I Love It Too And I Want More Of It. Might Blaze That Post Again To Get Some More

I am going through all of the wonderful book rants that I received. I love all of them and everyone who sent them.

Even the person who trashed one of my favorite books - but don't worry, as I promised, I am not judging or arguing. I accept your rage as my own all the same.

I haven't been able to answer all of them yet, but I will.

And feel free to send in more if you want to. I am always open to them

people are absolutely EVIL about the boundaries of “picky eaters”. no, they do not have to try it. yes, they can know they don’t like it without having eaten it before. no, they probably have not suddenly grown a taste for the food they’ve said they hate. no, they probably are not going to like it in the Special Way This One Place Cooks It. yes, you are being a bad friend if you try to “trick” them into eating it anyway

I am back with Jesse in Control. Come join me on twitch and find out why I insist that Jesse is totally inspired by Joan of Arc

I am very sick. I'm going to get tested for the new covid variant tomorrow. Sorry I won't be on again tonight. I doubt me shivering, rocking, and not being able to follow the simplest line of thought would be terribly entertaining.

Sorry guys

Ever since the latest Dune adaptation came out it's been like the thing for booktubers, booktokkers, etc., to talk about how much they hate the book.

Now, Dune is literally my favorite book. I've read it so many times. I am in love with it. Not so in love with the son's additions to series, but that's a whole vitriolic rant that I don't want to get into right now.

Anyway, despite how much I love it, I absolutely do not fault people for not liking it. I can see why people would dislike the characters, would find the plot boring, think the political structure is confusing. I don't agree with those criticisms, but whatever. You don't have to like what I like. It's fine.

What isn't fine is the amount of people talking about how they hate it when they clearly didn't try to engage with it in good faith. I mean, they are really people out there saying that it lacks depth, that there's very little worldbuilding, that the characters are one-dimensional.... Honey, I don't know what you read, but it sure as hell wasn't Dune

every time i listen to “you’re a mean one mr. grinch” i can’t help but sit there and think “what did the grinch do to hurt you?” because dude just stands there for 2 minutes and 58 seconds and drags the grinch into the dirt

R*wling shows throughout the series that she believes that bad things are only bad when they're done by the Bad Guys. However, if one of the designated Good Guys does the same thing it's not bad.

For example, use of the Unforgivable Curses. When the Bad Guys use them it's horrific, evil, one of the Worst Things Ever. But when Harry uses them, with alarming frequency, it's fine. He's not a Bad Guy, so the things he does can't be bad.

Then there's Snape. He's awful. Just awful. He's an incel creep. He's racist. He bullies young children just because he can, and is outright abusive to them if he didn't like their parents (even when said parents died when the kid was an infant). And oh yeah, he's an incel creep who became obsessed with a girl who did not return his feelings, called her slurs, and was a-okay with her husband and infant son being murdered. You cannot tell me that he wasn't hoping to swoop in and try to manipulate her into a relationship when she was vulnerable due to extreme grief. But, because she for some bizarre reason unwilling to stand aside quietly during the murder of her family, he started working for the Good Guys, which totally means that he's a Good Guy and none of the horrible things he did actually matter.

And then there's Dumbledore! Oh boy, I could write at least an Order of the Phoenix sized book about all the terrible things he did. But I'll keep it short here. He knowingly left a particularly vulnerable child in an abusive situation, and didn't even bother to actually check in on him now and again to make sure that he wasn't being, you know, abused or anything like that. He also left the baby in a basket, outside, for hours, because that was for some reason better than knocking at the door? He then manipulated a young child into basically becoming his private soldier against an evil wizard so powerful that the entire magical world pissed themselves at the mention of his name. But all this gets glossed over and is forgiven as easily as if he had just lost a pen someone had lent him. Because, after all, he's the ultimate Good Guy. And a Good Guy can't do bad things. Therefore, none of the things he did were actually bad.

This got a lot longer than I intended it to be. The views on morality in this series really bother me.

Sometimes I just sit around and think about ways to improve the Harry Potter books. Not even in a fix-it fic way. Just like...there are some seriously dropped threads in Deathly Hallows especially.

Do y'all ever think about the thing with Griphook? Harry choosing to deceive him about the sword of Gryffindor? Well, I do. It bothers me that there are no negative consequences for this. Because oop- Griphook double-crossed them too! So we never have to think about Harry making that choice. And the characterization of Griphook is squicky, man. He relishes the idea of weak creatures suffering, he's obnoxious. We can't even REALLY examine wizard/goblin relations because Griphook is such an uncomplicated little asshole. Did Gryffindor steal the sword from the goblin king??? Harry is uncomfy about it for like two seconds and then oop--guess we never need to think about it again. It's a bad writing choice and when I think about a book like Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay--a book that complexly and carefully and humanely examines racism--i feel super disappointed in the way the Harry Potter series just like...lets some things go.

This is, I think, one example of a handful of moments when Harry does a Bad Thing: lies, uses unforgivable curses etc. But there's no real examination of it. She nods at it a little like "harry was becoming as reckless a godfather and Sirius was to him" but then it just gets...dropped. There isn't even a "this is war; there is no moral high ground" moment. R*wling just seems to have no plan at all to examine any moral complexity in that final book. It makes me nuts.

Some good feminist YouTubers for y’all!

Annamarie Forcino

Tara Mooknee

Shanspeare

Chad Chad

Noah Samsen

Ro Ramdin

Samantha Lux

Kat Blaque

Jessie Gender

Ethan Is Online

Feel free to add!

Made it one word into a post and just deleted it immediately.

Like....no

I'm back with Dragon Age 2. Let's see if I can remain faithful to Sebastian or if I'll get distracted by sexy elves and mages. https://www.twitch.tv/therobichaud