I Have Unfortunately Lost My Voice And I Won't Be Able To Stream Tonight.

Ides of January Reading Update

The Cloisters got DNF'ed. I don't like to do that, but I had to. It was so fucking boring. The stuff about tarot was interesting, but it would only be focused on for like two paragraphs and then utterly forgotten so the protag could whine some more about not being cool enough. It was also all tell, no show. At one point, it's said that the MC has been having trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality and might be having full-blown hallucinations. And....that's it. We never get to see it at all. If it weren't for that line, there'd be no way to know that was happening. And it's like that with everything. Awful book.

Babel is good, but it's taking me forever to get through it. I like it, it's just slow going.

So This Is Ever After is the only romance I've ever enjoyed reading. It's funny, sweet as hell, and Queer af. I don't even know why I decided to read it because I don't really like the romance genre, but I'm so glad I did.

Maus made me cry and that's all I'm ready to say about that.

Iron Widow is one of the best books I've ever read. Wu Zetian is an absolute gold medal badass and I love everything about her. I don't know if I want to be her friend, her girlfriend, or just be her; I'll even accept being her enemy if I have to. I'm just obsessed and want her in my life somehow. It's fucking brilliant and I cannot wait for Heavenly Tyrant.

The Weight of Blood is very good so far. It's a Carrie retelling set in a 2014 Georgia high school about to host its first integrated prom. I'm only about a third of the way through it right now, but I'm really enjoying it so far.

the catcher in the rye is horrible, the writing feels as a call for attention from a child, but a grown man writes it. It blows my mind that schools push this subpar book and demand kids read it. I have no idea why people consider this a classic

I promised not to judge, so I won't. I can see where you're coming from though

Let's see if I can actually finish a mission tonight.

Far Cry 5 at 11 est

I know I've been gone for like 2 months, but I'm actually still alive, and I can prove it on twitch!

Come see the evidence for yourself!

I'm taking a break from the rapture to lead an inquisition.

Not a real inquisition. I don't have the resources for that.

I'm talking about Dragon Age: Inquisition. On Twitch. Come join me.

People/Steamers crying about getting shit over buying and playing hogwarts legacy vs trans people dealing with politicians and pundits calling for their genocide and being kind of understandably furious at streamers for enabling JK Rowling’s anti semitism and transphobia in the midst of fascists using any means to get legitimacy to kill lgbt people.

i love narratives that are two fundamentally different experiences on the first and second read. stories you have to experience at least twice bc crucial information is withheld from you the first time

One piece of Avatar lore I don't quite believe is that most avatars don't learn they're the avatar until they're told on their 16th birthday.

like, POV you're some Earth Kingdom kid who knows the previous Water Tribe avatar died suspiciously close to the time you were born. You CANNOT tell me that that entire class-year of starry bright-eyed children doesn't spend every waking moment trying to prove they're the avatar. "Shut up Hang Lee you're not the avatar I'M the avatar. That stream just moved toward me." "Nuh-uh a fish did that and Avatar Tepek died on the summer solstice and YOU'RE a winter baby." "All the seasons are opposite in the water tribe Hang Lee!" "Nuh-uh"

You're 8 years old with all your other 8-year-old friends at your first day of How To Throw A Rock Class you CANNOT tell me that every kid present doesn't waste half the class trying to catch grass on fire with all the sincerity and conviction of a gas station hopeful snagging a mega-millions lotto ticket with their Mars bar and $30 gas fill-up.

I will be restarting the stream in 10 minutes (so 8:40 PM EST)

Please come join me

Saw your post and who am I to deny an opportunity to rant about terrible terrible twilight knock offs?

Okay so ever since twilight came out in 2005, there's been a load of knock offs inspired by the "vampire=hot and sexy/mysterious" and while some of them are, this author P.C cast and Kristen Cast saw the idea and cranked it up more than was necessary because what the hell.

The book is called House of Night and there are lots of books. And the idea of being a vampire was that you had to be marked/chosen in order to undergo it's transformation which. If you were chosen, you had to be with a fully fledged vampire until you were fully fledged yourself which is a long process (around four years) and what is a better place than being with a bunch of fully grown vampires than a academy with other chosen with the fledglings as the teachers?

I'm not gonna lie, it's a great concept but it's terrible what the authors done with it. Transformations don't always work and the chosen sometimes die, but in order to prevent this- you had to be pretty and not fat. Shockingly this isn't the worst thing on the list of how many messed up things this book had done

Then the authors worsen the book more by having the characters be problematic. (They sl#t shame a lot and this doesn't make sense since it's common knowledge that drinking human blood /blood in general is sexual in the story)

Examples include saying the r word, fetishizing queer characters, making a white character "twins" with a black character because they're just so alike like using aave as an example (and the black character she's twinning with is terribly written as well so it just ends up more terrible)

And absolutely terribly horrendous relationships!!

The main character is the "not like other girls tm" and so she gets the bad boy, some sort of thousand year old grandpa boyfriend, a TEACHER boyfriend, and a human boyfriend 😭 (for the amount of shaming this book has, the main character is getting busy with every boy she meets)

AND WHAT MAKES THIS BOOK MORE WORSE is that they thought it was cool to use Indigenous culture but strip everything about said culture so they can fit use what they thought was cool to use in the story. Im happy for any type of indigenous reputation as an indigenous person myself but WHY

They just made the main character (who was named Zoey redbird btw, cool last name tbh but absolutely shitty character) have op powers and call her a "Cherokee princess" with no respectful mention of Cherokee culture at all. They just made their own thing and slapped the word Cherokee on it and shipped it as representation.

For a character that's supposed to be non-white, she was acting the opposite despite being close with her grandma who was Indigenous (+ being stereotypical) and inheriting op powers that were meant to be from her "culture"

PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH

I don't even know how I saw past the red flags as a kid reading this book but now that I have, I'm just so angry just thinking about it 😭

I hope this rant of mine was entertaining

I was just on the right side of too old to hear about this series back when it came out. So let me tell you, it was an absolute trip to see what was in these books when my friends started raving about them a few years later.

Like, this? This is what they were so hyped about? I'd rather them tell me how much they love 50 Shades - well, okay, that's a little too far, but still.

I truly don't understand how any woman survived the absolute peak of fatphobia that we hit in the 2000s. And I'm including myself in that. No idea how I lived through it. These were the days when people were calling Britney Spears fat for being a size 4 instead of a 0. How did women not just collectively die off? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that we made it through, but holy hell it was by the skin of our teeth.

So someone really needs to tell me what the actual hell was going on in the 2000s that made every piece of teen media present teacher/student relationships like a totally cool and not abusive and traumatizing thing. Remember how grossed out everyone was by the Archie/Grundy relationship in Riverdale? In the 2000s, no one would have batted an eye at that. It would have fit right in with every other teen show at the time. I can't watch hardly any of my favorite high school shows anymore because of that. Ugh, so gross.

And holy shit I forgot she was indigenous! Well, in heavy quotes at least. That Cherokee Princess nonsense is such a White People move and I just can't. I don't know what's worse regarding indigenous rep, House of Night or Twilight. My man Charles de Lint isn't perfect and he's fucked it up a few times, but at least he actually tries and shows respect (um, hey, if he's actually far worse than I think, please let me know).

But, hey, in maybe possibly good news, apparently the writers are trying to convince the publishers to let them rewrite the series so they can do something about all the problematic stuff. That at least has the potential of growth for them