slowtime > Recent Status Updates

"And at the time, I thought maybe [she was] a sociopath, or someone with borderline personality disorder..."

Seriously, what is up with the hate towards folks with BPD? They're not already maligned enough? The misogyny baked into the diagnostic criteria hasn't done enough damage?

"Claudia wasn't Claudia at all, but rather, Eva Wills, a woman with borderline personality disorder who found special use for her illness in that she was very glad to kill people for money."

Because people with BPD are monsters, amirite?

I was really looking forward to this book, but woof. It’s bumming me out how bad it is.

The problem with reading in a digital format is that you can't throw the book across the room when it pisses you off.

This book got really hard to read really fast. Is there no ASAN in this world? Is there no ADA? Also, I'm reading this on audiobook, and the narrator's take on the other neurodiverse characters borders really heavily on insulting. They all manage to sound like some blunted version of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.

Okay, so the ableist stuff is getting hard to handle. I know it's coming from a villain, but I don't know how much of it I want to expose myself to. It's bad enough just reading the other reviews - "Unfortunately he was too late for the cure," and "Trapped in an autistic shell." They see Crenshaw and don't recognize themselves in it because he's a cartoon, but it's all the same ignorance. I'm so very tired.

Can't tell yet if I'm going to love this or violently hate it. So far the first chapter has had me pumping my fist in joyous recognition...but the whole "cure" thing is such an offensive concept, and if that's where the narrative is leading, I expect to have a tangle of strong emotions that I won't know how to process, and anger will definitely be one of them.

Oh, gross. Not long after raping his girlfriend, Jaxom sexually harasses a healer whose voice he thinks is pretty. He literally grabs her and forces her to stand where he can see her, and says "Oh, no, you don't" when she tries to break free. Which she tries to do several times, btw. He condescends to tell her that she probably doesn't think she's beautiful, but he does. From now on I'm picturing Jaxom in a fedora.

"He was thoroughly disgusted and revolted by the way he had used Corana. The fact that she seemed to have matched what he had to admit was a violent lust dismayed him. Their relationship, once innocent pleasure, had somehow been sullied."

He goes on to reassure himself that at least he helped her finish hoeing the field after he raped her. (Also, she totally liked it. Because of course she did.)

Jaxom witnesses some dragons mating and gets super horny, so he goes to see his girlfriend, who's busy working in the field.

"Pinning her against him with his right arm, he found the offending hoe with his left hand. Wrenching it from her grasp, he spun it away from them. Corana struggled to get free, as unprepared for this mood in him as he was."

Jaxom proceeds to sexually assault her. Awesome.

Also, there are multiple references to male characters wishing they were allowed to beat a female character, because obviously she really needs a good beating. One of them is the male lead, who routinely physically shakes the female lead when he's frustrated with her. But she's cool with it, and has no sympathy for victimized women in general. It's played for laughs.

RE: F'nor worrying that some rando dragonrider dude will brutalize sweet virgin Brekke. To prevent said rando from conducting a depraved deflowering, F'nor picks Brekke up and takes her into the bushes. Then: "He wanted to be gentle but, unaccountably, Brekke fought him. She pleaded with him, crying out wildly...He wasn't gentle but he was thorough..."
In the end she likes it. Of course.

Into Dragonquest now. These books are terrible. Seriously, what am I missing? Why is this series so beloved?

"Do you have children, Lady Andrews?” “No, Majesty.” Of course not, Kelsea thought. Children conceived by this woman would only be cannibalized by her womb." WHAT

So far the only apt comparison I'm seeing to Game of Thrones is the amount of sexual violence and all-around violence against women. It's pretty damn relentless, and not remotely justified.

Queen Kelsea calls another woman a "hussy" for no other reason than that the woman had an elaborate hairdo and wore a "flimsy, too feminine" tiara. Which, btw, Queen Kelsea had one of her guardsmen steal from her by wrestling it directly from her head. But hey, the lady had a stupid hairdo, so I guess she was asking for it?

And we know the Red Queen is evil because every time we get her POV, she's either just had sex or is about to have sex. (Sex in this world seems to always either be non-consensual or a sign of moral weakness, if not both.) Sigh.

Wait, it gets better! The former Queen's sluttiness was alluded to earlier, and her shallowness is reinforced every time we're given details about her pretty dresses and fondness for bed pillows, but now we get the real confirmation of her silliness and loose ways: she had three casual abortions before giving birth to our heroine. Because she was too "absentminded" to take her birth control. IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

See, you know the uncle is evil because he's fat. That's what marks his evil as intrinsic rather than acquired. It's in his body. See?

Ugh, this is already a slog.

Right down to the confrontation with the parents. This is eerie.