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The Good Luck Girls, by Charlotte Nicole Davis
Jun. 3rd, 2026 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rachelmanija
In a country with Wild West vibes, young girls are often sold to brothels, to become sex slaves when they come of age. They are given magical tattoos of buds when they're bought. These tattoos slowly grow and blossom into flowers that the girls are nicknamed for. They cause excruciating pain when they're covered up, preventing the girls from fleeing and blending into the populace. But this isn't the only barrier to escape. The entire wilderness area is haunted by angry ghosts that can take physical form and rip you to shreds.
On Clementine's inaugural rape night, her would-be rapist nearly suffocates her, and she brains him with a lamp. As she would be executed for that, she, her older sister Aster who's been a sex slave for years already, and three other girls manage to escape the brothel and flee in search of a rumored woman who can remove the magic tattoos.
By far the most interesting character in the book is Violet, the brothel bully, spoiled brat, and magical opium addict who is the only one who knows where to find the woman who will be their salvation, if she actually exists. As they flee across the haunted wilderness, they're pursued by magical slavecatchers, are joined by a boy, and meet some rebels. Clementine has a romance with the boy, two of the girls have a romance together, and Violet and Aster have intense feelings which hopefully go somewhere in the sequel.
This novel has an extremely cool setting and unusual worldbuilding. I love ensemble casts and wilderness traveling. I expected to adore this, but while I did enjoy reading it, I didn't love it. I had been under the impression that the girls all had different magical powers, which is my own fault for misreading the blurb, but I was disappointed that they don't have any, except that Clementine can talk to ghosts a bit. More importantly, only Aster and Violet, plus Clementine to some degree, get any real characterization. I was interested in them enough that I'll read the sequel, but the book overall felt like it should have been fantastic but ended up merely good.
Content notes: There is a very violent, graphic rape attempt in chapter one. That's it for that but the repercussions of years of sexual abuse are felt throughout the novel.
DNF report: The Living City
Jun. 3rd, 2026 09:25 amsholioI picked up "The Living City" by Des Fitzgerald at the bookstore a few weeks ago because it sounded interesting - the book's core premise is that trying to make cities "greener" (in the sense of more trees, more connection to nature, more intentional planning of green spaces within urban spaces, etc) is antithetical to the purpose of a city. So I wanted to see what he had to say about that.
The answer is: very little. This is essentially a book-length manifesto about how the entire concept of a green city is rooted in early-20th-century racism and fascism. There are some interesting ideas in here, but for a book whose entire premise is that trying to change cities into something else is wrong, bad, and also fascist, there's a surprising lack of actual positivity about cities as they currently exist. He just doesn't like the concept of planned cities, and especially city planning with the intent of introducing more nature into cities, based on the idea that green spaces are a more natural human environment. But he rarely brings up existing cities except to talk about how much he hates them, specifically. Paris? Awful. Copenhagen? Worst city he's ever been in. New York? Soulless grid. There's one chapter that opens with several pages dissing on Melbourne, Australia, for wanting to preserve its self-image as "a genteel outpost of European colonialism" because the residents are upset about all their trees dying in a drought. He doesn't seem to hate London as a whole (I GUESS) but mostly talks about it in the context of "fuck these specific neighborhoods in particular."
In case you're thinking this is because he'd rather be in the country - definitely not! He also hates the country. The worst thing about making cities greener is that it makes them more like the country. He refers to the part of Ireland he grew up in as "a bog" which he was glad to escape. The country is also terrible and the last thing cities want to do is be more like the country.
The truly baffling thing about this book is that it contains exactly zero content about the main thing I picked it up for: to find out what alternative he's proposing. Trees and other green spaces have obvious benefits that even he makes a nod to every now and then (cooling things down, trapping water, supporting wildlife, beneficial effects on the mental health of their residents, etc), plus most people who live in cities like them, and I was wondering what he was going to propose as an alternative, and he just - doesn't! What I knew from reading the blurb on the back of the book - that he feels cities are meant to be chaotic, grimy, full of machines and people but lacking in plants - is exactly as much as I know after reading 2/3 of the book. I guess I was expecting a paean to how cities in their modern chaos are flawed but great, and instead I got a book about how cities are almost uniformly terrible, but planned, green cities and the country are even worse, and also planting trees is a fascist tool to pacify the working class.
I didn't really DNF on purpose, so much as I put it down because I was reading other things and just never picked it back up again because the more time that went by without dealing with this guy's relentless negativity, the less I wanted to go back to it. So I guess it's a DNF.
The answer is: very little. This is essentially a book-length manifesto about how the entire concept of a green city is rooted in early-20th-century racism and fascism. There are some interesting ideas in here, but for a book whose entire premise is that trying to change cities into something else is wrong, bad, and also fascist, there's a surprising lack of actual positivity about cities as they currently exist. He just doesn't like the concept of planned cities, and especially city planning with the intent of introducing more nature into cities, based on the idea that green spaces are a more natural human environment. But he rarely brings up existing cities except to talk about how much he hates them, specifically. Paris? Awful. Copenhagen? Worst city he's ever been in. New York? Soulless grid. There's one chapter that opens with several pages dissing on Melbourne, Australia, for wanting to preserve its self-image as "a genteel outpost of European colonialism" because the residents are upset about all their trees dying in a drought. He doesn't seem to hate London as a whole (I GUESS) but mostly talks about it in the context of "fuck these specific neighborhoods in particular."
In case you're thinking this is because he'd rather be in the country - definitely not! He also hates the country. The worst thing about making cities greener is that it makes them more like the country. He refers to the part of Ireland he grew up in as "a bog" which he was glad to escape. The country is also terrible and the last thing cities want to do is be more like the country.
The truly baffling thing about this book is that it contains exactly zero content about the main thing I picked it up for: to find out what alternative he's proposing. Trees and other green spaces have obvious benefits that even he makes a nod to every now and then (cooling things down, trapping water, supporting wildlife, beneficial effects on the mental health of their residents, etc), plus most people who live in cities like them, and I was wondering what he was going to propose as an alternative, and he just - doesn't! What I knew from reading the blurb on the back of the book - that he feels cities are meant to be chaotic, grimy, full of machines and people but lacking in plants - is exactly as much as I know after reading 2/3 of the book. I guess I was expecting a paean to how cities in their modern chaos are flawed but great, and instead I got a book about how cities are almost uniformly terrible, but planned, green cities and the country are even worse, and also planting trees is a fascist tool to pacify the working class.
I didn't really DNF on purpose, so much as I put it down because I was reading other things and just never picked it back up again because the more time that went by without dealing with this guy's relentless negativity, the less I wanted to go back to it. So I guess it's a DNF.
Reading, May
Jun. 3rd, 2026 11:20 amcyphomandraHickory Dickory Dock, Agatha Christie (1955)
Third Girl, Agatha Christie (1966)
The Rowan, Anne McCaffrey (re-read)
After hours at Dooryard Books, Cat Sebastian
The face in the frost, John Bellairs
Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke
The unworthy, Agustina Bazterrica
Trial run, Dick Francis
Nine Goblins, T Kingfisher
The tournament, Matthew Reilly
Game Changer, Rachel Reid (re-read)
How to manage your home without losing your mind, Dana K White
Hickory Dickory Dock & Third Girl, Agatha Christie. Tidying up some Agathas. Hickory and Third Girl are definitely in Christie’s “modern times are rather poor stuff and the young people all wear terrible clothes” era, and while it is interesting to read her take on student hostels (Hickory) and flat sharing (Third Girl), Hickory has a lot of unexamined racial stereotypes and actual racism, and Third Girl (which I think was new to me) had a rather unbelievable denouement and a plot line in which a doctor marries his patient, which I never like.
After hours at Dooryard Books, Cat Sebastian. Patrick sells books in 1968 New York, sleeps with most of the gay male population of Greenwich Village in his spare time, and on his philanthropic landlady’s prompting offers a job at the bookshop and shelter there to Nathaniel, alone and obviously traumatised but reluctant to share his past, just before Nathaniel’s sister-in-law, a famous folk singer, shows up with a week-old baby and a “your husband just died in Vietnam” telegram. I thought I was going to like this more than any other Sebastian I’ve tried so far, and I probably do, but it runs on vibes and having all its sympathetic characters be terribly politically sound, and about two-thirds of the way through it was like someone pulled out the bath plug and all the remaining tension drained out of it. But I liked it and I’d probably re-read it once, although I’d set my expectations lower.
The Rowan,Anne McCaffrey (re-read). Why am I re-reading this when I never liked this series much in the first place and if I were going to re-read any of hers it should be Dragonflight? Weakness for psychic powers and a touch of contrariness, plus I still want to find my original paperbacks rather than use the library ebook. This has good bits (the psychic powers, the training, the way in which one trainer passes on their biases and unnecessarily traps all those training under her) and a lot of terrible, terrible romance and gender opinions, and from what I dimly remember this only amplifies in subsequent books. Maybe I should try and find my McGill Feighan books if I really want to read psychics working as shipping agents to the stars.
Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke. Tradwife influencer Natalie takes us, the readers/audience through a day on her idyllic farm in a way that highlights her hypocrisy (the unacknowledged/unfilmed staff, the financial backing by her right-wing in-laws, the uselessness of her husband at any farm chores means they constantly have to replace the cows, who all have the same names, etc, etc). The next day she wakes up, prepared to do it all over again - but there’s no power, no staff, no technology at all beyond the 1800s, and even her children are similar but not the same. It’s a great set-up and Natalie herself is a great, awful, character and, obviously, the true villain is the patriarchy. However I was only about 2/3rds convinced by the twist and I did think the ending moves the focus away from society to one individual’s choices in a way that lets society off a bit.
The face in the frost, John Bellairs. I’ve been meaning to read this for ages and while I enjoyed it (Bellairs is so great at making even the most mundane thing superlatively creepy in only a few sentences), I might have missed the window for loving it. I like both Prospero and Roger Bacon, I love the magic and the world-building and the horror, but I found the denouement a bit too ex machina and the characters not as compelling as the leads in his children’s books.
The unworthy, Agustina Bazterrica (trans. Sarah Moses). The nameless narrator is a nun in a convent of horrors that is nevertheless a sanctuary against the catastrophes that have devastated the outside world. She writes her memoirs in blood and dirt, documenting the daily torments inflicted on the nuns in the name of enlightenment, retelling her past, and, possibly, finding hope and love. I thought this overdid the tortures and horrors, but possibly I am just a hard sell on evil religious cults in post-collapse dystopias. I would probably read another by the same author but it looks like the other one currently out is industrial cannibalism, which is not really my thing.
Trial run, Dick Francis. One I have not previously read! Possibly there are others out there but I don’t really want to check in case there aren’t. Ex-steeplechaser Randall Drew (unable to compete now that he needs glasses) reluctantly travels to Moscow on behalf of the royal family, who want to ensure that one of the equestrian team about to compete in the Moscow Olympics will not be tainted by a rumoured scandal. The good bits in this are all the bits about Moscow - I can see Dick and Mary on their tour there with a bunch of notebooks and their cameras - but unfortunately the spy/conspiracy plot does creak rather and there is a surprising lack of horses, although there are classic Francis bits with a fall into a freezing Moscow river and a limited and insufficient supply of antidote to a fatal poison (and also the most doomed proposal sequence ever, even for Francis).
Nine Goblins, T Kingfisher. Reprint of previously self-published fantasy, with a goblin troop catapulted by magic out of a war and into a distant forest with an elf who is basically James Herriot and a mysteriously abandoned village. This is more Pratchetty than others of hers (as well as Herriotish) and it’s a fun read with a bit more going on underneath. The villain didn’t quite work for me but the magical creature vet problems are good.
The tournament, Matthew Reilly. Young Elizabeth I travels to Constantinople with her tutor, Roger Ascham, to watch a chess tournament between the representatives of the great and powerful; they are then caught up in investigating a murder. This is not Reilly’s natural territory (no clockwork building-sized traps with nifty diagrams) and although he flings himself into the research with enthusiasm, it’s not really his natural element. As with The Detective, Reilly also has a particular issue that he wants the reader to understand is Evil, and while with The Detective it was racism, here it’s pedophilia; there is an evil ring of Catholic priests exploiting children, yoked uneasily to a plot line in which Elizabeth’s companion, Elsie, describes her consensual sexual escapades in the pursuit of the local prince in a luridly detailed fashion to Elizabeth, only to have the prince dump Elsie in a brothel chained to a bed once he sleeps with her, thus making the young Elizabeth swear off sex forever. The detective bits are all right.
Game Changer, Rachel Reid (re-read). I was on a roll. The TV episode is more compelling than the book but I still find both fundamentally bland; possibly I am just too traumatised by fannish coffee shop AUs to ever enjoy sassy smoothie maker/customer convinced smoothie is game-winning good luck charm.
How to manage your home without losing your mind, Dana K White. Home organisation book that does not assume you want to be an inherently tidy and organised person; surprisingly useful. Focuses on making small changes and having you explicitly acknowledge the positive impact of these, thus creating virtual circles, rather than shaming you for failing to match up to their expectations.
Third Girl, Agatha Christie (1966)
The Rowan, Anne McCaffrey (re-read)
After hours at Dooryard Books, Cat Sebastian
The face in the frost, John Bellairs
Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke
The unworthy, Agustina Bazterrica
Trial run, Dick Francis
Nine Goblins, T Kingfisher
The tournament, Matthew Reilly
Game Changer, Rachel Reid (re-read)
How to manage your home without losing your mind, Dana K White
Hickory Dickory Dock & Third Girl, Agatha Christie. Tidying up some Agathas. Hickory and Third Girl are definitely in Christie’s “modern times are rather poor stuff and the young people all wear terrible clothes” era, and while it is interesting to read her take on student hostels (Hickory) and flat sharing (Third Girl), Hickory has a lot of unexamined racial stereotypes and actual racism, and Third Girl (which I think was new to me) had a rather unbelievable denouement and a plot line in which a doctor marries his patient, which I never like.
After hours at Dooryard Books, Cat Sebastian. Patrick sells books in 1968 New York, sleeps with most of the gay male population of Greenwich Village in his spare time, and on his philanthropic landlady’s prompting offers a job at the bookshop and shelter there to Nathaniel, alone and obviously traumatised but reluctant to share his past, just before Nathaniel’s sister-in-law, a famous folk singer, shows up with a week-old baby and a “your husband just died in Vietnam” telegram. I thought I was going to like this more than any other Sebastian I’ve tried so far, and I probably do, but it runs on vibes and having all its sympathetic characters be terribly politically sound, and about two-thirds of the way through it was like someone pulled out the bath plug and all the remaining tension drained out of it. But I liked it and I’d probably re-read it once, although I’d set my expectations lower.
The Rowan,Anne McCaffrey (re-read). Why am I re-reading this when I never liked this series much in the first place and if I were going to re-read any of hers it should be Dragonflight? Weakness for psychic powers and a touch of contrariness, plus I still want to find my original paperbacks rather than use the library ebook. This has good bits (the psychic powers, the training, the way in which one trainer passes on their biases and unnecessarily traps all those training under her) and a lot of terrible, terrible romance and gender opinions, and from what I dimly remember this only amplifies in subsequent books. Maybe I should try and find my McGill Feighan books if I really want to read psychics working as shipping agents to the stars.
Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke. Tradwife influencer Natalie takes us, the readers/audience through a day on her idyllic farm in a way that highlights her hypocrisy (the unacknowledged/unfilmed staff, the financial backing by her right-wing in-laws, the uselessness of her husband at any farm chores means they constantly have to replace the cows, who all have the same names, etc, etc). The next day she wakes up, prepared to do it all over again - but there’s no power, no staff, no technology at all beyond the 1800s, and even her children are similar but not the same. It’s a great set-up and Natalie herself is a great, awful, character and, obviously, the true villain is the patriarchy. However I was only about 2/3rds convinced by the twist and I did think the ending moves the focus away from society to one individual’s choices in a way that lets society off a bit.
The face in the frost, John Bellairs. I’ve been meaning to read this for ages and while I enjoyed it (Bellairs is so great at making even the most mundane thing superlatively creepy in only a few sentences), I might have missed the window for loving it. I like both Prospero and Roger Bacon, I love the magic and the world-building and the horror, but I found the denouement a bit too ex machina and the characters not as compelling as the leads in his children’s books.
The unworthy, Agustina Bazterrica (trans. Sarah Moses). The nameless narrator is a nun in a convent of horrors that is nevertheless a sanctuary against the catastrophes that have devastated the outside world. She writes her memoirs in blood and dirt, documenting the daily torments inflicted on the nuns in the name of enlightenment, retelling her past, and, possibly, finding hope and love. I thought this overdid the tortures and horrors, but possibly I am just a hard sell on evil religious cults in post-collapse dystopias. I would probably read another by the same author but it looks like the other one currently out is industrial cannibalism, which is not really my thing.
Trial run, Dick Francis. One I have not previously read! Possibly there are others out there but I don’t really want to check in case there aren’t. Ex-steeplechaser Randall Drew (unable to compete now that he needs glasses) reluctantly travels to Moscow on behalf of the royal family, who want to ensure that one of the equestrian team about to compete in the Moscow Olympics will not be tainted by a rumoured scandal. The good bits in this are all the bits about Moscow - I can see Dick and Mary on their tour there with a bunch of notebooks and their cameras - but unfortunately the spy/conspiracy plot does creak rather and there is a surprising lack of horses, although there are classic Francis bits with a fall into a freezing Moscow river and a limited and insufficient supply of antidote to a fatal poison (and also the most doomed proposal sequence ever, even for Francis).
Nine Goblins, T Kingfisher. Reprint of previously self-published fantasy, with a goblin troop catapulted by magic out of a war and into a distant forest with an elf who is basically James Herriot and a mysteriously abandoned village. This is more Pratchetty than others of hers (as well as Herriotish) and it’s a fun read with a bit more going on underneath. The villain didn’t quite work for me but the magical creature vet problems are good.
The tournament, Matthew Reilly. Young Elizabeth I travels to Constantinople with her tutor, Roger Ascham, to watch a chess tournament between the representatives of the great and powerful; they are then caught up in investigating a murder. This is not Reilly’s natural territory (no clockwork building-sized traps with nifty diagrams) and although he flings himself into the research with enthusiasm, it’s not really his natural element. As with The Detective, Reilly also has a particular issue that he wants the reader to understand is Evil, and while with The Detective it was racism, here it’s pedophilia; there is an evil ring of Catholic priests exploiting children, yoked uneasily to a plot line in which Elizabeth’s companion, Elsie, describes her consensual sexual escapades in the pursuit of the local prince in a luridly detailed fashion to Elizabeth, only to have the prince dump Elsie in a brothel chained to a bed once he sleeps with her, thus making the young Elizabeth swear off sex forever. The detective bits are all right.
Game Changer, Rachel Reid (re-read). I was on a roll. The TV episode is more compelling than the book but I still find both fundamentally bland; possibly I am just too traumatised by fannish coffee shop AUs to ever enjoy sassy smoothie maker/customer convinced smoothie is game-winning good luck charm.
How to manage your home without losing your mind, Dana K White. Home organisation book that does not assume you want to be an inherently tidy and organised person; surprisingly useful. Focuses on making small changes and having you explicitly acknowledge the positive impact of these, thus creating virtual circles, rather than shaming you for failing to match up to their expectations.
Spider-Noir first episode (fairly negative)
Jun. 2nd, 2026 12:10 amsholioI admit that I watched this mainly out of (morbid?) curiosity about what Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man would be like. Mostly I think it was about what you'd expect that to be like.
( Spider-Noir - just the first episode )
( Spider-Noir - just the first episode )
Recent fic
May. 30th, 2026 11:01 pmsholioA brief roundup of fic I've posted on AO3 in the last couple of weeks.
Cadence (Babylon 5, Londo/G'Kar, gennish ship)
Resulting from the realization that I haven't written hair-care kink for these characters before. Season 5.
Ate a Bug (Murderbot, gen)
For the Murderbot May Maladies prompt "swallowed a drone."
Treasure in the Deep (Babylon 5, Londo & G'Kar + others)
Gen (I guess) soulmate AU.
Eyes Wide Open (Falcon & Winter Soldier, sleep deprivation)
Finishing up a fic I started four years ago for a prompt/discussion on the old Winterbaron discord.
Cadence (Babylon 5, Londo/G'Kar, gennish ship)
Resulting from the realization that I haven't written hair-care kink for these characters before. Season 5.
Ate a Bug (Murderbot, gen)
For the Murderbot May Maladies prompt "swallowed a drone."
Treasure in the Deep (Babylon 5, Londo & G'Kar + others)
Gen (I guess) soulmate AU.
Eyes Wide Open (Falcon & Winter Soldier, sleep deprivation)
Finishing up a fic I started four years ago for a prompt/discussion on the old Winterbaron discord.
The Caretaker, by Marcus Kliewer
May. 30th, 2026 02:02 pmrachelmanija
By the author of We Used to Live Here.
Macy is a depressed young woman caring for her kleptomaniac younger sister after their father died in a car crash. She's desperately poor and more or less unemployable, due to her resting bitch face and bad employment history which includes stuff like throwing sodas on mean customers.
She answers a Craigslist ad to be the caretaker of a home with a bizarre set of rules covering when certain lights must be turned on or off, what to do if she sees a rabbit, etc. When she breaks a rule, she has to open a sealed envelope or get a creepy phone call, both of which contain further instructions. Each broken rule causes the overall situation to escalate, and supposedly causes bad consequences for her personally though the latter mostly doesn't happen. Things escalate quickly as she breaks rule after rule because, as it turns out, she's apparently incapable of doing anything right. No wonder she can't keep a job!
The entire structure of the book feels like OCD, and Macy acquires a sort of magically-inflicted OCD as well. So it's all a metaphor for mental illness/grief. But the whole thing feels mechanical - it's set up a bit like a video game and Macy, who is kind of a sad sack, feels like she's just there to be put through it. She breaks the first rule the first day, quickly followed by every other rule. Her complete and total incompetence made me lose all interest in her. It would have helped if she'd been on top of the rules for a while, rather than instantly failing - especially since the random elderly woman who preceded her seemed to have succeeded for three months. Macy couldn't manage for one hour!
Literally nothing is explained. I don't mind some ambiguity or Things Man Cannot Know, but in this case, it felt like the author was just throwing cool stuff at a wall with nothing behind it. (What happened to Caleb, the son of the previous caretaker? Why did the rules work? Were they arbitrary, or was there some weird logic to them? What caused people to get stuck in time loops? Were people getting stuck in time loops? Were the blue-eyed people ghosts or something else? Who was making the phone calls, how were they getting through, and how did they know what to say? Why was the house so important? What was up with parallel realities? What was the entity?)
I also would have liked it to be more ambiguous, at least for a while, whether any of the magical elements were real or just believed to be real. And it would have been nice if Macy was slowly sucked into belief by means of doing the rituals, rather than having a magical switch in her head flipped to suddenly make her believe.
The book was engrossing while I was reading it, but ultimately unsatisfying. It felt both flat and overly slick. I wonder if We Used to Live Here is better, or more of the same.
Content notes: The entire book is one big OCD trigger. There is threatened/implied harm to rabbits, but though one wild rabbit is found dead of unknown causes, the rabbits we meet end up fine.
Dear Summer of Horror Creator (2026)
May. 29th, 2026 09:31 pmscioscribeThank you so much for writing for me! Horror is the genre of my heart, and I can never get enough of it, so I'm already really looking forward to whatever you create. I've added some prompts, but definitely feel free to go your own way. Please think of the requested horror tags as more directions than anything else—it's more than okay if something blends subgenres or doesn't fit in neatly.
I have gifts enabled, and treats are very welcome!
I'm![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
scioscribe on AO3 and ![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
scioscribe on Tumblr. All requests are for fic.
( Likes )
( General Sex Likes/Kinks )
( Bonus Horror Likes )
( DNW )
( Carrie - Stephen King )
( Knives Out )
( Re-Animator )
( Inside No. 9 )
( Our Flag Means Death )
( Slow Horses )
I have gifts enabled, and treats are very welcome!
I'm
( Likes )
( General Sex Likes/Kinks )
( Bonus Horror Likes )
( DNW )
( Carrie - Stephen King )
( Knives Out )
( Re-Animator )
( Inside No. 9 )
( Our Flag Means Death )
( Slow Horses )
Gaming Update
May. 29th, 2026 09:49 amcyphomandraLast night I finally beat Bonds of Friendship, the hardest combat challenge in FFVII Rebirth and the only thing standing between me and the platinum trophy. You play as Zack (with a fixed load out) and Cloud, and fight your way through ten boss fights, all of which are difficult and the last of which, Odin, is a nightmare; you cannot pause between fights, skip any fights, use items or change your load out once you start. Most of the bosses can one-shot you and/or have nasty attacks that make it very hard to continue (e.g. paralysis, silencing so you can’t cast spells, a gravity-based attack that reduces your HP to 1).
Odin himself is mounted on Sleipnir, is extremely fast, and fights in three phases; the first he uses a spear, the second a sword, the third both, and in all phases he has attacks that while blockable will put bracelets on your character and mean that any attack spell they cast will be met with an unblockable reprisal before your spell has even hit them, as well as a few unblockable (but dodgeable) attacks for good measure. If you are hit by too many attacks and/or fail to damage Odin enough, he gets bored and will give you a single warning before delivering an unavoidable whole party kill, Zantetsuken. At phase two he is able to cast Spatial Distortion and split the arena in two; one half has a burning floor that rapidly drains your health. At phase three he uses Temporal Distortion to trap one of your characters in a time bubble, unable to move/act but still able to be damaged, but this can be avoided if your character triggers their Limit Break as they are attacked. I did a lot of practising against Odin at full power in solo battles with Cloud in the VR simulator and can take him there, but he’s significantly stronger and faster in the Bonds battle.
And first you have to get to him. I have now died to all the bosses along the way many, many times, with the exception of round 3, which is against Phoenix and is accordingly very difficult to die on. Rounds 2 & 4 can suddenly go badly early on if I don’t dodge quickly enough at the start and get my buffs up; round 6 is against Ironclad, a massive giant with a very large sword, and often I would end up with only one conscious character doing laps around the arena with 1 HP desperately regenerating ATB. Round 7 has Alexander, a mechanical city, who after a number of battles I would usually be able to take out easily but occasionally for no good reason would kill Cloud unexpectedly and leave Zack stranded. Round 8 is the Mindflayer, who uses psychic attacks but is weak to synergy; this was usually doable once I got the hang of it and stopped remembering just how annoying soloing this with Cait Sith was. Round 9 is Bahamut, who has complicated mechanics involving form transformation and particles, and again either this went well or it went downhill rapidly and I ended up sliced into pieces. I got significantly better at blocking, dodging, and using synergy moves while I worked on this.
I spent several weeks tackling this, got frustrated, and abandoned it in favour of a new run on Stardew Valley, where for the first time I have managed to catch all the fish (including the five legendaries), ship all the stuff, acquire all the golden walnuts, and craft all the things, so now all I need is another 10 million gold to buy the clock and I will reach Perfection, woo hoo. I did a bit more Bonds and kept dying to Odin if I even got there. I tried Cyberpunk 2077 and decided that I should probably play it after the kids are asleep or else get headphones as it is definitely an adult game, I tried Ghost of Yotei and yes it looks lovely but it is also very grim. I did a few more days on Blue Prince, unlocked another trail on Lonely Mountains Downhill, and basically dithered. I couldn’t get into another game while my heart was still in Rebirth.
About a week ago I realised that on June 3rd FFVII Rebirth was coming out on the Switch 2, and at that time the streamlined progression option is likely to be unlocked for all platforms, which basically enables god mode. I really wanted to get the platinum before that, so I picked up Bonds again. On Sunday I got to Odin five times and got him into the third phase twice; on Monday I got to him twice and got into the second phase once. Last night I got to him but both Zack and Cloud got trapped on the wrong side of Spatial Distortion, and died rapidly. I tried again. I got wiped out on round 9, twice, 2 once, 7 once, got to Odin again, got him into phase 2, lost Zack, evaded Temporal Distortion with a limit break and then managed to pressure Odin just long enough to get off a level 3 wind spell and push him into a stagger. And kill him.
This is definitely the hardest platinum I’ve ever done, and I relied heavily on guides, mainly Optinoob and Solestro for the battles as well as random people in the comments and on Reddit. I am really really glad I eventually made it through. I do wish for story reasons that I’d been able to do more with Zack’s mechanics. You can only play him and Sephiroth in the simulator, and they each have a very short training challenge and then a long difficult battle challenge with Cloud. Sephiroth has a spin attack that builds his limit very fast, and I used that quite a bit in Rulers of the Outer Worlds , but Zack’s mechanics require you to play as him for long chunks of time (he charges up his attack to level 3) and the game guides were all based around using Zack to buff/heal etc while Cloud did the majority of the fighting and damage. I have seen a video in which someone solos Bonds with Zack, and while that looks totally unachievable, I might go back and try some of the earlier rounds using Zack as primary DPS.
Am I finished with Rebirth? Not… yet. I am working on a fic that requires me to replay one of the chapters, plus I have not actually 100%’d the game, although I do not think I can actually be bothered scanning every single enemy. But I do feel much more satisfied with it, and hopefully I will be able to get into something new now as well.
Odin himself is mounted on Sleipnir, is extremely fast, and fights in three phases; the first he uses a spear, the second a sword, the third both, and in all phases he has attacks that while blockable will put bracelets on your character and mean that any attack spell they cast will be met with an unblockable reprisal before your spell has even hit them, as well as a few unblockable (but dodgeable) attacks for good measure. If you are hit by too many attacks and/or fail to damage Odin enough, he gets bored and will give you a single warning before delivering an unavoidable whole party kill, Zantetsuken. At phase two he is able to cast Spatial Distortion and split the arena in two; one half has a burning floor that rapidly drains your health. At phase three he uses Temporal Distortion to trap one of your characters in a time bubble, unable to move/act but still able to be damaged, but this can be avoided if your character triggers their Limit Break as they are attacked. I did a lot of practising against Odin at full power in solo battles with Cloud in the VR simulator and can take him there, but he’s significantly stronger and faster in the Bonds battle.
And first you have to get to him. I have now died to all the bosses along the way many, many times, with the exception of round 3, which is against Phoenix and is accordingly very difficult to die on. Rounds 2 & 4 can suddenly go badly early on if I don’t dodge quickly enough at the start and get my buffs up; round 6 is against Ironclad, a massive giant with a very large sword, and often I would end up with only one conscious character doing laps around the arena with 1 HP desperately regenerating ATB. Round 7 has Alexander, a mechanical city, who after a number of battles I would usually be able to take out easily but occasionally for no good reason would kill Cloud unexpectedly and leave Zack stranded. Round 8 is the Mindflayer, who uses psychic attacks but is weak to synergy; this was usually doable once I got the hang of it and stopped remembering just how annoying soloing this with Cait Sith was. Round 9 is Bahamut, who has complicated mechanics involving form transformation and particles, and again either this went well or it went downhill rapidly and I ended up sliced into pieces. I got significantly better at blocking, dodging, and using synergy moves while I worked on this.
I spent several weeks tackling this, got frustrated, and abandoned it in favour of a new run on Stardew Valley, where for the first time I have managed to catch all the fish (including the five legendaries), ship all the stuff, acquire all the golden walnuts, and craft all the things, so now all I need is another 10 million gold to buy the clock and I will reach Perfection, woo hoo. I did a bit more Bonds and kept dying to Odin if I even got there. I tried Cyberpunk 2077 and decided that I should probably play it after the kids are asleep or else get headphones as it is definitely an adult game, I tried Ghost of Yotei and yes it looks lovely but it is also very grim. I did a few more days on Blue Prince, unlocked another trail on Lonely Mountains Downhill, and basically dithered. I couldn’t get into another game while my heart was still in Rebirth.
About a week ago I realised that on June 3rd FFVII Rebirth was coming out on the Switch 2, and at that time the streamlined progression option is likely to be unlocked for all platforms, which basically enables god mode. I really wanted to get the platinum before that, so I picked up Bonds again. On Sunday I got to Odin five times and got him into the third phase twice; on Monday I got to him twice and got into the second phase once. Last night I got to him but both Zack and Cloud got trapped on the wrong side of Spatial Distortion, and died rapidly. I tried again. I got wiped out on round 9, twice, 2 once, 7 once, got to Odin again, got him into phase 2, lost Zack, evaded Temporal Distortion with a limit break and then managed to pressure Odin just long enough to get off a level 3 wind spell and push him into a stagger. And kill him.
This is definitely the hardest platinum I’ve ever done, and I relied heavily on guides, mainly Optinoob and Solestro for the battles as well as random people in the comments and on Reddit. I am really really glad I eventually made it through. I do wish for story reasons that I’d been able to do more with Zack’s mechanics. You can only play him and Sephiroth in the simulator, and they each have a very short training challenge and then a long difficult battle challenge with Cloud. Sephiroth has a spin attack that builds his limit very fast, and I used that quite a bit in Rulers of the Outer Worlds , but Zack’s mechanics require you to play as him for long chunks of time (he charges up his attack to level 3) and the game guides were all based around using Zack to buff/heal etc while Cloud did the majority of the fighting and damage. I have seen a video in which someone solos Bonds with Zack, and while that looks totally unachievable, I might go back and try some of the earlier rounds using Zack as primary DPS.
Am I finished with Rebirth? Not… yet. I am working on a fic that requires me to replay one of the chapters, plus I have not actually 100%’d the game, although I do not think I can actually be bothered scanning every single enemy. But I do feel much more satisfied with it, and hopefully I will be able to get into something new now as well.
Japanese Gothic, by Kylie Lee Baker
May. 28th, 2026 01:07 pmrachelmanija
This impressively weird dark fantasy/timeslip novel has three storylines. One follows Lee, a white American college student in the modern day. He too is impressively weird. He can tell when people are lying, he can hear other people's heartbeats, he sees bloodstains that no one else does, and he's addicted to over the counter sedatives like Benadryl to muffle his perceptions which are normally painfully acute. He's also very emo and obsessed with death. For a while I was convinced that he was a vampire.
When we meet Lee, he's fled to Kagoshima, Japan, where his father is living with his latest Japanese girlfriend in a historic samurai house. (Lee's mother disappeared in Cambodia under mysterious circumstances long enough ago to be legally dead; the official story is that she was taken by human traffickers.) The reason Lee fled is that he murdered his college roommate for reasons he can't recall, and also can't recall where he hid the body!
The second main storyline follows Sen, a girl Lee's age from a samurai family a hundred years ago, after the samurai were essentially outlawed. Her father took part in a failed rebellion in which everyone else was killed, and has fled with his family to the same house Lee is living in now. Her father, a traumatized abusive asshole, is plotting another rebellion, and so has very reluctantly agreed to let her study the sword as her brothers are too young. Sen is extremely devoted to the idea of dying nobly to impress her father.
The third storyline, which only gets a couple of interspersed chapters, is a retelling of the legend of Urashima Taro, a Japanese fairytale about a fisherman who rescues a turtle who is actually a princess, and visits her castle under the sea.
Sen and Lee both begin to see each other, initially believing the other is a ghost. The book really picks up once they start talking to each other. Lee thinks that since Sen is dead in his time, maybe she can help put him in touch with his dead mother. Sen is reluctantly willing to oblige once she repeatedly fails to kill the creepy foreign ghost, mostly because he's someone her own age who will talk to her. Their relationship is intensely romantic but not sexual, or possibly extremely intensely platonic. But the more Lee presses Sen to try to contact his mother, and the more involved Lee gets with the idea of saving Sen from her rapidly approaching glorious death in battle, the more weird and surreal things get.
Japanese Gothic was a working title that stuck, and the book is indeed extremely gothic. I enjoyed how unabashedly overheated, strange, and surreal it was. It feels like Baker had a great time writing it. There's a number of mysteries and I figured out some in advance, but I never, not in a million years, would have figured out how they all fit together. In fact, almost everything does fit together quite neatly by the end. That aspect and others reminded me a bit of Catriona Ward.
I really enjoyed this book. It's Baker's second novel. Her first is Bat-Eater and Other Names for Cora Zhang, which I am excited to read.
Content notes: Gore. Inventive methods of child abuse (very reminiscent of Catriona Ward). Cruelty to animals (wild hares) (ditto).
We Burned So Bright, by TJ Klune (DNF)
May. 26th, 2026 09:42 amrachelmanija
After 40 years together, Don and Rodney face the end of the world from a black hole that will swallow the Earth in exactly one month. So they embark on a road trip to keep a promise they made to their son.
Klune sells very well at my shop. He is good at doing what he does, and what he does is gay, twee, and glurgy. I did not enjoy The House on the Cerulean Sea and I did not enjoy this either. Both of them made my eyes glaze over. I started both of them, disliked them both, started skimming, still was bored and irritated, then skipped to the end to see how it all came out. Then I learned some information that made me revise my opinion of the book even lower. In the case of The House in the Cerulean Sea, it was an interview where he mentioned that his sappy, trivializing book was inspired by the Sixties Scoop. In the case of We Burned So Bright, it was his afterword.
Spoilery. ( Read more... )
Klune's books are very deeply meaningful for a lot of my customers, but UGH. The best thing I can say about it is that I quite like the covers.
The Glass Mermaid by Susan Clymer
May. 25th, 2026 01:44 pmrachelmanija
When you pick up an old children's book because it says it's about a tiny glass mermaid coming to life, you probably don't expect most of the story to involve the main character going to another world where she has to face an evil pirate witch who wants to nonconsensually adopt her. Admittedly this all happens while they're lugging around the now full-sized mermaid so she can be the best friend of the other world's sole mermaid, but if they miss the deadline she'll turn back to glass, while the witch pirate throws spells at them, but... Did I mention that all of this takes place inside a Christmas tree?
This is a pretty fun book but like many older children's books, recounting the plot is like describing a half-remembered dream.
Dungeon Crawler Carl reread
May. 23rd, 2026 11:22 pmsholioI have read book 8 (the new one) and loved it, but I haven't posted about it for reasons of general mental overwhelm as mentioned in the last post. (There was a lot in that book!) I decided to reread the first few chapters of book 1 for the early character intros, and uhhhhh I've now reread my way through to fairly late in book 3.
Random thoughts about these early books below, including potential spoilers for the whole series here and in comments.
( In no particular order )
Random thoughts about these early books below, including potential spoilers for the whole series here and in comments.
( In no particular order )
Too much, but maybe some exchanges will help
May. 23rd, 2026 07:41 pmsholioThe first half of this month was A Lot - mostly family stuff, mostly not bad stuff, just A Lot - and I kept thinking I was going to summarize things, but in the end, I was too tired, and there was too much. (Basically a number of relatives were in town, some staying with me, and I was so peopled out past a certain point that I just sort of collapsed when everyone left.)
Things are much better now! I do have in-laws to deal with this upcoming week, but I'm looking forward to having more time to be online and more mental bandwidth.
So naturally I tripped and signed up for an exchange.
Outside POV Flash. This is a flash exchange - 300 wd minimum, 1 week writing period, 1 fandom request/offer minimum. Signups close tomorrow.
Yes, this is a shameless attempt to lure in more fandom-compatible people. It's only a week! It's only 300 wds! Maybe someone might want a warm-up for IPQ, you never know ...
Other things currently ongoing -summerofhorrorexchange is in signups! This exchange has slightly unique rules so see post here. (I don't think I can do this one this summer, because I also have assignments in both Whumpex and IPQ, but I've really enjoyed it all the times I've done it!)
It's finally spring here, and I'm so ready. Except for the sudden but inevitable pollen.
Things are much better now! I do have in-laws to deal with this upcoming week, but I'm looking forward to having more time to be online and more mental bandwidth.
So naturally I tripped and signed up for an exchange.
Outside POV Flash. This is a flash exchange - 300 wd minimum, 1 week writing period, 1 fandom request/offer minimum. Signups close tomorrow.
Yes, this is a shameless attempt to lure in more fandom-compatible people. It's only a week! It's only 300 wds! Maybe someone might want a warm-up for IPQ, you never know ...
Other things currently ongoing -
summerofhorrorexchange is in signups! This exchange has slightly unique rules so see post here. (I don't think I can do this one this summer, because I also have assignments in both Whumpex and IPQ, but I've really enjoyed it all the times I've done it!)It's finally spring here, and I'm so ready. Except for the sudden but inevitable pollen.