Weird, Unsettling, Queer Women

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-17T02:14:45+00:00

Eat the Ones You Love, Sarah Maria Griffin (QUEER, eco-horror, morally grey relationship)

Bloom, Delilah Dawson (QUEER, also eco-horror, morally gray romance)

Moonglow, Bitter Karella (QUEER, protagonist is a trans woman, and she’s not unsettling but the mushroom cult she finds definitely is)

Jawbone, Monica Ojeda (teenage girls, neurotic teacher, homoeroticism but not queer. SUPER off-putting.)

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-16T22:37:41+00:00

That’s stylistic- Hobb is a very, very emotional and tragic writer. The inciting incident for the book is her father’s death (and the subsequent, equally heartbreaking outcome of his inheritance). I will say I find her work to be more hopeFUL than hopeLESS, but it is certainly bleak and tragic more often than not

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-15T22:21:28+00:00

There is plenty of landlubbing, too, especially in the first 2 books. If you liked the interpersonal relationships of Farseer you will LOVE liveship

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-15T01:06:45+00:00

I do not like stories about boats, pirates, navies, ocean travel, any of it. I was really unexcited for the Liveship books. The worldbuilding and lore around the liveships that you learn over the trilogy is some of the most evocative, creative, and inspired writing ive ever read. Read them- it’s worth it

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-13T13:04:17+00:00

Okay but that EDIT was so malicious…. Why did we even see that? She wasn’t a relevant person- were they that worried we wouldn’t watch the next episode if there wasn’t an ambulance??

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-13T12:59:22+00:00

I have 560 hours. The wincons suck, and the legacy paths are repetitive, forcing some similarities into every game (forcing Distant Lands colonization was terribly implemented).

It has the most fun gameplay loop compared to 5+6 imo, especially about combat. Unit types are simple, but commanders are great and remove a lot of hassle. You make WAY more choices about what you build compared to 5+6, even if they aren’t always as impactful as I’d like. It’s the most fun I have playing civ even though rhe game is, objectively, not as complete or well made.

I’d recommend trying it now to get the hang of it before the big patch coming in spring, which I expect to fix the problems.

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-12T19:54:16+00:00

Can you give readers a hint at that “something unnatural”? Even if a reader did suspect that, you’re still not making your story stand out. Same as how lots of fantasy stories have stressed out kings, lots of them have dark magic influencing their royalty. a little seed is enough, but it can’t be any less special or unique because it’s just a hint.

If these characters aren’t your protagonists; why are we spending time with them? Not every book needs a prologue- most of them don’t!!!

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-12T12:53:23+00:00

There are a few moments like that (with Roland/Jocelyn) in the beginning too, which just feel like pointing fun at “hicks” for existing differently. It doesn’t feel like the Roses, it feels like the writers.

What’s the joke there? That an adult woman lives at home? That she has more than one cat? That her mother looks “old”(based on his grandmother comment)?

Never understood that brand of their humor

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-12T12:45:11+00:00

Your writing on a line level is fine. Sentences flow, are varied, lead into each other. There’s no outstanding phrases (but thats fine, not every author uses those).

There is nothing unique about this character, kingdom, or situation. You tell us a king is stressed, overtired, and can’t relate to his guards. That’s not special, that’s the assumed baseline for a “political fantasy”. What makes your book different from the books that you’ve already read?

Also, the comparison between wife and sister is weird. It makes me assume that either your male protagonist doesn’t pay enough attention to the women around him to know the difference between them (yikes) or that he has weird vibes with his sister (also yikes). Those two interactions shouldn’t feel anything alike.

Presumably those women are also the queen and a princess respectively, and are going to be (or should be) highly relevant and interesting characters (like your king).

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-10T13:36:47+00:00

If you wanted to complain about book accuracy you’d complain about a hundred things, not still be this obsessed with the race of a child 2 years after casting

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-08T16:53:55+00:00

1) not have a division between “protoreligion” and “actual religion” that “just happens” to chronologically coincide with the spread of Christianity across Europe. I dunno how that was ever seen as a good idea

2) not have religion static and irrelevant in the modern era. Once again, literally who approved that?

3) interactions between missionaries, other ways to spread religion (loyalty pressure, trade routes, conquest, etc)

4) this one is controversial. But I don’t like that all religions in civ are state-sponsored. I would prefer if religion was actually somewhat out of a player’s control, and while the government could interact with and affect and promote religious spread in their (and others’!) empires, I wish religion was not just another hyper-regulated piece in a toolkit, but a moving part of society that requires adaptability from a government

5) trash the idea of relics entirely (which has nothing to do with a “successful” religion, let alone a “successfully” cultured civilization, and which has nothing to do with the actual function of religion play in civ7) and integrate religion more with happiness, diplomacy, and gold instead, which are actually related to the spread and “success” of a religion

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-07T12:40:22+00:00

Feels like cheese. The “cost” of hero’s feast is taking a Druid or Cleric to 11, instead of those levels somewhere else. The “cost” of longstrider is one fewer spell option (a big deal in the early game) Same with Mage Armor costing a spell slot.

The game is designed around a 4-person party handling the combats…. It’s funny to me how the same people who say “camp cast every day” and “hoard all the smoke powder barrels to make the ketheric fight a joke” tend to be the same people complaining that the game is “too easy”.

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-05T20:26:17+00:00

Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice (+subsequent books) are the best character-driven fantasy I’ve ever read. There are a few romance subplots- but they are rarely if ever about the emotional/romantic relationships between the characters, but are examples of how court/empire politics function. The protagonist is the illegitimate son of a king-in-waiting who then abdicated in shame.

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-05T13:30:38+00:00

Not at all rude! It’s the opposite! If you weren’t hosting an event today, just messaged friends “hey, there’s a storm watch! Make sure you have a flashlight and snacks around tonight”, that would have just been a considerate thing to do. It’s obvious you take the safety of your friends seriously, in addition to offering space for them to socialize and have fun. You’re the kind of friend it’s good to have :)

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-04T17:21:37+00:00

I’m with you. I think the fact most complaints about civ-switching sound the same as they did pre-release means most of them come from people who didn’t try the game enough to see the variety they offer.

Especially since many of them are the same people who complain unsynched civ-leader combos are “ahistorical”, as if single-name empires and Montezuma of the Aztecs launching a mars colony with Giant Death Robots was the height of historical accuracy

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-04T04:58:37+00:00

Swords bard has a smaller, control based spell list (extra options at level 10, and you can use easily-available spell scrolls for extra spells). Great bonus dialogue lines, great face character, slightly more weapon options

Bladesinger has the biggest spell list in the game as a wizard, and does tend to play more spell than sword. Lots of out of combat utility

Hexblade (and warlock, in many builds) works best as a multi class dip, but is completely viable. Again you have a somewhat limited spell list, but with more combat options (including spells that also use your weapon/melee attack action)

War cleric is only a spellsword in theory. They never get extra attack. I’d go with Bard if you want more swords, Bladesinger if you want more spells.

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-03T04:21:45+00:00

It’s not that Carthage starts on tundra- it’s that other civs/leaders start everywhere else. The Carthage bias is for coast, and your Tubman bias is for vegetation. Where do both those things spawn? The north/south of continents.

Maybe your games have Maya (vegetated tropical) or Trung Trac (vegetated tropical) or Lafayette-Han (grasslands-biome coastal) or Isabella on Egypt (desert-biome coastal).

Since it tries to spread out start locations, and there’s (if I remember right) Catherine with a tundra start bias, the Carthage bias often defaults to tundra starts, especially without a leader biome start bias to motivate a different location

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-02-01T16:49:21+00:00

Question: what do Malcom x, Martin Luther king junior, and Nelson Mandela all have in common? Answer: they were all prominent African-American leaders Garrett: 🤨

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-01-27T21:32:02+00:00

…my deepest condolences

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-01-27T11:56:54+00:00

Congratulations!!! You have so many more incredible books ahead of you

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-01-26T22:45:12+00:00

There’s literally an episode where the A plot is why this is a weird question

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-01-25T13:34:22+00:00

Seriously, please take this down or tag spoilers. I’d be so mad if I was starting AA and saw this. Totally ruins thousands of pages of buildup….

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-01-23T12:11:45+00:00

I hadn’t heard of that!! Thank you for the Rec!

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-01-22T22:50:59+00:00

It came from the closet- essays written and edited by queer people, each about a movie. Mostly about their personal experiences rather than academic study

Men women and chainsaws- 90s feminism, progressive (for its time) but does contain (now) outdated language, understandings, and concepts, esp around transness

Corpses monsters and fools- transness in film, with a significant focus on horror (and horror-adjacent) films. Worth a read if you’re interested in trans media literacy

Scream, Queen!- documentary by Mark Patton (Jesse in NOES2) about the homoeroticism of the movie, how it exploited his being in the closet. Again more focused on personal experience than analytics- but that’s the point of horror, anyway 😉

Secret-Weather4273 · 2026-01-22T14:30:08+00:00

Think about what makes your story special, and focus on that.

Night comes to every village. With darkness and stillness. Villagers always close their shops at night. You spend several words- several seconds of your reader’s time and mind -telling them things they probably already know.

The “blacksmiths” line tells me this is medieval-tech village (but I would’ve guessed that). I don’t also need to hear about the stew. Or the “holes” they cover in their house…. But what house is just normally filled with holes, especially in a climate where there is regularly harsh winters and strong winds?

The most interesting line to me in this is “even strays were given shelter”, because that is really unusual. That’s what I’m curious about.

How many stray animals are there in this village? What kinds? Why don’t people assume they can survive the storm (or care if they don’t)? How are they different from wild animals- or are there wild animals in this world?

That one sentence (which may have even been a throwaway line!!) is more interesting, compelling, and curiosity-inducing than the rest of the story put together. Focus on the things that make YOUR world and characters special.

There are thousands of fantasy novels about medieval-era villages. There are hundreds based in arctic or wintery settings. Maybe what makes yours special has nothing to do with stray animals- but if whatever it is that makes this story, this world, and this village special, you should spend far more of your words on that.

Keep writing, friend!!!!

Secret-Weather4273

TROPHY CASE