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However, I was reading a story over on FictionPress that updated sporadically. I found myself liking the premise, but eventually the plot threads slowed to a treacly pace as more and more characters were introduced. Plus it wasn't fun skipping all the random, strangely frequent sexual scenes (out of embarrassment more than anything else).
The premise was, basically, that a guy swaps bodies with the husband of his estranged best friend who he had avoided ever since he'd come out. Not out of homophobia, really, just because the whole dynamic of their friendship changed gear and the main character was kind of a jerk about it.
In the body of his ex-friend's husband, he can't help but find himself... gay. The story frequently juxtaposes his frequent calls of not being gay to his almost always being unable to resist said ex-friend. The frequent calls of "I'm not gay!" started to bore me, but there are two ways to look at this;
Recently, I've been leaning towards the latter. It's a more in-depth take on what I read and was presented with, and my honest feelings on it. I feel, honestly, that when I was younger I would have leaned towards the first option. Growing up hanging out on TVT almost every day, this was the sort of attitude I saw a lot, something I maybe initially emulated and, ultimately, internalized.
It made me think a lot about how media criticism is currently operating, and it made me think of how I responded to the stuff about how having a story populated entirely by characters of a certain race. I don't really know how to tackle that again, but I know I made some genuine errors in my arguments then, but I'm not sure how I can articulate them without some serious thought.
I guess I've been reading too much philosophy.
I've actually been wondering about this, considering if I were to write in this direction I would be uncomfortable with the mind being entirely separate from the body. I think I'd prefer, to segway into shoujo terminology; there's a "Want to be/Idealized" version of self, and then there's the "Actual, body-affects-mind-affects-body" self.
One, it feels a lot like it could end much earlier than it did - everything after that point is pretty much only there to provide a redemption arc for one character, who, shall we say, would otherwise finish in a way at least as satisfactory for the reader.
Two, I like the idea of a simulation of a man that is created as a disposable tool, yet is complete enough that it retains the personality and identity of that man while still being aware of being a simulation.
Three, the previous two books could be read as if the story ended there (if not for the last-minute cliffhanger), but at this point I feel curious as to where it goes from here. Which, perhaps paradoxically, doesn't make me happy - unless I get the next one it's a bit like I put down a half-finished book. Also, the scope of the story expands beyond the previously established boundaries, and I feel it was this scope that was one of the selling points of the series.
Overally it's still a good read and I was hooked like I expected to, don't get me wrong, but I have these nitpicks to point out.
I think a lot of trilogies are like this, either by the author's own hand or by the powers that be insisting that whatever book series should be a trilogy.
Actually, this reminds me that I should read more than 1.5 books in the Game>Buzz>Bubble Series.
The guy lived in about the same period as Lovecraft, but didn't achieve lasting success and was mostly forgotten. Apparently he inspired Stanisław Lem, who read some of his stories, but only recently was he republished and advertised to a broader audience, as a sort of Poland's own Lovecraft.
Truth be told, in my own experience, after reading through like two thirds of the collection, his stories aren't all that scary. Most of the time, the ending felt rushed. Was a bit like the dude only knew how to keep up the pace until he had to wrap up the story, at which point he did it in like two sentences all. Lovecraft tended to pad it out with his overly verbose style and you usually tended to get a first-person account of going crazy at the revelation, here's nothing of that sort. I mean, in at least one case this rushed ending worked, but I generally had that feeling of not being satisfied and figured that Lovecraft would have written the same story more enthrallingly.
As a minor point, these weren't all horror stories. Some could be called psychological drama, with supernatural element discussed in-story, but still quite possibly mundane. In one, protagonist accuses his friend of telepathically projecting his obsessions, but one figures the story could resolve in the same way if he didn't. Others are a record of people going crazy in even less abnormal ways. Oh, and perhaps my favourite story is a bit like a tragic legend - it would still count as horror, but instead of the dread, what's most played up is a family tragedy.
So, let's follow with the good. The dude had a knack for seeing the weird in places and people where you wouldn't see it. Firemen. Chimney sweepers. Trains. Backwater railway stations and their attendants. That's a change from Lovecraft's old-money literates and (if villains) racial caricatures. Unfortunately for me and fourteenwings I have not yet found a story that would involve radio, but the ones with ghost signals by telegraph seem like an idea.
Sounds fun.
I always appreciate something that takes from the mundane, with mundane-slash-trite emotions, because there's a real craft in that. Though I guess this doesn't really sound like that.
Which I do right now.
It's, like, the best worldbuilding I have ever read. This is what worldbuilding is about. Not friggin' Ph.D. in geology, or scrupulously plotted relations between divinities of carefully defined portfolios, or a bazillion events on a ten thousand year-long timeline. This. Superstitions, beliefs, opinions, in-universe stories.
I've always found it really odd that people come away from enjoying large, complex, confused pantheons with "I need to chart this in the most precise way possible".
But, I've still been looking for a way to give you a proper answer but the words have escaped me. However, I think this article articulates a lot of really good, wider points about this sort of thing. So I guess I've settled on this as my response.
I used to say if I weren't gay I'd probably have been a conservative (the free market sort) and at times in past months circumstances feel like they're pushing me... well, away from what you'd call "modern, mainstream liberal ideals".
I feel like we can argue all we want about the meanings of words (which I feel is a very GMH way to look at things) and I can insist I'm a "classic liberal" but like, who even cares.
To use an insane analogy, you can't be pushing against a wave generated by a giant cruise ship from your tiny canoe and still be shouting at the top of your lungs about how you too would be on that giant cruise ship but you decided to get off because you felt they weren't driving it right at all.
I don't know if I would have gone in this direction if things were different, but I'm very glad they did.
In my personal case, I like to identify as a conservative because a) I find several of the basic concepts, usually listed as part of the definition, quite reasonable, even if nobody really cares about these anymore; and b) I like the idea of mild trollery that arises from using such a personalized definition of the term.
Think of it as like... I don't even know how to describe it. It's like, the opposite of an incel... is still an incel?
Doesn't seem to make sense, unless it's just voluntarily non-celibate. Anyone here a logician?
I mean he's like, a self made man in that he got elected on principle and then immediately became corrupted by power. He quickly ingratiates himself with the shady state actors involved in a class-based solution to the whole "Who should a driverless car prioritize" thing. He has money hidden away in offshore accounts and shell corporations. He orchestrated the destruction of home industry in order to make a quick buck/avoid questions.
I mean, he's basically a cartoon. Even more of a cartoon than the basically magic Uber-hackers.
The whole plot in fact was ridiculous, in a good way.
Same with a book called Peak by Anders Ericsson. Its a study on deliberate practice and how to train yourself to excel in activities or lifetime goals. It dispels myths about needing to be born a certain way to succeed in certain aspects of your life, and explains strategies you can use to get better at your hobbies and talents faster.
Fiction-wise, Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor is really really good. It's a fantasy story about chimeras and angels interacting with earth. Has an amazing audiobook version too.
It's quite mad. Insane even. I really liked it. All of the characters worked well together, and the twists were far-out of left field, but totally fit with the rest of the story. There were a few odd moments here and there, but I really loved it overall.
I mean it had adventure, an Elon Musk type, and the main plot was a
death gamebody part game.However, the ending didn't really resolve any of the stuff I thought it would, though a lot of the climax was quite brilliant. The main character staring into the abyss of his sociopath little brother and actually buying it was one of my favorite moments.
Why would you do this,
after the brilliant Thousandth Floor series*. Why is American Royals, which I have been waiting for for actual years, so painfully trite?*Okay, it turns out I just forgot that The Towering Sky was really really bad but like, still.
Does writing "What if America had a royal family" immediately sap writers of any potential quality? I mean, it really shouldn't be 100% obvious who will end up with who from the first scene they're together (or even before the he in question shows up).
I mean, I quite like Daphne, but mainly because she's Calliope from The Thousandth Floor series with rich parents (they even share the same fiery red hair, which is like, come on, vary it up a bit).
At first, I wanted to (and did) hate Samantha with a passion. She causes lots of problems, then decries her parents and sister and the educational process and the media and at one point, sexism, for all her problems, yet her whole modus operandi is permanently stepping on the gas without concern for the outcomes.
It's starting to feel a bit like a school project where the author was told that her characters should suffer from sexism but she doesn't exactly want to put actual sexism in the book because then that'd probably upset some wound up YA reader. Things blamed on sexism so far:
Daphne and Beatrice not being friends. Putting aside that Beatrice is in a cold war that she's unaware of with her sister Samantha, who leads her twin Jefferson (sadly, there is no Lincoln or Abraham so far which I really wanted to be a thing) on wild adventures.
Also, the timeline puts Daphne starting to date Jefferson right in the middle of Beatrice's time at Harvard, and I don't think she has much interest in a girl she probably (rightfully) deems a rando social climber who is dating her brother before he settles down with more serious things. Also, Daphne is like a full year younger than Jeff, and therefore at least five years younger than Beatrice.
Samantha thinks she gets more flak from the media for things than Jefferson because she's a girl, ignoring how mere moments before this she acknowledges she's 'The Spare'. As in, if her sister is unable to become Queen of America, she will. Plus, almost every bad thing Jefferson does, she spurs on. Plus Plus, in general, she's a mess. Triple Plus Combo: Daphne feeds the media negative stories about her (though somehow I don't think this is a confrontation that'll ever come up). Also, Jeff's the baby, the baby royal always gets off the lightest.
In all honesty, these are the most jarring moments in the book, which flows pretty okay otherwise.
Another kind of funny thing; Nina, who the book believes is big enough of a protagonist to have her own POV chapters, has two moms. One of her moms is Secretary of the Treasury yet she claims to be the normal one, and people at royal events look through her because they think it's 1842 or something when there was no Secretary of the Treasury (but probably so we can feel for her 'normalcy'). She also attends school on a scholarship, because nothing says 'woe is me' better than a rich (if non-royal at least?) girl taking a scholarship spot somebody might actually need.
Also, in a moment of Quantum Inclusiveness, Nina's moms, a power couple, are mentioned two pages before another lesbian power couple at a party. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're the only non-royal officials mentioned in the book at all so far?
Anyways, as I was saying, Samantha is so wrapped up in self-hatred/"PLEASE LOVE ME"-ism that actually it turns out I love it (her attitude, not the book, which verges on the wrong side of mediocre). I can't wait to see who else she blames for everything that goes wrong in her life.
Also the gall this book had to rag on soap operas. It is a soap opera. Just look at this relationship chart! Nothing in this book is about anything other than romantic relationships which is basically the definition of a soap opera.
Note to books on American Royalty. If you're not going to put effort into it, mostly because you don't care, do not mention slavery, especially if you're just going to do three short paragraphs on it. It, frankly, puts a damper on goings on, which are light and fluffy.
It also won't please any of the people who insist that slavery has to be mentioned in everything, because then they'll look at your (frankly, extremely lazy) portrayal of the issue and rip into you anyways. I haven't checked goodreads to confirm, as I value my sanity, but I'm pretty sure even that whole "We turned Native American communities into Lordships and Dukedoms" thing from a few chapters back probably caused a few people's heads to explode (though I thought that was a clever way of handling it).
Also American Royalty in 2019 can get gay married (Double Dukes of Roanoke) but can absolutely under no circumstances ever marry a commoner. This is side-slapping levels of hilarious, but I'll concede for drama purposes.
Beatrice's father is dying, which was obvious from the first moment Samantha noticed he "wasn't feeling well" (it is YA after all) so now she needs to become Queen soon. Her dad says she should definitely marry the guy she's known for about a month (and whose background checks didn't immediately flag up how he's 100% in this for the money/status and will readily admit it to people including Beatrice's sister Samantha) and she assumes it's because (shocker) she's a woman, and people don't like that she'll be the first woman Queen (this story works much better if you know nothing at all about the British Royal family).
At one point she says something to the effect of "the press is always saying I'm too emotional, whatever that means" ignoring the fact that a song from a musical almost caused her to faint with emotion a few chapters back. Or that Samantha's POV descriptions of her when she's around her parents verge on PoW status.
Also, for goodness sakes, did her parents not see that sending Beatrice, the girl who practically craves loneliness, to school with a super-hot male bodyguard around her age who could break through her shell would backfire horribly?
Meanwhile Samantha makes a values call and decides the best course of action is to make out with her sister's boyfriend the gold-digger after he tells her all about the gold-digging he's planning to do, rather than warn anybody in her family about him.
You know, Daphne started out well but she can't scheme to save her life, plus she's surrounded by trainwrecks who are much more fun to watch. Though to be fair I guess overall that's praising the book?
I stand by this, but you know what? Nina actually fell for it! I have no idea how this worked out, but Nina has been all over the place this whole book.
There's quite a big deal still being made about her being, y'know, a commoner and whatever, but her mother has one of the biggest positions in all of government.
In fact,the royalty system in this book seems to assume that government is handled by technocrats, who are derided every chance the royals get, and somehow this has worked for 250 years.
Overall, Connor is more a commoner than she is, and really... I should address this situation full-on:
So, of course, now Beatrice is in love with Connor and can't marry Teddy after all.
There was a strange part of the book where everything seemed to shift and it started operating on certain assumptions, without ever having proved them:
Anyways, this book also has an obsession with kissing. Removing the intense descriptions of kissing scenes would probably cut the length by 10%. Kissing is heat, swords clashing, thunder, nerve-cell-busting, etc. It's insane because no matter how (excuse my french) heavy the petting gets, nobody sleeps with anybody until 80% of the way in (it's Daphne, and it's actually a flashback from before the story starts).
The whole book operates on a strange chastity for it's other three main protagonists, but then has the only self-declared villain sleep with somebody. Not just anybody either, somebody she doesn't love (but is intensely attracted to in an animalistic way).
I mean, I'm all for more books on the chastity-until-marriage-or-at-least-surity train (The Thousandth Floor series was decidedly not like that) but this seems at odds with modern tendencies. To approach this from the opposite end, making the villain be the one with loose sexual morals is "shaming" (which it should be, because sometimes shaming does social good).
Speaking of Thousandth, Daphne's intense attraction to Ethan is literally just a rip-off of Leda and Wade's relationship. I'm pretty sure some of Ethan's dialogue is just copy-pasted things Wade said, or things that were left on the cutting room floor.
There's an odd concept I've been thinking about for a couple of months now, that male characters in certain forms of fiction fight over a barely existing girl not because of sexism, but because on some level if you write a character too much they become too unwieldy to just be the center of a love triangle. This overall might just be a side-effect of poor writing, rather than a pervasive need to shut female characters up.
I've seen it happen elsewhere on the opposite end, and Prince Jefferson fits that theory extremely well. He is 1/3rd of the Royal Heirs, yet he's just the least existent person in this book. His "best friend" Ethan, who basically hasn't ever communicated directly with Jeff in the text of this book, has had more screent- pagetime than him. He's literally just a trophy for either Nina or Daphne (well, for Nina, it's been pretty decided since like the fourth chapter). The royal PR guy has more development than him.
So, that's interesting. I could rail about "reverse sexism" or whatever, but I don't mind it because it's clear what he's meant to be and that hurts literally nobody reading this book (also it's just a book). I mean, Jeff's cute, so that's as much characterization as he needs.
I guess with developments towards the end of the latest batch of chapters I read, he might be more developed in book 2, but I doubt it. If anything, the character who is most likely to get his own POV chapters in book 2 is Ethan, because we know nothing about him (my bet is that he's the King's secret lovechild from the thing with the commoner, which is why Royals aren't explicitly banned from pre-marital 'relations' but are highly discouraged instead).
Anyways, yeah, American Royals.
Updated relationship chart!
American Royals was um... a book for sure. definitely a YA book. It ends with the King's death, and Beatrice's almost-ascenscion to the throne (I believe 2 will have like 100 pages dedicated to the actual coronation).
I don't know if the book has abandoned this or just assumed saying she's matured will excuse all further action, but since Beatrice has to marry Teddy anyways (quelle surprise) she's probably going to be a handful again. I can't wait.
However, she's also "consciously" stepped away from her twin Jeff, even though they had like one scene together without anyone else through the whole book (playing what sounded like Mario Kart). I guess this means even less Jeff.
It turns out Daphne's High Crime was roofie-ing her best friend Himari, who then fell down some stairs into a coma. Which is like... cool? Leda in Thousandth literally shoved her half sister off an extremely high roof, killing her, and got away with it.
In contrast, this book had a lot more moralizing, I wonder if it's because the author moved from California to Texas and has been slowly assimilating. I mean, there appears to be some separation of Church and state (no Church at the coronations etc), but the characters frequently pray anyways.
This seems less likely now that the King didn't give Beatrice a deathbed confession.
It struck me as odd that Nina's Treasury Secretary mother was not in some crisis meeting early in the morning, and was available to hug Nina's problems away (along with some paltry moralizing and grandstanding about Daphne, who, as a villain, is barely bad to start with). It was even weirder when it was announced that the stock market had been paused. That sounded like the type of decision she should have been around for (but also the type of decision that would never ever really happen. I mean, do they just do this every time a King collapses and is about to die? In this case, doesn't it create market spirals right before the King dies anyways or whenever it looks like he might?).
Anyways, American Royals 2, Queen Beatrice. Samantha will be insane, and Daphne will continue to disappoint. Nina will also continue to be there, for some reason.
I can't wait!
So for a couple of weeks goodreads has been in one of it's... things. Uh... the last time this seriously happened, I think, is when Throne of Glass came out, and this was basically the same thing.
Except it wasn't limited to YA this time!
American Dirt, a book about a woman crossing the border with some illegal immigrants, was meant to be this year's adult version of something like The Hate U Give. A book that's Big, entirely because it's paying some sort of service to a social justice movement. THUG, which has this acronym also for social justice purposes, was a Black Lives Matter book.*1
American Dirt was about, obviously, illegal immigration. But not in a respectable even-handed, sane way, but the way we should expect from a modern book or TV show. That is, ICE are the worst, and all illegal immigrants are better than anybody who is a happy citizen of any country (but extra better if said citizen is white).
Unfortunately, the author -Jeanine Cummings- wasn't intersectional enough in her portrayal of something or other. Unrelated to the social justice component, her research and grasp of Spanish were super bad*2 (I thought there were sensitivity readers, for the latter problem at least, nowadays?)
So now she's been steamrolled under the foot of Progress (ie people mobbed her on twitter and started Petitions), and people are asking whoever reads Oprah Winfrey's books for her*3 to rescind a book club mention. Though I have no idea why people think that's as important as goodreads in this day and age.
But, this episode of Intersectional SJW Mean Girls wasn't actually all that interesting to me, and I wasn't going to mention it at all. I was just going to keep avoiding Goodreads until everybody stopped saying "This book is making Latinx*4 authors feel unsafe".
Until I saw a 30m show on Real Life News Station Al Jazeera*5 all about how the author was a white saviour (which, nowadays, is basically the same as a supremacist) and I was like... what? Is this serious right now? The book was bad, and her research was bad, but that wasn't tied to the overall narrative. I'm also pretty sure the author was deeply concerned about illegal immigration, and was trying to change hearts and minds to see things the way this same group of people now trying to slit her career's throat do.
1*As I feel I must run commentary on all things I disagree with lest my points get lost in the noise; All Lives Matter, and also the police should be allowed to do their jobs
.2*Yet nobody noticed in the swathes of glowing reviews before somebody decided they didn't like her.
3*If I was as rich as Oprah I wouldn't read my own books either, just because I could(n't?).
4*I learned a few weeks ago that nobody aside from people on Goodreads even says "Latinx", as it's a made up word that makes no sense linguistically.
5*I also learned later that she was eviscerated by New York Times. 'Cause why not, Grey Lady.
So, basically, this is kind of hilarious because I thought adult fiction would quietly escape this type of thing until it blew over. It turns out, however, that the cancels are real, and they are coming for adult authors now.
Hey I kinda feel like gacek and his Polish thread, except with screaming adult children.
What are you actually saying here? That the US doesn't have a problems with discrimination and law enforcement?
Frankly, this kind of thing is not even remotely a smart way to segue into an issue that's got a lot to do with law enforcement.
I'm saying that it's a much more nuanced issue than what groups like Black Lives Matter present, and I don't agree with them. However, it's taken for granted that everybody agrees with them, and I feel weird just not mentioning that I don't since otherwise it'll be taken for granted that I support them.
I mean if you go from what I said and look into All Lives Matter (it occurs to me that if you google "All Lives Matter", all you get is pro-Black Lives Matter statements..., and even the Wikipedia page "See alsos" "covert racism"???), then you'll find where I'm coming from.
Anyways, I guess the basic thing you can go from is that the majority of homicide involving ethnic minorities in the US is intra-ethnic. That's a serious issue.
That's why it's a footnote.
I'm not sure what you mean by "that's a serious issue" since the article you linked doesn't even suggest that it's something to even aspire towards fixing since it has happened, and is going to happen as long as human populations aren't literally random.
Also, I think feeling some sort of obligation to state that you don't support something is
well, I'm more than a little tired of commentary criticizing methods or whatever of any movement since the advice offered (if there is any) just sounds like it'll just lead to things staying the same.
Whether or not that's related to a particular social media hashtag, the U.S. does have a history of racial discrimination getting reiterated into wording that's less explicitly so.
Inner city/low-income bracket violence and gang violence are serious issues that need addressing.
I meant to prove my intra-ethnic violence point. The next statement is that I'd expect people to be doing something about, rather than intensely focusing on the perceived biases of law enforcement.
I feel, personally, that it's taken as a given that somebody on the internet supports a position like "BLM are a force for good". I also rarely get to really talk about BLM, since I prefer not to (see how brief the footnote was) and rarely in a place where I'm not afraid I might get branded a racist.
A lot of places do, but precedent being a matter of discourse (that is to say, how words are used) is a matter of how a word or phrase is being used.
The implication that saying "All Lives Matter" is racist is one you reach by connecting a lot of dots, unless it's explicitly said for you (which it is, all the time, including by that Wikipedia article).
Blindly following activism in a specific direction may not only be misguided, it may exacerbate the problem, or even create new ones.
I mean, I was on-board the "Single parents do brilliant!" thing for absolutely no reason other than I was told I should be. Incidentally, I grew up with both parents (which I spent a lot of time not appreciating), it turns out that fatherless kids (but especially boys) all over the planet do much worse than I do due to said lack of fathers.
Not only do I not accept BLM's general premise, I'm also against their methods and their meta-narratives. End of.
Anyways, I was talking about a book, which I'd like to get back to doing (though I mean, I covered it in detail already). I'm not looking to change minds here, all I'm doing is putting my opinions out there since these sorts of opinions are almost never out there.
>find giant argument of old
woah
Anyways, I just finished reading the play Lady Windemere's Fan by Oscar Wilde. I've always thought the main reason he was still in the public conscience was his personal life, but it turns out that he was really, really good at writing plays.
It's brilliant. Like, about 70 pages total. It's worth reading if you ever come across it. Full of the fun of misunderstandings, but also a great deal of love, and lots of serious snappily made thoughts on morality.
I also discovered via some reading today that every time somebody referred to what happened in Madoka as a "Faustian bargain" they were 100% incorrect. Not just in premise of what happens with the premise, but also in the lack of serious religious context.
I was really surprised to find that like the first 70 pages is just the high school escapades of the main character's kids and the new girl in town/her tenant's daughter so basically it was a given that whenever the plot kicked in it would suck.
But it sucks much worse than I imagined so that's fun!