#it's that i'm a magical realism ass bitch | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bondsmagii · 2 years

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i dont know anything about Borrasca, but related to your complaint on that, i always had a strong distaste for a story that seemed like "this is a real mystery with a grounded answer. oh whoops! it was fucked up ancient pharaoh magic all along, get fucked there's no solution you couldve foreseen!" which, quite honestly, i only recall happening from one source. it was The Name of This Book is Secret series, i was very peeved off at it as a child, but maybe if i read it today it wouldnt be so insulting. i just remember i thought it was realistic fiction and then magic shit was happening and i was unimpressed.

god I totally get it. I love magic in books and I love magical realism but I think you have to establish that immediately. I can suspend disbelief if I know from early on that there is Sorcery and Shenanigans in a story, but if it seems like a straightforward mystery or thriller and then suddenly an evil curse or a wizard or something shows up I'm kind of like. hm. you should have probably mentioned that... sooner...

I also hate the opposite problem, where something is set up to be ~oooooh spooky~ but is then either revealed to be regular-ass freaks of the human variety, or is just forgotten altogether. the worst example I have ever seen of this so far is in the book In The Woods by Tana French. oh my god. the ENTIRE premise of the book, in advertising and marketing and even on the blurb, is about a guy who, when he was a kid, was the only survivor of a weird incident in the woods. his two best friends vanished and no trace of them was ever found; he was discovered standing by a tree in the middle of the forest, with no evidence as to how he got there, uninjured, but both of his shoes were filled to the brim with blood. the blood matched neither or his friends, and it wasn't his own. of course, he has amnesia, so he can't tell the police what happened. he grows up to be a detective on Dublin's murder squad, when suddenly, the body of a child shows up in the same area as his friends vanished! he takes the case and tries to solve the murder, hoping it'll reveal some answers. the book emphasises this mystery, and the cover even has a spooky design -- it is very clearly marketed as being something paranormal.

so what happens in the end? I am spoilering everyone here so nobody wastes their time with this shit. it turns out the little girl's murder has nothing to do with his friends' disappearance at all. it's not even the same serial killer or anything. the little girl was murdered by the boyfriend of her evil older sister, who set her boyfriend up to do it because... I don't even know. she's meant to be this chilling psychopath but it's so badly written and ridiculous, just really leaning on the whole ~ooh and she was EVIL and CRAZY!!~ trope. the story ends with the cop back at the edge of the forest musing on the mystery and then saying "guess we'll never know... sometimes we don't need the answers..." like bitch yes we do!! I just read hundreds of pages of garbage soap opera drama because I was promised a supernatural mystery and now the author is scolding me in the narrative for WANTING TO KNOW? what the fuck!! just admit you had no idea how to solve the mystery and you wrote all that shit it as a hook and for aesthetics and leave!!

also as a side note but I am still so mad about this. in the "reveal" about the Evil Siter the cop (first person narration) suddenly addresses the reader despite not ever having done this before (hate that. jarring and cheap.) and says "but here's the thing, reader... she fooled you, too..." like no she did not. she did not fool me for a moment. the second that bitch walked in to her first scene the writing was so fucking dramatic that it had the same effect as a music score change and darkening lighting in a film. I could hear the thunder clap. everything about her behaviour screamed that she was guilty. I cannot believe a trained detective fell for this 18-year-old's fake tears. if I had been there along with this guy's partner (who actually had a brain cell) we would have solved that case in a moment. I hate it when authors assume their readers are as stupid as their dumbass characters!! god it's been like two years and I'm still so mad I'm still so wound up fuck this book

#anon #asks

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Godddddd I'm so upset that I dislike yen this much, doing main quests in skellige and Freyas ppl were doing stuff and she again disrespected other cultures with Geraly being against, "I may be inhumanly beautiful" I know she's meant to be confident but wowww. She's not confident and worried for Ciri she just comes off arrogant and selfish and vain. Like, fuck.

The ultimate mood, anon. My Witcher fandom life would be so much easier if I enjoyed Yen ... but I just do not lol. Remember how I mentioned that things were going to get even worse than her stealing and using a potentially dangerous artifact? Yeeeaah. She also resurrects Ciri's friend to torture him for information, all while destroying another sacred garden to get the power to do it! It's not even a "She's so evil and I love it 😏" situation for me because the game tries so hard to convince us that she's still The Best. Geralt's sexy soulmate, Ciri's adoring mother, the baddest bitch around who gets things done and does it with an effortless confidence... all while ignoring how horrific her actions and attitude are. Oh sure, other characters speak ill of her at times, but considering how much Geralt is written to adore her, no matter what you choose, that's all undermined. I love morally gray/evil characters, but I've never enjoyed them when the text refuses to appropriately acknowledge that side of them. Nothing is more frustrating to me than a story that frames disliking a character as the unambiguously wrong thing to do, especially when the text is piling up reasons to dislike them and, as a result, ignoring or shrugging them off their actions as not that bad. Yen is a rather extreme example of that for me. Despite her attitude, her choices, and other characters outright going, "Why do you like her?" the story as a whole works under the assumption that it's correct to like her anyway because Geralt loves her. And he loves her for... reasons.

They do meet before the wish, but only just. Major "The Last Wish" spoilers in this paragraph, so feel free to skip. Basically, Geralt and Dandelion run into trouble with a djinn, he goes to Yen for help since she's a sorceress (first time meeting her), he instantly falls for her because she's gorgeous and such (there's an elf there who is also madly in love with Yen. Men just... fall for her, instinctually), she heals Dandelion, Geralt agrees to pay her, but Yen has already decided on the payment she wants. She takes control of Geralt's mind and forces him to attack the town to seek revenge on those who have insulted her, resulting in him waking up in prison awaiting execution for "his" crimes. Meanwhile, Yen has gone after the djinn for herself because power/trying to regain her ability to have a kid. Geralt escapes, finds her failing to master the djinn (an attempt which btw has endangered the whole town) and despite what she's done to him, Geralt tries to get Yen to escape with him. She refuses, set on capturing the djinn even though it's obvious she can't. So as a last resort he uses the final wish to bind their fates together, saving Yen from the djinn in the process. Aaaaaand then they have sex.

So yeah, their rocky relationship is one of the main reasons why I can't enjoy Yen. For some their tumultuous history is evidence of realism, for me it's evidence that they're not actually very compatible and they're only together because a) that's the fantasy trope: protagonist men get together with the hot sorceress and b) because the magic is literally ensuring that they can't escape one another. I mean, canonically their fates are tied together by magic and canonically they spend about 20 years swinging between passionate love and fearsome fights... but there's supposedly no connection between these two things? No chance at all that they keep coming together because magic is drawing them rather than because they actually want/should be together? I wrote a meta a while back about the short story where they meet, which includes a present day scene where Geralt is criticized by another character — Nenneke — for running out on Yen. Thing is, he tries to explain that he left because she was "too possessive" and this is... flat out ignored. By both Nenneke and the fandom. There's a strong trend of ignoring Geralt's words in favor of a pro-Yen interpretation of events. He says he left because she was too possessive and she treated him like ____ — he's not allowed to finish the sentence and say what she treated him like because Nenneke interrupts him, saying she doesn't care about his version of events. Major yikes imo! She turns a claim of being possessive into Geralt not being man enough to stick around. The fandom likewise turns this into a case of Geralt getting cold feet and running out because he's a bastard who hates commitment. Likewise, Nenneke and the fandom claim Geralt is trying to get Yen money as a way of appeasing his guilt for leaving, he claims he's doing it simply because he still cares for her — even if he doesn't want to be with her — and knows she needs it. Geralt's words are frequently dismissed, in the same way others characters' opinions of Yen are dismissed. Any mark against her is treated as either a lie, or a convoluted claim that they don't really know her... never mind that an understanding of why she may act this way doesn't excuse the behavior itself. (Plus, the whole "Yen had a horrible upbringing, so of course she struggles being kind" perspective always fell flat to me when so many, including witchers, had horrendous upbringings too. The whole point is this world is a mess and most everyone suffers). It's supposedly true love, yet if someone came up to me and went, "I magically tied my fate to this woman to keep her from getting herself killed and we've spent the last couple decades having what many would term a rocky relationship, to put it kindly. I left once because she was too controlling. She once cheated on me. I likewise hooked up with others during our frequent breakups. A mutual friend used magic to get me to have sex with her — also while my lover and I were broken up — and though I view it as a dumb decision I'm happy to forgive her for, my lover is ready to commit murder because again: possessive. A lot of the time we're only a family because of our daughter. I once thought she'd horrifically betrayed us both. She didn't, but it says something that I was so ready to believe it, huh? Hmm? Permanently separated? Of course not! I love her. We're destined to be together after all :)" I'd be like, "Uh... you sure about that, dude?"

Not that Geralt doesn't make his fair share of mistakes in the relationship — he absolutely does — but I don't think it helps his case that he's immature in other ways and, frankly, that he's a very strong, badass witcher. It's easy to turn the hints we get about their relationship into a simplistic "emotionally naive man can't give the poor woman the commitment she wants" situation. Given Geralt's status as the badass fighter of the tale, it's likewise easy to dismiss his admissions of her being "possessive" and his general discomfort. He's the man. He's the witcher. If he's making any claims about how Yen isn't treating him well, they must be excuses, or exaggerations, because real men, especially physically powerful men, would do something about that — a something that's not sneaking out in the middle of the night. A lot of people read Geralt leaving as the ultimate proof that he's an immature bastard who doesn't deserve her. I read him leaving and think, "What were you trying to get away from? What was going on that made you think you could only leave by sneaking out without a word?" To me, that doesn't read as someone who felt safe, comfortable, and respected enough to do anything but slip away and try to wash his hands of things. And I'm not just pulling this "Geralt is at least somewhat afraid of Yen and isn't comfortable establishing boundaries with her" reading out of my ass. When Yen wants Geralt to kill the golden dragon for her and he refuses, saying he doesn't care anymore, his thoughts are:

He expected the worst: a cascade of flames, flashes of lightning, blows raining down on his face, insults and curses. There was nothing. He saw, with astonishment, only the subtle trembling of her lips. Yennefer turned around slowly. Geralt regretted his words.

And everyone is like, "See! Yen has improved so much. Geralt nearly made her cry, but she's supposed to be the bad guy here?" Meanwhile, I'm going, "Uh... anyone want to unpack why he expects fire, lightning, insults, curses, and blows to his face for telling her no? Why he's astonished that she wouldn't use her magic against him? Anyone think that Yen refraining from attacking Geralt when he refuses to murder on her command is a pretty low bar? No? Just me?"

Geralt and Yen's relationship makes me uncomfortable and a great deal of that discomfort derives from how much of the Witcher fandom shrugs off the fictional warning signs. I mean, I post primarily about RWBY. We watched a man in that show try to sneak away with his kids when his villainous wife planned to use them for a eugenics plan... and the fandom still blames him for that, refusing to admit that he was in an abusive relationship. Because that doesn't happen to men, right? I'm not saying it's the same for Geralt and Yen, simply because they are written to be soulmates. An abusive relationship was, quite obviously, never the authorial intent. However, I am saying that the a "This isn't a healthy relationship" reading is there, it exists as an interpretation, and both the story and fandom's tendency to dismiss it is something that hasn't helped me enjoy Yen's status as an otherwise well written, complex character. Their equality supposedly stems in part because they're both so flawed, yet each time I see a list of Geralt's supposedly equal faults they're... lacking imo. "Geralt bound himself to Yen without her consent." Yeah, to save her from dying from the djinn she was trying to enslave, after she refused to leave, while her actions threatened a whole town. "Geralt ran off without a word." Mmm hmm, anyone care about why? And my personal favorite is a scene you may not have gotten to yet (or may not get depending on your choices), but suffice to say, Yen is supposedly justified in physically attacking Geralt if he dares to challenge her in any way. That's the main takeaway across the fandom: If Yen is pissed off, you must have done something to deserve it which, in the relationship deliberately written to be "stormy," is something that sets all the alarm bells in my head off. Honestly, it kinda makes my skin crawl to go, "Geralt didn't deserve that" and get responses back of, "Yeah he did because he [insert basic human action here]." The Witcher world is hard and cruel, absolutely, but that doesn't mean I personally enjoy seeing an equally messed up relationship presented as something that's enviable in its flaws. "That's actually true love because the magically bound man who often expresses discomfort with his lover, written by a male author with a very iffy perspective on women, says it's true love." Crazy theory here, but... maybe it's not?

Idk, lots of rambling on my end tonight! For me, Geralt/Yen reads as something rather tragic which, in a canon that unironically upholds the relationship, and in a Yen-adoring fandom, doesn't make enjoying her character any easier. I keep coming back to Witcher 3, the comics, the show, even the books going, "Maybe I'll like her this time?" but nope, still trying lol.

#witcher #mymetas

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adozentothedawn · 3 years

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League rant time.

So Garen has unfortunately captured my heart and I am planning a proper angst fic because you cannot trust cooperations to anything, including Riot apparently.

Since I have basically no original ideas, I decided to just rewrite the latter half of the Lux comic to mir fit needs. My original plan was to start off with Lux's great assassination plan and just not have Garen bust the show. And maybe let Tianna embarrass herself with that stupid 'he just needs to be motivated to stop dying' shit. But then I decided that wasn't angsty enough, so let's start off with Lux at Garen's bedside in the healing ward. And also properly establish that no, this man was not completely blemishless after being beaten half to death. But then I reread the scene where he gets beaten, and noticed he just gets a fucking uppercut! Sylas literally gets only one hit in and Garen goes down like a bitch! Like I'm sorry, but even with sword magic powered punch that's stupid. So now I have to rewrite the fight scene I guess because my angst needs more than a well placed uppercut. Panel saving my ass.

And then the book! Like the book isn't bad, I liked it just fine, but there is so little angst there too! I was waiting the whole time and then finally at the end he gets to fight the evil dude. It's all dramatic, he keeps getting hit, bones break, he almost gets killed and then finally gets the last hit in after the evil guy had to monologue. Basic, but effective scene. And so I was just sitting there, very excited, because this it, he's gonna just so win, barely conscious, the eagles come (this is not a joke, that is how they win the battle) and then he's gonna dramatically collapse at the end of the chapter. But no, of course not. He wins, the eagles come, cut. The next time we see him he's wearing bandages. Great.

It's like Riot just doesn't understand how many rabid hordes of teenage girls they could have glued to their screens by just giving more angst! Keep everything as it is, just give it some consequence! It's not that hard! Honestly it looks like they're trying not get a larger audience. Even that new side game they're developing, The Ruined King, look what they did to Viego:

The left one is his official splash art, the right one is a screenshot from the game trailer. They fucking desexied him! Why???!! I appreciate what they did for Miss Fortune in that trailer cause she looks way better, but what is this?! You had a perfectly good tragic bad boy and you made him less sexy! I mean I guess from a realistic perspective I get it, he is like a zombie, but who gives a shit about realism in League of Legends?!

Anyway my point is Riot should clean up their shitty abusive community and cater more to teenage girls. Specifically me. I want them to cater to me. The correct standard.

#league of legends #personal #yes this important to me #leave me alone i need something to hyperfocus on #also it's fun to be mad at completely irrelevant shit #and don't get me wrong I'll play that new game #i wanna punch shit as Braum #and the shoot things with the new and better MF #but i'll still die mad about viego #my favourite slutty king

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