Also, naming your villain Cain is like.... idk... literally is there a single protagonist named Cain? Genuine question
The girl hate. Like, I get that girls are people and not all girls are gonna get along or anything but like. There were throwaway lines that just made me roll my eyes and scrunch up my nose.
THE FUCKING GLASS CASTLE MADE ME SO MAD OH MY GOD WHY WAS IT THERE. And if the castle looks the exact same on the inside in the glass part as the stone part, what’s the point then? How is this nation, which is at war, have a glass castle? That thing is gonna shatter. How did they make it? Why did the king make it? The most we get is the implication is that he’s crazy but that’s.... gross for one and two, lazy. You know what would’ve been cool tho? If the king was just a zealot who worshipped his human gods to the point where he wanted them to always see his victories and be able to see him wherever he went, so he created the glass portions of the castle so he could be seen by his gods the entire time. I thought of that idea in the span of 10 seconds. Sigh.
AND I AM STILL ON THE GLASS CASTLE SHIT listen. If this was a whimsical fantasy and everyone went with it, I wouldn’t have SUCH a huge problem with it, tho it would still be kinda dumb (mattering on context...) but legit. Having your characters point it out doesn’t make them look smart, it makes the author look silly. “It’s a dumb idea, I know it’s a dumb idea, but I am going to write it anyways. For The Aesthetic” listen. We’re past the age of aestheticism. Let’s get our heads outta the 1800s, k?
Honestly there were descriptions but I couldn’t ever get a good image on what was going on, which is weird. All the descriptions were for like. More finer details? But the overall look of the entire world was just blank in my mind. I dunno how else to explain it.
So. Much. Filler. Celaena! Get outta your room and let us explore some! I can sit alone in my room myself irl, I don’t wanna read some chick do the same!
Same with the book shit. Like we could’ve gotten some amazing world building just based on the books Celaena read but whatever that was brushed over too??
Honestly a lot of reading ToG was like reading a textbook where words go through my eyes and their meaning seeps from my ears and I find myself 20 pages in but no idea how I got there and don’t remember a single word of what I read.
The writing style for the fighting. When you write fight scenes or tense scenes, you want your writing to become choppier usually and sharp. It changes the mood and tone of the scene. The author just used the same flowing prose she had for the rest of the book, which was kinda dull.
I wish we had seen the murders. I mean, the book is in third person and does switch POV at times! I wanna read some good blood, guts, n gore!
L O V E T R I A N G L E O F H E L L
I thought Celaena was supposed to be sickly?? But like after a few chapters in the book that’s like, forgotten, besides her throwing up after running? Why only after running? Why doesn’t she worry about this or her health much? Seriously her physiology makes no sense.
Celaena’s mental health is also questionable. She’s completely fine after being tortured for a year and in a death camp and only has bad nightmares every once in a while?? That ain’t how PTSD works. Seriously what was going on in her head? What was the author trying to portray? You don’t do this shit half-assed. Either throw yourself into the research or go the Harry Potter route.
There is one character who is fat and he is ofc, a terrible person (I am talking about Dorian’s younger brother, ofc. Sigh. And yikes)
Celaena sometimes talked and acted like she was younger than what she actually was?? I think being childish was supposed to be part of her personality but it doesn’t mesh with her being an assassin. Unless she was doing it on purpose as an act. But she obv wasn’t so......
Yulemas. Honestly, I put the book down around when it was mentioned. It’s a dumb name and I can imagine what sort of celebration it is.
The timing and pacing of this book is weird. The king needs to learn what an itinerary is. I think it’d help him out.
Why I Put Throne of Glass Down
Mainly for two reasons: one I had just bought some books at the library and wanted to read those instead. I just wanted to read a good book again. The second reason is just as simple: I was incredibly bored.
There was just so much filler for me. Characters talking about random stuff, walking around, trying to figure out a mystery I figured out as soon as the first murder actually happened. It was all so boring to me.
And then... Celaena started suspecting Nehemia. Her only friend in the castle.
I dunno why that did it in for me. I think it’s because I didn’t wanna sit through at the very least 50 pages of one of the poorest red herrings I have ever stumbled across. I can (somewhat) deal with a book that promised me action and gave me bad romance with pretty girls and boys. I’ll complain a lot, give it a bad rating most likely, but I can finish books like those. What I can’t deal with is a clear waste of my fucking time. At that point, I was already 99.99% sure Cain was the bad guy. I was already tired of Celaena in general since she is such an unpleasant character for me to read. I did not wanna sit through a plot point that just insulted my intelligence and made the book all the more longer than it has to be. I have no idea how someone can make a book this bland and boring so long. I honestly cannot understand how I got pretty much 50% of the way in, and feel like I have moved nowhere when it comes to the characters and the plot. I don’t know how I could be pretty much halfway through this book and feel like not a SINGLE action scene has happened. (Yes, I know there have been actions scenes, but I didn’t like them or the way they were written. They weren’t exciting for me.)
All this realization just kinda came crashing down on me with Celaena suspecting Nehemia. And I was quite done with all of it.
Maybe the book would’ve picked up. Maybe the entire premise, story, characters, and writing style could’ve changed in a single page flip. But I seriously doubt that.
I’m tired of wasting my time with books I am not enjoying. If I’m gonna read a bad book, I at the very least want it to be entertaining.
And Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas wasn’t even that.
#bookblr#Throne of Glass#Throne of Glass Book Review#DNF#one star review#My Book Reviews#DNF review#long post#fandom hate#book hate#negative review#what a queue-t
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Tag Game - 10 Questions x 3
I was tagged by @kclenhartnovels, @luminahart, and @yourbitchystudentwriter for this one, and I’ll answer all 30 questions in this one post! That way I don’t spam anyone’s dash and I also only have to think of 10 questions instead of 30 when I’m done haha.
Thank you so much, you three, for tagging me! I love these questions!
Rules: The Rules: answer these ten questions, create ten of you own, then tag ten people.
I’ll answer the questions under the break!
Round One!
1. What is your OC’s biggest pet peeve?
I’ll just answer for the three OCs of mine that have shown up in Breaking Furnace so far!
Sawyer hates unexpected changes in plan and unnecessarily repetitive noises. Like. Stop knocking after a couple seconds, they promise they heard you. Please condense those hundreds of tiny short messages into one longer one the pings are gonna drive them crazy.
Connor has a problem with people bad mouthing Sawyer, if you didn’t get that from Chapter 5 of Breaking Furnace lmao.
Dominic is touchy about topics dealing with family (”family is so important!” “you can always turn to your family!”). Basically, keep your perfect family narrative away from him or he’ll be forced to remind you that his father was the leader of a human trafficking cartel, which certainly won’t ruin your day as much as you’ve ruined his.
2. What book that you’ve read did you wish you had written, or think you could have written better?
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh man this is a hard one. When it comes to wishing I had written a book like “Dammit, I wish I’d had that idea!” I would probably say Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry. I still haven’t finished that series, but DAMN that was a good zombie book.
If it’s like “Wow, that’s a good concept but bad execution” hand me the rights to Twilight and Fifty Shades. Please let someone make these relationships healthy and not completely terrifying. Please.
With both, I think I would say Hunger Games. Like, the execution wasn’t BAD, but I read those books and see places where like. It could have been better. Better plot decisions could have been made.
You took Rue from us, Collins, why did you have to take Prim, too?
3. Which OC is smarter than you? What research did you have to do because of it?
Oh boy.
Notably, Jay is smarter than me. I haven’t written a ton with them in it so I haven’t had to do much research at all. They were created through a cloning process in which the Cube was manipulated to make them smarter and able to synthesize information faster than should be possible imo. They don’t have much formal education because of their unusual upbringing (see: Dominic’s father’s trafficking cartel), but they have sizable knowledge in biology, biochemistry, engineering, bio-engineering, nuclear sciences, psychology, pharmacology, computer sciences, geology, topography, and have been doing a lot of research into the way the Cube works (specifically the memory sectors). They’re also continuing looking into cloning. There’s a ton I’m missing but like?? I don’t really think I’m welcome in their labs these days haha.
Also, J (not Jay, easy mistake) is a lot better at thinking on their feet than I am haha. They’re like a prodigy with a sword, grew up learning how to fight and lie. I would die in a fight, whether with fists, swords, or any other weapons. And I’m only a good liar when I take too long to respond to a text/email.
4. If you were doing immersive research for your book, where/when would you have to travel?
I’ll do this one for Savior/Destroy, 100 Shades, and TS because those are the ones that doesn’t take place in a concept of a place. BF and SORH both take place in concepts because of the nature of those daydreams.
For Savior/Destroy, I would really just need to be a fly on the wall of business happenings (same for 100 Shades, ugh), to get a feel for how that field actually works. There’s a lot you can’t research online effectively.
For 100 Shades, I would really need to spend some time in Seattle and Denver. I know little to nothing about either area, and I’ve been putting off research since I’m not writing it yet.
Trollhunters: Subverted would suck because I would have to go on a nice timeline trip starting around 500 BCE in what is now Bulgaria. There’s a lot of running around in that general area for a time. Starting around 1400 CE, I would want to be in Britain. Also, it would be nice to know exactly what happened at Roanoke. And knowing exactly how the woods were in southern Oregon and northern California in the 1600-1800 would be rad.
5. Which character is most like you?
I’ll say. Other than the characters that are me.
Humphrey. He’s nice and sweet and kind of bad at lying except for that one thing that he’s been lying about for so long that it doesn’t even feel like a lie before. My daydreaming is just a much more innocuous secret than his. And he had to switch schools in the middle of a school year, he struggles with mental illness, he’s really not good at talking to people.
The thing is, he doesn’t write and he likes math so who the hell does he think he is?
6. What is your favorite scented candle and why?
There’s like a blood orange Glade candle that I smelled at Target the other day?? It was really nice, but i haven’t really let myself think about scented candles since I’m not allowed to have candles at all in my dorm (doesn’t stop me from having some tealights for my altar but eh).
I like incense, though, and I love voodoo (because it smells like chocolate and death. like, in a good way) and fizzee pop (because it’s like the scent version of carbonation). Coconut is my favorite for writing because it’s the one my sister and I burn when we have writing parties, so it’s just one that I like.
7. Do you have a bookshelf or library? What’s your ideal library look like?
I have a bookshelf over my bed with all of the books I brought to university with me. If I could have my ideal library, like, think Beauty and the Beast scale library full of informational texts, classics that I’ll probably never even read, ongoing series. It should have a faint scent of dust and paper fresh off a printer. There would be a full section for all the books published by the folks in the writeblr community.
It should have an air of being similar to how the Gryffindor common room is described as feeling.
Everyone would be invited to come and complain about writing whenever they want to. It would be warm, with tea and coffee provided in the very back where the books I don’t remember buying are shelved.
8. Who is your biggest tumblr fan of your writing?
Oh man. I would be stuck between maybe?? @breakeven2007 or @jade-island-lives. You two have responded to so much of my writing, and it’s so cool. I know there are others, and I’m gonna take this opportunity to thank all of y’all so much for everything. It means a lot to get these tags and to get responses to things that I’ve written.
9. What tv show/movie has influenced your writing the most? Or, which series do you wish you could help write?
Honestly. Probably. Pokemon. I grew up watching that show and it probably has a lot of influence on how I form stories and how I view different kinds of conflicts.
I want there to be a Harry Potter TV series and I would 100% want to help write it.
10. How do you feel about fanfiction of your work?
Fuck me up.
Round Two!
1. Describe your WIP in such a lamest way possible.
An idiot gets themself thrown in prison because they regret not killing someone.
2. Describe your WIP in the most epic way possible.
A group of friends return to a nightmare of their past to face it head on, but nothing is what it seems. Most of the group has ulterior motives and the monsters lurking in the shadows have plans of their own.
3. What do you usually wear when you write?
Gay clothes. Because I’m gay.
In all seriousness, I have a hard time getting into the mindset of writing if I’m not wearing my ring (which I got from a candle, it has a connection with the Trollhunters daydream), my nostalgia necklace (has my pentacle, a charm from a friend when I graduated, and a vial of my cat’s ashes), and my string of keys (my daydreams tie heavily in with keys and it feels wrong to write about them without the keys on my person). Loose, comfy clothes are also a plus but not a requirement.
4. What part of your story do you enjoy writing the most (action, dialouge, description etc.)? Why?
I like writing tender moments and dialogue. Like, I love writing scenes between me and Connor. I love finding the balance between what needs to be said and what should be left unsaid.
5. Do you prefer to write female or male protagonists? Why?
I prefer to write nonbinary protagonists, but that’s just because I’m nonbinary haha. I don’t really write women, men, or nonbinary folk any differently.
6. What are your plans for your WIP after you have finished writing it?
I kind of want to get it bound so I can have physical copies of it, even if I’ll never be able to publish it.
7. Have you, or would you participate in NaNoWriMo?
I have, sort of. I never got more than a couple thousand words in, but eh. It was fun. My projects just weren’t viable for a quick-write. I want to try again in the future, but November is just such an inconvenient month. It’s the worst month of the year for me, and I don’t see myself being able to work through that enough to write a 50,000 word novel in a month.
8. What do you enjoy the most about your genre?
Haha, that would make it sound like I stick to one genre. I think a lot of it has mystery, thriller, supernatural, and urban fantasy qualities, though, so?? I love the flexibility. “They separated their consciousness from their body?” sure, it’s my universe so that can happen.
9. What was your favourite read of 2017?
I didn’t really read a lot in 2017, which is tragic. My favorite book of the year was The Square Root of Summer by Herriet Reuter Hapgood. I had to race the clock to read this one because I started reading it really close to the end of my senior year. It was so good, and it surprised me in a million different ways. The protagonist had to admit to herself her own shortcomings in the process of facing an uncertain future, an old childhood friend, and crazy physics.
It was a great book, and if you like YA novels without all of the unacknowledged unhealthy relationships I would really recommend it.
10. What are your hopes for your writing in 2018?
I want to finish Breaking Furnace, goddamn it.
Round Three!
1. What inspired your current WIP?
Breaking Furnace is inspired by Escape From Furnace and the daydreams I’ve had in that universe. I have no idea?? Why this universe is the one I got fascinated enough with to live through the events of the original series in different ways 8 times, though, so that’s whatever.
2. what would you describe your writing style?
According to my roommate, “Almost cynical. It’s like the dark parts of your brain mixed with your humor and have this big fucked up baby. But in a good way. Like, a really good way. Like, you wouldn’t actually stab someone, but you would.”
And I think that’s beautiful.
3. What is an Au that you would love to see written about your OCs?
Literally anything where they are happy. Just let them have peace.
4. tell us a funny writing story.
Okay, so. I have a couple.
I’m sure we all remember the ‘eghit’ debacle, when I was trying to type ‘height’ and realized I needed to go to SLEEP.
And also that drunk writing party. Where I drank a single Mike’s Harder Lemonade (not to be confused with the much wimpier Mike’s Hard Lemonade). And really underestimated how much alcohol was in it.
So, here’s the whole story.
My mom doesn’t like cranberry juice, and I poked fun that she had cranberry Mike’s Harder Lemonade. And out of that conversation I obtained permission to have it. So, my brilliant self decided that since sober me, exhausted me, and depressed me can’t get any writing done, maybe tipsy me could.
And I ended up practically chugging it because I drink everything way too fast. And so I was writing, doing some outlining, and after I started to fuck up way more than I wanted to I actually went and checked how much drinking that in less than an hour would raise my BAC and it p much drove me over .04 so I laughed at myself for a solid ten minutes then went to sleep.
When I looked the next day, I wrote a paragraph, outlined ~4 pages of content, and a lot of it was good. If you can discount the typos.
5. do you listen to music while you write? if so what kind typically?
I do! When I’m writing new content, I listen to playlists I’ve made for each of my projects. When I’m editing, I listen to a classical Pandora station because I can not have words in my ears counteracting the words in my eyes.
6. when did you start writing?
A year or so after my sister started writing (or, when she started letting me read her writing), so maybe fourth grade?
7.who’s you favourite OC?
HHHHHH probably Connor. Definitely Connor.
8. who’s your least favourite OC?
Dominiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiic
9. do you prefer 1st 2nd or 3rd person perspective?
First person. I haven’t written in third person in awhile, and I’m assuming I would still not hate it, but I like being in a character’s head.
I write in second person if I’m writing creepypastas, which I haven’t done in a couple years.
10. uhhh….IDk just talk about anything wip or writing related, you decide!
I! Am really excited about getting to the point in Breaking Furnace where it completely breaks from the plot of the original series. I grew so much throughout this daydream, and it’s gonna be really cool to share that with everyone.
I really don’t want to spoil anything, but I also really want to talk about everything to do with Breaking Furnace.
Alright!
I’ll tag @panismightier, @breakeven2007, @jade-island-lives, @perringcentral, @angrymagicgirlmarsette, @vwritesfiction, @christinawritesfiction, @cadewrites, @happyk44, @lux-scriptum, but definitely don’t feel obligated to do it!
My questions for you!
1. How much research do you put into your projects, usually?
2. What do you draw the most inspiration from?
3. Favorite candy? How about your OC’s?
4. What are your OC’s star signs, and do their personalities fit their sign?
5. Which OC(s) secretly still have stuffed animals? Which one(s) have them, not so secretly?
6. Does your space have to be clean for you to write/draw?
7. What kind of view would you like to have from your desk?
8. Do you have an OC that doesn’t like to talk about their past? What do they have to hide?
9. Daytime writer or nighttime writer?
10. What trait do you least like in your favorite OC?
#tag game#this was hardcore#i loved it#i love answering questions!!#thank you so much for tagging me!
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i love your s12 spn meta post, i love how you've analysed things and looked through different angles, but i have to admit. sometimes i feel that us fans of the show think more complexly about the characters and scenes than the writers themselves. they've shown continuity errors and character development mistakes time and time again, and the queerbaiting is frustrating as fuck. it doesn't make sense to me that these people are the same ones orchestrating such fantastic plotlines.
(i ran out of space for that previous ask) but again, i sincerely mean no disrespect to you or to the creators of the show. it was just my two cents. i'm sorry if you find it offensive in any way, i definitely did not mean for it to come off as rude! :(
Hi... I didn’t take it as rude, so you’re fine. :P
(I probably wouldn’t have posted it on anon, though, just because I don’t see the show as being fully of continuity errors and character development mistakes, and “queerbaiting” is in the eye of the beholder and seems a harsh statement to level against a writing staff that is comprised of several LGBT writers. Especially when they have been addressing queer characters and issues in serious ways, and absolutely not making them the punchline of a joke or dismissing them. It’s a word I would not throw around so casually.)
***On second thought, after typing ALL of this out, I feel like having spent the whole morning on it, it should be on my blog... I hope that’s okay.
Half the point of my rewatch (which, oops, I’m behind on because TNT showed a ten episode marathon the morning after a new episode aired, and the new episode had to take priority over the old) is to point out how consistent ALL of these things are.
There’s a post I like very much that I just saw again yesterday:
People should probably learn the difference between “plot holes” and “things I didn’t like” or “things the franchise plans to explain in the future” or “things film makers didn’t think they needed to explicitly explain because they thought you had critical thinking skills”
I didn’t reblog it because it’s already somewhere on my blog from ages ago, but especially relevant to s12, because of the way they’re telling the story.
99% of the time what looks on the surface like a “plot hole” is actually an expansion of canon, and yelling PLOT HOLE! or RETCON! just because something seems different means there’s a reason for the difference now.
Like the fact we’ve seen several shapshifters who don’t shed their skin like puddles of goo and can just *poof* into a new form. We’ve had shifters like this since s6 when we learned about the alphas. Truly powerful shifters don’t need to shed to change form.
(on a practical level, it makes the prop department’s job easier because they don’t have to create goo puddles, but also they’re able to use a shifter’s ability to change instantly as a plot point, and have done so several times very effectively. Like in 12.20 when Ketch was torturing “Mary” and punched her, so the shifter took on HIS form. They couldn’t have done that if they hadn’t introduced this more powerful strain of shifter before.)
Technically, everything that’s happened since 4.01 would fit the strictest definition of plot hole, because it had already been established that angels did not exist. And yet... here were angels.
Cas said in the past that angels were now walking the earth for the first time in two thousand years, so the fact he’d been down here in a vessel in 1901 must be a plot hole too... unless you assume that Cas’s previous statement was both specific and hyperbolic (which really isn’t a stretch, angels have always avoided certain truths in order to manipulate us). Angels as a whole hadn’t embarked on a unified mission to earth in the last 2000 years, but we know that Lily’s first encounter with Ishim in 1901 was because SHE SUMMONED HIM. She performed a magical spell that BROUGHT AN ANGEL TO EARTH. And the events of their relationship unfolded to the point she felt compelled to summon yet another angel (Akobel) to protect her from Ishim. Well, suddenly there’s a whole flight of angels coming to kill her, you know? It’s not the sort of story that any of the angels involved would be cheerfully chirping on about.
Point being, if Lily Sunder was capable of summoning an angel, there’s probably been OTHER people over the course of human history who’d tried it too. All of heaven may not have descended like they did in s4, but here and there, angels very well may have been watching over us.
It’s not a plot hole, it’s an expansion of canon. It refines our understanding and reminds us that we don’t know everything about the entire history of that universe.
I think there’s two kinds of people: Those who see something they think is a “mistake” in canon and scream PLOT HOLE! and get upset about it and think the writers are idiots, and then there are those who see that same thing and wonder how does that fit with the information I already have and then try to understand.
Sometimes a plot hole is just a plot hole (like the time travel nonsense in 12.13 that turns into a strange loop of infinitely decreasing returns), but most of the time it’s really really not.
As for characterization “errors”, most of the time they are incredibly purposeful. Like the whole scene at the beginning of 12.15. People are STILL shouting, “Out of character! Dean hates germs! He would NEVER do that!” and therefore MISSED THE ENTIRE POINT OF THAT SCENE.
Which was SAM standing there staring at Dean THINKING THE EXACT SAME THING.
Dean was putting on the performance FOR SAM. He KNEW Sam was lying to him about where the cases were coming from, and Dean’s not a moron. They visit the MoL, and suddenly a few days later Sam’s got a “magic phone app” that finds cases for him? Yeah, Dean wasn’t about to let Sam keep lying to him, and yet Sam was STILL lying to him even after two weeks of hunting, so he kept upping the Disgusting Quota trying to get Sam to break and confess. Because if he just comes out and asks Sam directly, he continues to lie and give him weak excuses. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the basics right there...
The one characterization thing that actually bugs me was the scene in 9.04 where Sam and Dean are watching Game of Thrones with Charlie, and Jensen and Jared DECIDED TO SWAP LINES because they felt that Sam was the one who would read the books, and not Dean... (Robbie Thompson, who wrote the scene, is still grumpy about it, too). Because DEAN DOES READ. And in this scene HE was the one who was supposed to be mirrored to Charlie through their mutual love of this particular brand of nerdery. It sort of wrecks the entire characterization of the episode, in which Dean’s usual “performing Dean” persona was SUPPOSED to fall down in Charlie’s company, and he would casually and comfortably admit he enjoyed reading the epic fantasy series (which, really, we know Dean reads fantasy novels... he’s a huge effing nerd).
Why do you think in 11.04 (also by Robbie Thompson) he wrote the line about Dean knowing that the phrase “god helps those who helps themselves” was from Aesop and not the bible? Because Jensen COULDN’T JUST HAND THAT LINE TO JARED. He HAD to admit he read. Because Performing Dean is one thing, but when he’s not trying to project that facade, he’s brilliant.
So yeah, 99% of it is 100% intentional. It’s our job as viewers to think about why. You can absolutely watch the show as a passive casual viewer (and the most casual viewer wouldn’t even NOTICE the things that get called plot holes or characterization mistakes), or you can see those things that seem not to make sense on the surface and look for the reason they struck you as being slightly wrong. Because if you dig just a little bit deeper, it opens up an entire new level of understanding about the show.
The writing is NEVER going to hand you all of that deeper characterization on a plate. That would make for TERRIBLE writing. All they want is for the characters and the plots to stick with us, so that we DO turn these issues over in our heads, so we DO think critically about them, and hopefully come to some compelling and fascinating conclusions. Or at the very least we’re eager to tune in again the following week to see if our suspicions are confirmed.
This is a hook that writers have been using since writing was a thing. This is how stories are told. Not just in the words, but in the negative spaces. We’re not just supposed to consume stories, but in the very best way, the best stories also consume US. They make us into an active participant in the narrative, and force us to consider the world and characters on our screens as real people.
That’s how all of this works.
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Pouring your soul out to strangers on the internet - a case study
Allright, buckle up kids, it's story time.
When I turned sixteen, some significant changes happened in my life. My brothers moved out and I was suddenly alone a lot in my little village. I had decided that I was no longer a nerd, but rather the cool chick who listened to black metal, wore destroyed shoes and got drunk with hobos on week-ends. And I started pouring my soul out to a 35-year old man I had never met. This last part is what this story is about.
We had hit it off on a public chatroom and I installed MSN just to talk with him. He lived a few hundred kilometers away, he had no job and a lot of time on his hands, he was depressed. He was interesting and funny and, most importantly, he found me interesting. I could act out my new edgy persona with him, and he believed it! We chatted almost every evening, all night long.
At the beginning I bragged a lot about my new "cool kid" adventures, about how I attended a concert in another city in secret, or the time I rammed a knife in my knee while drunk, trying to make it sound more epic than it was. I couldn't talk to my parents about it, obviously, but he was another adult I could maybe shock and trick into thinking I wasn't a boring bookworm. It kind of worked. But soon I found myself also telling him all about my existential fears, about how miserable I felt almost all the time, about my suicide and mutilation fantasies.
He listened, and cared, and asked questions, so I also told him about my school life, my homeworks, my friends. He talked to me about his depression, about his day-to-day life, send me text fragments he wrote. We shared links about everything we found interesting or funny. I would improvise pep-talks to try to talk him into being active and taking care of himself. He found it endearing, I think.
Sometimes he'd be the reasonable adult, telling me to go to bed when it was 1AM and I had to wake up to go to school five hours later. He was my trustworthy confident, my protector, my internet friend. He was there for me during one of the worst time of my teenage life, and he didn't judge me like I thought my parents would. He was important to me.
I kept some things from him. That I wore braces. My full name, my home adress, the name of my school. That I had never dated anyone, and that a lot of my bragging about getting drunk and making out was widely extrapolated from my very scarce real life experiences.
Rather quickly he had found a picture of me buried somewhere deep in one of my old blogs, and had found me "very cute". I remember the short rush of panic I felt when he told me he had discovered that picture. For years the mousepad of the family computer had been a big, ugly spider with advice on how to safely surf on the web:
Never give a stranger your name. Never give a stranger your address. Never give a stranger your phone number. Never send a stranger pictures of you.
I had broken the elementary safety rules! Someone out there knew how I looked like! I was frightened, but also thrilled. I was doing something forbidden, flirting with danger! Who gave a fuck about safety rules anyway? I wasn't a kid anymore. I sent him a picture of me flipping him off, and when he later asked me for my phone number, I gave it to him.
We started sending each other texts throughout the day in addition to chatting in the evening. Sometimes I would send pictures of my school life. My broken shoes, the pictures I drew on my hands, me chugging wine because, remember, I was cool now. My friends were curious with whom I spend so much time texting, but I never told them who it was. I was very much aware that having a man more than twice my age as my new confident would not be perceived well. I finally had a secret, a taboo relationship! I felt like the heroine from a romantic novel.
I sent him a poem I wrote about him.
He sent me a picture he drew of me.
I sent him a Christmas package with homemade cookies and gloves because I knew he was cold and had no money to buy himself some.
I sent him a cute birthday letter.
It was all very innocent, except for when it wasn't.
From the beginning on, there was an undercurrent of flirt in our exchanges sometimes. He's ask questions about my sexuality, and I answered as crudely and shamelessly as possible (because I wasn't a repressed puritan, yo!). He'd compliment my appearance, tell me I was lovely. It was all new to me, and I had very conflicted feelings about all of it. I dreaded it as much as I enjoyed it. I pushed and teased, and was surprised when he reacted in consequence.
I told him I wanted to go to Russia, and he told me he had enough money spared that we could take a short trip to Moscow together. I'd need a visa application. He was ready to go whenever.
I'd send him a picture of me intentionally showing some cleavage, and was shocked and flattered when he commented on my curves.
He told me in a detour of phrase that he loved me, and I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. I was very upset, but also pleased. I thougt about it for days, and had no idea how to react. I wanted him to be a perfectly platonic friend, I hated that he could think of me sexually, and still I wished for him to be madly in love with me.
I told him I would come visit him in the summer after I graduated, and we'd go to the beach together. I had fantasies about meeting him, and having hot sex, and that we'd somehow heal each other. It was taboo, it was forbidden, it was wrong. A much older man, enamored with me, a young girl, lusting after me! That was the narrative of so many books and movies. Again, novel heroine feeling. It made me feel powerful, and vulnerable. I spent a lot of time daydreaming about it.
He'd act protective, almost paternal sometimes, would call me sweet, possessive nicknames and ask me why I didn't wear nice sundresses instead of my frumpy baggy jeans. Sometimes I was pissed off, sometimes it made me giggly and happy. It was all very confusing.
I was excited, curious, and weirded out. What was a game, what wasn't? I didn't know. I didn't really dare to ask. I don't kow what he really meant, what he really felt. I don't know if I wanted the answer back then.
Our exchanges lasted half a year.
So how did it end?
I started dating. He acted grumpy and jealous. I was suddenly happy in my day-to-day life, and the unarticulated sense of unease, of wrongness I felt in regard to our online relationship, festered. The daily chats became weekly, and laborious. Then he asked me upfront why we didn't talk like we used to anymore.
I sent him a handwritten letter laced with tears, saying that I was afraid of what he might feel for me, afraid he was attracted to me, that I thought I had led him on, deceived him, and that I'd rather break off all contact. He left me alone after that.
I wasn't stalked, I wasn't guilt-tripped (much). I never had contact to that man since then. There was nothing spectacular. But to this day, I've never talked about this whole story with people close to me. It's one of my only real secrets. I don't really know why it all matters to me so much after all this time, why it's still such a sore spot, why I shed a few tears writing this.
It took me a long time to be able to articulate all of this. It took me a long time to accept that, even if I very much felt so, I wasn't an adult at sixteen. It wasn't me who was at fault. I couldn't have "known better"; I had no experience in flirting, in relationships, in anything. I was sixteen.
He is the one who should have known better than to take my escapist fantasies seriously. He is the one who should have said "all fun and games, girl, but none of this will ever happen". He is the one who should have checked if I was comfortable with some of his flirting, and should have ceased as soon as I manifested some unease. It took me a long time to accept that I didn't wrong him. I'm still afraid I broke his heart, or that I had a negative influence on his very real mental health problems. Maybe I’m taking my impact on his life too seriously.
I don't think he was a "predator". I don't think he meant any harm. I think he was just a lonely guy who projected some of his fantasies on me and thought I was more mature than I was. I’m sure he genuinely cared about me.
Five years later and I still feel guilty and ashamed for "breaking up" with him. I think about him every other day.
I hope he's alright.
I hope he forgave me.
Maybe I'll send him this. I still know his e-mail by heart.
So what's the moral of this story? Is there any?
I'm not sure, but here's what you can maybe learn from this:
The internet is a wonderful place, and some the encounters you make are thrilling and life-changing, but be careful of who you trust and how much of your heart you pour out.
Set boundaries. Talk about what makes you uncomfortable head-on. It's not a joke. Just because it's online doesn't mean it is not real, or not important. Ask yourself if this is really a safe space to explore your sexuality and self-identity.
Listen to the ugly spider and build yourself a safety net. Keep some armor on. Listen to your gut feeling and don't share any information you don't feel comfortable sharing. Don't be afraid to cut contact to a person when you feel uneasy. You owe them nothing.
Ask yourself why you keep secrets from friends and family, and maybe talk to someone about it. Don't stay all alone with your questions and fears. They will probably understand better than you give them credit for.
And, forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. You were young. Forgive yourself.
#storytime#life experience#internet story#internet advice#relationship advice#relationships#boundaries#healing#learning#don't know how to tag this obviously#if you have had similar experience maybe come talk to me?#talking to strangers
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Hello! I have a question.... what are your favorite books, and why? (I love your blog!)
@smallricochet
Wow, thank you! Took me forever to reply because my first answer got erased when i was halfway through. Rawr. anyway, here’s the thing: i don’t have favorites. I just love books so much i can’t choose! And there are books for different moods, too, or books that i love for different reasons. There are those that i can read anytime because they’re friendly and easy to sink into, but aren’t necessarily the best of anything in a particular aspect. There are books that i have to be in a specific mood to read but that i love more than anything when i am in that mood. There are books that are outstanding in one thing and lacking in another…so i don’t have favorite books, and when i have to think of my favorites, they’re divided by genre. This is gonna be a long post, haha. Without my bookshelf in front of me, there may be some I’m forgetting, but those are the ones that stand out in immediate memory.
Fantasy: most of the books i’ve read would probably count as fantasy if you included YA, but i’m going to break out YA as its own thing because i look for different things now than i did when i was younger. For one thing, the writing style plays a much larger role now for me, which is one of the things that makes Neil Gaiman one of my favorite authors. American Gods is this gorgeous book examining the nature of belief, with such evocative language that i felt like i was taking the journey alongside the characters. The characters themselves are rather stock, but that’s okay–Gaiman has a true sense of the mythic and interweaves old stories with new in a way that captivated me. I also loved The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which just felt…almost more real than our own world. I read the book (it’s quite short) in one sitting, and when i finished i realized i’d teared up. There’s a scene where the main character is immersed in this experience of understanding everything and then is pulled out of that state, and i felt the same way upon closing the book. The sense of the world-beyond-our-world was intense–again, taking the journey with the characters. I adore Good Omens, which was co-written with Terry Pratchett, and i think combines the best of both authors: Gaiman’s sense of mythology, Pratchett’s humor, and their shared love for stories that examine the values individual people hold. Individual values are a theme often repeated in Pratchett’s books, of which my favorites are Hogfather and Thud! because of the beautiful, hopeful characterizations and complex conflicts. Pratchett’s books really carry this sense of optimism and hope for how much better we can be; his characters have this evolving humanity (lol some of them are dwarves and trolls and werewolves) that really strikes a chord with me. Also, those books are fucking hilarious.
I’ve written about Guy Gavriel Kay recently; his novel Under Heaven is remarkable for its beautiful language, fascinating characters, and exciting political plot. I love that niche–historically-based political fantasy–and am really relieved to have found someone besides George R. R. Martin who does it, since Kay is much subtler and doesn’t have Martin’s penchant for shock and gore. I’m about to read every other political fantasy novel Kay has ever written. I used to think that if i could write like anyone i’d want to write like Gaiman, but now that i’ve read Kay’s work, i’d rather write like him, because that’s the genre i’d want to succeed in.
Then there’s Susanna Clarke’s exquisite Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I know this is very much a love-it-or-hate-it book, and i love it. Actually, i think it’s a perfect novel. I would change nothing about that book; there’s nothing that could make me like it better. The descriptive visual language is rich and flowing, the dry humor is just right, and the mythology she builds is original and forms a perfect pattern. One of the things that stood out to me the most in the book are the names. I’ve never seen an author choose names like her–they’re all lyrical and evocative without being literal. I don’t even want a sequel because the plot is wrapped up perfectly; i just want a whole series set in that world. (Clarke also wrote a short story collection in that setting, The Ladies of Grace Adieu, which is excellent, but does not fulfill my desire for a million more full-length novels.)
Historical fiction: The Lymond Chronicles. This is a masterwork, to the point that the author, Dorothy Dunnett, was knighted for her books being such a huge contribution to UK culture. They’re hard to read, no denying that, but they are unparalleled for incredible descriptive language, depth of emotion, dexterity with shifting viewpoint, epic scope, characters’ journeys and personalities interwoven in fascinating ways…they so far outshine every other work of historical fiction i’ve read that i think i can say that series is my favorite. HOWEVER, the irony of it is, i have never reread those books, except the first. I flick around occasionally to reread passages, but they’re simply too dense to make for good light reading in between all my new reading material. I love Les Miserables too, in the sense that i think it’s one of those almost accidental masterpieces that would never make it to market in full form today. Victor Hugo was a mystic grandpa whose interest in architecture/public infrastructure reeeeally got in the way of his own plot. I can’t HELP but love that book and i don’t even know why, except that Hugo captures the emotions and complexities of youthful rebellion so well, and is deeply respectful to the tragedy of it–not flippant, not over-aggrandizing, but accepting in just the right way. I also wanna give a shoutout/honorary mention to Romance of the Three Kingdoms. (It’s sort of unfair to put it with historical fiction, given the part where a guy’s ghost wanders around beating people up, but like. What else do i call this book.) I mean, it’s not my usual fare, but it well deserves its place as one of China’s four great classics. It’s so different from modern writing, which places a lot of emphasis on knowing individual characters. Three Kingdoms doesn’t give a shit about the inner lives of the characters. This is a story about how empires are formed and fall. it’s a true epic, and a fascinating look into one of China’s most tumultuous historical periods. (most tumultuous, except for all the others. You do you, China.)
Nonfiction: I’ve only rather recently become interested in nonfiction, and most of what i like is just a combination of good writing style and a topic i’m specifically interested in. How Not To Be Wrong, by Jordan Ellenberg–applied math and statistics, written in a very fun way. The Disappearing Spoon and The Violinist’s Thumb, by Sam Kean–a history of the periodic table and genetics respectively; Kean is such an engaging writer and really knows how to draw a common thread through anecdotes. Fermat’s Enigma, by Simon Singh–a history of the quest to solve Fermat’s Last Theorem. Weapons and Fighting Arts of Indonesia, by Donn Draeger–uh, what it says on the cover, but also a very interesting cultural text, although the info is a bit out of date. Walking the Bible, by Bruce Feiler–Feiler travels through the Middle East, examining the historical context of biblical stories; i’m reading his other works now. There also have been a couple books i’ve read for school that i loved–one was a cultural study of Hello Kitty, of all things, and one was about coffee farming in Honduras. Both were for a globalization course, but i can’t remember the titles offhand. I also read Walkable City by Jeff Speck for urban studies, about the importance of building walkability into your urban planning, which kicked off an interest in urban planning for me. I wound up getting three other urban planning books out of the interest generated by that one.
YA: Most of the books that have stuck with me after i read them as a teen had characters i wanted to be friends with or that i strongly related to–books with a lot of analytical, assertive girls, or girls who loved stories and were very imaginative. These include Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, the All-of-a-Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor (bonus points for multiple girls i related to and they were Jewish), The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall (again bonus points for multiple girls i related to), Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, and The Princess Academy and The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. These last three (modern takes on fairy tales) mattered so fucking much to me, and they seriously hold up on rereads. Hale and Levine don’t protect their readers from harsh events, but it’s still fantasy, still has the magic i love reading about. They show the young characters win magical battles and friendship through intelligence, creativity, and determination, instead of beauty like the original tales, so that was really inspiring for me, and i related really hard to the main characters personality-wise. All three main characters in these books do find relationships or even marry at the end, but it’s because they’ve already been best friends with their love interests for a while. There’s also The Hunger Games, which had fascinating characterization, and unusually subtle morality for a YA series, especially in the last book, and the similarly adventurous Icemark Chronicles series by Stuart Hill, which is historically-based fantasy–think Guy Gavriel Kay for younger readers–with a wonderful main character that i really looked up to. And then there’s The Pushcart War, by Jean Merrill. The Pushcart War is just completely charming. It’s a friendly, quick-read book about a group of pushcart vendors trying to make space for themselves in New York City, opposing the aggressive truckers, and it was just plain fun while also being…actually pretty educational about urban design.
So…i know that’s super long, but y’know, asking me about favorite books is a dangerous thing to do. And i can’t emphasize enough that this is only what i can think of off the top of my head, without my bookshelf in front of me. But thank you so much for the question!
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Fail of the Lich King
by Wardog
Tuesday, 14 July 2009Wardog critical hits Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, the World of Warcraft tie in novel, for 4000 points of damage.Uh-oh! This is in the Axis of Awful...~
Here’s a confession, Ferretbrain readers: I’ve never read a tie-in novel. Truthfully, I have enough trouble getting invested in the world in original fiction, so there’s a pretty low likelihood of me wanting to read about a universe specifically designed to have movies or games or a tv show happening in it.
I do, however, play World of Warcraft.
And I am, secretly, a bit of a Warcraft loregeek – having played Orcs Versus Humans, and Warcraft II and Warcraft IIIback in the day, despite being abysmal at RTS games. Azeroth is basically Generic Fantasy Setting#3 but having been splashing about it in since the age of eleven, what can I say, I have a fondness. For anyone who doesn’t give a toss (i.e. the rest of you) lore has kicked off in a big way recently in WoW, with the release of the expansion Wrath of the Lich King. This is a big deal.
Arthas, Rise of the Lich King, a WoW tie-in novel by Christie Golden, is the history of that big deal.
The short version: There’s this Lich King, right? He’s wrathful. He needs to taken out by a bunch of PCs.
The longer version: I’m not going to go into the history of Azeroth, which has a long and detailed history. Arthas, later to become part of the entity known of the Lich King (like, whoops), was the son of King Terenas Menethil, ruler of Lordaeron, and a paladin of the Order of the Silver Hand. An impetuous but basically okay youth, hope of his people yadda yadda yadda, he boned the only girl in the entire Warcraft universe, Jaina Proudmoore, for a bit and then went off to do, err, war things.
It’s all a bit complicated and involves a plague of undeath caused by infected grain, evil wizards, demons and Arthas going off the deep end, culling infected villages and burning the boats of his own army so they have no choice but to fight for him. While making questionable military decisions (this is WCIII, by the way) Arthas also gets obsessed with the
deathly hallows
runeblade Frostmourne, a sword rumoured to give its wielder limitless power. This is, as anyone could guess, a plot. In this case, orchestrated by the Lich King Ner’Zhul.
Arthas nabs Frostmourne from its prison of ice, despite the “DON’T TOUCH THE SWORD IT COMES WITH TERRIBLE PRICE YOU STUPID PILLOCK” signage and heads off to save his people. Except, this apparently involves murdering his own father, because, of course, the sword has completely corrupted him, and the Lich King is whispering to him, and controlling him, through it. Way to go, Arthas.
So, now some gothylooking sub-human Death Knight, Arthas charges around the land, generally wrecking it and raising people from the dead for kicks. But it turns out the Lich King isn’t as powerful as he thought he was and things start to go wrong. Arthas is recalled to Northrend, which is currently attack anyway by some other dudes from the lore (The Burning Legion, don’t ask). Again, it’s insanely complicated but Arthas fights his way to the Frozen Throne, releasing the Lich King and consuming him or something or other in order to become the true Lich King. Mwhaahaha.
And, then, in true Lord Voldemort fashion he’s just … been … like … sitting on there on the Frozen Throne. Raising an army, or whatever. Although everybody knows that “raising an army” is fantasy-speak for “doing fuck all.”
This is the story told in Arthas: Rise of the Lich King.
What neither my summary, nor the book itself, quite encompasses is the fact that there is quite a bit of WoWlore that’s quite cool and interesting. The original Lich King, for example, is actually an ancient Orcish shaman, tricked by demons into betraying his people. His transformation into the Lich King was actually a punishment for defying his demonic masters. Arthas, of course, is Generic Fantasy Concept #5: uppity princeling is stupid and turns evil. But there is something iconic about him, it must be admitted. He’s one of the most popular and enduring figures of the Warcraft universe.
I think part of his resonance comes from the fact you actually got to be him in Warcraft III. That game blew my tiny mind when it first came out. Not only was it sweeping, epic, and sub-Tolkeinesque in the way that Blizzard does supremely well (here’s the scene of him murdering his father –
check it out
!) but the narrative arc is, well, a bit of a mindfuck. You start out playing Arthas in his whiny Prince incarnation and, even though the game is utterly linear, it’s hard not to feel some responsibility for all the messed up stuff he does. Or rather, you do on Arthas’s behalf, because it is a RTS.
Anyway, that’s the background and a little bit of justification as to why I’m reading a tie-in novel, an experience I don’t think I’ll be repeating any time soon. This is not, you understand, a dig against tie-in novels, I’ve had absolutely nothing against them at all and I suspect I found the right sort of universe and the right sort of writers I’d enjoy them. But Arthas: Rise of the Lich King is absolutely terrible.
Dear me, dear me, it really is.
The problem is, I’m not sure what extent its just plain bad and to what extent signs I am interpreting as manifestations of badness are merely the tropes and tools of the tie-in novel form. Obviously tie-in novels are operating on a different set of rules to those governing original fiction. I’m not entirely sure what they are, truthfully, but I suppose it’s about evoking characters and places that are already familiar to the reader. And since the writer is working within an already quite restrictive canon, I suppose I should have expected an element of sketchiness but … but … it still feels incredibly tepid to me. It’s simultaneously bland and over-written, if that makes any sense at all. There’s no depth or conviction to the narrative – I suppose, I’d say it’s supremely utilitarian.
Northrend was the name of the land. Daggercap Bay the site where the Lordaeron fleet made harbor. The water, deep and choppy, with an unforgiving wind, was a cold-blue gray. Sheer-cliffs were dotted with tenacious pine trees soaring upwards, providing a natural defense of the small, flat area where Arthas and his men would make camp. A waterfall tumbled down, crashing in a billow of spray from a great height.
Do you see what I mean? It’s like looking at flat image. The information is presented list-like – there’s very little connection between the introduction of the sea, the cliffs, the camp, the waterfall. No senses other than the visual are engaged, and no effort has been made to do anything with the scene setting other than present it as it is. The waterfall tumbles down from a great height? Oh come on. It’s a waterfall, obviously it moves from a higher place to a lower place. Dan has pointed out that we’ve all been to Daggercap Bay so the description doesn’t have to do more than sketch in enough of the details to remind us and, bam, we have a ready-made vivid picture of it. Now maybe I’m just failing to engage with the differences between tie-in fiction and original-setting fiction but is it wrong of me to want just a little bit more effort than this?
One of the lines that Dan and I never tired of mocking in Star Wars III: The Revenge of the Sith is “from my point of view the Jedi are evil.” This is profoundly mockable from every conceivable angle but my favourite joke is that Lucas simply forgot to finish the line. He was sitting at his writing desk, thinking something like this: “what I want to do here is capture something of the moral ambiguity of this scene, the way morality is so often a matter of perspective. I suppose what Anakin is trying to say, from his point of the view the Jedi are evil.”
Writes down: “From my point of the view the Jedi are evil!”
And the entirety of Arthas: Rise of the Lich King reads like this to me.
For example, there’s scene in which Kael’thas, Prince of the Blood Elves, confronts Jaina Proudmoore over Arthas’s destruction of his entire race. This is naturally complicated by the fact Jaina, tastelessly, chose whiny Arthas over fabulous Kael. Now, I think the thought process behind the scene went something like this: “what I’d like to show in this scene is Kael’thas verbally attacking the woman he loves and cannot have because he cannot attack his real enemy, Arthas, and therefore feels helpless and impotent. In order to capture this quite subtle interplay of emotions and ruined relationships, Goldie writes:
Jaina felt quick tears come to her eyes as she suddenly understood. He was attacking her because he could not attack his real enemy. He felt helpless, impotent and was striking out at the nearest target – her, Jaina Proudmoore, whose love he had wanted and failed to win.
Everything about the way the book is written is as laboured as the scene above. There’s no hope of anything, or anyone, accruing any emotional depth because, Rowling-like, everything the characters say, think and do are mercilessly explained to us. Take this little discussion between 9 year old Arthas and Prince Varian, whose father has just been assassinated.
“He was assassinated,” Varian’s voice was blunt and emotionless.
…
Arthas stared. Death in glorious battle was difficult enough to handle but this-
Impulsively he placed a hand on the other Prince’s arm. “I saw a foal being born yesterday,” he said. It sounded inane, but it was the first thing that sprang to his mind and he spoke earnestly. “When the weather lets up, I’ll take you to see him. He’s the most amazing thing.”
Varian turned towards him and gazed at him for a long moment. Emotions flitted across his face – offense, disbelief, gratitude, yearning, understanding. Suddenly the brown eyes filled with tears and Varian looked away. He folded his arms and hunched in on himself, his shoulders shaking with sobs he did his best to muffle…
…
“I hate winter,” Varian sobbed, and the depth of his hurt conveyed by those three simple words, a seeming non-sequiteur, humbled Arthas.
Putting aside for a moment, young Varian’s impressive ability to communicate a range of complex emotions in a short space of time using only his face, for God’s sake, you stupid woman, there’s no need for you spell it all out for me. I get it. You don’t have to join the emotional dots with a crayon. A seeming non-sequiteur my seeming arse.
It doesn’t help that it lacks any sort of consistent narrative voice, swinging from an attempt at Tolkeinesque portentousness which inevitably just sounds lame (“long had he lived” or “tall he was”) to an incongruous modernity. Arthas, in particular, sounds like he’s voiced by Keannu Reeves:
“I destroyed your homeland … fouled your precious sunwell. And I killed your father. Frostmourne sucked the soul right out of him, Kael. It’s gone forever.”
Like, totally, duuuude.
As you can see, the dialogue is generally pretty shite (sorry, I’ve lost my objectivity now). Kael’thas, my favourite character in the entirety of WoW canon, is its most tragic victim. A beautiful elven prince, thousands of years old, bizarrely into Jaina Proudmoore (I think because, as we have established, she is the only woman in the entirety of Azeroth), cultured, sophisticated, tremendously intelligent, and, ultimately, terrible tragic as Arthas’s destruction of his people reduces him to utter madness. He spends much of the book pouting and sulking after Jaina, flouncing out of rooms in “a swirl of violet of gold” (way not to look gay, Kael), throwing hissy fits and bickering with Arthas. His dialogue encompasses such immortal gems as
“In Quel’Thalas, there are trees that tower over these in a glory of white bark and golden leaves, that all but sing in the evening breezes. I think you would enjoy seeing them someday” (take me now!) and, rather less impressively, while verbally and literally fighting with Arthas: “You’re good at killing noble elderly men.” All together now: whooooo.
Oh sigh.
And if all that wasn’t bad enough, it’s just somehow plain misjudged a lot of the time. From Arthas’s weirdly homoerotic consumption of the Lich King Ner’Zhul (just, no thanks) to lines like “long had he lived, the length and yellowness of his tusks and the wrinkles on his brown skin testament to the fact.” Yellowness?! What the hell?
Below is a picture of Illidan Stormrage, part demon, part night elf, blind and wholly mad, another of WoW’s iconic figures. Isn’t he kind of fabulous? Wouldn’t you just love to get together with a group of friends and kill him?
Would you at any point, if writing about him, use the phrase: “Sweat gleamed on his massive, lavender-hued torso?” Lavender-hued? LAVENDER-HUED? Lavender is for grandmas and bath oils. Not insane demonic night elves. Come on, Christie Golden, don’t you give a damn what you’re doing?
I could criticise the writing style endlessly but the problems with Arthas: Rise of the Lich King are even more substantial. Again, I understand that writing the story of a life of a character who was probably made up as they went along is probably quite a challenge but I don’t think it alters the fact that the one event constantly cited as the most traumatic and character-defining of Arthas’s entire life is… Actually let’s do a quiz. Is it:
a) That time he murdered his father?
b) That time he killed an entire town of innocent people because they’d been infected with the undead plague?
c) That time he burned the boats of his own army to force them to keep fighting for him?
d) That time the guy he was staying with offered him a serving girl to rape?
e) That time he was picking up Frostmourne and it directly caused the death his mentor and oldest friend?
f) That time he killed Sylvanas Windrunner, turned her into a banshee and rape/tortured her for kicks?
g)The death of his horse.
What the hell? He even has recurring nightmares about it.
(by the way, it’s option g)
Okay, this has degenerated into ranting now. By whatever standards you’re judging it, Arthas: the Rise of Lich King is a bad, bad book. Just because something is a tie-in novel doesn’t mean readers aren’t entitled to flair, conviction, a small scintilla of actual talent. Is there anything good at all I can say about it? Well, the commas are all in the right places.
Themes:
Books
,
Sci-fi / Fantasy
~
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Arthur B
at 22:37 on 2009-07-14
Dan has pointed out that we’ve all been to Daggercap Bay so the description doesn’t have to do more than sketch in enough of the details to remind us and, bam, we have a ready-made vivid picture of it. Now maybe I’m just failing to engage with the differences between tie-in fiction and original-setting fiction but is it wrong of me to want just a little bit more effort than this?
That laziness isn't a trope of tie-in fiction, it's a disease of tie-in fiction.
Games Workshop/Black Library, who seem to have a better batting average than most with this sort of thing, seem to work on the assumption that any tie-in novel is potentially someone's first contact with the franchise in question - that's is why they put the classic "laughter of thirsting gods" blurb at the start of all the
Warhammer 40,000
books, after all. This does mean that the authors have to explain who the Space Marines are every time they're introduced in a novel, but it also forces the authors to have some degree of discipline and not Christie Golden the place up.
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Rami
at 22:38 on 2009-07-14The fact that the other prince's name is the same as that of the author of one of my first-year textbooks just highlights the ridiculousness of it all to me; I couldn't take anything seriously past that point.
That having been said, I've read some pretty good tie-in fiction and there's lots of mediocre-but-not-actively-crap tie-in in campaign settings like the Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance, so in my experience at least tie-in fiction's rules aren't that compromised by the rules of whatever they're retelling!
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http://serenoli.livejournal.com/
at 10:46 on 2009-07-15Studying Microeconomics, Rami?
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Shim
at 12:11 on 2009-07-15
Dan has pointed out that we’ve all been to Daggercap Bay so the description doesn’t have to do more than sketch in enough of the details to remind us and, bam, we have a ready-made vivid picture of it.
Actually, I
haven't
been to Daggercap Bay, in fact I know nothing at all about the Warcraft universe except what I've picked up via gaming conversations/blogs/comics. Maybe I should read this thing as a control sample?
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Andy G
at 14:03 on 2009-07-15
The fact that the other prince's name is the same as that of the author of one of my first-year textbooks just highlights the ridiculousness of it all to me; I couldn't take anything seriously past that point.
I misread that, I thought there really was an economics professor called Arthas.
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Rami
at 17:07 on 2009-07-15@serenoli: I'm pleasantly surprised anyone got the reference, although I don't suppose I should be as it's a pretty typical text, isn't it? Certainly everyone I met at my uni on an economics course used it.
I misread that, I thought there really was an economics professor called Arthas.
Well since I used to play Warcraft III I would have loved a textbook I could call the Book of Arthas ;-)
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Wardog
at 14:26 on 2009-07-16@Arthur & Shimmin
Since WoW produces far fewer tie-in novels than the Black Library (those things are taking over Borders, there are shelves of them!), I don't think there's any particularly need to make them "introductory." I suspect the thinking behind it is there's genuinely *utterly no reason* to read a Warcraft novel unless you're already hugely into Warcraft.
I can has macro-enconomics joke?
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Arthur B
at 16:27 on 2009-07-16
Since WoW produces far fewer tie-in novels than the Black Library (those things are taking over Borders, there are shelves of them!), I don't think there's any particularly need to make them "introductory." I suspect the thinking behind it is there's genuinely *utterly no reason* to read a Warcraft novel unless you're already hugely into Warcraft.
That's precisely the sort of thinking that tie-in franchises get stuck in, of course: they don't write for newcomers because they don't expect any newcomers to buy the books, and as a result no newcomers buy the books, which discourages the publishers from producing more and discourages the writers from writing for newcomers, and you end up with a vicious circle which results in the novel line ghettoising itself. (It gets particularly bad when the authors and/or publishers also believe that the audience for the franchise is too stupid or too loyal to care about quality, and so can't be bothered to write well.)
I think Black Library managed to become huge in a way that the previous Games Workshop book line never was at least partially because they were able to rid themselves of that thinking, and made a conscious decision to a) try their damnedest to be accessible to newcomers without patronising hardcore fans, and b) not regard the fans as morons who will buy anything with the Warhammer logo on the cover. I strongly suspect that the later volumes of
Konrad
didn't match the potential of the first one at least partially because neither author nor publisher really gave a crap about what they were producing.
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http://fightsandtights.blogspot.com/
at 07:05 on 2009-09-30
That's precisely the sort of thinking that tie-in franchises get stuck in, of course: they don't write for newcomers because they don't expect any newcomers to buy the books, and as a result no newcomers buy the books, which discourages the publishers from producing more and discourages the writers from writing for newcomers, and you end up with a vicious circle which results in the novel line ghettoising itself. (It gets particularly bad when the authors and/or publishers also believe that the audience for the franchise is too stupid or too loyal to care about quality, and so can't be bothered to write well.)
I think Black Library managed to become huge in a way that the previous Games Workshop book line never was at least partially because they were able to rid themselves of that thinking, and made a conscious decision to a) try their damnedest to be accessible to newcomers without patronising hardcore fans, and b) not regard the fans as morons who will buy anything with the Warhammer logo on the cover. I strongly suspect that the later volumes of Konrad didn't match the potential of the first one at least partially because neither author nor publisher really gave a crap about what they were producing.
You raise an excellent point here, and it's one worth considering. Despite WoW's massive fanbase (as well as the fanbases of their other universes), Blizzard just really focuses on writing novels for the existing fans, not in bringing in new ones. A good deal of their tie-in fiction are simply novelizations of the games in some capacity or prequels to upcoming stuff, and unlike Games Workshop, they rarely give the writers a chance to produce original stuff within the confines of these worlds they have created, though they are getting a bit better at it. As well, one of the things that Games Workshop really excels at with their tie-in fiction is that they take more risks and allow the writers to investigate and play with their creative properties much more frequently.
This also leads to a greater depth of genre material, for example, you can find Warhammer stories that involve big quests and swash-buckling adventures (Gotrex and Felix), detective stories (Zavant Konniger), horror (Vampire Genevive), etc. Now Blizzard is expanding a bit, particularly with their manga works, but they are still a long way off from getting anything close to the Black Library's level of quality, range and depth.
One of the major problems I had with this story was the lack of epic scope that I would expect for a novelization of much of Warcraft III, and it's a problem that Blizzard's novels seem to be running into frequently these days. Part of that is simply the transition from an interactive visual-based medium to a non-interactive text-based one (unless you count throwing the book against the wall a point of interaction), but honestly, Golden could not seem to capture the intensity and the epic nature of the many of the events she was writing about. Take the Siege of Hearthglen, for example. In the game, it's a mighty 30-min last stand against an overwhelming horde of flesh-eating nasties, and about a third of the way through, you're faced with the choice to save a series of nearby villages, possibly gaining an expansion town and preventing the undead from massing even more troops with the risk of possibly losing your main base because your forces are stretched too thin. In the novel, Golden doesn't bother to show it, beyond transcribing the start and end cutscenes to novel format. It's like the writers Blizzard has hired to write these books say to themselves, "I have to write battle scenes, intense drama, and make the reader feel like this stuff matters? Fuck it. Let's talk about Arthas' horse." I'm half-expecting when the inevitable novel chronicling the Exodus to Kalimdor and the events of the second half of WCIII comes out, the Battle of Mount Hyjal will be reduced to a schoolyard slapfight between Archimonde and Stormrage. Perhaps not the biggest problem with the book overall, but one of many, and as a major Warcraft fan, one that really stuck in my craw.
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Wardog
at 12:19 on 2009-10-05Hello there - welcome to Fb.
I don't much to say really except: yes, I agree with you entirely :)
The novel really does feel, and read, like a cutscene - I think because she makes no attempt to engage with the interactive elements of the game. So what you end up is a book that's basically a string of cutscenes. Wheeee.
It's a shame becaus the Arthas story does have a lot of potential, as you say, for drama and intensity.
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at 13:39 on 2009-10-23
Hello there - welcome to Fb.
I don't much to say really except: yes, I agree with you entirely :)
The novel really does feel, and read, like a cutscene - I think because she makes no attempt to engage with the interactive elements of the game. So what you end up is a book that's basically a string of cutscenes. Wheeee.
It's a shame becaus the Arthas story does have a lot of potential, as you say, for drama and intensity.
Many thanks for the warm welcome, and glad to hear I had something useful to contribute.
One of the things that really struck me when I was reading this novel was that Golden's writing skills seem to have dramatically declined since she wrote Lord of the Clans. That was a pretty good tie-in novel that worked both as a Warcraft story and a general high-fantasy one, and I'm considering doing a review of it for this site. Reading Rise of the Lich King, I had a uncannily similar feeling when I read the sixth Harry Potter book, namely, "Who is this woman and where has she stashed away the writer I had come to love?" Or just like, in this case...
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The last couple of months of the year consisted of me binging on books during my Thanksgiving and Winter vacations. It was absolutely glorious and satisfying to catch up with my Goodreads challenge and read a bunch of books I’d been dying to get my hands on for a long time.
With those huge binging sessions, though, came a giant backlog of reviews that needed to be written.
Instead of trying to remember exactly what I liked and didn’t like in all of the novels I read, I decided to do a series of mini-reviews instead!
These are little bite-sized snippets of my thoughts and feelings about these books, along with a star-rating. Perfect for those who like to skim (like meeeeee!)
I hope you enjoy!
About Last Night by Ruthie Knox
★★★★
Cath Talarico knows a mistake when she makes it, and God knows she’s made her share. So many, in fact, that this Chicago girl knows London is her last, best shot at starting over. But bad habits are hard to break, and soon Cath finds herself back where she has vowed never to go . . . in the bed of a man who is all kinds of wrong: too rich, too classy, too uptight for a free-spirited troublemaker like her.
Nev Chamberlain feels trapped and miserable in his family’s banking empire. But beneath his pinstripes is an artist and bohemian struggling to break free and lose control. Mary Catherine—even her name turns him on—with her tattoos, her secrets, and her gamine, sex-starved body, unleashes all kinds of fantasies.
When blue blood mixes with bad blood, can a couple that is definitely wrong for each other ever be perfectly right? And with a little luck and a lot of love, can they make last night last a lifetime?
I don’t recall why I originally added this to my TBRASAP shelf, but I’m glad I did. This was a super quick, light read that I easily devoured in a day.
Where I Belong (Alabama Summer #1) by J. Daniels
★★★★
When Mia Corelli returns to Alabama for a summer of fun with her childhood best friend, Tessa, there’s only one thing keeping her on edge. One person that she’d do anything to avoid.
Benjamin Kelly. World’s biggest dickhead.
Mia hates him with a fury and has no desire to ever see him again. When she decides to start her summer off with a bang and finally give away her v-card, she unknowingly hands it over to the one guy that excelled at making her life miserable, learning a valuable lesson in the process.
Always get the name of the guy you’re going home with.
Ben can’t get the girl he spent one night with out of his head. When she leaves him the next morning, he thinks he’ll never see her again. Until he sees her lounging by the pool with his sister.
Mia is determined to hate Ben, even though she can’t forget him.
Ben is determined to prove he’s not the same guy he used to be.
What happens when the one person you wish never existed becomes the one person you can’t imagine being without?
I love, love, loved the premise and execution of this book, particularly the beginning of the novel, but it wasn’t quite a 5-star read for me. It fell a little flat in a few areas – toward the middle of the book – but it definitely picked up in the end.
Big Rock (Big Rock #1) by Lauren Blakely
★★★★
It’s not just the motion of the ocean, ladies. It’s definitely the SIZE of the boat too.
And I’ve got both firing on all cylinders. In fact, I have ALL the right assets. Looks, brains, my own money, and a big c*&k.
You might think I’m an a*&hole. I sound like one, don’t I? I’m hot as sin, rich as heaven, smart as hell and hung like a horse.
Guess what? You haven’t heard my story before. Sure, I might be a playboy, like the NY gossip rags call me. But I’m the playboy who’s actually a great guy. Which makes me one of a kind.
The only trouble is, my dad needs me to cool it for a bit. With conservative investors in town wanting to buy his flagship Fifth Avenue jewelry store, he needs me not only to zip it up, but to look the part of the committed guy. Fine. I can do this for Dad. After all, I’ve got him to thank for the family jewels. So I ask my best friend and business partner to be my fiancée for the next week. Charlotte’s up for it. She has her own reasons for saying yes to wearing this big rock.
And pretty soon all this playing pretend in public leads to no pretending whatsoever in the bedroom, because she just can’t fake the kind of toe-curling, window-shattering orgasmic cries she makes as I take her to new heights between the sheets.
But I can’t seem to fake that I might be feeling something real for her.
What the fuck have I gotten myself into with this…big rock?
I went into this book knowing that I am not the biggest fan of douchebag playboy heroes in books, but I’ve also been on a huge Lauren Blakely kick and figured if anyone could do this trope right, it’d be her. I wasn’t wrong. On either count. I still don’t like those kind of heroes, but I did really enjoy her take on it.
Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke & Bone #3) by Laini Taylor
★★★★★
Two worlds are poised on the brink of a vicious war. By way of a staggering deception, Karou has taken control of the chimaera’s rebellion and is intent on steering its course away from dead-end vengeance. The future rests on her.
When the brutal angel emperor brings his army to the human world, Karou and Akiva are finally reunited – not in love, but in a tentative alliance against their common enemy. It is a twisted version of their long-ago dream, and they begin to hope that it might forge a way forward for their people. And, perhaps, for themselves.
But with even bigger threats on the horizon, are Karou and Akiva strong enough to stand among the gods and monsters?
The New York Times bestselling Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy comes to a stunning conclusion as – from the streets of Rome to the caves of the Kirin and beyond – humans, chimaera, and seraphim strive, love, and die in an epic theater that transcends good and evil, right and wrong, friend and enemy.
It took me so long to finish this series, but I loved every second of it. Every time I pick up a Laini Taylor book, I’m captivated by the world, the characters, and, most of all, the writing. I loved this ending to the series!
Hate Notes by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward
★★★★★
It all started with a mysterious blue note sewn into a wedding dress.
Something blue.
I’d gone to sell my own unworn bridal gown at a vintage clothing store. That’s when I found another bride’s “something old.”
Stitched into the lining of a fabulously feathered design was the loveliest message I’d ever read: Thank you for making all of my dreams come true.
The name embossed on the blue stationery: Reed Eastwood, obviously the most romantic man who ever lived. I also discovered he’s the most gorgeous. If only my true-love fantasies had stopped there. Because I’ve since found out something else about Mr. Starry-Eyed.
He’s arrogant, cynical, and demanding. I should know. Thanks to a twist of fate, he’s my new boss. But that’s not going to stop me from discovering the story behind his last love letter. A love letter that did not result in a happily ever after.
But that story is nothing compared to the one unfolding between us. It’s getting hotter, sweeter, and more surprising than anything I could have imagined.
Something new.
But I have no idea how this one is going to end…
Both Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward are authors who don’t usually hit the mark for me a lot of the time, but this was not the case for Hate Notes. The premise sounds really good and it delivers in so many ways. I appreciated the serious elements as well as the more cliche ones.
Have you read any of these books? What are your thoughts?
Mini-Reviews {January 2019} The last couple of months of the year consisted of me binging on books during my Thanksgiving and Winter vacations.
#4 stars#5 stars#J. Daniels#Laini Taylor#Lauren Blakely#Mini Reviews#Penelope Ward#reviews#ruthie knox#Vi Keeland
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