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netgirl_y2kBooks
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao - Not since Harrow the Ninth has there been a book I enjoyed enough to read the entirety of it in a day in a half while simultaneously hating Every Damn Word.
Like, part of it was a mismatch of expectations in that I didn't know it was YA before I started it, and it is Extremely YA, but also I think in a bunch of ways it's just...bad.
It's unique selling point is that it's supposedly a sci-fi retelling of the life of Empress Wu, but by the time you've run a historical figure through a Pacific Rim AU, a Different Background AU, an Age Change AU etc. any resemblance is entirely coincidental, and, like, what's the point.
The cheap as fuck, ass pull of a cliff hanger at the end. Because YA books come in trilogies, right?
The, frankly, childish take on feminism. The basic setup is that a male and female pilot mechs together and that the female pilots are deliberately being sacrificed to protect the guys. Wu Zetian's entire motivation, as the book endlessly tells us, is 'protect the girls.' Except there are, like, two other female characters is the book, they aren't in it that much and are portrayed as bitchy, jealous, and unpleasant. Every background woman who exists in the world is an agent of the patriarchy, with Zetian being somehow the only one who knows better, despite having been raised in the same cultural miasma. Wu Zetian initially starts her adventure in an an attempt to avenge the murder of her older sister, who is only ever referred to as 'big sister', and never gets any motivation, interiority, closure or, you know, a name.
I think it's entirely possible that there's a good story in the idea of an avenging 'feminist' character who doesn't actually like other women, but this ain't it.
There is a scene at the beginning where Zetian is having her unibrow plucked so she can be considered attractive enough for the plot to begin and all the secondary male characters to commence falling in love with her. Because I guess some slight unwanted facial hair has replaced adorable clumsiness as the flaw that isn't really a flaw in YA, just like m/m/f is the new love triangle.
In conclusion: Thanks, I hated it.
TV
Bridgerton Season One - Netflix is once again threatening to clamp down on password sharing, and, well, have you looked at Netflix recently, I ain't paying for the dubious pleasure of scrolling through menus for ten minutes before turning it off and doing something else. What I will do is catch up on the lingering shows I've been meaning to watch.
This was very pretty, Simon and Daphne were by far the least interesting part of it, and I will be very disappointed when Elouise's season rolls round and it turns out that she is not in fact a lesbian in love with Pen.
Doctor Who Legend of the Sea Devils - That wasn't...bad. Like, I feel that it would have had to try harder to be bad. Instead it was just...not good. It was too short for the story it was trying to tell, while also being too long and far too boring. It was too dark and confusingly filmed.
I don't know what I was expecting from the Doctor/Yaz other than 'I like you too but I have to regenerate soon, so \_(ツ)_/' but I feel like for the ending to properly land they would have had to make it canonical earlier than, like, last episode. Fwiw, I think the way to do it would have been a) more runway and b) have it be at least 50% a coming out story for Yaz so that her happy ending isn't entirely Doctor dependent.
Video Games
Elden Ring - Hype is a hell of a drug.
Have I ever played a Souls game before? Not past the tutorial boss, no.
Do I know what the Elden Ring even is? Of course not.
Did it take me twenty hours to so much as get out of the starting area? No, it took me thirty.
Did I only buy it because GRRM wrote it? No. Nobody wrote this. It is a gobbledegook of Proper Nouns.
Do I know why there was a cut scene with giant tortoise wearing the pope's hat? I had the sound turned off and a podcast on, but I don't think that was the reason I didn't understand.
Do I plan to play it all the way to the end just to torment my gamer guy mates with the knowledge that I Beat It Too? Heck, yes.
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao - Not since Harrow the Ninth has there been a book I enjoyed enough to read the entirety of it in a day in a half while simultaneously hating Every Damn Word.
Like, part of it was a mismatch of expectations in that I didn't know it was YA before I started it, and it is Extremely YA, but also I think in a bunch of ways it's just...bad.
It's unique selling point is that it's supposedly a sci-fi retelling of the life of Empress Wu, but by the time you've run a historical figure through a Pacific Rim AU, a Different Background AU, an Age Change AU etc. any resemblance is entirely coincidental, and, like, what's the point.
The cheap as fuck, ass pull of a cliff hanger at the end. Because YA books come in trilogies, right?
The, frankly, childish take on feminism. The basic setup is that a male and female pilot mechs together and that the female pilots are deliberately being sacrificed to protect the guys. Wu Zetian's entire motivation, as the book endlessly tells us, is 'protect the girls.' Except there are, like, two other female characters is the book, they aren't in it that much and are portrayed as bitchy, jealous, and unpleasant. Every background woman who exists in the world is an agent of the patriarchy, with Zetian being somehow the only one who knows better, despite having been raised in the same cultural miasma. Wu Zetian initially starts her adventure in an an attempt to avenge the murder of her older sister, who is only ever referred to as 'big sister', and never gets any motivation, interiority, closure or, you know, a name.
I think it's entirely possible that there's a good story in the idea of an avenging 'feminist' character who doesn't actually like other women, but this ain't it.
There is a scene at the beginning where Zetian is having her unibrow plucked so she can be considered attractive enough for the plot to begin and all the secondary male characters to commence falling in love with her. Because I guess some slight unwanted facial hair has replaced adorable clumsiness as the flaw that isn't really a flaw in YA, just like m/m/f is the new love triangle.
In conclusion: Thanks, I hated it.
TV
Bridgerton Season One - Netflix is once again threatening to clamp down on password sharing, and, well, have you looked at Netflix recently, I ain't paying for the dubious pleasure of scrolling through menus for ten minutes before turning it off and doing something else. What I will do is catch up on the lingering shows I've been meaning to watch.
This was very pretty, Simon and Daphne were by far the least interesting part of it, and I will be very disappointed when Elouise's season rolls round and it turns out that she is not in fact a lesbian in love with Pen.
Doctor Who Legend of the Sea Devils - That wasn't...bad. Like, I feel that it would have had to try harder to be bad. Instead it was just...not good. It was too short for the story it was trying to tell, while also being too long and far too boring. It was too dark and confusingly filmed.
I don't know what I was expecting from the Doctor/Yaz other than 'I like you too but I have to regenerate soon, so \_(ツ)_/' but I feel like for the ending to properly land they would have had to make it canonical earlier than, like, last episode. Fwiw, I think the way to do it would have been a) more runway and b) have it be at least 50% a coming out story for Yaz so that her happy ending isn't entirely Doctor dependent.
Video Games
Elden Ring - Hype is a hell of a drug.
Have I ever played a Souls game before? Not past the tutorial boss, no.
Do I know what the Elden Ring even is? Of course not.
Did it take me twenty hours to so much as get out of the starting area? No, it took me thirty.
Did I only buy it because GRRM wrote it? No. Nobody wrote this. It is a gobbledegook of Proper Nouns.
Do I know why there was a cut scene with giant tortoise wearing the pope's hat? I had the sound turned off and a podcast on, but I don't think that was the reason I didn't understand.
Do I plan to play it all the way to the end just to torment my gamer guy mates with the knowledge that I Beat It Too? Heck, yes.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-30 10:18 pm (UTC)Also, your hateful teardown of Iron Widow was delightful to read.
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Date: 2022-04-30 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-30 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-30 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 07:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-02 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-04 11:03 am (UTC)Came across your post while looking for Iron Widow opinions, and glad to see someone else got the same impression I did. I often wonder why people bother to use these specific settings if they're going to ignore them entirely in the actual bodies of their novels.
I'm also growing increasingly impatient with published fiction that prides itself on being reminiscent of fanfic; I have nothing against fanfic, and a lot of it is well-written, but published fiction for me is about bringing the author's new, unique voice to something they want to explore creatively, and you can't really realise that freshness if you're promoting your work based on how well it apes established tropes. I dunno.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-05 07:25 pm (UTC)