It was dangerous to want things, and Gwen was out of practice.
[...]
Lady Leclair was a problem. Looking at her felt a lot like wanting something.
I truly wish I had more to say... but this is just a really sweet read.
And how could it be anything other when the basis of the story is a queer telling of the teen descendants of Arthur Pendragon and co. falling in love/lust/friendship, being awkward as shit, and generally making an absolute mess of things?
...
Not possible.
But for some reason it took me a couple of weeks to read, which for little over four hundred pages of easy to digestive storytelling is a little crazy for me, but I think it's because the narrative imperative wasn't there to pick it up every night.
The general happenings within the story weren't begging for my attention, siren-calling me to delve back in, and so it was easy to let my side-piece reads lure me away and let Arthur, Gwen, et al. do their chaotically chill thing whilst I gobbled down other stories like the cheating whore I am.
That, and I'm doing this thing where I'm trying to prioritise earlier sleep so my unhinged, bat-in-the-belfry ass can finally see that flaming gobstopper in the sky and suck down some sweet, sweet Vit D to turn the tide on the sleep-deprived, Emily Strange, goblin aesthetic I've had since puberty hit.
It's going well, even if I'm more tired than ever (?), and the punched-in-the-eye-by-a-curmedgeonly-badger circles remain alongside the Casper-complexion, a look I biologically cannot outrun, but the Calciferol levels are a-rising!
(This sensitive baby got heat rash on her face from one day in 25℃ sunshine. ... FFS)
My precious reading hours, however? They're taking an uncomfortable hit.
Formally a by the gloom of night torchlit reader for well up to/over two hours at a time, I'm lucky if I'm managing forty five minutes this last month or so, which in turn may have caused my enjoyment of G&AANiL to be somewhat... scattergun.
Because, for the most past, not a hell of a love happens in the story other an immeasurable amount of gay panic, awkward flirting, hot stares clashing bewildered ones, and mild teenage rebellion.
...
All bloody wonderful things that I'm one thousand percent here for, but because of the sleepy, snack-sized pace I was chewing all that goodness down at, it did make for a marginally underwhelming read.
I mentioned the imperative before, that insistent finger that tap-tap-taps on your brain whenever you're not reading that insists you stop whatever you're doing and immediately goread?
It's present at all times, because reading is life, but none more so than when the story's grabbed some primordial part of your anatomy, a part of your being that possesses the same cells as the narrative, that beats and claws and nuzzles to the same rhythm, and won't let you even dream of anything else but that story.
That like calling to like, which is the sweetest relief when you find it even in the smallest of measures, wasn't present here for me, and I can only presume it's because this story? This cute as fuck story? Is far too fucking chill.
Now, I'm a big fan of chill in my reading; you wanna throw me a cozy, low-stress plot with minimal drama and high gratification? By all means, softly lob that tale into my grabby, anxious paws and I'll catch it as I sink to the floor in my pre-made book nest and nom that sucker down.
But I have requirements:
π‘️ Characters to invest my whole-ass heart in
π‘️ Banter of the highest degree
π‘️A little farce and folly
π‘️ Decadent, vivid world-building
π‘️ At least one meet-cute
π‘️ A vibe
And you want to know the oddest thing?
G&AANiL has all of these things, and has them in abundance.
So, there's only really one explanation as to why I didn't gulp down this Arthurian tale of queer love and friendship with the kind of joy Kirby does when he sees any edible object:
I'm sleep deprived and nothing is okay.
Which is a shame; for me, the book, and my enjoyment.
But there was this one shining aspect of the story that snuck its way past my dozy defences, and it goes under the official title of Platonic Friendships In Fiction Make Me So Fucking Happy Why Aren't There More and is perpetrated by Babygirl A, one Arthur Delacey, and Sunshine Labrador B, his body-man and eternal bestie, Sidney Fitzgilbert.
They are, in no short terms, adorable chaos.
The kind of best friends who show affection through insults, who'll cause a distraction to extract the other from self-imposed fuckery, will mop the others brow and tell them they're still pretty as they hurl into the bushes after a night of revelry.
Who'll cuddle when others are watching, pass notes to the objects of their affection with only a few words scribbled out and replaced in the exchange, double/triple/infinity (!) dare each other and actually follow through, and who yip and bounce like puppies when they're reunited after only a few hours.
They're brothers.
Ride or dies.
Plantonic paramours.
And I love them to fucking pieces.
And even more so because of the tendency in storytelling, be it books/tv/movies, for male friendships to have certain parameters they must never cross:
π Never touch other than slapping man-hugs or love-punches
π Feelings? Only when they're painful and can be dealt with swiftly
π Offerings of food are for necessary nourishment, never just because
π And never, ever, by pain of death, say I love you without a bro-y qualifier
This is man-love and man-love is the manliest thing in the man-iverse!
But he can't show it, no, no, no, mustn't be vulnerable and honest and lord forbid, feminine - whatever that even means in this gender-straightjacketed ball of rock floating through space - with someone of the same sex.
That would go against the rules.
I hate the fucking rules, but luckily for me, Arthur and Sidney flip them off with an air of such complete unaffectedness that the very idea of not being soft and silly with each other is beyond ridiculous and never comes into question.
...
My skin is glowing, my hair's shiny as fuck, my gunshot knees no longer click.
The power of fictional besties, my goblin readership, they could solve the climate crisis.
The more time I spend thinking about this season/dissecting it with my sister/reading internet-takes, the more I think it was a right bloody mess.
My love for Bridgerton knows no bounds, it's the historical romp of my romance-loving, period drama dreams, and every season so far has exceeded my expectations (Kanthony and Cheorge coming out on top, of course).
So, was I expecting the third season, the season, Polin's season (!), to fall so flatly?
No, I bloody well wasn't.
I wasn't expecting the tepid chemistry, or the character underwriting, the oh so many storylines fighting for airtime and distracting from Polin themselves, or even the general quality of the show seeming really off.
Did they change film stock?
Why were we inside so much?
Is it because we're routinely losing Bridgerton's and the sibling banter/bickering is missing?
Why was everything so serious?
And am I the only one who noticed this?
Because to me, it looks like Netflix have slashed the budget ever so slightly, enough to make you squint and wonder why the fucktwo apples tall Nicola Coughlan, Penelope Featherington, Lady Whistledown(sorry if that's a spoiler but if it is, are you living off the grid or something?) didn't get the season she fucking deserved.
Criminal, absolutely criminal.
HOWEVER.
I watched this in two parts, which I wasn't going to do because splitting an eight episode season is just fucking ridiculous but the internet was being a bully so I gave in, so I think I've gotta watch it as a whole.
Because now I know why Colin was giving me the serious ick in the first half, so i won't spend the whole time making this face when he tries to be sexy *shudders*:
The winking... the threesomes... the total lack of personality.
Nope, nope, nope, not our cinnamon roll boy.
So, hopefully the second time round going in will sort that fuckery out the season will be a more pleasant, cohesive watch?
If only for the first episode, which, in my oh so humble opinion, is some damn fine television.
Split into three POV narrative vignettes, full of post apocalyptic fuckery, a fair amount of surprise stabbing, and mutants abound it fills the entire quota of fantasy conspiracy soap drama with a piquant of power mad America.
Genuinely, there's nothing more to possibly want.
And this badass poppet's at the helm of it all:
I don't know how you make such a perkily optimistic main character so damn lovable instead of insufferable, but Ella Purnell managed it, so much so that she's my favourite character, and that's with Walton Goggins(Boyd Crowder, my beloved) tracking along behind her as a cowboy mutant with marshmallow insides (not part of the mutation. ... Probably) ominously known far and wide simply as, The Ghoul.
The man is perfection itself, even with skull-face, but alas, nothing trumps my girl Lucy and her endless can-do attitude.
Let's see if that pep will keep her safe in season two and the shit storm's she about to stomp right into:
Just the sight of them and their fang-tipped, sibilant noodle-bodies gives me the wicked heebie jeebies.
I am definitely of the Gene Belcher school of fear-thought when it comes the serpentine ones, but I fucking love the aesthetic of them (hence my personal book stamp being a snake-themed design), and I'd let a sentient piece of spaghetti wriggle all over me if I could get my hands on one of Aesthetic Arts by Georgia's snake friends.
Especially HRH Banana Noodle up there.
She'd undoubtedly protect my petulant plants from routinely offing themselves with no regard for how much love and affection I've literally showered on them.
Like so many others, this webcomic means the fucking world to me, and to see it end is so very bittersweet.
No longer will Sunday morning see the notification bar appear at the top of my tablet informing me of a new episode, where Hades and Persephone will without fail be the most adorable, chaotic, mythically messy couple to ever be drawn.
No more episode dissection with my sister during Sunday days.
No more endless stores of fanart being produced to compliment Rachel Smythe's latest chapter.
No more screenshots to update my wallpaper with.
Just... no more.
What will my heart do on Sundays now?
This is what I mean by bittersweet; I'm beyond happy for Rachel, that's she done everything she wanted with the series, that she's leaving on a high instead of letting it drag on, that she created this story I love so much in the first place.
That's what you want for both the creator and the creation: fulfilment, contentment, nourishment.
But oh wow, does it hurt to lose it, to no longer be actively taken along for a ride on someone else's wild adventure.
Here's the sweet, though: it's always there.
Digitally.
Physically.
Artistically.
And emotionally.
Lore Olympus is something I will re-read often and with the same amount of devotion.
But for now, a selection of my favourite fanarts (from Insta because all the rest are lost to the disorganised Twitter/Tumblr-verse) to celebrate the creator, the creation, and the fans:
Truly wish I had the mental spoons to add everything from Twitter and Tumblr as well, but fuck me, there's just way too much, an overwhelming amount of love letters sent out to this comic that ruined our lives in the best way possible.
If you haven't read it yet, do so, you're in for the greatest story-ride of your life.
And let's see what Rachel does next, I bet it's going to be amazing.
.............................................
Em Allen aka. rudebeetle is back and it's everything:
Em Allen is, and will forever be, one of my favourite illustrators; from the moment I found her work I was obsessed, with the style/content/general vibe, and luckily before shipping taxes got so extreme, I bagged myself two of her works:
And producing works like the skulled beauty above that she dropped on us in May?
It's genuinely baffling, but oh wow, am I glad it's real.
If only world-shipping wasn't the equivalent of purchasing a small pony these days, I'd be adding this piece to my collection with the eager twitch of a phalange.
You can't recommend retold fairy tales without this collection, you just can't.
Carter is fundamental to the retelling genre, basically the queen of, and I'll shove her work down the necks of those still not in the know 'til the day I keel over and hopefully slip into my own cross-dimensional fucked up fairy tale.
I'm hoping for a Beast's library situation where I kick the fuzzy one (or keep him for snuggles, undecided) to the curb and take ownership of his kickass library.
Bonus article pondering the what if, what for, and what about of contemporary fairy tale retellings:
I should really branch out to different article-based websites but damn, Reactor just gets me, and Fairy Tale/Folklore retellings are a particularly direct route to the squishy inner chambers of my goblin heart.
The original tales can be a tad... dry? A little deficient in dimension? Lacking impact in a contemporary setting?
At least, I've found them that way, so my preferred method of gobbling them down but still absorbing their meaning - be it a warning, an allegory, a trial, etc. - is by chewing on any and all expansions on it I can fit inside my hungry maw.
Second season: Where's my non-linear timeline, bitch? And what's with Witcher-Barbie Ciri and the weird chemistry between her and Geralt? - he's her dad, Netflix, leave that weird shit to her bio-daddy.
Third Season: A lesson in how Netflix tanks a show in four easy steps - bad wigs, regressive character development, cringey dialogue, ignoring the source material; and this season's a fucking masterclass.
I loved this show, really truly loved it, I'll always adore the first season, but holy shit, when Netflix wants to end a show the fans love with a vehemence only the nerdy possess, they take a fucking hacksaw it.
Like... I was upset when Henry Cavill parted ways because he's truly the Geralt we all deserved and the show without him seems... impossible?!
But yeah... you can't really blame him for jumping ship from this battalion-sized shitshow.
He and Joey Batey were carrying the whole thing by the tips of their fingers in that last season, not even my beloved Anya Chalotra could battle against the hokey script and mop of unconvincing hair she was buried under.
Nothing short of a miracle born of Chaos could've revived this series from the ruin they left it in.
And now we've got baby Hemsworth at the helm, who when they hired didn't even have a chemistry casting with Chalotra!
I can't imagine them having chemistry anyway, it's hard to vibe with a plank of pretty wood, but Geralt and Yennefer are one of my biggest ships (book and tv; maybe the game one day, but I get panicked playing Mario Kart so the chances are... speck-like), so to lose that and for it to most likely be flat as fuck actually pains me.
Can't watch Geralt and the gang without following it up with his predecessors who COMPLETELY CHANGED THE LORE!
I genuinely like this spinoff and don't really understand the hate towards it, but that ending... I'm really what the fucking over here. It completely altered what we know about Witchers being made instead of born, rolled right over the mutation process and splatted out a pasty crotch-goblin in its stead.
Will they even address this in the fourth season?
Knowing the show runners, who've systematically and with gusto, fucked the show over since the second season because they clearly have no respect for the story, I doubt it very much.
Genuinely wondering how many times I have to rewatch this PERFECT FUCKING SHOW before Netflix (or any other network willing) gives us a second a season.
I'd say I watched this yet again in celebration of the sequel movie being announced (fuckingyes!), but nah, I just missed these dorks.
And staring intently at Taylor Zakhar Perez's insanely long, stupidly dark eyelashes; the envy of women, men, and non-binary folks the world over, who at this very moment (and for the rest of eternity) are forking over hundreds of [insert currency of choice] each year to even get close to replicating that level of lash-y wonder.
It isn't fair.
He doesn't even need them, he's pretty enough, already!
Does this movie fit my requirements for your classic fucked up rom-com?
Let's see:
π Dead twin sister
π Alive twin accidentally takes dead twin's place
π Lives x-twin's life and lies to everyone
π Falls for hot, grumpy neighbour who x-twin hated
π Doesn't tell hot neighbour the truth
π Chaos ensues.
But in a really sweet way.
It may be fucked up but the essence of the story is about feeling left behind, less than, not fitting in, wanting to be something/one else, and making messy, messy choices while you try and outrun those feelings.
If you're arrested-ly developed in any way (millennials unite), then this should appeal to you.
Plus Jake Johnson has the audacity to look like this in it:
I have to make a formal apology to my mum, who I've been using as a human Wiki for The Wheel of Time facts even though she hasn't read the books in years, believes the show is fucking with the narrative, and hasn't thrown a shoe at me yet for asking endless questions I could google myself.
It's genuinely astonishing she hasn't throw the shoe yet, a goddamn miracle.
She might be a saint.
But she has all the answers, y'see!
My nerdy, historian, librarian mater.
If she was an Aes Sedai, she'd definitely be one of the Brown Ajah, collecting knowledge and shelving it Dewey Decimal style - because that shit just makes the most sense in any cataloguing situation.
She might still throw some form of footwear at her pest of a daughter to enable some blessed peace.
Sorry, mum, your answers just sound better than the inter-webs, and I'm so not ready to read the books themselves.
For a reading monster and fantasy lover, I baulk at the sight of eight hundred pages tomes that come in multiple; a standalone is one thing, but a whole series of wordy breeze blocks? Hell, I get the yips with five hundred page stories.
And The Wheel of Time series is vast, clocking in at fourteen books total with a collective page count of eleven thousand, five hundred and sixty seven (varied from book editions) with no book coming in under six hundred pages... that's a whole lot story, and I am afeared.
Four hundred pages is more my speed, but maybe one day I'll do it, the right mood will strike and I'll simply face-plant myself right into the Two Rivers and never look back - the nerd mother does assure me that it's a brilliant read.
But until them, I'm just gonna re-watch the show until I'm sick of it (not possible), and the third season drops on Amazon hopefully sometime next year.
And they don't mercilessly cancel it.
Because they've shot their budget-load on Rings of Power, which, sorry to the LOTR-devotees who worship at the altar of story-fucker Peter Jackson, who I blame entirely for how very bad the show is even though he had nothing to do with it other than setting the blasphemous tone with his own adaptations, but the show sucks (I'll still watch the second season when it drops in August because High Fantasy is sparse, I'll nom down anything I can get) and those millions of dollars should be shuffled on over to my beloved Dragon Reborn (not you tv Rand, you're so bland it hurts my skin cells) and I can get at least five seasons of this story goodness.
Is it obvious that I just really, really like this show?
Because I do.
Everything about it really.
The costuming, the acting, the acting chemistry, the visuals, the dialogue, the batshit decision making, the friendship, the cinematography, the serious but humorous tone that doesn't feel stuffy or worthy, the character development, the world-building.
I talk about "chokeholds" a lot in reference to my legion of romantic ships, as in they gripped me by the throat and never let go which honestly, just feel feels fucking euphoric, but some have a tighter grip than others.
Those two up there?
My gold-cuffed trauma boys?
They basically cut off my circulation.
And EklaΓ―ze's illustrations make me want to deviate from my usual M.O. of reading newnewnew (which has it's own set of problems)and reread this fucking brilliant trilogy thatC.S. Pacatlaid at our feet like the glorious human they are.
...
But I'm shit at re-reading, so I'll gaze greedily at my boys in artistically rendered form instead.
There is nothing that frustrates me more (lie) than encountering a bookstore/library in fiction and a) not being give enough details about it, b) not spending enough time within it, and c) it not being real so I can burrow, like the creature I am, within its stacks and stay there forever.
Devastating.
Absolutely devastating.
Here are some of my favourite book-logged establishments (that aren't already listed) that I wish didn't live solely between the pages and inside my head:
Don't call him a monkey, he'll bop you on the head and ban you for life.
π The Great Library of Clayr in the Abhorsen series - shaped as a vast, shrinking spiral that descends from the peak of a mountain to the base of the glacier it sits atop, shelved with prophecies, ancient artefacts, armour/weapons of historical import, and of course a trapped, wildly powerful elemental in the basement.
This is where Lirael(my favourite character of the series) meets Disreputable Dog, and I cry eternally.
π The Great Library of Zosma in Strange the Dreamer - once a palace, now home to scholars and their vast archives, laboratories, an observatory, medical theatres, music rooms, and of course the library itself with forty feet high shelves full of beetle-toned tomes and ladders scattered against them like lifelines.
Unfortunately, there's a "No women allowed!" edict, so Laszlo(it's ridiculous how often I think about him) would have to sneak me into his favourite section where the fairy tales, myths, and legends slumber.
π Lucien's Library in The Sandman - quite literally a dream, the architecture constructed by Dream of the Endless himself and tended to by Lucien with a devoted ferocity only book lovers possess; it hovers lovingly within The Dreaming and is shelved with every book that's ever existed, been dreamed of, and even those that haven't.
Endless, indeed.
π The Il Bastone Library in Ninth House - this one, whilst real and entirely visitable in Yale, won't possess the Albemarle Book, which once you write down your specific topic of interest inside will rattle the groaning walls of Lethe House and deliver your book(s) of requirement (after its settled, obvs) in a circular room secreted behind a bookshelf.
Sentient libraries, is there anything more inviting?
Known for her mythic covers for Nghi Vo's The Singing Hills series, she also has time to make quirkily fluid characters for the year's spookiest month.
Can't you just imagine these characters peering in from the page edges of some Wonderlandian tale?
Was this trying to make me sympathise with Coriolanus Snow?
By giving him a woe is me, money-poor rich boy with abusive parents backstory, who falls in love with a girl who knows he's the fucking devil and uses him to survive, and ultimately escape a game she's thrown into without consent which is designed purposefully to kill her?
...
...
...
Sorry, I had to stop laughing before I continued on.
Because there's no way I'm accepting that Pick Me Boy, Incel, gaslight-y bullshit; it's too fucking funny.
No shade to Suzanne Collins- or this movie which was pretty decent, if a shade redundant - because I loved the Hunger Games trilogy, slurped it up like Angel Delight(brown, the superior flavour), and when the movies came around I was all over them like my cat with the catnip stuffed beaver we give him that he licks raw, ie. splitting seams and totally feral.
I'm not normally a dystopia kinda girl, the world's bleak enough, y'know? But I love Katniss and the Districts, the whole aesthetic of it all, the world-building and character arcs, it's some real good fictional food.
But this?
This was just not it.
I didn't need Snow's backstory, I don't care about his feelings, just let the villains be villains! - why do authors find this so bloody hard?
Y'know what would've been the better story to tell?
The Hunger Games' actual beginnings, to see how this vile, power hungry, bloodthirsty monstrosity began in the first place.
Now that I want to see.
Not sad-boi Snow pouting over how nobody loves him and everything's so unfair!
Like... poor baby, you don't have to be a calculating, mass murdering psycho about it!
This movie was so lucky it had Rachel Zegler as a main lead because wow, she carried the damn thing; this is my first time seeing her in anything and she's got this sneaky, underhand, come closer presence to her that is genuinely so watchable.
With every scene she had with Tom Blyth(Snow), she totally eclipsed him, blew him entirely out of shot with the way she spoke, the expressiveness of her features, the way she moved.
This should've been the Ballad of Lucy Gray Baird, her story is far more interesting.
And the singing?
Ohhhhh, the singing.
I did not expect to be listening to a Hunger Games soundtrack on repeat, didn't see it coming, no way, but we're on listen five and not stopping for anything.
I think it's the southern twang, makes you wanna lie down in a field and eat a biscuit.
Or maybe that's just me.
A moment to pour one out for Donald Sutherland, who for me will always be the finest Mr Bennet to ever grace the screen, but his President Snow was a feat of creepy, menacing beauty.
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