That the trouble with data entry positions as a writer. The last thing you want to do after hours of typing is go home and do it all over again. On top of that I’ve just been generally burnt out from have to wakeup at 5am to get to work despite naturally being a night owl.
The Best Book In The Series
The one good thing about the job is that I can listen to audiobooks for 8 hours straight. That means biggest barrier for getting through each 20+ hour ACOTAR novels is the Libby waitlist. But after about 5 months, I’ve gotten through the series to date…And I have thoughts.
For the most part, this post will be about A Court of Mist and Fury. I already made a separate post discussing the first book, A Court of Thornes and Rose, here.
I’m proud to announce Apocalyptic Love is finally available to listen too!
For those who might have missed it time I posted about it, the story follows two young men who are living through an alien invasion, one as a civilian and the other as the superhero trying to save the world. The meeting and begin to grow closer.
Just click on the link below and you can subscribe to my page and get access to all the episodes as well as all the shows on the site!
I’m still waiting on the voice actors to finish their line, but in the meantime, I wanted to release the poster!
And while we’re at it, I’ll give another tidbit about the plot. One of the leads is a would-be superhero trying save to world. He doesn’t have a full grasp of his abilities but is still dedicated to doing what he can to help.
I partnered with the company Headfone to write an audio drama. It’s exciting because I’ve never done this kind of writing before, but I was excited to try my hand at something new.
The story follows two young men who meet during an apocalypse that’s been ongoing for most of their lives. I just finished writing the last episode, and it’s in the final stages of production.
I’ll give more info when the show is available for listening.
Ben is full of so many red flags that he makes Edward Cullen look normal.
If you’ve heard the term love bombing floating around the internet lately and wanted an example, read this book. Otherwise, save yourself the time and mental energy to pick something else up.
Ben stalks Fallon, forces his way into her life, oversteps her boundaries, and forces his decisions on her, all while he intentionally refuses to open up to her. After Fallon discovers the truth and files a restraining order, Ben violates it to deliver his curated side of the story. (I also couldn’t help but notice that all the steamy scenes had to be from Fallon’s POV because we need to know she consented to his pushy advances.)
I’m okay with toxic characters. I’m okay with toxic romances. The thing I have a problem with is when the story endorses that toxicity and presents it as perfectly acceptable. Nothing Ben does is romantic or desirable, and the man should quite literally be in jail.
I wanted to try something different for the review’s format because sometimes I don’t have a lot to say about a book, or I want to avoid recapping the entire thing, or I just don’t have a lot of time to work on a post. I still haven’t decided if I’ll do more like this, but I like it so far.
The romance genre is a fascinating thing. It’s definitely the most common genre out there. You’d be hard-pressed to find a series that doesn’t even hint at a romantic subplot.
It makes a lot of sense, really. In real life, romance and love are often a surprise. Love often shows up in all sorts of strange and unexpected places.
Which makes the tropes of the romantic genre a bit ironic. Because of their tropes, romance stories are incredibly predictable. When you start an enemies-to-lovers tale, you know the story’s direction. When you dive into a fake dating romance, you already know where the tide takes you. Unless it’s framed as a tragedy, the ending is very predictable. So predictable that a common criticism about the genre is that it makes romance boring.
But talk like that shows just how little said critic knows about the romance genre.
Most people who claim that romance is boring or repetitive have only seen romcoms. While some tell unique love stories, most are cash grabs meant to profit from copying an already successful work.
Good romances stand out for their creativity within the genre’s framework.
More Than One Way To- Wait, Why Are We Skinning Cats Anyway?
My favorite way to point out how differently similar love stories can be told is with the Sailor Moon franchise.
In the 90’s anime, Usagi/Serena and Mamoru/Darien will argue by daylight while working to fight evil by moonlight. At the start, Usagi’s crush on Mamoru’s Tuxedo Mask persona is the only acknowledged attraction, with the pair pursuing other options. Near the end of the first season, the show adds romantic tension to their interactions just in time for their secret identities to be revealed and their memories from their past lives as star-crossed lovers, Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion, to be restored.
He spends this movie having more chemistry with his childhood friend than his girlfriend.
The show decided that for Usagi, Serenity’s feelings are now her present feelings. She often declares her love for Mamoru based wholly on the fact that they were once in love in their past lives. Mamoru, on the other hand, is a little more complicated. The show seems to like breaking them up for conflict, so Mamoru is often in situations where he can’t or won’t reciprocate Usagi’s feelings. Despite their love being treated as fact, they don’t really get to be together until season 3.
The manga version devotes more time to building up the couple before their past lives are revealed. The initial setup of their meeting and arguing is the same, but soon, they shift to having more positive encounters. Their secret identities don’t stay that way long, with Mamoru catching her transforming and telling her his identity not long after. This is where they move from flirting to mutually pinning for each other. They can’t outright be together because the Senshi and Tuxedo Mask have opposing goals, but Usagi keeps his identity secrets for him, and they continue to have little meetups.
They just genuinely enjoy each other’s company.
When the story tells us that Usagi and Mamoru are reincarnated lovers, their relationship is already built up enough that this knowledge doesn’t change anything about the relationship. After the arc, the couple consistently support each other on and off the battlefield. And any difficulties they had in the manga were resolved when they came together and spoke things over.
Despite both versions telling the story of two star-crossed lovers reuniting and gaining a second chance in another life, these two versions of SailorMoon tell distinctly different love stories.
This is why romances that cover the same tropes and themes have dedicated fans. They don’t expect to open up a new book or hit play in a movie and see the same story play out. They want to know how this romance differs from all the rest.
But wait, I hear you asking. The title of this post is “Comfort in Predictability,’ so why are you talking about how stories differ? Shouldn’t you be talking about how they’re the same?
You’re right. I got distracted. Let’s get back on track.
Romance: Your Tourguide through the Unknown
Remember earlier how I said romance is the most common genre. Well, that’s true because of two reasons. The one I already mentioned is that romance often appears as a subplot, but the second reason is that it uses other genres as settings.
The romance genre’s rules take over regardless of the setting. Whether the character meets in space, a period drama, or a fantasy setting doesn’t matter. People still fall in love, so why wouldn’t their stories fall in line with what makes romance stories great. The audience still expects the main couple’s first meetings to be cute, or disastrous, or disastrously cute. They expect some form of a love triangle to rear its head. They expect the finale to contain some grand declaration of love.
It also creates a single role for the story to achieve for it to have a good ending. A romance succeeds as long as the characters love each other in the end. For other series, things aren’t so cut and dry.
Personally, I saw this ending coming for a while, but that doesn’t mean I had to like it
It’s common to hear fans complaining about the ending of some action, fantasy, or drama series. This is because when people start the series, they have where the story is going. The only thing fueling continued investment is an interesting premise and the promise of excitement. Just look at Game of Thrones. Without going into too much detail, many fans felt that the series finale undermined character arcs, left unanswered questions, or some issues were resolved a little too neatly. The story had thousands of ways it could have ended, but as far as fans were concerned, it picked the worst one.
With romance, that bar for a good ending is far easier to meet because of the forgone conclusion. Nothing more is needed as long as the characters are happily together on the last page. That is why there is comfort in the predictability of romance. Like taking a ride share home, people may judge the way we got here, but no one is going to complain when we where we planned to go.
Well, it took me way longer to finish this than I wanted, but at least I’m done now. I wanted to include a section about the novel Kiss Her Once For Me by Alison Cochrun. Her book introduced me to some interesting angles for the genre because of how her LGBT characters interacted with the romance plot, and I thought it would be a good inclusion for Pride Month, but the post was getting way too long and off-topic. But, I did talk about Sailor Moon, where Usagi is shown to be either bi or pan in the manga, so I guess it was on theme.
Now excuse me, I have to go work on a Star Wars rewrite. Until then, peace out!
Back when I was in middle school, I bonded with a classmate over our mutual love of anime. The classmate even owned a manga that she brought to school and let me read. That series was Rurouni Kenshin. This was the first ever manga I saw in person and this friendship was likely a major contributor to my love of anime. I don’t think I would have started collecting One Piece volumes if not for this interaction. (Also, Oda worked on Kenshin in his early days, so it’s connected there.)
Jumping ahead a couple of years and I’d decided to collect Rurouni Kenshin volumes. Viz Media even had them in these big prints where you could buy 3 volumes in one book. Unfortunately, I never finished my collection remains because the news broke that Nobuhiro Watsuki is a monster.
I won’t go into detail but just know that Watsuki shouldn’t be trusted around young girls. I don’t know how he is still able to work in the anime industry and before anyone tries to claim that “the culture is just different,” it wouldn’t have been a crime and he wouldn’t have been convicted if it were.
I had to learn the hard way to separate my love for Rurouni Kenshin from my hatred for the creator. I’m sure in recent years we’ve all had one or two( or ten) creators we had to cut off because they did something terrible. So for those who need a little help letting go, here’s a guide for separating the work you love from the artist you’ve grown to despise.
Creating new work is hard, but editing is easier. Today we’re tackling Star Wars: The Last Jedi. This is a continuation of changes I made in The Force Awakens post here and here.
Finally, I’m on to the second movie in this trilogy. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I would do these last two movies because I felt like they needed a lot of rewriting, and I’m trying to avoid turning this into fanfiction.
More on that later.
I think the biggest problem this movie had was conflicting themes. Multiple characters have to recognize the universe is full of grey morality, but the film ends by doubling down on the world’s black and white. For some reason, the Finn/Rose introduces themes of anti-capitalism before abandoning that with a warning about the cycles of violence/hate. Poe’s story is the most consistent with a message about not being reckless, but it weirdly focuses on Poe’s lack of faith.
This time I will try fitting the characters and plot rewrites in one post because fewer new characters need extensive changes.
I forget to publish this post! (￣_￣|||) I literally had it in my drafts for a month and a half, but I guess we can just pretend it’s in response to the Lightyear trailer.
This was a movie that I was reluctant to watch. I thought that Toy Story 3 was the perfect send-off for the toys, so when Toy Story 4 was announced, it felt like a thoughtless cash grab.
Boredom convinced me to give it a chance, and I’m glad I did.
Like a lot of people, I didn’t see many advertisements for the film. The only reason I even know about the movie was that “Surface Pressure” was all over my For You page on Tiktok. It made me fall in love with Luisa’s character, so, when the film dropped on Disney Plus, I raced to see it.
I Think Thinks 