u/Tomhur

Recently I've found myself getting interested in Titanic again, and you know what? Since I might be going to a bookstore soon, I think it's time to consider getting another book on this topic.

So, what are some great Titanic books to check out? I'm open to fiction as well as nonfiction.

And to help you get an idea of what my tastes are, here are some of the Titanic books I have read.

Iceberg by Jennifer Nielsen

A Night To Remember by Walter Lord

Titanic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson (This one is my personal favorite.)

And the trilogy of Titanic books I'm reading at the moment, Unsinkable, Collision Course, and S.O.S. by Gordon Korman

Also, yeah, if you can't tell, I read YA and MG books. Don't judge me, please.

So anyway, hit me with your best Titanic book recommendations!

Been working on a long fic for the past two years. It's a Transformers story that's also a Hasbroverse story as well as a crossover with the books of Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson, Kane Chronicles, Magnus Chase, Daughter of the Deep, etc.).

I've been posting it to Fanfic . net and Ao3, but recently I've been thinking about posting it on Spacebattles as well. Both to get more eyes on the fic and also because I've heard it's easy to get engagement there. Which I would appreciate considering I've been starved for some good engagement for a while...

That said, I'm also nervous. While I would like to have some engagement and constructive criticism, I'm also really sensitive, and I...don't know if I'm the best writer. Particularly with fight scenes. I try my best of course, but I'm critical of myself. And I'm scared of people being too harsh. So this could either be a good way to get the engagement and constructive criticism I want to get...or it could just be setting myself up to get me feeling like a loser because of how harsh the internet can get (no offense to those here who post on spacebattles and do try to be constructive to writers)

So what do you think? Should I post on Spacebattles or not?

I like the premise of monsters getting redeemed. I like the Minotaur getting redeemed. I liked Hazel's role in the story. I liked Will's mom getting a chance to show up and help out. I liked the villain, and I think it's neat that it's taken this long to do an "expose the hidden world" story in this universe. The humor was alright at points too.

That's it. I just wanted to inject some positivity about the more recent books in this sub if that's alright.

The child of Minerva thing was still dumb though.

Johnsons run: BOOO!!!! So many characters are dying! We hate it! You're wasting so many beloved fan favorites!

Kirkman's run: BOOO!!!! He's refusing to kill off anybody and bringing back characters Johnson has killed off! The stakes that Johnson set up are being ruined!

(Sigh)

I mean, with the recent reveal of you know who in M.A.S.K. Issue #3, it just feels inevitable at this point.

I can see Kirkman and co. incorporating them as a world Darak and Solila end up coming across for one reason or another. Maybe not in this current arc, but somewhere down the road.

Deathly Hallows body count just...bugs me.

Now full disclosure, I'm a sensitive soul, so it's probably just a "me" problem, but this is something I've been grappling with since I first finished the book back in March, and I've been having a hard time properly putting together and articulating why the body count of DH bothers me so much and why it feels so mean-spirited to me...

And this isn't a problem of me not being able to stand when characters get killed. I've experienced plenty of media that have featured deaths of major characters and enjoyed them. Like the Mass Effect trilogy, a lot of Transformers media, the various books of the Riordanverse, Breaking Bad, or Better Call Saul (haven't finished that one).

But none of them have really bothered me in the way DH has. Not even>! Jason's death !<in Burning Maze bothered me to that degree. Even if I hated it, I at least understood why it happened and felt it served a narrative purpose.

And like I said, I'm having a hard time articulating why. Because there were several times when I was reading Deathly Hallows and a character died and I just felt uncomfortable while reading it.

The two in particular that bothered me most were Hedwig's and Crabbe's deaths, the former in particular. Hedwig because she died helplessly in her cage and Crabbe because he was a minor getting murdered.

And the thing is, I know this is supposed to be tragic. I know this is supposed to represent the cost of war, to get me invested in the plot and want me to see the Death Eaters pay for causing this. But these deaths didn't make me go, "Darn you, Voldemort, for causing all this death! We will stop your evil and bring you to justice!" it made me think. "I hate this story for making me read this."

I just... I don't know why it bothers me so much, and I'm still trying to pin it down.

Again, maybe it's just me; maybe I'm just a sensitive soul, but again, I don't have this problem with other pieces of media, so why does it bother me in Deathly Hallows specifically?

The closest I can get to explaining why is because after a while, when you kill off so many characters, it just starts feeling mean after a while.

Like to use an example. The Energon Universe's Transformers comic has become infamous for its gratuitous body count, and while people tolerated it at first, I think Trailbreaker's death was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back because of how unnecessary it was. That was the first death I saw people getting legitimately angry over.

But that can't explain all of it, because Hedwig is the first casualty, and that death is probably the one that bothered me the most!

If you can help me figure this out, I would really appreciate it...

Okay, cards on the table. I like the show. I like the action scenes. I like Walker as Percy, I like Charlie as Luke I like Djor as Clarisse, I like seeing what changes they make to mix things up, I like how they made Medusa a case of "Freudian excuse is no excuse," I like Circe's update, and I like how the Sirens were handled. In general I just like the show overall despite its flaws, and I understand why others would take issue with it (I don't hate the Thalia change at the end of Season 2, but i don't love it either even if I get why it was made).

And yet paradoxically, there's a part of me that wishes it had never been made. Not because I think it's bad, but because I just hate what's happened to the fandom in the wake of it.

It's not fun to be a Percy Jackson fan anymore. It feels like the extremely divisive nature of the show has just bled into the books, and it feels like no one has anything good to say about the series anymore.

The discourse hasn't been fun lately. It feels like it's just been a bunch of opinionated people shouting down dissenters. Everything around anything PJO-related has become intensely negative, and it's just disheartening as a long-time fan who got into writing because of this series.

I'm not saying we can't have criticism, but it doesn't feel like the criticism lately has felt constructive; it feels like hate and a desire to tear down the series and expose the fact it was never good at all.

And yeah, yeah, I know. "The newer books are bad." That's one reason people have cited for why the discourse has gotten so negative. You know what though? I'm going to say it: they're not as good as the earlier books, but they aren't that bad. I actually really liked Court of the Dead! I thought it had an interesting villain and premise, because I really like stories of people choosing to be better. I like it a lot more than Sun and the Star which was just boring. Also I liked Hazel in it.

Maybe the reason I'm finding it easier to tolerate the later, not-as-good books is because... I'm content with things. I thought Tower of Nero had one of the best book endings I've ever read. It's an ending that works as a finale not only to TOA but also to the Camp Half-Blood series as a whole. So if Riordan just wants to tell silly small-scale stories from now on, sure go ahead. I got my perfect ending; as long as that's not messed with, I'm fine.

I remember making a post right before the show started where I reminded people that, no matter what, even if the show was bad or mid, we'd always have the original books, and they weren't going anywhere. The post had a positive response, so I assumed we were all better than this and we'd all respect each other's opinions...

Like I said though, Instead it feels like the hatred for the show has started bleeding into the books even the ones released before the show. Blood's in the water, so now all the sharks are ready to feed.

I saw this shit go down in the Star Wars fandom, and I'm seeing it happen in another fandom recently with Transformers and the Energon Universe comics....

And with the fate of Season 4 up in the air, it's very possible all this will have been for nothing.

All this has really made me wonder if book adaptations in general are really worth it in the end... Regardless of whether the original creator is involved or not. Unless the stars align, it just feels like no matter what they're destined to cause division and hatred in the fanbase.

I feel confused. Because I like the show. I want it to succeed and get all five seasons. But is it really worth it if this is the result? If we're all just waiting in suspense only to get the disappointing answer that it's not going to continue and get a proper ending? I shouldn't feel this way, and yet I do...

I don't even know who to be mad at. Riordan? Disney? The fans?

Man I hope The Wild Zone is good, if only so we can have positive things to talk about again...

Sorry for this really rambling post. I just had a lot of feelings I wanted to get out of my system.

Of the various Absolute titles that have been released so far, the thing I find really curious about Wonder Woman's is that it feels very out of place compared to other titles in the line.

Absolute Batman has a Bruce Wayne who has a lower-class upbringing and only one parent dead and is also a much darker (even by Batman standards) take on the Batman mythos.

Absolute Superman while sticking to many of the core tenets that make Clark the hero he is, features a Kal-El who remembers Krypton, and his different experiences have made him a much more cynical and brutal hero than his mainstream version.

Absolute Flash features a teenage Wally West being the first Flash of the Absolute universe and features him being homeless with no mentor or adult supervision and doesn't even use the Speed Force as the source of his power. Instead it's the Still Point.

Absolute Green Arrow is a murder mystery with the person who's usually Green Arrow dead (unless the guy in the costume ends up being Ollie resurrected. I haven't read it yet)

Absolute Green Lantern is a complete overhaul of the Green Lantern mythos right down to having its Green Lantern be a less mainstream one.

Absolute Martian Manhunter is again a complete overhaul of the mythos of Martian Manhunter.

By contrast, Diana is the one who feels the most like her original counterpart in feel and story. Her updated backstory of being raised by Circe because all the Amazons were banished wouldn't feel out of place in a mainstream version of Wonder Woman (and honestly, I kind of prefer that, since I've always been more partial to versions of Circe who are more morally flexible than flat out evil), and a lot of the classic staples of her mythos are still there, just with minor reinventions.

There's still a Steve Trevor who Diana meets when he ends up trapped on her island home; she still goes into man's world to fight for justice, and Diana herself is more or less unchanged in personality and powers.

Now I'm not saying all this to knock Absolute Wonder Woman; it's still a fantastic comic. I'm just saying it makes the book feel a little odd compared to the other Absolute titles, which have all tried to up the ante in terms of a dark tone with grim backstories for our heroes and more or less completely overhauling their origins to serve that.

This could be intentional. From what I've gathered, it seems like they're setting up Wonder Woman to be the paragon of the Absolute Universe, and Diana being the most like her mainstream version would service that. She is the one who ends up befriending another hero first when she meets Batman (I should note I haven't read that story yet since I'm reading mostly from the trades and Vol. 3 isn't released).

Like I said, I'm not saying this makes Absolute Wonder Woman bad; it's just something interesting to note is all...

The Book of Henry is one of those special kinds of movies. The kind of movie where you just wonder "what the hell were they thinking?". It's almost a perfect mix of baffling decisions and tone-deaf writing.

In case you're unaware of this movie, it's a film that came out in 2017, and its plot is...well...

(Sigh) one of the reasons this movie is hard to talk about is that it's so hard to know where to start with this thing.

Okay, in order to properly talk about the movie's plot, first we have to talk about Book of Henry's first problem; its presentation is completely off.

The movie is about a kid named Henry and his younger brother Peter and his mom Susan, with Henry supposedly being a child prodigy who's beloved by his family and classmates. The whole movie sets itself up as having a very happy-go-lucky tone that seems to be about early childhood and adventure, with a very old-fashioned and nostalgic presentation.

The problem is that the movie's plot is about Henry discovering that the girl next door, Christina is being abused by her stepfather Glenn. Henry naturally wants to find a way to help her out, but after discovering the head of the local CPC is Glenn's brother (oh, how gosh-darn convenient) Henry begins to come up with a plan to kill him and have Christina adopted into their family. Yes, really.

And throughout all this, the movie tries to keep its sappy, family-movie-esque feel, which just makes the whole thing feel confused and tone-deaf.

Henry himself is completely unlikeable. He's supposed to be this child genius with a strong sense of right and wrong, but he comes off more as a condescending and patronizing control freak with an "I know best" attitude. This is best exemplified with his relationship to his mom Susan.

See Susan's kind of a bit immature because... she likes to play video games. That's it. And yet Henry condescends and tries to police what she does constantly, even pushing her to give up her waitressing job so she can spend more time with the family because thanks to his work in the stock market she doesn't need to work anymore (yeah, there's this whole thing where Henry is such a genius he's a master stockbroker and basically has set the family up for life; just go with it).

We're also told that Henry is popular in school and beloved by everyone, but what we see is that Henry's kind of a brat who can't stand most people around him due to them not being as smart as he is, and he doesn't seem to have any close friends besides Christina and Peter.

Speaking of Christina, that's another big problem the movie has. Saving her from her abusive household is the main goal of the story, and yet Christina herself is pretty much a nonentity. She and Henry are supposed to be close friends (in fact, it's heavily implied the two have feelings for each other), and yet Henry never bothers to involve her in his plan, get her input, empower her or give her any form of agency. She's just a living prop, all things considered.

And then at the halfway point, the movie takes a sudden turn when Henry gets brain cancer out of nowhere and dies...no, really, he dies.

From there, the movie shifts focus to Susan as she's struggling to deal with the grief of her son dying. But before Henry died, he left behind a series of audiocassettes so Susan could carry out the plan to kill Christina's stepfather in his stead.

Yes, the movie is now about a kid coaching his mom to become an assassin from beyond the grave. It's so stupid.

This kind of ties into one of the bigger issues the movie has. It doesn't seem to know what its message is. At one point, Henry and his family witness a guy beating his girlfriend in a store. Henry wants to intervene, but Susan tells him it's none of their business. Henry then laments later that he should have done something (even dodging Susan's question about what he could have done in that situation) and declares that apathy is worse than violence.

So it feels like the movie is setting up a message about how apathy is bad and sometimes you need to take action even if it involves violence...except at the end, right when Susan is about to shoot the stepfather, she suddenly remembers, "Wait. Henry's just a child" and doesn't go through with shooting Glenn

So wait, is the message actually about how for all of Henry's intellect, he's still a kid and he shouldn't be taken seriously? But that would require the story to...you know, show Henry to be wrong about certain things, and he's portrayed as more or less correct about everything.

In fact it's heavily implied that if Susan had shot Glenn, Henry's plan would have worked perfectly. Because...

Oh man I have to explain this....

Okay, so to rewind for a bit, during the first half of the movie when Henry was alive, he tried to go to the Principal of his school Janice, to try and get her to report Glenn's child abuse. Janice doesn't, citing the lack of evidence, even though Henry points out Christina has been coming to school with bruises...that we never see.

Also side note, that's not how that works. School faculty are required by law to investigate possible cases of child abuse.

Later during a talent show, in a perfect example of a terrible deus ex machina ending, Janice sees Christina perform a sad dance, and this is what gets her to do her job and report the child abuse. Glenn upon being found out, kills himself. Thus saving Christina from him and neatly allowing her to be adopted by Susan without Susan needing to get her hands dirty.

Back on the whole thing about the message, this makes the idea that "Henry is a kid and shouldn't be taken seriously" fall apart, because it's more or less implied that if Susan had shot Glenn, his plan would have worked perfectly!

I guess you could argue the movie is still about how apathy is bad because Janice reports Christina's abuse to the police instead of ignoring it like she has been, but she does this without any of the other characters' involvement or prompting. And even still, Susan, the main character, doesn't take action.

So what is the message of this movie? What's the takeaway we're supposed to have here?

The best I can figure is that it's a story about how moms should be more attentive to their families, because the movie seems to show Susan choosing to quit her job and live off Henry's stock market savings and become a picture book author as a sign of maturity and growth...which is what Henry was pushing her to do so—

What is the message of this movie!?

And that's The Book of Henry's biggest problem. It's so gosh darn confused about what it wants to be. The tone is confused, the message is confused, the characters are inconsistent, and in the end, it doesn't seem to be about anything...

This is a point I've been reflecting on after I've had some time to think on, especially after talking to some other HP fans.

I've made it clear in the past I think the Wizarding World is a dystopian toxic elitist dump of a world, and it's not appealing to me at all as an escapist fantasy. And a lot of people defended it by arguing that it's not meant to be a perfect escapist fantasy world. It's meant to be a reflection of the real world and all its problems.

And I get that, but at the same time... I still don't really feel it, and I think there's a specific reason for it.

The people of the Wizarding World don't feel real to me.

Because here's the thing, yes, the Wizarding World's problems are meant to be a reflection of our problems...

But hardly anyone responds to them like a real person most of the time.

Because in the real world, people push back against injustice all the time. People protest, they get angry, they fight, they go against established norms, and they do their best to change things, even if it's not overnight.

And if real people saw the shit that goes on in the Wizarding World, people would push back against it, and we'd see them push back against it.

We'd be seeing muggleborns who are offended by the fact the bigoted pure-blooded families like the Malfoys still have so much power and influence in the government. And I don't just mean them getting annoyed at Draco at school or shaking their fists ineffectually at them; I mean people would be leading protests outside the Malfoy Manor and maybe even try to burn it down.

There would be muggleborns who question and raise a fuss at Salazar Slytherin still being put on this pedestal by Hogwarts even though he was a bigot whose influences on politics are still being felt to this day and whose house is a breeding ground for future racists.

There would be families who refuse to give up their squib kids and reassure them that even if they're born without magic, they still have value and they love them and they won't send them away. And they'd fight to make sure squibs have equal rights.

You only have to look at the massive amount of protests in the real world towards injustices like this to see this. I remember a while back there was a lot of controversy because people kept vandalizing statues of confederate leaders.

And yet, despite the books having a huge focus on societal issues, we never get told any of this sort of thing happening behind the scenes. We see people fighting against Voldemort, but we never see or get told of anyone fighting the good fight against the societal issues that created him in the first place.

The characters will bring up how unfair things are, but no one will make any serious attempts to change things. Hermione is the only character who attempts to make lasting systematic change by protesting against House Elf slavery, and yet even though she's supposed to be the Minister for Magic by the time of the epilogue, it doesn't seem like anything has changed for the Wizarding World.

And to be fair, some people are so accustomed to being raised in certain systems that it never occurs to them something might be wrong with those systems. This is demonstrated in the series with Ron and a few other wizard characters. The issue is, we don't see many other examples besides this.

Also on a side note, I can't take anyone who tries to argue, "Not all issues can be fixed in a day," as a defense for why not all societal issues get solved in HP. Because even though that's true, Hermione is the Minister for Magic in the epilogue. AKA the president of the Wizarding World. How is that not a position to make lasting, permanent change? How are the House Elves not free yet!?

And it's not just the lack of any real protest to the societal issues that bothers me; it's other things too.

In the real world, there would absolutely be muggleborns who don't want to get a magical career; they'd want to get "normal" human jobs. And vice versa. There'd be Wizards who are curious about muggles and want to get normal human jobs as well. There'd also be muggles who don't feel comfortable spending all their school year away from their families.

Also, why don't we get to see how muggles who are familiar with the magical world react to it? We know muggles who are related to wizards are exempt from the statute of Secrecy, and yet for some reason, we never get their perspective on things, except for the Dursleys for some reason. Infamously, Hermione's parents never show up in the books despite her being one of the leads. We know muggles who are privy to the magical world exist; it'd have to be a decent number of people if blood purity really doesn't matter, so why don't we ever see what they think of all of this?

We don't see any of this. Instead, all muggleborns seem instantly okay with just leaving everything behind to be a wizard, and all wizards are completely clueless about how the muggle world works.

The end result of all this is that the people in the Wizarding World don't feel real to me. Sure, the Wizarding World may have "real" problems...but we don't see people react to them like real people do.

And I think this might because Rowling doesn't seem very interested in exploring other perspectives. She's a very incurious writer, it seems.

Even if Rowling seems to agree that wizard supremacy and blood purity are nonsense, it's clear that she still views wizards as inherently superior to muggles, identifies more with them, and doesn't seem to understand why anyone would not want to come live in the Wizarding World. You only have to see the vast majority of Wizard characters being pure-blood and half-bloods to see that. Hermione is the only major muggle-born character in the series. Every other muggleborn is either secondary or a side character.

Despite the story ostensibly being about how blood purity doesn't matter because wizards with muggle blood aren't any different, Rowling refuses to explore the muggle half of the equation. Even though it logically should be a factor, given the massive amount of muggles who would have to be aware of the wizarding world. Instead, she ends up spending much more time exploring the history of the WW and the wizards' perspective on things because those are the characters she's actually interested in writing and exploring.

This isn't inherently wrong to be fair. Lots of stories can focus mostly on "the specials" rather than "the normals." But it becomes questionable at best when the story is supposedly sending a message about bigotry and how bigotry against the "normals" and people related to them is bad, but I'll stop myself before I end up repeating bits of earlier rants.

I also think in cases like Wizards not understanding how muggle stuff works, it's clear she was really attached to the recurring joke about muggles being clueless about normal mundane human stuff. And yeah, it's funny in isolation, but when the world tries to take itself more seriously, it just becomes stupid that Wizards don't have a clue about how Muggles live.

This is something I've noticed pops up a lot whenever there's a discussion about Harry Potter. There are always one or two people who always bring this up as a defense of JKR's writing.

"You're overanalyzing a book for kids. It's not meant to make sense or be perfect" or some variations of that.

I hate this so much because it ignores something critical.

There are so many other kids books that don't have the same problems.

There are kids books out there that actually have thought and effort put into their worldbuilding; that shine a lot on systemic issues, and instead of going, "Well, that's just the way it is," they go, "maybe we can't fix everything, but we should still do something"; that have a divide between the "normals" and the "specials" but make it a point to remember the "normals" are human beings too and aren't lesser because they're "normal"; and so much more. I can list some of those kids books right now if you want.

There's no excuse for several of Harry Potter's flaws. "Being a kids' book" just excuses stuff like why the heroes are children and not adults. It doesn't excuse things like putting so much focus on systemic issues only to resolve none of them, or the utterly terrible way the message of bigotry is portrayed.

Something that's been on my mind for a while is that I think "being a kids book" might have actually shielded Harry Potter from greater scrutiny in some ways.

I'm relatively new to the Harry Potter discussion train, but it's stuff like this that makes me realize why the "read another book" notion came about.

I recently finished a book series called Story Thieves. It was a great series; it was a really fun meta look at not just books but the nature of storytelling in general, and it had a great overarching villain. But it's not without flaws, and one of those flaws was that I felt the ending was slightly abrupt. I won't get into specifics because it's not important/it would take too long to explain the full context, but basically the epilogue is more or less just one chapter, which results in character resolutions feeling rushed. It's not bad; I just wish we had one or two more chapters to wrap everything up.

And that got me thinking about a topic that's been on my mind for a while.

I want long endings.

Everyone and their mom has made fun of Return of the King and its multiple endings, but damn it, I want endings like that. I want endings where the story takes its time to wrap everything up. Where we get to see what the characters will do with their lives now that the big bad is defeated and the main conflict is resolved.

If the story just rushes through the ending, that just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. You spend all this time getting me invested in the characters, in their personal journeys and struggles, and if you're going to rush the ending, it's not going to feel satisfying.

To bring up an example of a series that does this really well, I think Trials of Apollo had a near-perfect ending. In the final book Tower of Nero the last few chapters are a now-restored-to-godhood Apollo visiting all the friends and allies he made along the way in the series, and we get to see what everyone's lives are like now that the story is over. It works as not just a finale to Trials of Apollo but also to the Riordanverse as a whole. To the point that if Riordan brings out another "big stakes" series after this book, I'm going to feel annoyed.

By contrast, you have something like Mass Effect 3, that has a very rushed ending, which even with the extended cut doesn't feel as satisfying as it should. You don't really get to see the full effects of how you saved the galaxy from the Reapers in it. The extended cut helps certainly, but I still would have liked to have time to enjoy the aftermath of victory for myself. Not just seeing a slide show.

In conclusion, Return of the King's multiple endings were heros... we just couldn't see it

So I've been getting into the Absolute Universe lately, and I've been enjoying it for the most part. And probably one of my favorite titles in the line is Absolute Superman.

I feel like of all the Absolute Titles I've read so far, Absolute Superman embodies the mission statement of the Absolute Universe line the best.

The Kal-El of Absolute Superman is not the Superman we're all used to.

This is a Kal-El who remembers Krypton and saw the absolute worst of humanity (in a sense) in the lead-up to its destruction. A Kal-El who never got to have the life with the Kents he should have. A Kal-El who feels he has no place or home to call his own. A Kal-El who has every right to be cynical and brutal.

And yet through all this, Kal-El is still Superman. He still fights to help the little guy; he saves lives and does small, little tasks for normal people. A man who took time out of his day to comfort a dying child. A man who inspires people to be better. And most of all, a man who refuses to give in to his inner demons and kill people.

Probably one of the best parts of the entire run is when Superman is facing Ras Al Ghul at the end of the Battle of Kansas arc. True to form, after being goaded during the entire fight, Superman refuses to kill him and instead hands him over to people to give him a proper trial. And then Superman goes to visit him in jail in the hopes he can help him turn a new leaf despite how futile it seems!

That's why I think this book embodies the mission statement of the Absolute Universe line the best.

You can take away the family, you can take away his fortress, you can take away his home.

But he's still Superman.

So here's the thing, I'm not a fan of the Descendants movies. While I like the concept of exploring the children of iconic Disney characters, I find the franchise in general to be really bafflingly stupid: stupid characters, stupid story choices, stupid worldbuilding, stupid everything.

But this new movie Wicked Wonderland was so bad, it honestly gave me a new appreciation for the first three films. And because I and a friend of mine are Disney fans who are gluttons for punishment, we both sat down and watched the movie last weekend.

If you saw my rant on Rise of Red a few weeks ago, you'll remember my chief complaint was the abysmally slow plot where it felt like nothing was happening for most of its runtime.

Wicked Wonderland has the opposite problem. The plot is on freaking overdrive. Everything feels like it's in a rush to get to the next plot point, because we have too much stuff happening.

There's the main plot involving the son of the Mad Hatter, Maddox, who went evil due to Red and Chloe's time travel antics in the last movie, kidnapping the Queen of Hearts, so Red and Chloe and a whole new cast of characters have to go to Wonderland to rescue her.

Then there are subplots like Red dealing with the fact she has a new sister, Pink, who didn't exist in the original timeline; her romance with Luis the son of Luisa Madrigal (yeah *Encanto'*s a part of this series now; more about that in a bit); stuff involving Maddox's son Max; Chloe and Red having a falling out for dumb reasons; and introducing a bunch of new characters because we want to introduce as many new characters as possible because this is a soft reboot.

It's just too much for an hour and a half TV movie, and everything and everyone feels painfully underdeveloped. It's just so boring, and there's no reason to care about anyone or anything here. I honestly feel like it would have been better if they went for a much more low-stakes plot involving Red needing to adjust to having a sister who didn't exist before or something. Not this big adventure to save Wonderland!

So let's get into some of the individual problems here.

For starters, there's this whole thing where Maddox's son Max is now a VK because his dad is evil in the new timeline. The thing is, though, this falls completely flat because we haven't seen Max before. This movie is his introduction, and yet it expects the audience to care about the fact his life basically got ruined because of the timeline change. If Max had been seen in the previous movie, this would have had more impact. Instead it's clunkily rushed through.

Secondly, Encanto is in this franchise now, and it sticks out like a sore thumb because A) It's a Disney property that didn't even exist when the first Descendants movie came out, B) it's not based on an existing fairy tale or book, and C) it's not 2D like most of the other films featured here (apparently Rapunzel's kid is in some of the tie-in stuff, but that's still not the films).

Thirdly, the whole thing with Pink and Red is so underdeveloped it's painful, and it gets solved when Red just magically gets her memories of the new timeline and Pink at random. I suppose it could be going with the idea that her memories are realigning, which some time travel stories have, but in context, it comes off as a deus ex machina solution to the subplot.

Fourthly, I feel so bad for Brandy Norwood and Paolo Montalban in this. They're brought back to play Cinderella and Prince Charming again for a second time*,* and they're given fuck all to do in this. Montalban especially since he doesn't get to interact with anybody.

Fifthly: Continuing these movies' trends of conflict for the sake of conflict, Chloe and Red have a falling out for flimsy reasons, and it's dumb.

Sixthly: As another post earlier today brought up, there are too many characters in this. It's to the point they had to write out Felix (Son of the Shadow Man) and Robbie (Son of Robin Hood...who for some reason is not an anthro fox) twice.

Seventhly: There's something that just...bugs me about the way the plot goes down.

Like yeah, Red and Chloe's primary reason for changing history in the last movie was in order to save the day in the last film... But there's something about it that feels...morally iffy to me.

Because it's made clear that Red enjoys the fact she got the mom she always wanted.

Which is like...nice and all, but the fact she doesn't seem to show any real concern over the fact she turned Maddox evil really bothers me. Mainly because by her own admission Maddox was one of her only friends in the old timeline.

It kind of makes Red look selfish. Like she doesn't care how much damage she did to the timeline so long as she got what she wanted.

Like, the reason this kind of ending worked in Back to the Future is because A) Marty didn't set out to "Fix" his family; he just wanted to stop himself from dying, and B) while it was kickstarted by Marty's interference, George ultimately gains more confidence of his own accord, so he has more agency in the person he becomes in the new timeline.

Here though, Red and Chloe effectively... I wouldn't call it "brainwashing," but rewrote history without Bridgett/Queen of Hearts' consent or agency and ruined the lives of two friends of theirs.

Which leads to the eighth problem I'm going to cite. Everything wraps up too neatly. Like Maddox is captured, and Max forgives Red for wrecking his life (for flimsy reasons), but no one seems to care or acknowledge that Red still kinda fucked up an entire family's life. She doesn't even really own up to it. Everyone just moves on and forgets about it.

And finally, there's a major time travel plothole in this. You see, the reason Maddox went evil is because he saw Chloe and Red time travel when they were in the past and went "mad" trying to figure out the secrets of time travel, and I guess he was so extreme about it he was banished to the Isle of the Lost over it. Because of this he never got around to inventing the pocket watch Chloe and Red used in the last movie in this new timeline.

You probably noticed the problem here: if Maddox didn't invent the time travel watch in the new timeline, then how the hell does the watch still exist, and how did Chloe and Red time travel last movie if the watch was retroactively never made!?

It's a paradox!

The one thing i'll give this movie is that it introduces the kid of the Cheshire Cat. At least now they're finally starting to acknowledge the animal characters of the Disney verse.

This movie is just a mess. It's better than Rise of Red if only because it doesn't feel like a chunk of the movie is missing and has a fun villain who had some interesting potential, but that's it.

And watching this movie gave me a whole new appreciation for the first three Descendants movies. I still don't think they're "good," but at least it felt like they were made by people who knew how to tell a decently paced story in an hour and a half. At least it knew how to make each character feel unique and have a distinct personality. At least I kinda sorta cared about what was happening even if it was dumb.

Great job Wicked Wonderland; you made me, a critic of the Descendants franchise, into a fan of the first three movies. That's a level of fail I never thought possible.

Okay so...this is a post with a bit of a story, so please hear me out for a bit.

Percy Jackson was my childhood book series growing up. I took a break from it for a few years and came back to play catch-up when the show was coming out. And I still love the series to death, to the point I'm writing fanfiction for it.

But why does it feel like the discourse has been so...negative towards it lately?

Like, I don't know what happened, but ever since Wrath of the Triple Goddess came out, the discourse surrounding Percy Jackson has become incredibly negative. And I'm not just talking about the show or the more recent books like the aforementioned Wrath or Court of the Dead (which I liked for the record); I mean, like, this negative sentimentally is towards stuff that was in the earlier novels, including the original five books.

Basically it feels like nobody, not even the supposed fans of the series even likes Percy Jackson anymore, which is just so odd to me. I remember a couple of years ago, everyone loved Percy Jackson, and even if there were flaws, people generally agreed the books were good in spite of those flaws. But nowadays it feels like people just want to hate on the series and claim it was never good, even the people who claim to be fans of Percy Jackson.

And I feel like part of the reason I find this all confusing is...partly because of Harry Potter.

So full disclosure here, I didn't grow up with Harry Potter. I only read Harry Potter in full for the first time earlier this year. I read the first three books a few years ago, but a combination of Rowling going nuts and the sheer length of the later books kind of discouraged me from continuing onward. I did get to it earlier this year and...

Okay, look, I wanna be clear here; I did go into these books wanting to like them, and I did enjoy the first three books and book five (I think book five is actually my favorite of the seven), but I found Goblet, Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows to be on the weaker side; DH in particular was such a bad ending IMO it kind of soured my opinion of the series as a whole. I don't wanna say it's all bad, but I just can't call myself a fan of the series. I could go on and on as to why Harry Potter isn't my cup of tea, but that's not the point of this post (and I've already made way too many posts on the topic anyway, which I'm trying to cut down on)

And as someone who's really into media analysis, I've been trying to argue in detail why I think Percy Jackson (or other book series, for that matter) is better than Harry Potter, but whenever I do so, I get met with a lot of mockery from people who seem to think I'm a moron for finding fault with Harry Potter and thinking Percy Jackson is better.

Okay, so after that way too long explanation to give context, here's where I'm going with this post.

I don't understand where all this hate/disdain/apathy/disregard for Percy Jackson came from.

Like I said, I remember a time when Percy Jackson was beloved. People praised the series as being a great story for kids and adults, and when Rowling went nuts, people recommended Percy Jackson as a viable alternative to Harry Potter with the general consensus being that Percy Jackson was the better series overall.

But nowadays it feels like that isn't the case anymore. That Percy Jackson isn't good; it pales in comparison to Harry Potter, and Rick Riordan isn't a good writer; he's just some dummy who got lucky.

And I don't get it. What happened? What changed?

Is it because of the show? The newer books? But why do those not being as good as the earlier books (even if I like them) mean suddenly the earlier books are bad?

I don't get it, and I'm struggling to figure it out.

I know it's been a recent thing for people to complain about Riordan's tendency to forget details and for him to not reread his own books.

But here's the thing, and I know I'm gonna ruffle some feathers by saying this.

It's a totally normal occurrence with writers.

So here's the thing about writing.

It can blow up in ways you can't imagine.

Sometimes, what starts as a simple story can end up ballooning into something huge. The world gets big, stories become longer, the character roster gets expanded, and in general there's just a lot to keep track of.

And it's kind of insane to expect perfection when it comes to continuity.

A lot of writers forget the stuff they wrote in their books. It's not unique to Riordan. I haven't read any of A Song and Ice and Fire but from my understanding and what I've looked into, George R.R. Martin has a similar problem with forgetting minor details (he even got a horse's gender wrong, just like Rick did.)

Because the thing is, most writers don't obsessively pore over their work like the fans do and try to absorb every detail. Most writers just write the book they're working on, finish it, and then move on with their lives and possibly the next book. And maybe a certain detail they wrote doesn't mean the same thing to them as it does to the fans.

And when the book series they're writing is over a decade old, expecting perfect continuity is, to be blunt, asking a bit too much.

I even have personal experience with this sort of thing. See I'm beta reading for an author right now who also has a book universe that's pretty huge (I'm not saying who or for what book due to privacy reasons), and legit half my job is making sure the continuity stays on track. And they've been really appreciative of the work I've put in.

In short, Rick Riordan not rereading his own books and/or getting plot details wrong is not some egregious sin when it comes to writing an expansive book universe. It's a normal thing every writer goes through when they work on a verse like this.

I hope you don't mind me discussing a middle grade book here, but even if this book falls under that category, it gave me enough to think about that I thought it was an interesting topic to explore.

Anyways, let's talk Monster Camp, a middle grade book I read earlier this year that is probably one of the most underrated books I've ever read, and I feel it deserves more love and attention.

Monster Camp by Sarah Henning is a middle grade book released in 2023. The book itself focuses around a girl named Slyvia Shaw. She's a horror fanatic who loves monsters and things that go bump in the night, and she's also a huge LARP (live action roleplaying) fangirl who loves to pretend to be a vampire.

However, Sylvia is the only one among her peers at school who's interested in LARPing, which has caused her to become something of an outcast where she lives. It doesn't help that her father keeps trying to dissuade Slyvia from her monster interests, even though Slyvia knows deep inside this is who she is.

When Slyvia discovers a specially marked invitation to a summer camp called "Monster Camp," Slyvia assumes the place must be a camp for people like her who love pretending to be monsters. Despite her dad's objections, Slyvia manages to sneak her way over to the camp.

When she gets to Monster Camp, Slyvia marvels at the high production values and everyone's commitment to the bit...until she sees a witch turn a werewolf boy into a dog. Upon seeing real magic in front of her, Slyiva realizes this can only mean one thing. Monster Camp is a camp for real monsters, and who knows what they'll do to her if they discover she's a human pretending to be a vampire?

So like I said, I thought this book was really underrated and sweet. It's a story about finding a place where you belong with your fellow outcasts as Slyvia makes friends with all the monsters in the camp, especially half-vampire Vera who ends up becoming the best friend Slyvia always wanted/needed in her life.

It's a pretty traditional "hidden world" story that kids' books often deal with, in this case dealing with monsters who live in hiding from humans, but that doesn't make it bad at all. In fact one detail I really appreciated about the book is that, while it does make it clear the monsters need to keep themselves secret lest the humans hunt them down out of fear (and there are special groups of monster hunters roaming around the earth), there are also plenty of good humans who are in on the secret and help monsters out. It doesn't just shove all of humanity into one box marked 'bad."

But I want to talk about a specific element in this book I found interesting and I felt was worth discussing.

As a story about monsters living in hiding because of the persecution humans put them through, there are naturally a lot of allegories and metaphors going around for marginalized groups. For example, that half-vampire girl Vera I talked about faces prejudice and "otherness" even from her fellow monsters, because one of her parents (her mom) is human. Thus local bully Chad the werewolf uses her as an easy target. It's clearly intended as a metaphor for how mixed-race people often face prejudice even in their own communities.

However, what interested me the most were the hidden LGBTQ themes that are in the story, although I'm not sure if author Sarah Henning intended them or not.

See, in case you're not aware. There's a history of LGBTQ people identifying heavily with monsters. They often find themselves drawn to them because of being able to relate to the feelings of persecution and feeling like an outcast. And they've often been used frequently as allegories for queer experiences.

And you could definitely read some LGBTQ allegories into Monster Camp's themes and ideas. In fact the Camp's director, Gert, is explicitly nonbinary (they go by they/them pronouns). The biggest example of LGBTQ allegory in my mind is how Slyvia's story ends. Although to do this, I'm going to have to get into spoilers. You've been warned.

(Spoilers start)

See, the big twist at the end of the novel is that Slyvia is like Vera, a half monster. It turns out Slyvia's mom is a werewolf, and Slyvia has her first shift into wolf at the very end. This doesn't come out of nowhere either; it's heavily foreshadowed and set up throughout the novel (for example, when Slyvia arrives at monster camp, the guard seemed to be expecting Slyvia to be something other than a vampire).

And I think with this in mind, it kind of reframes and recontextualizes Sylvia's story as an allegory for the queer experience, more specifically, the transgender experience.

Sylvia starts the story off identifying heavily with and pretending to be a monster. Wanting desperately to be a part of that world.

And then she ends up finding and bonding with a community of people just like her who share her interests and love of monsters and allow her to express her love of being a monster.

And at the end of the story Sylvia transitions into being a monster properly, the thing she always knew she was deep inside.

Granted, it is a bit wonky, admittedly. Partly because the monster Slyvia identified with at the start was a vampire, and she ended up becoming a werewolf. At the same time though, the text makes it explicitly clear that Slyvia doesn't care; she's just happy to be a monster and to be a proper part of the community she's come to love. So I still think it works for the most part.

(Spoilers end.)

Now I don't know how intentional this all was by Sarah Henning. I looked over the books she's written, and it doesn't look like she's written much queer fiction. So it's possible that she just wanted to write a fun book about outcasts and ended up dipping her toes into queer themes alongside the themes of the traditional outcast story.

I know I've just spent a lot of time talking your ear off about a middle grade book, but I assure you, this book is well worth a read. It's charming fun, and a sweet story about finding a place you belong.

If you don't mind reading middle grade books and/or you've got kids who are getting into reading, give this book a shot. You might find yourself impressed like I did.

Here's the thing.

I know from a purely objective standpoint, the House Elf stuff is undoubtedly worse. The idea itself of a race of beings inherently inclined to like slavery is extremely touchy and iffy; it dips into real-life slavery apologia, and the whole subplot is badly handled for reasons others have argued about in much better words than me.

But after thinking on it, I think the squib stuff bothers me more, at least on a personal level.

Like here's the thing. The house elf stuff is infuriating, there's no doubt about that.

Even if you want to argue that Rowling was trying to portray a morally complex topic regarding a race that wants to be enslaved, it's still handled pretty poorly. We're supposed to accept servitude is just a part of house elf culture so we can play off Hermione's efforts to free them as making fun of "white man's burden," but the problem is twofold: A) slavery is objectively horrible and B) the text makes it explicitly clear that house elves are abused and mistreated by their masters, and there's no system in place to protect them. Rowling does frame Hermione as being correct in identifying there's an injustice here but treats her methods as a joke.

There's also the fact the house elf subplot (probably unintentionally) dips into real-life slavery apologia ("They wouldn't know what to do with their freedom") with stuff like Winky becoming a drunken loser after her master frees her. Which reads as ignorant and tone-deaf at best and casually racist at worst.

Also side note, I find it very hypocritical that we're just supposed to accept that house elves' "naturally inclined to slavery" culture is something to be respected, but at the same time the goblins' culture of goblin-made artifacts being loaned out to wizards and the true owners being the goblins who made them is portrayed as an obstacle and an annoyance. I guess it's okay when one benefits the top dogs but the other doesn't, right?

The house elf slavery culture gets worse when you consider we don't get any background or history on how this arrangement between wizards and house elves came to be. Probably because there's no way to do it that doesn't make the wizards come across as total dicks. The most charitable interpretation is that house elves are inclined to servitude, and wizards took advantage of that because it made them easier to enslave; the less charitable interpretation is that house elves have been indoctrinated over the years to "enjoy" slavery.

But at least with the house elf stuff, there's at least some acknowledgment there's something wrong with it. Sure, the focus is in the wrong place (The problem that gets addressed isn't the house elves' enslavement; it's the way their masters treat them) and the whole subplot is crazy uncomfortable especially how nobody, not even her fellow muggleborns, takes Hermione seriously and even Hermione herself just seems to give up and decides to focus on helping house elves without getting rid of the system that oppresses them even after becoming the Minister for Magic. But again, at least there's some degree of acknowledgment that the house elf stuff has a problem with it. It's just handled horribly.

I can't say the same for squibs.

First off, the ministry of magic doesn't bother to keep records of squibs' births, effectively making them nonexistent in the eyes of the government, and they're all "encouraged" to integrate into Muggle society, away from their families.

And unlike the house elves, not once in the entirety of the seven-book series does someone say, "Hey, isn't it kind of messed up wizards separate kids from their families just for being born different?". It's never called out, it's never addressed, it's never challenged, and even "good" wizards like the Weasleys (who are supposed to be considered outcasts for liking muggles) consider squibs an embarrassing source of shame. No one, and I do mean no one sticks up for them.

If anything the story seems to argue that what the Wizarding World does to squibs is a "kindness" because "it'd be cruel for them to live as part of our world and never be able to properly be in it."

Yeah, I don't know about you, but I would rather stay with my fucking family, the people who are supposed to love and support me and let me know that it doesn't matter that I don't have magic; you still have a place in our hearts, and we love you and we're going to help you through this. But no! Apparently most wizarding families are perfectly okay with shunting their kids off because they didn't get born with the right genes.

And the more and more I learn about squibs based on what's in ancillary media, the more and more I get pissed off. Apparently squibs have tried protesting about all this, but they've been met with violence and hate for it, and based on how nothing seems to have changed, the protests haven't seemed to work at all.

Even the name "squib" is terrible. In case you don't know, it's based on a real phrase. "A damp squib." It means something that was supposed to provide joy but is a huge disappointment. And apparently in other languages, they're called abortions.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the impression I get from those names is that squibs are so much of a disappointment and embarrassment to the wizarding world that they never should have been born in the first place.

Do you have any idea how fucked up that is?!

And none of this is ever even discussed. Squibs are a total afterthought in the narrative. There are only two squib characters in the series, and both of them are unflattering for different reasons. Filch who's a minor antagonist and portrayed as a grouch, and while Figg is presented as on the side of the good guys, she's also clearly presented as a weirdo cat lady.

But one of the worst parts in my mind about all this is that all of what I just mentioned undermines the anti-bigotry message of the series.

Voldemort and his followers are supposed to be wrong for believing in blood purity because "it doesn't matter how you were born; it's what you choose to be," and yet for some reason, we're not supposed to think too hard about the fact even the good wizards cast out the "undesirables."

When you combine this with the fact that it's confirmed that magic is caused by a specific gene, it ends up showing that genetic superiority does matter in the Wizarding World. It's just Voldemort and his followers are more extreme about it because they want to kill everyone who's "inferior."

So not only is the squib stuff never called out, but its very existence and lack of acknowledgment of how problematic it is undermine the story's themes.

So yeah, that's why I think, at least to me, the squib stuff is worse in some ways. The house elf stuff is probably "worse" from an objective standpoint because it's an extremely centrist take on a real-life evil practice on top of taking up far more screen time, but the squib stuff has so many ableist undertones and doesn't seem to be condemned at all by the narrative that I find it more gross on a personal level.

Okay, so...to cut out all the context and just get a long story short, here's the rub.

I'm writing a crossover fanfiction involving the Riordanverse, and I'm trying to figure out if it makes any sense for the events that resulted in Apophis's release and Sadie and Carter's mom's death to take place roughly a year, maybe a year and a few months, after the events that caused Thalia to turn into a pine tree.

I'm asking because I'm heavily considering having my fanfiction cover those events, but at the same time I want to make sure the timeline mostly makes sense. Especially since i've already mucked the timeline up a bit because Annabeth spent around 3 months with Thalia and Luke rather than two weeks.

Like ideally, here's what I'd like it to be.

Thalia and Luke meet Annabeth.

One week later: meet crossover characters (long story, although those who recognize my username probably know who they are)

Three or Four months later: Thalia gets pine-treed, and Annabeth and Luke go to Camp Half-Blood.

One Month later: Luke and Annabeth reunite with crossover characters

Four Months Later: Luke and Annabeth have a crossover adventure.

Several indiscriminate months later, but it should roughly be a year or so, maybe a bit longer, since Thalia, Luke and Annabeth met crossover characters: crossover characters go on their latest adventure which doesn't involve Luke and Annabeth (which I'm writing right now)

Some time after that, crossover characters go on adventure that gets them involved with the events that killed Ruby Kane.

Does that make sense to anyone else?

And yes, I know it's a fanfiction, and I don't have to be 100% accurate to canon, but I'd still like it to be "close enough" if you know what I mean.

If anyone who is better with math can help me out here, I'd really appreciate it.