Kenneth > Recent Status Updates

when the horror novel is horrifying 😔

Spiderman pointing meme: if I'M the parasite and YOU'RE the parasite who's driving the body?

"Perhaps that is why it devours as it does, endlessly searching for itself, abandoned by the hand that created it. I do think that longing is the right word for it. Longing, perhaps, or emptiness."

God can you IMAGINE bumping into the guy who may have ordered your mom's murder at the grocery store??!!!

I know that there was an existing IRA structure that the Provisional army was building off of, but its nuts how quickly operations got to the quality & quantity that they had.

This is waaaaay more fantastical than the previous trilogy. Still has the particle physicists!

There's no fucking way either of these kids are making it out of this without CTE.

The flood was such background biblical imagery for me that baby Lyra being sent down the river to escape those who would kill her genuinely hadn't crossed my mind as a plot point. She's already the most important baby in Brytain, she can have a little Moses imagery as a treat.

This hyena guy is fucking crazy. The manifestation of his soul is walking around with a bloody stump that she is actively gnawing on.

I really like when authors put in nods to what inspires them. A sled dog with a perilous parasite infection, loose in the dark of winter...?

Maybe all residents are infected with the competitor? "Everyone who is born here dies here." ?

Definitely getting more out of this second read, now that I know the dates of events in the French Revolution lol.

Is this a fictionalized memoir? Or just fiction?

Someone told Hiratori about intersectionalism and they went "Got it! Gay men are ALSO misogynists!". Although, Kiyori gets through to Igo via his experiences with racism rather than his experiences with homophobia and him being gay is more of a punch line...

"It's only scary because you think it's scary. [...] It's only gross because you think it's gross." OK we are finally getting a peek into Haru's coping strategy 😭

Hiratori is doing their best to show sex work in a sympathetic light but I fear their personal biases are still coming through.... Haru being a JK (high school girl) is clearly chosen due to how over sexualized and attacked teen girls are but at the same time Hiratori through Haru is stating that 16-20 years old really IS the time period that women (girls!) have the highest libido. Anyway!

This section is a bit heavy handed. Yes, I know Bel needs to be taken off the board but am I supposed to believe Iscend's powers of persuasion are so good that he 1) goes back to substance abuse 2) is so immediately off his rocker? If we had some scenes before this demonstrating the tension between him and Heigyl...

I LOVE Baru's parents.

Poor Baru! She gets almost lobotomized, almost dies from meningitis, almost stops a genocide, and now on top of everything no one wants to go to the ball with her :(

WE STAY WINNING #PHYSICS #MATH

"[...] that power comes not from brute strength but from the control of the context in which strength is deployed?” lets talk about THESIS

Tain Shir is my favorite archetype of character. Maybe I'm too mando-pilled but its literally just what if there was a woman who was cool as hell. The ability to face and understand the indignities and horrors of war without trying to absolve or justify herself. "All those she's killed had mothers. All of them. None were worth any more or less than hers."

I genuinely thought revanchist was a made up star wars word and encountering it here threw me. I guess Darth Revan was named after the revanchists and not the other way around.

It makes me really happy to see Aminata and Baru's friendship has survived. They've both done some fucked up shit & they are both still ordered to act against each other but! Friends 🥰💜

The brothel sponsoring the little league team was Not in the manga but it Is hilarious. Go Happy-Friends!

Literally every chappppterrrr. And I know (from reading the manga) that the purpose is to bluntly show sex work in the misogynist shonen-isekai setting and danger is inherent to the job due to said misogyny but. goddam. Let her catch a break!

Every chapter is Haru going "God! Customer service jobs are the WORST!" and then something genuinely horrifying happens to her.

"Yawa clearly hid [cocaine] to weaken me." Baru WHAT are you talking about?

I'm trying SO hard to figure out if the magic is real or not. Anyway shout out uranium sorcerers; I need to find out what the real world basis is.

"By dawn I would have her dead on my lobotomy pick, and a gentled new woman cut to life in her body." 🤢