scaramouche: a hand touching a girl's chin, scene from MirrorMask (close to you)
Annie D ([personal profile] scaramouche) wrote2025-05-29 07:27 pm
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Book Log: The Queen's Thief reread (part #2)

Onward to The King of Attolia, my fav in the series! This is the high point for me, though it requires everything before it to have the impact it does, and it needs everything afterward to bring the greater story to its conclusion. It's still so good, so well-paced, so satisfying, and this time I greatly appreciated how they have the assassination attempt just a little before halfway into the book (instead of the near end), so Costis becomes privy to the deception that Eugenides has been pulling on everyone and is given the rest of the book to process this information, and thus share in our frustration as the reader by knowing that Eugenides isn't what he appears to be.

cut for length )
scaramouche: (the nutcracker)
Annie D ([personal profile] scaramouche) wrote2025-05-28 08:19 pm
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Not really Star Wars

I saw a poll on tumblr not too long ago, asking if people read their own fics. My guess is that one of the assumptions underlying the poll is that it's narcissistic to enjoy something you created yourself, which in my opinion is a crying shame of a stance to have because the author knows exactly the kind of characterisation and level of drama you like! And will avoid the squicks you do not!

I make this post because Andor brought interest back to some of the Rogue One fics I posted way back when, despite them being Baze/Chirrut and not Cassian-focused. I've gotten some lovely new comments and kudoses, and decided to check said fic out because I hadn't looked at them in years and... gosh, I wrote this? (This fic in particular, which is set just before the Battle of Scarif.)

I wasn't intimidated by canon lore and tried to fill the logistical issues of the movie and choreographed all these jokes??? How did I do that! (The implication being, I WISH I could turn this kind of ability on like a switch instead of staring sadly at a blinking cursor in a Word doc.) Past!me knows exactly what I like! Plus nothing that happened in Andor contradicts this fic as far as I can tell, which is magic.
scaramouche: Hudson Leick as Callisto, winking (callisto wink)
Annie D ([personal profile] scaramouche) wrote2025-05-26 09:27 am

Book Log: The Queen's Thief reread (part #1)

I finally got my own copy of Thick as Thieves so it's time to start my series reread. (Mild tangent: there are so many YA books now and turnover is so rapid, I had to go to multiple huge bookstores to find one that had what I wanted.)

The Thief is still so great! A small, self-contained story compared to everything that will happen after and IMO stronger for that. I love Gen so much, what an obnoxious little trickster. He's so smug of his own cleverness and is constantly DYING to tell the others how clever he is but cannot. I love everyone in the road trip (oh, Pol), even Ambiades whom I believe could've redeemed himself if given the chance, though chances are in short supply.

The book does make me miss that we don't get this deep into Gen's headspace ever again (unless Return of the Thief does, I haven't read it) and elements of it are so cinematic I wish we could get a live-action TV show or movie out of it, just for those scenes. Specifically, the water mechanism of the temple under the Aracthus, and Gen's entering Hephastia's court and realising that what he thought were just statues were the actual gods themselves.

Cut for length, plus other spoiilers. )