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NO SPOILERS FOR THE MANGA

Holy shit. That was amazing!!! Perfect!! It felt a bit like I was watching Madoka Madoka Magica, and also a bit of Mekaku City Actors, which makes no sense bc the studio for those was shaft? not bones? But it’s good and the action scenes are better so like, carry on. Between the amazing but weird planes of camera which suits so well this story, and the soundtrack maximizing every single emotion it was riveting and I’ve reread the first chapter of the manga so many times I’ve lost count.

Gods, and the voice actor for Vanitas was really good? Like it was just listening to him for the first time and going, omg that’s totally him!!! Liked Noé too, but it wasn’t that visceral approval xD Also how it visually presented both charas, but especially Vanitas (that first scene with his eye and then little by llittle showing his body until he appears full on screen??? masterclass) was really really good, to the point it had to have been a surprise to the people who have no idea of the manga when he said he was human and that’s exactly the point. But also, Vanitas aesthetics slaps and it’s full of foreshadowing so it makes sense fo the camera to love him so much. Not that Noé wasn’t also gorgeous, going between ultra cool and cute dork as easy as breathing xD (Also, his scene as a little kid??? perfect)

It was structured really well too?? All that needed to happen, happened and I believe they did a fantastic job of adapting the first chapter (I think it was a bit of the second too). Also Amelia whole secuence and her malnomen were lovely. You could see in Noé just how important it was for him that first moment when he realised what Vanitas had done ;_; Just, watching their sinergy in screen when the manga it’s like THAT right now makes me nostalgic for those first chapters when we had no idea of where the story would go and we were all supresing that part of “I would kill him with my own two hands” at the end of chapter one.Also is it me, or did they change a bit of the flashbacks shown in that secuency? hum, i’ll have to go back bit by bit to that part of the episode with the manga on hand to compare…

Also, is it me or are they… Really putting front and center on the op and ed Vani and Noé’s relationship?? I’m so happy xD It’s really central to the manga, so it makes sense but it feels a bit shippy too, whic they also are in the manga so I guess it’s good? XD Gonna have to read lyrics to both songs, I have a feeling the ed will be full of shipping goodness. I guess in the second op and ed we’re going to have the full cast of charas!!

Overall? 10/10 gods this anime is gonna be fantastic!!! Welcome, newbies to the fandom!!! This is gonna be an amazing ride.
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HERE is the full chian of reblogs, on webarchive! Very interesting meta about how the fandom behaves with these two morally ambiguous characters.
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thinking on it and i would like to give a shoutout to those charming silmarillion smut fic writers who captured my attention long enough with the hair porn and angsty semi-incestuous smut to let me start distinguishing the quenya names of everybody and the political situation behind scenes. by then i was reading the book itself and i was lost. so like. elf porn got me into the silmarillion, and then i stayed for the book, the meta and the tragic/fixt-it fics and i’m very grateful for it.
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I think, the great thing about Devils & Realist ending (talking about the manga here, obvs), aside from Willian/Dantalion becoming the kind of cuasi-canon that’s actually canon Clamp-style (that was fckng amazing too), it’s how everybody after stabilizing the situation on their realms, goes to William at his graduation and they tell him they’re gonna follow him to university and on his journey to become an authority in his world, in the human realm. It wasn’t really said, but I think it had that implication and I like that headcanon; William helped Heaven and Hell a lot and he made friends with their new leaders (and a boyfriend too lmao) and so they’ve come back to him so they can still be friends and now help William attain his own goals. And that’s fantastic ^^

Like this manga starts crazy, and the worldbuiling it’s a mess sometimes, but I love the charas and their relationships and the last 30-40 chapters were very good ^^
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All of THIS but also,

I came away from reading the novel with the impression that Yan Wushi betrayal was also him wanting to ride himself off his nascent fondness towards Shen Qiao. I said outloud kid you not: “you idiot!! this isn’t how we ride ourselves of emotions!!” So it’s almost worse in a way; because he’s starting to care somewhat about Shen Qiao, he betrays him so brutally to San Jingxing, as if Yan Wushi is proving to himself he’s still able to do whatever it takes and putting himself first regardless of those pesky emotions.

I mean, it could be the english translation or that the previous moments/the road they took together to the city were filtered with Shen Qiao unaware PoV and his own fond feels for Yan Wushi but I got the impression the two were starting to get truly along for the first time, so Yan Wushi just. Tries to cut his own new attachement by making Shen Qiao die in a horrendous way by handing him over to San Jingxing. And then justifies it to himself by using his curiosity which had guided his interactions with Shen Qiao during their acquitance; not that it was feigned I bet he was curious legitimately about what Shen Qiao would do, but in this case it covered other things too.

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About the new Shaman King adaptation… They’re doing little changes and it’s going faster than the other anime but it’s also the start of the story that’s already been covered… I think like with FMA:B they’re speed running the start so they can later on take their time on the original content from the manga. And seriously I’d prefer that… SO I think we only a have to have a bit of patience.

But also, I have such clear memories of watching the first episode of Shaman King on TV and going OMG I LOVE YOH when I was 7-8 years old. I had it bad XD Later on it was one of the first long manga I ever finished at 12 and yup. There’s no way to compete with those memories. But I like the new animation although it’s weird it’s so clear. 

 

The thing that vexes me most is that in AO3 there’s still people shipping themselves with Hao and Ren. Like, why? If it’s what floats your boat you have the right, of course, but why?? ;_; Have we not matured as a fandom enough to explore seriously the interesting not delved in aspects of the shaman king manga or are those reliqcs peple are preserving from fanfiction.net or what. LIKE. SO MUCH SO MUCH COULD BE DONE WITH IT. THERE ARE DOZENS OF CHARAS. EACH ONE WITH HIS OWN UNIQUE BACKSTORY. No but that’s my thirst of fic talking. 

Also that my fave is Yoh and I feel people pass him which is a ridiculous error, although really I’m more of an Asakura fangirl bcs it’s not like Hao and Anna et all don’t fascinate me too. The twins sharing one soul thing is fascinating bc I think here is literal somehow, as is Hao role as Shaman King and all the delicious implications that Yoh and Anna (at least Anna?) knew all along that to be Shaman King you leave this plane of existence? That was one of the most logical twists in manga, also chilling. These three have one of the most interesting dynamics ;_; (Show me post-canon trio post-canon trio post-canon trio gahagagahagaggag)

 Also, in Shaman King Flowers (which is bonkers and honestly, I don’t really consider it canon bcs soft reboot, hello? but hey, I was reading it from day one and that stays with you) Hana’s cousin Yohane has totally a crush on him. It’s terribly cute. What’s going on with that branch of the family? (The aesthetics too O.O) Like, I know they’re an asspull from the author, but they’re so interesting. Luca too. It reminds me of Clamp and the whole Sumeragi - Sakurazuka feud >-< But lowkey xD 

  But really Hana doesn’t really belong with Anna III or IV or whatves. That’s an error in my opinion. Not for the wasted BL (which I ship, ok, i do) but bcs they have no chemistry whatsoever and look. The Anna of the early days is liek textbook example of the trope of double standard etc, but she and Yoh vibe so well, although not my OTP, that when they hand you their backstory in the manga is an of course by that point I was already on board with those two. Of course it’s been like 7 years since I last read the manga so like, don’t take me seriously xD But really soft reboot, and they could have gone with the she’s the only one trained to control the onis, and they becoming friends and THATS THAT. But I ask too much of shonen it’s never gonna be finished ;_; 

Ok. This is all for now. Also, the ending in the reboot is terrible sorry not sorry, who did a vocaloid?? Annoying af

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The only thing I know of FMA 2003 is that it is the darker and incestier version; now, I look at that thought and am vaguely bothered, bc I know from other fans y fics that there’s way more nuance in there but just. 

I watched Brotherhood; I like the ending there, the happy ending where my main charas don’t end in our Earth, without alchemy or way to use that knowledge (ed giving up his gate was genius), separated from those they love. (the ending is also one of those things I know of) Bc I’ve always hated with a passion stories where the protags had to stay in the normal-our world. So. 

My knowledge from FMA 2003 is, still, that is the origin of elricest, darker gritty perspectives on war, and that the homunculi were wild (cloth being the mother wtf).  I’m happy in my puddle of good animation, soft endings and weird notions of an anime which started running when I was 3. 

Still. The fanfics are deliciously angsty xD

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Do you know that feeling when you’re reading a fic, which is mildly oc but seems well enough written and entertaining and boom. You get hit in the face with what is clearly a projection on the charas and the plot of the fic author own issues instead of canon or a well thought au?

As I’ve read more and more fic I’ve become more and more able of seeing those poor author issues through the flimsy excuse of writing fic, and while sometimes it’s really cathartic because it meshes really well with canon in most cases I’m like: “gosh author, this is much more than I needed to know about you. Can we go back to this chara plausible issues and not you own projection of your problems?”

Which makes me feel mean, so I don’t comment or anything and just close the window. But also makes me feel embarrassed on their behalf, although they’re very brave for posting anyway I guess, or just ignorant of how they come across….

I won’t pretend that projecting our own issues isn’t what everybody does when writing, but when you write well it isn’t an imposition on the poor chara, that comes out of left field but part of the story you know? But fanfic is amateur so you come across these things super often. And it’s weird. 

So I guess what I wanted to say was that one needs to learn to distinguish btwn chara and oneself, bcs the basis of fanfiction is the chara and/or worldbuilding (i consider this one also imprescindible but i know i’m in the minority here so….).

And now I’ve realised that this view implies that inserting lgbt+ issues or other mental health things is wrong. Eh. No. I’ve enjoyed most of my fic in that category. But also. Don’t write a pamphlet or the rant to your parents you wish you could give? Like. 

Use the chara personality and world not yourself dear god; unless that’s exactly what you meant to do; in that case proceed without worry bcs we’re all free of doing whatevs in fiction and tag with OOC or self-projection or something for purists like me. 

Please tag it ;_; (although if you have a hand of gold writing then everything is pardoned. good writing is good writing, although it may be poor fic itself >_<)

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discovering all this polemic around the appalling live-action remake of winx club is disconcerting xD when i was a kid it was one of my fave tv shows, here in spain, although after they establish themselves on earth and they go wild with the kinds of wings-magic accessible it lost its grace but i remember that there were a long number of plots that had me O.O and also a bit bored, bcs i couldn’t get them that after were more interesting. so it`s wild to see all this polemic and an adult fandom xD (bloom and musa were my faves… layla too ^^) 

i suppose i’ll go looking in the tag here on tumblr; at the very least it’ll be entertaining

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sorry but had to rant a lil while. just read in a fic about tolkien elves how the author was making contraception and etc bc the idea of having total control of when a baby could be born seemed as realist as the holy marriage things of the customs book. and i’m like. doesn’t that sound like the ideal state, total control over if a fertilised ovule gets to survive to become a baby? and if not, just boom, down it goes with the rest in menstruation? no great drama, no great stress. just. nature doing her thing. (dunno if tolkien elves menstruate, but seems like they should. longer spaced of course but. they mammals too) anyway, isn’t that a state of bliss which allows woman to have as much sexual interaction with the same worries as a man. 

but some people prefer drama and being able to relate to a completely fantastical pseudo-immortal species i guess. not like there aren’t thousands of stories with vainilla humans with which they could relate. the gave to take the scapism and the relief of no babies unwanted lol

i mean. everybody is free of believing and headcano-ing and au-ing whatevs they want of a canon. doesn’t mean i really get, in the feels, why those choices. yikes.

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There’s is nothing that repels me more from reading a fic, that a long list of completely unnecessary tags of secondary and tertiary charas, and all sort of tropes that are touched only in passing.

A few years back I gave those stories some opportunities, trying to read them. Then I realised they were superficial and pandering towards the biggest number of readers possible by including lots and lots of implausible tropes or characterization.

Sometimes it’s just that an author is overcautious, and new to the fandom scene, or the horrible kind to put an unholy amount of drabbles and one-shots in the same. I won’t read either, bcs I hate not knowing which chaps are the ones with the one-shots I’d like. And when the author is an amateur ficwriter…  

Well. Sometimes they’re good, other’s okey, but most times they’re just passable and I’m afraid the almost 10 years I’ve been reading fic have made into a fic snob. 

And it’s horrible to go searching for a concrete pairing or prompt-trope-tag and see a pages and pages of basically trash or unrelated fic, where that specific term or fandom tag you’re searching is inundated and gah.

I guess reading fic is like being one of those goldminers of old, searching in the mud for the golden ones. xD 

 
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gods, the other day my mother, my aunt and i started on netflix by chance, love101 or  Aşk 101. We’re at episode 6; please no spoilers for the rest. and i just, love it? it’s. i didn’t know i would’ve liked it that much but it’s honestly funny, the romances have chemistry and the plot is crazy good xD and the mistery of the future too which. gah. also the soundtrack; turkish music sounds really good, and in the proxime future i’ll need to go on youtube searching for it. the song which are in english were also perfect (also tom odell was a pleasant surprise gods) right now my faves are ishik, sinan and osman. pretty evenly although really eda and kerem and burju?burcu? the prof, are amazing too. i like the charas! the director is hilarious in a bad way too xD but yeah, pretty good. 

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That feeling when you love most of some-author characterization, and their use of temporal lines and canon. And almost every fic they have is pure porn. Porn in which the characterization counts a lot, and where they have conversations that make very hard just skip the scene. But porn. 

(And there is an obscene amount of porny scenes in their fic.)

And I’m beyond frustrated, bcs the part of the story where the charas are conversing and playing each other, their action scenes, the bits of plot mingled with chara development, all that, is my fav part. 

And I think author has a relationship to sex in which is used like a weird mix of therapy and other kinds of interactions. And sometimes I like how they play with it, but sex all the time? I can’t understand it, nor stand it. It bores me. It’s repetitive; why don’t we go back to the brilliant conversation and cuddles? To the fights and spars? To other kinds of fun. 

To the fucking addictive outsider povs.

There’s also the problem of having the sex scenes be, in their majority about the physical sensations. Like. Completely comprehensible, and the intimacy etc, is there heavily implied by the sex and dialogue (i told you this author used sex as substitute for other kinds of interaction) but unless you don’t describe the overwhelming feelings extensively along the porn I just can’t get invested with the scene or enjoy it that way. 

I think the problem is that I’m too ace for this author. Seriously; I was reading the comments section and the author answers and explanation for the sex thing (they’re very much conscient that their perspective is not “normal”) and I kinda get where they come from but it’s still incomprehensible for me in an emotional way. 

Where is the bonding?? the non-sexual bonding, which doesn’t mean unsensual or unpassionate. 

Sometimes author completely nails it with the mix of feels-sex but most time I’m scrolling past reading the dialogue over the sex to see if there’s something interesting lmao.

So the problem is that I’ve ended obsessed and reading their whole fic-work in the fandom I like (in 3 days lmao), because despite myself I love their interpretation of canon and most of the characterization, and growing progressively more frustrated bcs I wanted more. 

It’s not like they’re unable to write beyond porn! A few of those fics are more about the ambiance and the feels and playing with what if? and although they also include the numerous sex scenes, they’re very well balanced (not the 80% of the fic) and the rest of the story is absolutely interesting and well done. 

Sigh. 

I guess they just aren’t interested. They bypass one of my fave secondary charas and the opportunity to explore their relationship with the rest of the cast bc they feel they’re too young for sex. They are yes, but fucking porn isn’t the only way to do a character study or to write about relationships! For the love of god, augh!!!

Everyone to their own business and I wouldn’t dream of raining on their parade in the comments section but I feel I had to share somewhere lol. They don’t owe me anything, but it’s frustrating bcs I know they have the potential of writing the stuff I absolutely love -for something I’ve obsessed and read all their work in 3 days- but I also know they won’t. 

GAH

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HERE in webarchive! Its less in danger of being a dead link if i post like that.
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Post archive on web machine from my tumblr, it was a conversation with another user who deactivated since. HERE
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Just ended watching a documentary on the Empire of Carthage and still feeling sad because they just said peninsular tribes or something like that. (come on say at least iberian and celtiberian tribes. cost only changing a word)  While putting a big fat Spain over all the Iberian Peninsula because Spain certainly existed then and if not, and you are doing it for viewers to recognize the geography, you sure as hell forgot about Portugal. Liked it though; the documentary was clearly intended as introduction and diffusion not specialised or anything so like can’t exactly put high standards. Just you know. Realising we are as we are now because we haven’t much of a unique cultural identity due to conquest (first carthage then rome then visigoods then muslims then catholics again) and religion; can’t exactly compare it to the shit the Spanish Empire did to America in terms of impact on today matters, but yeah. (anyway isn’t it what always fucking happens? instead of respecting one another and collaborating and being decent. and violence ends up shaping us) Feeling weird and navelgazing.

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Is anybody else tired of reading fics where the women (protagonist or not) are treated like shit? Because I am. Even if it’s for the plot, or the angst, or the romance, i hate reading about a women being rendered impotent again and again for the narrative and then have only as recompense a romance or a mildly happy ending, as if that were satisfying enough? Most times, those romances even start from that situation where the women has been powerless and I hate it with all my soul, I can’t stand it. I think, oh this fic has genderbend whatever character, it’ll be interesting to see how it changes, and what it changes it’s that it becomes an excuse to emotionally and psychologically torture those characters. It ceases to be about them as a person with some interesting studies of gender, to be about how horrible is to be a woman. It’s not, it shouldn’t be horrible, it shouldn’t be a synonym with being perceived or treated as leaser, it shouldn’t mean to be that you’re even more vulnerable to the evil in the world.

 I understand I have to only click and close the page, and most times I do; others I hold out hope that the suffering will bring a reckoning and then I’m let down again. I understand these stories are, more likely than not, how other people deal with their issues. I respect that. I’m talking about how they affect me, and if somebody want to talk about how they feel with me because I don’t have many who would understand in the real world.

I’ve never been specially oppressed for being a woman, living as a middle-class white girl in Spain, so I guess that privilege is why those fic don’t work for me, but I think that’s why it infuriates me even more. It’s a deep understanding of “that could have been me, if I were born in another country or some years in the past or in a retrograde family”; I shouldn’t have to feel lucky for being a woman who has escaped what shouldn’t exist. If I escaped it, why I have to deal in every damn piece of fiction with it. (Why I have to watch the news about murdering and reaping pigs?Why are still my sisters unable to be free in more than half the known world?) Why are people unable of crating AUs without misogyny and inequality? Sometimes I can appreciate a thoughtful critic of those issues, if they are handed well, but the way most times it becomes an excuse for wangst? I can’t. I really can’t. And really, I already know it’s shit you don’t have to convince me of it.

I’m writing this because I’ve just read a fic in where in a world where the protg is female, she is forced to marry one man who despises the protag (or so she thinks, and he does nothing to dispel the notion), and after getting pregnant with his child, and then plotting his murder (look i never said she was a saint or that he didn’t have certain reasons to hate her) he discovers she is pregnant, and because she has hide it, in the beginning (to not foster vain hopes, to still retain a bit of her independence after being tied with someone who she loathes an is loathed in turn being treated like a criminal) amenaces with killing her and the kid in that same moment, burying her alive, was my damn take on the scene, in the same tombs where his mother was ritually sacrificed after his father death. I exploded. Okey, I just wanted to kill that damn character. The disregard, the way he just implies with everything that her place is to be dead if she is not the perfect spouse and even then, that she only serves to be a wife. Gods how I loathed it all. I started crying. Should have looked more closely the warnings at the end of the chapter, or stopped reading a few chapters ago when I saw what attitude had the story towards its protag. That because she was morally corrupt the only way to be redeemed was to learn to be happily married with that man. The fic didn’t say so textually, but I can read between the lines. It was an attack not on the villainy of the protag but on daring to be a woman and a villain too, it felt like. Or using her femininity to punish her badness which felt equally bad.

I guess I understand now why people with other issues are so sensible to certain portrayals in fic or novels. Gods I hope to avoid making people feel so attacked by anything I write or say. This taught me empathy if nothing else, but really. I have always been fed up with these kind of fic (one of the principal reasons I can’t stand ABO or anything about pregnancies too) but today it was the gota que colmó el vaso, and I needed to share it before exploding uselessly in my home.

And really, fuck the patriarchy, and capitalism, and all those other shitty -ism, and up with feminism and equality!! 

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https://thejhambs.tumblr.com/post/621548849368055808

Dubious kidnapping at the start of the novel besides, yup everything here is true. like. i really don’t think wwx is dumb for not noticing because lwj doesn’t really communicate and in the time before he died the only semi-positive interaction post-war we see is that time they find each other in yiling with wen yuan. like you could say they were getting more or less along in the cultivation reunion thingy where lwj steals a kiss but, like. lwj is so constantly emotionally constipated and wwx is so consumed by his own problems it doesn’t seem strange wwx would need a whole new life after 13 years of chilling in deadness and a lifechanging road trip to start falling in love in earnest and noticing lwj feelings for him. do we need to remember that time in the novel where lwj and wwx encounter each other in yummeng and it ends in accusations? (wwx was being obnoxious yiling laouzu here, so not a surprise, what with the whole surrounded by dead beauties aesthetic, and really what degree of control and awareness do the zombies have? O-O)

people. the whole drama, untamed thing of besties separated by circumstances and tragedies is beautiful but only drama-canon lmao. i mean, i would love to read a good novel au!fic where they become friends young, but lwj was so so repressed and limited by his rules. until he saw what was becoming of wwx and intervened at nightless city massacre he didn’t really decide no matter the rules sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants no matter if its good or not. he loved him before? sure, and he knew it. but he didn’t want to be with him no matter what, he didn’t act when he saw clearly that the wens weren’t a menace. of course, forsaking your teachings to reach towards someone who is also clearly in need of help (because yes, demonic cultivation has some grave consequences, and wwx arrogance was enhanced) but not in want of it…it’s a hard deal. i don’t blame him. although really, when lwj decided wwx was whom he loved and that the rest of the world would wait, he committed to it. defending a clearly distressed to the point of forgetting what happened mass murderer with violence from your clan elders will never not be an egoist unrighteous choice. lwj your revelation could have come a bit before y’know? (that’s the tragedy) I don’t know if to call him optimistic or naive, but well nobody was expecting qionqi pass and the jin ambitions disaster.

and it’s never confirmed when wwx falls in love unlike lwj for whom we know was fascination at first sight much for his teenageself’s inconvenience. i mean. there are hints wwx want to know him better and that he clearly admires him and thinks he’s handsome, but love? my headcanon (people this is what i think not what the text says please): i’d say that until he saw how lwj had matured and softened he didn’t start really falling because it wasn’t until then that he could see, truly, who lwj was. because lwj had, at last, let himself be seen by wwx. and that’s amazing!
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Saw this in a few of the blogs i follow and wanted to do one… it really helps making you realise what you like and not, and this has showed me I have an irrational dislike of hard aus xD Which is i guess why magic au is in my meh tier and historical in my hard once in a blue moon; those two au are where is easiest to translates the canon characterization and stakes. fairy tale au is my kryptonite and should not be counted xD 

Also finding surprising that when i think about it i’ve been able to stand the rare abo, which usually i abhor because mpreg and pregnancy in general and babies are hard no in fanfic for me; but then again those rare abo didn’t have anything of that and it wasn’t hard machismo translated to omegas which like. thanks but no i’m reading mlm because i don’t want to deal with that bullshit so near and personal xd. Transgression of canon and canon characterization are a worse deal for me tahn dark fics or abo or arranged marriages (these are or very awkward or very good and it’s always hit or miss which is way it’s down there XD) in fanfic, figures. I understand why people do it, and you know, I’m happy most are able to enjoy those kind of fics because they are everywhere in fandom but I cannot with them. I feel like the reason I liked the story is totally lost and the charas cease to make much sense, sadly. And of course there are fantastics au that I’m probably missing but. Just…. Don’t wanna xD

 Body swap is down there too because it’s way too awkward to read for me; it embarrases me and I really really don’t like when they are all: oh wow the body of menganito or fulanita i need to know how to masturbate or the other way around, where they are panicking so hard they don’t even dare to go the bathroom. crossgender body swap is even worse. No thanks >_> 

Most of the tropes in meh are the ones i’d only read if i like very much the characterization as it says there. Because if they aren’t very ic they lose their impact you know? i’m looser in that for the tropes of the two top tiers, most of all with the autoclick because i’m very desperate for those kind of fic and so I don’t mind like. a moderately big deviation. i’m that desperate xD but the meh ones, are the ones i’d only enjoy if the charas are ic and well written so. 

Well, i don’t think there’s much more to say nor anybody else interested XD this is more for myself but you’re welcome for reading so far.  Also these are the rules here: Go here and rank the tropes listed in order of favorite to least favorite.

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today i’ve realised there are people with legitimate critics of the throne of glass and acotar series by sarah j maas. it’s not that i love the books, because i stopped reading acotar after the second (bored, honestly) and tog after the… fourth? i got to the part where aelin and rowan come back to adarlan and people start battling each other and there is like, a ton of ice burying a castle at some point. i was also reading because of obligation and then i forgot even the books existed because the story in the last two had gone so wild i was like wtf i don’t care for this, i don’t know who the characters are anymore lol. and the only romance i really shipped was sam-aelin because i loved the prequels despite its faults you know? (it was more than a bit fucked up but these were two very fucked up kids who didn’t even have time to truly start healing ;_;) so realising that there are a lot more of faults than just doing whatever with the magic and such a poor job of characterising the fae, she also upon a bit of close examination (i started reading this series when i was like 13 and only throne of glass + prequels were published, i was just enjoying it and not thinking much about what i was reading) had a lot of other, more serious issues in her books was like woa. (poc ausence that i can’t relate very much but it’s very glaring, feminism issues, lgtb+ treatment etc) because i feel very much they contributed on making her characters feel alien for me and i never was on the same page with a lot of them and it just. it felt very awkward to keep reading those books once i also grew out of them. and look i’m 19 into 20 this year, it’s not like i’m all that older than the heroines but they feel so. fake? very much trying hard to tick the correct boxes, and sometime you can feel with them but other times it’s just artificial. i’ll say than even when i was reading for the first time i didn’t like chaol romance with celaena because it felt so much like the man who wants to make the woman stay in home with him, for him, it was so so weird watching celaena fall for him when he was like criticising her without looking where they were living and how she got there in the first place. (she wanted so very badly to be happy egh) when it ended wrong and he was such an asshole in the fourth book to her it wasn’t surprising; he seemed to me like that kind of man since the start. you’re no longer with me, i can’t control you anymore, i don’t understand you; you’re a bitch and everything is your fault. look i guess he got better in the rest of the books but that’s the image that stayed with me after all this time. another thing: celaena weird hidden princess hidden fae hidden destiny thing. i was like, what?! the first time i thought it was pretty cool but even before the third book was released i was already disenchanted with the idea. it started my indifference towards the saga that’s for sure. i wasn’t sure of the reason that was necessary? it killed a lot of my own assumptions and the fact that she was a lost princess all along and not a nobody who got where she was simply by coincidences or well a bit of destiny too, but a princess…. and a fae too? talk about overfill, and the fact that fae are so powerful but she couldn’t wouldn’t? (i don’t remember if she was like blocked by magic or just psychologically blocked) transform felt like the narrative was saying all the bad things happened to her because she didn’t defend herself well enough which is such bullshit- it’s not your fault when people are abusive and just like, evil. elena was guilt tripping her in acting, yeah that’s what it feels like.and well. rowan and maeve and all that felt very unnecessary, like. i started hating both of them and then a bit meh with rowan but the romantic development caught me by surprise and i was like, why why why. they could have been friends. i was ready and hoping they’d be friends. why romance so soon? it feet so forced, just so that aelin could have a hot guy again and she could heal his manpain. brrr. creepy.

other minor things (for me, like, these are the things i disliked while reading them there are lots of people talking better about why these books are not very good ones) these time concerning both acotar and tog. the fae. just. at the start in acotar at least they seem very fae-like. sjm seemed willing to do them more justice than in tog  where she directly just forgets about it. but just in book one, the nearer you are to the end the more they seem like superpowered elfs. not fae. but just, she took a look to the aesthetic of tolkien took a bit of the fae and their legends and then just did whatever she wanted (which like, she is justified in doing because well, fanfiction is also full of things like that and nobody is there policing the mythos of the story) and it clashes so badly. it left with the impression she didn’t know if she wanted flashy magic or the more labyrinthic and thought out use of magic in fae stories. holly black managed it well, as did melissa marr and they experimented and did  a bit of whatever to mesh it in urban fantasy (well holly black isn’t exactly urban but you know it takes place in the modern world) (and melissa did more of whatever she wanted and includes also more flashy magic) (and they aren’t perfect either but you know, they were better written it feels) but they still feel very fae-like? more alien in the good sense, because they’re not human. instead in acotar and tog they were like humans with superpowers and super beauty even more so in tog where even the bad guys were so, like. stupid? human stupid? and there were demons, the adarlan’s king was summoning and possessed by them xD i don’t know it didn’t felt epic or fairy-tale like but just another fantasy about a king reclaiming his kingdom and derroquing the evil along the way, just with lots of angst because teenagers girl and women. 

plus the romance in acotar… eh. i felt deceived when rhysand was revealed to be like, the dream boyfriend for the audience and feyre. i thought they had like chemistry and i was at the start a bit like, oh he is the second love interest which is super interesting and has deeps but is also like dark and wicked and doesn’t end with her because he encourages her to be too much herself. you know the type xD (although recently the tendency is in reverse which good lol) it was interesting what they did with tamlin (abusive boyfriend i really didn’t need to see in a book hello, are you here to teach us ignorant girls what to watch for when in search of a boyfriend?) but it also took me for surprise, and the fact that well. tamlin was so powerful and feyre only could only runaway with the help of rhysand who then revealed that city of dreams and that the court of nightmares was a facade and only a little part of his territory felt cheap lmao. tamlin can go eat shitcakes, but i felt his villainy was sudden, if plausible given what we knew of his personality. only you know, for me it felt like it happened because it was a lesson for the audience and feyre. a bit fake. rhysand being so good after all: feels a bit fake, again. i could connect with feyre/rhysand better than celaena ships but it still left a weird taste in my mouth reading about them you know? same with the other pairings of the book. why everybody have to have a boy-girlfriend? grr.  

overall i think that in sarah j maas books there is a preachy feel. like she wants to tell things to the audience and uses her characters, and instead the characters feel like puppets for ideas instead of people. hollow. they do things by rote, and they pass the time being very badass but also very domestic because i can be feminine and masculine obvs lol.  it doesn’t make the readers close to the characters but the characters feel like poster-kids for different issues lol. maybe i’m a bit hard on them? EDIT: (au contraire, seems i’ve been too kind lmao) but it’s what i feel and this is tumblr. be kind to yourself and each other.

EDIT: wow. reading other posts that treat in more profundity the mess that are sjm books… i can’t believe how much i’ve forgotten. creeepy, really. knew there was a reason i was shocked when rhysand was presented as the paragon of a boyfriend; i’ve just remembered, reading a very shocking post) all the shit things he does at the end of book 1. grr. between other issues. it seems the vibe i was getting of punishing or making the woman guilty of the shittiness of others and their societies is a trend. grrr again. seems like i was subconsciously noticing something wrong and jumped off the wagon lmao

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