Here’s my book rant for you. Boneyard by Seanan McGuire.
It’s set in the Deadlands setting, so basically Wild West but with monsters and some magic.
The book is about a traveling circus and the woman who has to tend to the monster exhibits while raising her mute daughter and running from her crazy narcissistic and abusive husband.
Overall, I’d say the book is really good, but there one thing that really sticks a thorn in my side.
So the circus has a collection of various monsters. There’s these red pirhanna things with teeth so sharp they bite themselves constantly, sending them into a feeding frenzy. They’ve got crazy poisonous spiders with skull patterns on their backs, they’ve got wasps the size of your forearm, an ENORMOUS catfish, a corn stalker which is this this pumpkin headed plant person.
Then, there’s the bloodwire.
What is a bloodwire you might ask?
I can’t tell you because apparently the author can’t either.
Throughout the ENTIRE BOOK they are constantly alluding to the bloodwire as a creature they have, but never once is it described or shown in action.
At one point the book even goes “and she told the little girl about the bloodwire” but NEVER ONCE DO WE AS THE READERS GET TO KNOW WHAT IT IS.
It seemed like for the entire book, the author was building up mystery around the bloodwire, deliberately concealing it so she could reveal it at the end as the circus’ most dangerous monster, maybe it would come in handy in the book’s final confrontation.
Literally all of the other circus monsters are used, except the bloodwire. I’m half convinced the author forgot about it halfway through.
That’s my book rant
I feel like a curse has been passed onto me because now I desperately want to know wtf a bloodwire is but I know that there is no answer. It is a curiosity that cannot be satisfied
Honestly, this shit with Hogwarts Legacy is just like what happened with Chick-fil-A like ten or fifteen years ago. Some of y'all might be too young to remember it, but it went almost exactly like this shit today, only the target was technically gay people (not like we aren't all lumped together when push comes to shove, but gay was the political scapegoat in US politics at the time, as trans people were still on the fringes of social awareness).
It came out that the people who own Chick-fil-A were donating to organizations in other countries that were actively working to get gay people there killed, and were also very monetarily invested in stripping gay people of any legal rights they'd amassed in the US. So a lot of queer folks were asking for allies to boycott Chick-fil-A to show solidarity.
And it turned into a giant fuckin circus for bigots to rally around. There was even a support Chick-fil-A day, I remember it because I was a server at the time and our restaurant was empty most the day - while the line for Chick-fil-A down the road was like a mile long consistently.
But while that was obviously annoying, that wasn't what hit people the hardest. Cuz we expect clowns to wear the shoes, right, it's not shocking.
What disappointed people, or really demoralized a lot of young queers at the time especially, was the allies who would still go there. Because they like the sandwiches or fries or whatever. The people who'd march with them in the parade or be supportive of marriage equality, who would then turn right around and give their money to people who were trying to actively harm their friends.
Because the chicken was good.
I remember a friend of mine being really just absolutely broken up over that, trying to understand some of her friends reasoning and at the time I couldn't give her an answer. I could now, though.
And it's this:
Talk is cheap.
It costs nothing to say things. A person can say whatever the hell they want, any feel good flowery thing, and it doesn't really cost them.
But when they are asked to actually give something up - or put their money where their mouth is and just....can't do it. Well then there isn't much else for them to say, is there? At least nothing that's worth anything.
Some people had to find out the hard way that the choice between a chicken sandwich and funding people who did not believe in their dignity as a human being was, in the eyes of certain allies, apparently really hard. Too hard, in fact.
These allies would march in the colorful parades and go to the bars for drinks, but in the end, you couldn't actually depend on them to inconvenience themselves. They were fair weather allies, and they were there for the party and that's about it . They wanted entertainment, and it didn't matter if that came from having fun gay friends or a tasty sandwich.
This is the same thing, really, or pretty close to it.
These types of people just wanna have fun. Either you, their friend or whatever, are fun or the game is fun, and if you stop being fun by incidentally making them feel a little guilty about where they spend their money , then they might just choose the thing that doesn't make them currently uncomfortable.
And I'm not saying these people who say trans rights online but who also really, really want to play wizard game and already have are horrible people or anything - they're just not very good. They have no real character. And unfortunately there's not much you can do to change that, other than investing time and energy in people who do.
I hated Percy Jackson so so much. It was boring, the story telling was mid at best, all the characters had no personality or were really annoying and the author has literally never made a good book. All of my friends say that it was so much better than Harry Potter and this and that, maybe I’m biased cause I used to like Harry Potter but I can not stand Percy Jackson. IMO. lol
This one is testing me, not gonna lie, but I hold true to my word and accept your offering
I know when we talk about ~men writing women~ we usually focus on the “she breasted boobily” variety but can we just acknowledge that in The Sound of Music, a mother abbess sends one of her young, naive charges to go and work for a rich, single older man and when said young naif flees back to the abbey and refuses to speak to anyone about what happened to her except to say “I can’t face him again”, the abbess’ first reaction is “are you in ~love~ with him?” when any woman’s knee-jerk reaction would be “GIRL WHAT TF DID HE DO AND SHOULD I CALL THE POLICE”
Literally learning how to speed read just so I can get through The Secret History faster. I just want to be done with this terrible book
I love it too and I want more of it. Might Blaze that post again to get some more
I got this book, "The Girl Who Drank The Moon" by Kelly Smith. It made me SO mad. It's super well written, the plot makes sense. It has poetry and the poetry is nice too. You root for the characters. But it randomly switches perspectives between the two storylines endlessly and discombobulates you so bad you lose all momentum. Now all of sudden you can't read. In the end I had to just skim the fight sequences cause my brain stopped brain-ing thanks to the sheer amount of perspective shifts suddenly colliding into one.
10/10 would recommend.
It's always disappointing when there are multiple perspectives, but only one of them is actually interesting. Especially when they're very disconnected from each other
For the book rant- Fahrenheit 451
ITS SO UNDERRATED and listen I don't know if there's controversy about the book or the author, probably, but HOLY CRAP THAT ENDING BLEW ME AWAY
I literally had to put the book down and cry because I was just so taken aback by how devastating and totally world ending that is for the characters. I mean come on, the whole city? A WHOLE CITY? The way it's described is beautiful and I read it over a year ago, that scene is permanently engrained in my brain. It's just so...real. I just felt so bad for them. I can't help how frustrated I get over the lack of love for it.
Its appreciated as a work of "classic" fiction but not for how emotional it is
Well this was entirely unexpected.
Let's all take a moment to bask in some positivity
Also, have you watched the movie? The one from the 60s, not the newer one. It's very good, and has a much nicer ending
Shout-out to the time I told my boss that I would close the department three hours early and go home if he kept trying to make me run it by myself
Years after it came out, I have finally decided to check out Diablo III. I absolutely love Diablo II and will definitely rank it among my favorite games of all time. So let's hope III can live up to the ridiculously high standard I have set.
Why does Dragon Age 2 make me so very thirsty?!
Ugh, whatever. Just come join me on twitch and watch me drool
https://www.twitch.tv/therobichaud
Messy bi who dresses like a four-year-old despite being in my 30s
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