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august
September 01, 2020
Things I enjoyed in the month of August:
Rainbow Rowell's, Fangirl:
"That's what you're always working on, right? Writing about Simon Snow?"
Cath didn't know what to say. It sounded absolutely ridiculous when Levi said it.
"They're not just stories . . . ," she said.
He took a giant bite of hash. His hair was still wet and falling (wetly, blondly) into his eyes. He pushed it back. "They're not?"
Cath shook her head. They were just stories, but stories weren't just anything. Simon wasn't just.
"What do you know about Simon Snow?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Everybody knows about Simon Snow."
"You've read the books?"
"I've seen the movies."
Cath rolled her eyes so hard, it hurt. (Actually.) (Maybe because she was still on the edge of tears. On the edge, period.) "So you haven't read the books."
"I'm not really a book person."
"That might be the most idiotic thing you've ever said to me."
"Don't change the subject," Levi said, grinning some more. "You write stories about Simon Snow . . . ."
"You think this is funny."
"Yes," Levi said. "But also sort of cool. Tell me about your stories."
Cath pressed the tines of her fork into her place mat. "They're just, like . . . I take the characters, and I put them in new situations."
"Like deleted scenes?"
"Sometimes. More like what-ifs. Like, what if Baz wasn't evil? What if Simon never found the five blades? What if Agatha found them instead? What if Agatha was evil?"
"Agatha couldn't be evil." Levi argued, leaning forward and pointing at Cath with his fork. "She's 'pure of heart, a lion of dawn.'"
Cath narrowed her eyes. "How do you know that?"
"I told you, I've seen the movies."
"Well, in my world, if I want to make Agatha evil, I can. Or I can make her a vampire. Or I can make her an actual lion."
"Simon wouldn't like that."
"Simon doesn't care. He's in love with Baz."
Levi guffawed. (You don't get many opportunities to use that word, Cath thought, but this is one of them.)
"Simon isn't gay," he said.
"In my world, he is."
"But Baz is his nemesis."
"I don't have to follow any of the rules. The original books already exist, it's not my job to rewrite them."
"Is it your job to make Simon gay?"
"You're getting distracted by the gay thing," Cath said. She was leaning forward now, too.
"It is distracting . . . ." Levi giggled. (Did guys "giggle" or "chuckle"? Cath hated the world "chuckle.")
"The whole point of fanfiction," she said, "is that you get to play inside somebody else's universe. Rewrite the rules. Or bend them. The story doesn't have to end when Gemma T. Leslie gets tired of it. You can stay in this world, this world you love, as long as you want, as long as you keep thinking of new stories―"
"Fanfiction," Levi said.
"Yes."
Can you just sob and laugh, and sob some more through an entire review?
Is that okay?
Because it's all I really want to do after finishing this.
I think it's all I can do after finishing this.
There's so much inside this seemingly innocent looking book; so much more than its charmingly illustrated casing would suggest.
Young Adult fiction has a reputation (founded by snooty twats) of being immature and shallow.
Some of it is. Much of what I've read myself, is. But like any other genre, to tar its entirety with such sweeping judgement is unjust and unfounded.
Like any other genre, there are stories which reflect the very heart of their namesake.
Smart stories.
Love stories.
Mental health stories.
YA stories.
And if I had to plead my case (which I won't. Ever. Because fuck that), Fangirl would be my star witness.
It is without question, conclusive evidence that YA is not solely about Manic Pixie Dream protagonists and their relationship woes.
(Although, why that's a problem - unbelievably perfect lead characters aside - I'll never know. If you don't like it. Don't read it. And refrain from bitching over its existence. It's not that fucking hard)
It's about being alive at a certain point in your life and all the ugly and wonderful things that happen to you.
...
I struggle to see the difference between that and what's written in Literary Fiction.
Simply because there. is. none.
And I'll admit, I didn't think this way before.
If I had seen the cover of Fangirl when I was younger, I would've enjoyed the illustration (because Noelle Stevenson), been vaguely curious of the story inside, and then disregarded it because it looked like Chick-Lit.
...
Because I was a giant, pretentious asshole.
Who should've been banished from the library/bookshop/other-people's-shelves for such judgemental fuck-headery.
Luckily, I know better now. And thank fucking christ, because now, now, I've had the privilege to read a story as wonderful as Fangirl.
...
And it broke me.
Rainbow Rowell always breaks me.
And I never expect it.
I read the blurb and still wasn't prepared.
Because Rowell is a sneaky word-witch who gets past all my defences and renders me a tear-soaked mallow-person by the time she's done working her sorcery.
And I will never learn.
Thank the literary gods, I will never learn.
Because Fangirl is a love letter to those of us who love to read.
Who live to read.
And especially those of us who lose ourselves in a particular writer's world, fall in love with their characters, and cannot let go.
I am one of these people.
I used to actively avoid series because it was too much pressure to commit myself to a world without definitive end.
The stress of reading book by book, waiting to see where the author takes the characters I've given my idiot heart to is beyond overwhelming.
It still is but now I revel in it.
(The ongoing list I had to attach to my door to keep track of them all is irrefutable evidence of this)
The pain of things not going your way, a character being killed off - justly or unjustly, the inevitability of the series coming to a close.
These things remain painful because all my love is soaked and stained into those pages, and for it be taken away?
Heartbreaking.
There are some series that I will never get over.
But that's when Fanfiction comes to the rescue.
To let the story continue.
To set right the crimes of the author.
To mould the story to your liking.
To let your beloved characters cross literary worlds.
To disappear, indefinitely, in a world you love with the people you cannot bear to be without.
Why do I write? Cath tried to come up with a profound answer – knowing she wouldn't speak up, even if she did.
"To explore new worlds," someone said.
"To explore old ones," someone else said. Professor Piper was nodding.
To be somewhere else, Cath thought.
"So . . . ," Professor Piper purred. "Maybe to make sense of ourselves?"
"To set ourselves free," a girl said.
To get free of ourselves.
"To show people what it's like inside our heads," said a boy in tight red jeans.
"Assuming they want to know," Professor Piper added. Everyone laughed.
[...]
"To stop hearing the voices in our head," said the boy in front of Cath. He had short dark hair that came to a dusky point at the back of his neck.
To stop, Cath thought.
To stop being anything or anywhere at all.
[...]
Cath imagined herself at her laptop. She tried to put into words how it felt, what happened when it was good, when it was working, when the words were coming out of her before she knew what they were, bubbling up from her chest, like rhyming, like rapping, like jump-roping, she thought, jumping just before the top hits your ankles.
"To share something true," another girl said. Another pair of Ray-Bans.
Cath shook her head [...] looked down at her notebook.
To disappear.
That... that is wonderful.
Fanfiction is wonderful.
Fangirl is wonderful.
And it's all about a girl; an awkward, lovely, soft, grump of a girl, and her devotion to two fictional wizard boys, and the stories she creates so she never has to be without them.
(Said fanfic boys are the protagonists in the published expanded novel, Carry On; which I read before this and honestly, it made reading the snippets of fic at the beginning of each chapter and dotted throughout the main story so satisfying. More so, I think, if I'd read it after Fangirl)
...
Sometimes, I feel as if a book was written just for me.
So I would feel seen, and understood, and not so alone.
Fangirl is one of those books.
And much like a lot of the literature that squirms its way into my heart, this wasn't an easy read for me.
Set during the very beginning of the protagonist's college experience (the first scene is literally them opening their dorm room door for the first time), we're immediately thrown into awkward roommate experiences, social anxiety due to people being fucking everywhere, loneliness, feeling out of place.
Being the weird one.
The one who doesn't and won't ever fit in.
That was my time at university.
I was snatched from my trusty group of childhood weirdos and dumped into an environment I was wholly alone in.
And I don't make friends easily.
Socially inept, shy as hell (until we're better acquainted and the caustic humour and foul mouth comes out full force), prone to say the wrong thing.
I can bulldoze a conversation in five seconds flat just by walking in the room.
Because I have horrendous social anxiety.
A fact I didn't know about myself until I walked through those art school doors.
Then I knew. I knew so clearly.
And it fucking sucked.
Reagan rolled her eyes.
"No," Cath said. "Seriously. Look at you. You've got your shit together, you're not scared of anything. I'm scared of everything. And I'm crazy. Like maybe you think I'm a little crazy, but I only ever let people see the tip of my crazy iceberg. Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept, I'm a complete disaster."
Reagan rolled her eyes again. Cath made a mental note to stop rolling her eyes at people.
And it didn't get better.
"Tell me about it," he said. "Tell me why you're so unhappy."
"It's just . . . everything. There are too many people. And I don't fit in. I don't know how to be. Nothing I'm good at is the sort of thing that matters there. Being smart doesn't matter – and being good with words. And when those things do matter, it's only because people want something from me. Not because they want me."
Reading Cath (the protagonist) go through similar things to me was actually quite distressing.
The kinda friends she made but still felt like she wasn't really wanted or liked all that much.
The trauma of simply going to the cafeteria... and then promptly scurrying away because communal eating is just too fucking weird and stressful.
Cath took her clothes to the bathroom and changed in a stall. There was a girl at the sinks, desperately trying to make friendly eye contact. Cath pretended not to notice.
She finished getting ready with plenty of time to eat breakfast but didn't feel up to braving the dining hall; she still didn't know where it was, or how it worked . . . .
In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can't google.) Like, where does the line start? What food can you take? Where are you supposed to stand, then where are you supposed to sit? Where do you go when you're done, why is everyone watching you? . . . Bah.
Cath broke open a box of protein bars. She had four more boxes and three giant jars of peanut butter shoved under her bed. If she paced herself, she might not have to face the dining hall until October.
Not understanding, enjoying, or even wanting to get drunk and be sweat on by shit-faced students moving spasmodically to ear-bleed club music.
I don't enjoy these things. I never have. I had to be drunk to enjoy them when I was younger, and I hate the taste of alcohol.
(Hello, small % of the world who agree that Whiskey tastes like Satan's armpit; fancy some Nesquik in a martini glass with a marshmallow chaser?)
Trying to be social while being introverted is not good for my health. Mentally or physically.
It isn't good for Cath's either.
And I both appreciated and despaired whilst reading her college experiences.
Because they're mine.
But hers were better.
She had validated talent (even when she ran full speed away from it; I ran but wasn't really missed). She had people who took an interest in her (even though she's about as welcoming as a sleepy Demogorgon; a trait we share). She had her writing to hold her up when everything sucked (I wasn't a reader the way I am now when I was in uni, there was nothing to keep me going).
She had a Levi.
Fuck, I wish I'd had a Levi.
(Not even as a boyfriend, just someone lovely who'd smile at me because that's what their face does, and because they wanted to smile at me, for being me - this stupid blog makes me reveal too much ... Fuck)
As far as literary heroes go, he's a prince among alpha-douches.
And believable.
I could believe he was a real person; with his overly long limbs, receding duckling hair, and all that devastating kindness.
But flawed enough to nudge him out of Manic Pixie Dream Guy territory.
And the mannerisms.
Rainbow Rowell is the queen of mannerisms.
I think authors sometimes forget that simple repeated physical ticks are vital to a character's credibility, their humanity.
A nose wrinkle here, a hair ruffle there, a finger twitch there.
We all do them.
They make up who we are.
They're what we fixate on when we like someone.
Levi was thin and weedy, and his hair – well, his hair – but everything about him made Cath feel loose and immoral.
He had this thing where he bit his bottom lip and raised an eyebrow when he was trying to decide whether to laugh at something . . . Madness.
Then, if he decided to laugh, his shoulders would start shaking and his eyebrows would pull up in the middle – Levi's eyebrows were pornographic. If Cath were making this decision just on eyebrows, she would have been "up to his room" a long time ago.
And I need them in my characters, otherwise they may as well be blank-faced-pretty-people with nary an idiosyncrasy in sight.
Hmm... nope, give me the nose scrunchers.
Give me the Levis.
I know boys don't magically make things better. They just don't, but I appreciate their continued existence and the effect they have on my endorphin levels when they do things like consistently be there for the girl they like, remember the little things, make an effort to enjoy things the heroine enjoys - with sincerity, may I add, reserve judgement when they don't understand a certain behaviour/reaction.
When they're patient and kind and smile like a lovesick idiot whenever their potential or confirmed girlfriend happens to, y'know, breathe.
Call me easy, but having a hero who, without fanfare, is just a good fucking person is... I'm not sure there's a word for it but I like it, it's refreshing.
That's the word: refreshing.
Levi is one of the most refreshing heroes I've come across in an age. He has little to no emotional baggage, he's generous without expectation, he's not perfect. But he kinda is.
Even when he does something midway through the book that made me want to throat-punch him into a new semester.
The betrayal.
It was bad. Really bad.
This was my reasonably calm reaction in print:
When really I was full of berserker rage.
Honestly, I was still angry when I woke up. Not even sleep could soothe the rage monster who lives inside my brain.
Neither could Cath putting herself first quell my wrath - I was so fucking proud of her, though.
"Cath . . . ," he said. "I'm so sorry. [...] I didn't think―"
"Levi." She cut him off and looked him straight in the eye, trying to look stern despite her tears. "I can't thank you enough for bringing me here. But I couldn't mean this more: I'd like it if you left now. I don't just kiss people. Kisses aren't . . . just with me. That's why I've been avoiding you. That's why I'd like to avoid you now."
"Cath―"
The door buzzed, and a nurse stepped through it, wearing flowered scrubs. She smiled at Levi. "You guys want to come back now?"
Cath stood up and grabbed her bag. She looked at Levi. "Please." And then she followed the nurse.
So proud but still so angry.
It didn't last long past that, however.
Fucking Levi.
"Are you rooting for me?"
"I'm rooting for you."
That won't make sense until you read it in context but...
Argh, literary boys will be the absolute death of me.
And I have to stop now. At least about Levi because I could keep going. And going. And going. Until I make everyone vomit.
Which would be gross and unnecessary.
So, to avoid barf-gate, it's time to move on and talk about this:
"You can't kill Baz," Wren said, pressing the down-arrow key and skimming Cath's Carry On outline. They kept coming back to this point; Wren was adamant.
"I never thought I would kill Baz," Cath said. "Ever. But it's the ultimate redemption, you know? If he sacrifices himself for Simon, after all their years of fighting, after this one precious year of love . . . it makes everything they've been through together that much sweeter. [...] it makes him the ultimate romantic hero. Think of Tony in West Side Story or Jack in Titanic – or Jesus."
"That's horseshit," Wren said.
Cath giggled. "Horseshit?"
Wren elbowed her. "Yes. The ultimate act of heroism shouldn't be death. You're always saying you want to give Baz the stories he deserves. To rescue him from Gemma―"
"I just don't think she realizes his potential as a character," Cath said.
"So you're going to kill him off? Isn't the best revenge supposed to be a life well-lived? The punk rock way to end Carry On would be to let Baz and Simon live happily ever after."
Cath laughed.
"I'm serious," Wren said. "They've been through so much together – not just in your story, but in canon and in all the hundreds of fics we've read about them. . . . Think of your readers. Think about how good it'll feel to leave us with a little hope."
"But I don't want it to be cheesy."
"Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy," Wren said. "It's the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for."
I used to read a lot of Literary Fiction, and if you're familiar with the genre, you'll be aware that happily ever after is practically verboten.
A fact that never exactly bothered me.
Unless it was the wrong ending.
That's all I want, to be honest: the right ending.
Be it death, separation, happy for now, or happily ever after, I truly don't care.
As long as it's right for the story.
But for many, unhappy endings are unacceptable; just as verboten as happy endings are to the LF-ers.
Their reasoning, I assume, is that when in fiction, why should they be unhappy?
Why suffer when there are far better options? - A choice not freely given in reality.
And I am all for this. 100%. Bring the endorphin rush on and let my characters win the goddamn day.
Because happy endings are not lazy, they are not saccharine, they are not easy but oh man, are they satisfying.
I ask only one thing.
Make the ending right.
Fangirl made it right.
And it wasn't even necessarily an end.
How could it be when the story is about fans, their fiction, and the unending story?
Which is why, even if Rainbow Rowell never writes a sequel, the HFN conclusion of Fangirl will continue to give me hope for more.
But there's always, always, fanfiction.
(gif by Arevik Sedrakyan aka. Sunistica)
These are just a few of the things I love about this book, but it has so many layers, so many topics it addresses:
→ Mental health
→ Plagiarism vs. Fanfiction
→ Writer's Block
→ Different ways of reading
(Super important; reading isn't just a text-visual thing. Listening to audiobooks, reading graphic novels etc. are forms of reading and just as rewarding as the standard form)
→ Abandonment issues
→ Obsession vs. Devotion
→ Shipping
So many things.
I just can't fit them all into this review without my verbosity getting completely out of control; and we all know by now it can get totally out of control.
But more than that, Fangirl is a novel you shouldn't be spoiled for.
It should just be read and enjoyed and lauded for capturing what it feels like to be a fan and never having to let go.
I certainly won't be letting of the world of Fangirl any time soon.
And just look at all the goodies to be had:
Now, let's fan art:
re-read Fangirl by @rainbowrowell !! here's some Cath and Levi... I love them 😭 💕✍️ pic.twitter.com/bzAsm1cRE7
— liz parkes (@eklixio) July 17, 2018
(This isn't actually fan art for Fangirl but it's so reminiscent of a particular scene in the book that it demanded inclusion)
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Tiny disagreeable mermaid's teensy, spiky teeth are so fucking cute.
Can you imagine the bite marks?
...
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Twitter's like button being adorable:
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Rewatching and finishing Girls:
Narcissistic
Foul-mouthed
Repugnant
Complex
Beyond beautiful
I love this show.
I will always love this show.
Lena Dunham may have been problematic in the past but she's the first female lead in a show like this that's actually felt real to me.
Her character is not society's "ideal" size, she's not a "classic" beauty, she almost exclusively makes terrible decisions, she's opens her mouth and says the most terrible things.
She's messy and she hurts people, but it isn't passed off as being "quirky" or "adorable".
Hannah is just a bit of a self-involved shit, and I love this show for it.
Because no one's perfect in it and they know it, or they don't and that in itself is more honest than half the shit shown on tv.
It's been so unbelievably comforting to watch a fictional character fuck up all the time and pay the consequences. Or not pay the consequences.
To witness a "larger" woman not hide a single inch of her body, belly rolls and all, and not be ashamed.
For a woman, not considered by society to be conventionally good-looking, sleep with as many conventionally hot guys as she damn well pleases.
Because attraction isn't as simple as having a perfect body, or a perfect face, or your level of fuckability.
And for fucking once, a tv show is showing this.
I've seen Girls described as the Millennial's Sex & the City, to which I say, Carrie Bradshaw's got nothing on Hannah Horvath.
They may both write and live in New York but Lena Dunham's portrayal is by far the most relatable and honest.
It's tv, so it still borders on the ridiculous, but beyond that it represents an actual human experience.
With the good shit, the weird shit, the gross shit, and the bad shit.
The full spectrum of human excrement.
And I love it.
Flaws and all.
Even if the last season made me go the full Hugh Grant in About A Boy:
Honestly, it was awkward as hell but I get what Dunham was trying to do.
The final season is the grown up season.
No more bullshit season.
It's time for these Girls to get their shit together; at least a little.
And there were a few truly special episodes:
American Bitch: for me this an incredibly important piece of television. It's a signpost for the #MeToo movement and starkly portrays the power imbalance between a predator with money and success, and the people they choose to abuse.
It doesn't matter how smart and self-aware you are, there is always potential for these people to take advantage of you and this episode captures that impotence.
What Will We Do This Time About Adam?: my heartbreak episode. There's one every season and this one hurt like a mother because my ship? It did not sail. And the goodbye we were given was beyond painful.
But the episode itself was a chance to see two characters, two actors, take their relationship for a final hurrah.
Even if it didn't work out in the end.
I'll ship them forever. No matter what.
I've already workshopped my own future for them in my head.
I will have my HEA and no power in the 'verse can stop me!
Goodbye Tour: the penultimate episode and more a goodbye than the final episode. Nothing is wrapped up. It's a mess of loose ends. And I love it for that. Most shows aren't brave enough to let their audience choose their own ending, but Girls was.
And I choose a happy one.
Because why the fuck not?
...
I'm really, really going to miss this show.
I'll miss this group of actors.
I'll miss the writing.
The awkward honesty.
I'll miss everything.
But especially Adam Sackler.
This is where the grand Adam Driver crush was born, after all.
How could I not fall in love with this:
His face...
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🎩🔍(🐭擬) pic.twitter.com/2cu4XEEAii
— UoCHANMEN (@uochandayo) August 9, 2020
— UoCHANMEN (@uochandayo) August 4, 2020
🐭🔍🎀 pic.twitter.com/DjLa9yaQhN
— UoCHANMEN (@uochandayo) July 28, 2020
— UoCHANMEN (@uochandayo) July 28, 2020
It may be responsible for quite a lot childhood trauma but goddamn, this is the cutest thing.
I love anthro art.
Either way around.
I love it.
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Poem by Neil Hilborn
Directed by Jesse Lewis-Reece
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Bev Johnson and the Pom Pom Squad:
When Bev Johnson illustrates a song, you listen to the fucking song:
Watch Booksmart!
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Rewatching:
I'm struggling at the moment to be bothered to start new things.
I think the apocalypse finally got to me and I can't bear being disappointed anymore.
Thus, I rewatch all the things.
Here's the crushed it list so far:
(Fuccccccck, I love this movie. If I wasn't so pain averse, I'd desperately want be a Derby girl. But I get pouty over paper cuts, so...)
(If you haven't seen this, sort that nonsense out. It's beyond brilliant and the score is killer. I wonder if the US remake will hold up?)
(Like a low rent Penny Dreadful ... I never said I wasn't fantasy trash)
(It's so shiny and awkward)
(I'm still reeling over how perfectly cast Matthew Goode is. It's insane. Thank you, world, for posh vampires with jawlines sharp enough to cut glass. Ugh, season 2, I need you now)
(A perfect pastiche)
(My religion)
(My Jonathan Rhys Meyers soft spot may have been blinding me to how godawful this is...)
(Oh boy...)
(Still beautiful. Still a little rushed. Still too pretty a Rochester)
(The goddess of my religion. If I wasn't halfway in love with Eva Green already, this would cement my devotion)
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The last panel.
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...
Lana Banana. Back in the asylum. Playing the most iconic literary nurse to ever grace the page.
Be still my heart.
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You just know Logan totally would.
Speaking of the cursed cake tag:
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" Pick it up."
— I'm back (@Robn_x) August 23, 2020
" I picked it up last time. "
" It was your idea to have it. "
" Fuck off. " pic.twitter.com/lUyhACQHPl
Just in: Dad has picked up the baby!~
— I'm back (@Robn_x) August 24, 2020
Baby is angy. https://t.co/bjLCmbj3q9 pic.twitter.com/p3KHeYrlyH
This is the most obvious ship and my brain didn't even go there.
I was missing out on all this adorableness.
Foolish child.
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V. E. Schwab's, A Darker Shade of Magic:
The first thing Kell saw when he stepped into White London was Lila brandishing two knives, both of them bloody. She'd managed to cut a path through several men―their bodies littered the street―but four or five were circling her, and more hung back and watched with hungry eyes and whispered in their guttural tongue.
"Pretty red blood."
"Smells like magic."
"Open her up."
"See what's inside."
Kell lowered Holland's body to the ground, and stepped forward.
"Vös renal torejk!" he boomed, rumbling the ground for good measure. Back away from her.
A ripple went through the crowd when they saw him―some fled, but others, too curious, took only a step or two back. The moment Lila saw him, her eyes narrowed.
"You are very, very late," she growled.
Four parallel, alternate Londons?
(Very reminiscent of Frank Beddor's, The Looking Glass Wars series, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, and Cornelia Funke's Mirrorworld series)
Elemental magic?
Blood mages?
A playful but modest hero with a many-layered, unpredictable coat?
A charismatic, feral-tongued, britches-wearing heroine?
(Delilah Bard is a delight; protect her at all costs)
Blood-drinking royal villains?
Necromancy?!
Uhm...
There's not much else to say, really.
I very much enjoyed this book.
The characters were extremely lovable.
The world-building was kick-ass.
I'm shipping people, already.
(Although, there's very little in the way of romance in the story, but I can create a ship out of an elbow graze)
I can't wait for the next in the trilogy.
...
What more could you possibly ask for?
Oh, yeah... pirates.
Oh, Delilah Bard, I adore thee.
(The Tumblr link for these is broken to all hell but, here it is anyway. Alternatively, search "Delilah Bard" in Tumblr and the full gif set should be near the top)
...
Look at how short this review is.
Do I get points for cooling it with the word vomit?
An enamel pin of some sort, perhaps?
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Kat Dennings aka. Sprout Dracula in quarantine is giving me life:
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Bryn Courey aka. Gumiponi:
Goodbye Daniel...
I love this heathen.
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This tweet:
Search your name in gifs and show me the one that best sums up your year so far. Here’s mine: pic.twitter.com/JMVnq9Z6eG
— Melanie Notkin (@SavvyAuntie) August 15, 2020
This is mine:
And I'm throwing this one in for good measure:
Profound, I'd say.
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I'm fucking desperate for this.
January is too far away.
I need my bickering babies, already.
In the book's stead, here's some pre-release fan art because my fandom has absolutely no chill:
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Chan aka. flesh.png:
Taste the motherfucking rainbow.
...
I am not cool.
...
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Robert Pattinson is #TheBatman. Watch the #DCFandome Teaser Trailer now. pic.twitter.com/vhRXE7YlCA
— The Batman (@TheBatman) August 23, 2020
It's not just me, right?
My love for Battinson isn't clouding my judgement, is it?
Because this looks kinda killer but kinda shitty at the same time.
(Which is totally my brand, let's be honest)
Yeah?
Okay, cool.
...
I cannot wait to see our grumptacular baby bat stretch those leathery wings of his.
I keep saying I'm done with superhero movies and they keep finding ways to appeal to my baser instincts. pic.twitter.com/ebpfcq63LC
— Saira Vargas (@ARealTrashAct) August 23, 2020
Same, Saira.
Same.
I feel as though there's going to be a lot of this behaviour in the movie:
This is a Joker joke.
— ʙʙ!💀 (@binah_q) March 30, 2020
[4/4] pic.twitter.com/1doQeXhKqj
Batman is the most emo of all the superheroes after all.
This is font porn.
I'm salivating.
.............................................
"Who did this?":
When someone shares clearly stolen content with the caption "Who Did This 🤣?!" pic.twitter.com/rbxgajjpT2
— Seán Burke (@SeanBurkeShow) August 16, 2020
Oh damn.
This broke me.
.............................................
Full episode list, here.
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I don't mean to post a Ketnipz video every month but... the lap slaps.
THE
LAP
SLAPS
!
.............................................
Three televisual trash piles I shamelessly enjoyed:
(Figure Skating. I fucking love Figure Skating)
(It's so funny and it really doesn't mean to be)
(It's all in the title)
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Sara Hagale's, A Song For Your Sleep:
I wish I lived in her brain.
This is so lovely.
This emotion and I are intimately acquainted.
.............................................
Patricia Briggs', Fair Game:
"Someone's been a naughty girl," the witch said to herself as her fingers traced a series of symbols incised into the boy's thigh. She pulled her face away and began humming "It's a Small World" as her fingers continued to trace the marks on the body. "There's surely more on the back," she said, looking at the doctor.
Mutely he nodded, and she picked up the body and rolled Jacob on his face. She was strong, for all that she looked lumpy and dumpy, because she didn't have to struggle particularly. Dead bodies were, mostly, harder to move than live ones.
More on the back, the witch had said, and there were. More symbols and more marks of abuse. Anna swallowed hard.
"Before death," said the witch happily. "All of it was done before death. Someone harvested your pain and your ending, didn't they, little one? But they were sloppy, sloppy with it. Not professional, at all." Her hands caressed the dead boy. "I recognize this. Bad Sally Reilly. She wasn't a very talented witch, was she? But she wrote a book and went on TV and wrote more books and became famous. Pretty, pretty Sally sold her services and then―poof, she went. Just like a witch who was bad and broke all the rules should."
"Sally Reilly carved these symbols?" asked Agent Fisher, her voice only a little sharp.
"Sally Reilly is dead. Twenty years or more dead, because she gave mundane people a way to do this." Caitlin bent down and licked the dead boy's skin, and Heuter drew in a harsh breath. "But they did it wrong and they didn't get it all, did they? They left all this lovely magic behind instead of eating it."
"Precious," murmured Anna.
The witch tilted her head. "What did you say?"
"You forgot the 'my precious,'" Anna said dryly. "If you want to act like a freaking nutcase, you have to do it right."
At their core, Urban Fantasy stories are classic noir detective stories.
A crime is committed, an under-appreciated sleuth is put on the case, a game of cat and mouse is played, a final showdown is had.
Detective stories.
Just with a deluge of supernatural critters thrown in to get us Fantasy addicts salivating at the mere hint of an underground magical system, or a mythological creature-feature gone rogue.
Like catnip for nerds.
And generally, all UF series start this way - heavy on the catnip.
Many continue the format with each book featuring a new puzzle to solve and a new monster to track down; whilst putting into place a story arc that'll run throughout the entire series.
This is my preferred way of reading Urban Fantasy.
All my favourites are set up this way: Kate Daniels, Iron Druid, Sin du Jour, Rivers of London, and of course, The Mercyverse.
I enjoy the structure of a fresh story with every book but appreciate the tethering of an underlying plot bubbling under the surface, just waiting to shock the shit out me when the time finally comes.
That is what we call suspense.
It's a wonderful thing.
(Even if it does cause anxiety-poisoning, quick-bitten fingernails, and tooth-torn bottom lips)
And The Mercyverse has an abundance of it.
Never losing its way, always bringing us back to the shit-storm on the horizon.
But sometimes, only sometimes, I do miss the initial excitement that comes with the first mystery in a series.
You can't hold onto that feeling when you're six/eight/fifteen books in and a history's been put in place, not only with the characters in the story but your own experience with them.
Relationships are formed. Hopes and ponderings have been hoped and pondered. Expectations for where the story's going have been developed.
It can't really be avoided and it's the joy and stress of reading a long-running series.
I've certainly experienced all these things within The Mercyverse, and continue to do so because it's still going.
But the nice thing about The Mercyverse is that its spinoff, Alpha & Omega, is happening within the same timeframe.
And we're only three books in.
As much I love Anna and Charles, and miss them whilst reading Mercy, I don't really know them that well yet.
I'm invested in them, I know their beginning, their histories has been somewhat revealed.
I care deeply what happens to them.
And I ship them hard.
But they're both still so new to me - unlike Mercy and Adam who are basically old bickering, feline buddies at this point.
So, going into Fair Game, I knew this would be another chance to get to know them a little better.
What I wasn't expecting was to engross myself in a properly old school hunt for an eldritch serial killer and to be panicking horribly over the state of my ship.
And panicked, indeed, I did.
All's not well in House Cornick, and I was not prepared!
It's always stressful when your ship is on the rocks. It's meant to be and I know why authors do it but goddammit, I spent the entire book until it was set to rights doing exactly this in my head:
Which is beyond pointless but it makes me feel better.
That, and I was relatively certain Patricia Briggs wouldn't fuck me over that like.
She's not that kind of author.
She doesn't rock the boat for no reason.
(I need to stop with the "shipping" analogies, don't I?)
But I was still a mess for the entire book. Especially so because the imbalance in my OTP wasn't caused by who I was expecting.
When we first meet Anna and Charles, Anna's a survivor of abuse. Skittish and untrusting. Literally, a wounded animal.
And the trauma she's trying to claw herself back from plays a significant role in the first two books of the Alpha & Omega series, and how her and Charles navigate how to progress in their relationship.
But not this time around; if anything, Anna's the keystone that's holding everything together because Charles? Charles is quietly fracturing.
As the official executioner for his father's Pack, he's killed, justly, a lot of werewolves.
It's a job he wouldn't have chosen and he emphatically does not enjoy it, but he's the only one capable of doing it.
And it's finally starting to wear him down.
So far down that he can't let his mate, his wife, carry any of the burden, as much as she tries to relieve him of it.
She glanced at him briefly. His Salish heritage gave him lovely dark skin and exotic (to her) features, his father's Welsh blood apparent only in subtle ways: the shape of his mouth, the angle of his chin. It was his job, not his lineage, that froze his features into an unemotional mask and left his eyes cold and hard. His duties had eaten away at him until he was nothing but muscle, bone, and tension.
[...]
If she couldn't get Bran to quit sending her mate out to kill, maybe she could get Charles to let her help with the aftermath. It might buy him a little time until she could find the right baseball bad―or rolling pin―to beat some clarity into his father's head.
Because Charles would rather die than hurt her.
He'd rather hurt himself than her, which is exactly what he spends 80% of the book doing.
The only problem being, he's hurting Anna anyway.
Charles looked at the door and realized that it would be tough to open with both hands full. He might manage it, but there was another way.
[...]
So he opened the bond that tied wolf to mate and said, as mildly as he could manage, Open the door, please―and someone is going to have to drink hotel coffee since I only brought enough for five federal agents.
The door snapped open and she looked up at him, her face entirely serious and her eyes bright with tears.
You talked to me. But more than words traveled along their bond from her side; she was always generous in sharing her feelings with him. She gave him a rush of relief that almost hid the deep-seated sorrow and pain of abandonment. He'd done that to her; he'd known he was doing it―and still knew that it was the lesser of two evils. He had to protect her from what was happening to him. Knowing he was right didn't mean he wasn't torn, that he didn't regret hurting her.
"I don't mind hotel coffee," she said aloud, her voice a little foggy.
He was afraid that he was going to hurt her much worse before this was all over.
Charles bent his head down and touched his nose to hers, closing his eyes to hide the effect of the knowledge of what he'd been doing to her―and the effect of feeling her, skin on skin, once more. Brother Wolf wanted to drag her away from all of these strangers and find the nearest empty room so he could wrap himself around her and never let go. Charles wanted to say, "I'm sorry for hurting you," but that implied that he would do something differently if he had to do it again. He would never allow the ugliness of his life to stain her, not if he could help it.
So he said something stupid instead. "My wife is drinking the cocoa I brought her."
You know the old saying: Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Charles is damned whatever direction he turns.
Although, not really, because Patricia Briggs isn't a sadist and my ship gets to sail another day.
(Apparently I can't/won't stop the shipping analogies. I'm not sorry)
If you don't stop that," he said mildly, though he paused with his shirt just over his shoulders so she could see the way the smooth muscles of his back slid down into well-fitted jeans, "our gentleman caller might have to wait awhile longer."
Anna smiled and reached out to run a finger down his backbone. She pressed her face against his cotton T-shirt and inhaled. "I missed you," she confessed.
"Yes?" he said, his voice soft. It got even softer when he said, "I'm not fixed yet."
"Broken or whole," she told him, her voice dropping to a growl, "you're mine. Better not forget that again."
It doesn't meant it didn't hurt like a motherfucker to read, however.
Because it did.
It really fucking did.
...
Christ, I'm tired.
And all this emotional fuckery was happening in the midst of a genuinely grotesque murder mystery - because things weren't stressful enough, huh, Briggs?
It had all the classics:
Abduction
Torture
Rape
Occult rituals
Bigoted mania
Patterned, decades long unsolved killings
Y'know, the usual suspects.
It wasn't gratuitous, though.
Sometimes crime in literature - especially when involving the above-mentioned sensitive subjects - can go too far and what should be read as horrific can come across as pornographic.
If I'm reading a crime, I want to know it's a crime. I don't want it to be comfortable or excusable. I want to be horrified.
But not so much it turns my stomach.
I've read a couple of stories like this and they weren't for me.
(Don't ask what they were, I've blocked them from my memory palace because yes, they were that fucking gross)
Patricia Briggs is for me.
She gives just enough detail to let your imagination do the rest, and thus offers you a choice.
A choice to visualise, a choice to back away and leave your gag reflex intact.
I'm not necessarily squeamish but there are some things I don't feel it necessary to poison my brain with.
And therein lies the magic.
Fair Game is the story of a werewolf couple joining forces with the Feds to hunt down and stop a group of organised, determined serial killers committing heinous, immoral acts against the supernatural community; and not once did I have to blur my sight just to get through the more gruesome passages.
But the horror of it all remained true and inexplicable.
That's some good fucking writing, if you ask me.
Although, I pretty much think Patricia Briggs sets the standard for Shifter Urban Fantasy, so I may be a little biased.
But I'm not. Because Fair Game is so fucking good.
A true celebration of the Noir with some supernatural fun thrown in.
And my ship sorting their relationship woes out in the process.
...
"I am yours [...] and you [...] are mine."
.............................................
Louie Zong animates My Brother, My Brother, & Me:
NEW MBMBAM ANIMATION
— Louie Zong (@everydaylouie) August 20, 2020
i’m so, so sorry. pic.twitter.com/H5wfL61YuE
When I laugh too hard I stop breathing - childhood asthma, it's a lingering bitch.
I have watched this so many times. pic.twitter.com/A0nYGSr8wD
— Monica Byrne (@monicabyrne13) August 1, 2020
— Ice Cream Sandwich (@ICSandwichGuy) July 20, 2020
— 「Benjo」 (@CowboyBenjo) August 7, 2020
The internet is undefeated. Never lost. Never even tied.
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) August 14, 2020
Dogs, bruh... pic.twitter.com/QD00Id3jlO
.............................................
Valérie Minelli aka. Mrs.Frollein:
This is it.
This is the webcomic I've been looking for.
I am now complete.
Ps. I always lose my shit during this scene:
Every single time.
.............................................
.............................................
Mystery runs in the family.
— Netflix (@netflix) August 25, 2020
Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, and Helena Bonham-Carter star in Enola Holmes pic.twitter.com/qtMYXW1KXh
...
Period Drama Helena Bonham Carter?
Suited and booted boys?
Precocious girls kicking butt and solving mysteries?
Hole?
If it wasn't disgusting, I would lick the screen.
But instead, here's Giada Carboni and her inevitable, illustrative freakout:
.............................................
Ellie Olivia-Knight aka. athousandreads:
Such a simple bookstagramming concept but so effective.
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