Okay, so I thought it'd be fun to share my headcanons for as many characters I can remember!!! ^{^} (Also featuring my self insert probably because meeee!! As well as another oc)
I'm not going to include Ellsworld in this post because I think it will already be very long.
Starting with: Edd! - Edd is a fat person. He isn't unhealthy, he just has a slow metabolism and loses weight very slowly! He is a pansexual aromantic cis guy who prefers being friends rather than lovers. He was blessed with Ringo by the CDS (Cat Distribution System) and saved her from being on the streets. She encourages him to take care of himself so he can take care of her. Edd has ADHD but he's unmedicated by choice.
Matt! - Matt focuses a lot on his looks. He works out every night, preferring the 24 hr gym that they live nearby. He's pansexual and genderfluid! He loves drag and his drag name is Battilda [Bat-tilda] (Like Matilda, but BATTY!!) He is dating Starla! Matt is autistic!
Tom! - Tom has a beer belly and is on the hairier side. He hates working out, but he goes with Matt and Starla anyway. He's a bisexual man who likes dogs more than he likes cats, but he has a soft spot for Ringo. Tom suffers from borderline personality disorder and depression.
Tord! - Tord is a little more on the lean side. He's incredibly smart and uses it to his advantage as often as possible. His teeth are stained yellow from smoking. He's a pansexual trans man with a preference for men. He dated Tom, Matt, and Edd all at least once. He left after he began dating Patryck and Paul!
Eduardo! - Eduardo is a little skinnier than Edd. He's slightly muscular with a small bit of chub. He makes fun of Edd, but he never insults his weight since he was bullied as a kid for being fat. He saved Doguardo from a kill shelter and loves that dog more than anything. He's a gay man who's dating Laurel.
Mark! - Mark has a fragile build. He wears contacts because he hates his glasses. He is friends with Matt and is dating Frey (an oc). He's a gay cis man.
Jon! - Dead.
Patryck! - Patryck is very skilled in weaponry. He loves guns and studied the use of guns all throughout school. He's autistic with guns as his special interest. He's a bisexual transmasc using He/It pronouns.
Paul! - Paul is a mute who lost his eye during the zombie apocolypse. He is a gay cis man who supports his boyfriends through anything. He struggles to properly express emotions.
Laurel! - Laurel is a street artist who skates and loves spending time with Eduardo. They're a transmasc person who keeps their sexuality and romantic orientation as unlabeled. They enjoy creating beautiful murals around the city and are very elusive.
Fun Dead Kid! - FDK is named Fredrick but he prefers being called FDK. He's 12 years old and was adopted by Kim and Katya after the zombie apocolypse. He has autism and is deaf.
Kim and Katya! - Kim and Katya are married lesbians. They adopted FDK and are very loving mothers. Kim is autistic and Katya had undiagnosed ADHD. They help each other with their struggles and spend every night with FDK to wind down. Kim is a drag king who's stage name is Ken.
Waitress from WTFuture - Her name is Honey and she is an aroace cis woman who is very uncomfortable with being flirted with. She is very sweet and polite unless her boundaries are crossed.
Hellucard - Hellucard is one of Edd's online friends that just happens to live near by. He always says hey to Edd, often getting his words mixed up and saying "Ey Hedd" instead. He has a speech impediment that he goes to speech therapy for.
Bing and Larry - Bing and Larry are a homosexual couple. Larry is one of the only people who can put up with Bing's eccentric personality. Bing often overworks and stresses himself out, causing burnouts that last weeks and sometimes months. Larry is very supportive of his husband and shows his love through stupid little insults that aren't meant to hurt Bing's feelings.

I’ve decided to rewatch every Amazing Race and rank them all.
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SEASON 24 (ALL STARS) gets a 6/10
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This is probably one of the most frustrating seasons! It looked like very little effort was put into the returnee cast, the route, the challenges, leg designs and even editing/storylines were inconsistent. However…it usually wasn’t boring! There was some drama (some of it a bit annoying though), there was the charm of seeing returnees (I do love the appeal of All Star seasons), and a season with Rachel Reilly is never boring! So I find it similar to the Family Edition in that it has lots of flaws but is generally entertaining enough to enjoy. So it gets a 6 because it was still enjoyable (but is obviously ranked near the bottom).
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Theme

• This is the 3rd returnee season (after TAR11 All Stars, TAR18 Unfinished Business and now TAR24 All Stars). An All Star season is meant to be the “best of the best” and this season consisted of returnees from TAR18-TAR23 only as well as some 3-time players. Also no winners and some early boots, so it actually feels more like Unfinished Business 2 rather than All Stars 2. I love returnee seasons and seeing entertaining past players interact and you feel invested in them in episode 1 (most seasons take a few episodes to become invested in the cast). However it was the weakest Amazing Race returnee cast by far.
  
• Now to judge the returnee cast. Out of the 2-time players, you had 4 fantastic choices (Natalie/Nadiya, Leo/Jamal, BoppeMark, Brendan/Rachel) and 4 terrible choices (Dave/Connor, John/Jessica, Joey/Meghan, Caroline/Jennifer, all from TAR22 haha). Dave/Connor more suited an Unfinished Business season. I wouldn’t even mind if they just slotted Dave/Connor into a regular season with 10 other newbie teams like Bruce in Survivor 45 (rather than wasting a precious All Stars slot). They’re nothing special - they just raced 4 legs and got medevaced so they wouldn’t be too out of place on a regular season. I even said Eric/Danielle from TAR11 could have raced on a regular season too. Not using an Express Pass (John/Jessica) is NOT a reason to be on All Stars (also not that interesting), Joey/Meghan were only back because of their YouTube fame (also not that interesting), and Caroline/Jennifer are there for the hot girl team quota (and AGAIN not that interesting). The main criteria should be ENTERTAINMENT and these 4 were NOT.
  
• Out of the 3-time players, Jet/Cord were a good choice being such a fan favourite (despite being very overrated), Margie/Luke are always a fascinating team to watch so they were fine, but Flight Time/Big Easy weren’t needed for a 3rd time. They were fine in TAR15 but were just okay in TAR18 so I don’t see anything new they could bring really. So many better 3-time choices. And lastly you have the Mark/Mallory hybrid which I’m actually not too negative on (Mallory is also a 3-timer). Ideally they should have put on an alternate team when Bopper couldn’t race but I think Mark/Mallory had potential for entertainment and a fascinating storyline. Very different from Eric/Danielle’s situation because Mark AND Mallory were both popular characters.
  
• I personally don’t mind 3-timers if it will improve the cast but I know many fans would prefer to stick with just 2-time players for fairness. But I don’t believe any combination of 2-timers would have made this a good cast, with fans suggesting Andy/Tommy, Jaymes/James, Pam/Winnie, Max/Katie, Abbie/Ryan etc. Let’s be honest - these teams would not have dramatically improved the quality of the cast! They should have either waited a few seasons or just go all out and try to replicate Survivor Heroes vs Villains (regarded as one of the best All Star seasons of Reality TV) - it had winners, lots of 3-timers, classic players and no weak links in the cast. While I believe TAR24 was too soon for an All Stars, Survivor Heroes vs Villains was also “too soon” (only 4 seasons after Fans vs Favorites) but good casting made it a legendary season. 3-timers and winners are not necessarily a bad thing!
  
• So this is who I would have picked (I believe just go all out and get the biggest stars and characters possible) = I would have only picked 4 teams from TAR19-TAR23 (Brendan/Rachel, Natalie/Nadiya, BoppeMark, Leo/Jamal). While Bopper would still have gotten sick, I would have picked another team to replace them rather than Mark/Mallory (maybe Bill/Cathi - arguably the best older team). I would then pick four 3-timers (Jet/Cord, Margie/Luke, Charla/Mirna, Rob/Amber). I would then fill the remaining slots with winners because it would be nice to have the equivalent of a Sandra or Tony from Survivor (2-time winner) - either Rob/Brennan, Chip/Kim, Nat/Kat, Rachel/Dave (if still together), Ernie/Cindy or Nick/Starr. Some other good choices (if the teams above decline) would be Colin/Christie, Eric/Jeremy, Oswald/Danny, Joe/Bill, Dustin/Kandice, Kynt/Vyxsin, Zev/Justin or any winners. Also Brook/Claire and Tim/Marie but they declined and could have considered Amani/Marcus who also declined.
  

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General Thoughts

• This season didn’t have many boring sections but felt like an unsatisfying mess. The choice of returnees was frustrating and then you had 2 of the “underwhelming choices” be the top 2, Natalie/Nadiya going 1st was a huge loss, Mark/Mallory damaging the reputations was disappointing (but good TV), the 3-timers didn’t do much this time and then mixed with the poor route and challenges. The Accidental Alliance vs The Brenchels was a big storyline at the end and while that drama was “better than nothing”, it also came across as annoying (similar to Brandy vs Caite in TAR16). I like returnee seasons, and I believe this would rank lower if they were all new teams. For example I enjoyed watching John/Jessica, Margie/Luke and Flight Time/Big Easy because I knew their history, but would be boring if I didn’t know their backstories.
  
• The editing and storylines also seemed off. You had multiple teams together at the Spanish steps challenge and then a foot race to the pit stop yet it didn’t feel as tense as it should have been. They also had Brendan/Rachel almost missing a flight in leg 5 as well as a train in leg 6 and they both lacked suspense (editing is the issue). Also while I liked Brendan/Rachel this season, their storyline was all over the place. Rachel started as wanting to redeem herself with a few positive moments (not stressing, helping Luke) but then later became hated by every team and had some meltdowns. The redemption storyline was just dropped. The same thing with Dave/Connor who were meant to be super sweet but the editing made them annoying and self righteous. Even the Accidental Alliance drama seemed to be dropped at the end where Brendan/Rachel were interacting with the other teams like nothing happened. This is also the first season to cut the intro for several episodes. So mostly entertaining but some unsatisfying storylines and editing choices.
  
• Dave/Connor are 2 of the more unique winners, as opposed to the “dull” Jason/Amy and Bates/Anthony type winners. The first parent/child winners, the oldest individual to win, and had a great story of being medevaced the first time and returning to win. Some find them likeable, some find them annoying, but I prefer them to a team we don’t care about at all. I probably would have preferred a Leo/Jamal win or the craziness of a Brendan/Rachel win…but it was an okay result but not great.
  

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Route

• This season had a terrible route! No new countries (besides 1 task in Wales), only 3 continents, lots of double legs in 1 country (first 8 legs were 2 legs in China, 2 legs in Malaysia, 2 legs in Sri Lanka, 2 legs in Italy) and lots of simple city legs that look like post-Covid routes (Leg 2 for example looked like it only took teams less than 2 hours to complete and the pit stop was like 20 mins away from the previous one). Apparently a lot of legs were designed last minute which I understand. Besides the Family Edition, I think TAR21’s route was worse though because TAR24 had slightly more iconic sites (Canton Tower, Petronus Towers, Coliseum and Spanish steps, Mount Titlus, first visit to Wales, Las Vegas strip) and a bit of a variety with snow, rainforests, cities etc. Terrible starting line at that college - a starting line isn’t a huge deal but it does get you hyped when it’s at an epic location (like next season’s Times Square).
  
• A lot of the challenges were also very cheap looking and simple for an All Stars. Challenges like operating a remote controlled chariot and shaving a balloon look very underwhelming. Not many challenges stood out besides pouring the drinks/DJ Detour (a fantastic Detour) and remembering the Welsh poem. They should have just resorted to Switchbacks of classic destinations and challenges as that would suit an All Star season. And some odd choices in regards to predetermined flights (lots of sign-ups for flights rather than flight searching) and Dave/Connor’s 5-8 Road Block distribution didn’t make sense.
  
• This season basically had the same format as the last few seasons which I don’t mind. It brought back the twist where the winner of the Express Pass gives a 2nd one to another team. It was unique this season because for the first time a team gave away the Express Pass at a challenge and basically “burnt it”. Besides that, this season also had 2 Double U-Turns and Speed Bumps. No Fast Forwards which is a shame because I think it adds something slightly interesting to those episodes. Only the 3rd season to not have a Fast Forward.
  

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Cast Ranking
1.Brendan/Rachel - they carried this season! Rachel started out as not wanting to be her old emotional self and was a lot less whinier than TAR20 (although I preferred her meltdowns honestly haha). She had a “heroic” edit where she prayed rather than getting stressed out - also supported Luke at the cocktails challenge and helped Brendan get through the plate spinning. However they are also responsible for the biggest drama of the season - U-Turning Dave/Connor and the “We hate the Brenchels” storyline. Once again Rachel has most of the cast hating her…and I love it! Rachel then reverted back to her old crying self in the last 3 legs with meltdowns at the bulls, crying at the Wellington toss and picking fights in the finale. So still crazy, still got her sequins, fell over a few times haha, bizarre lines (saying “I want to win to get a baby” over and over haha) and provided the drama and laughs that this season needed.

1. Dave/Connor - the rivals of the Brenchels and made the next biggest impact! They seemed very sweet and relatable like at the disco “We’re just 2 Mormon boys from Salt Lake City” haha and I liked their sweet bond with Caroline/Jennifer where they let them step on the mat in front of them. But they also feel annoying and entitled. Dave mentioned his achilles A LOT, Dave complained about his age A LOT ("Yeah outrunning an old man", “U-Turning a 60 year old man” and “This is a young person’s game”), complained about Brenchels A LOT and they seemed very self righteous over the U-Turn. Their involvement in the Accidental Alliance came across as childish rather than noble, “That snotty woman! She’s scary looking!” So I'm not sure if they were meant to be likeable or not - they sort of sucked a lot of the fun out of the season honestly. But a decent redemption for them and they made a decent impact and got us talking.
   
2. Leo/Jamal - still fun and likeable with some sneaky moments but more toned down than last time. A few cheeky moments like “We love you Connor, we love you Connor” when he finished the sewing (hoping for help), but then “I’m kidding, I don’t” after they left. Strategic again like when they wanted to lie to Jet/Cord at one stage but didn’t because they wanted to avoid the U-Turn this time. Made the smart decision rather than the emotional one when U-Turning the threats Jet/Cord. Unfortunately finished in 4th place again.
   
3. Jet/Cord - the cowboys are “back in the saddle”! Another likeable team but I found Leo/Jamal more interesting. They were “threats” again, “We’re like butter, we’re on a roll” when coming in 1st haha and also worked alone again “We’re used to being the lone rangers”. I sort of liked how they didn’t join in on the Brenchel drama. Still find them a bit overrated but I know a lot of viewers enjoyed seeing them again.
   
4. Caroline/Jennifer - were the sweethearts and underdogs who weren’t great racers but slid by each week (and saved by 2 non-eliminations). I thought they were likeable enough, “Who would u-turn Dave/Connor, they’re the sweetest guys…and have great hair” haha Were proud of their flirting again and used it to get an Express Pass off Jet/Cord…and were helped multiple times by Leo/Jamal and Dave/Connor. You don’t need to be a strong “girl power” team…the underdogs who get through by flirting are just as interesting haha But weren’t that great TV honestly….like last time.
   
5. Mark/Mallory - a fascinating dynamic even though most fans didn’t like this hybrid. In a way it did damage the reputation of 2 fan favorites (Mark/Bopper and Gary/Mallory) because they were very negative to one another (Mark refusing to race without the backpack despite having everything he needed, and Mallory seemed uncaring and not taking responsibility) but I enjoyed their drama. I liked how Mallory joked about losing their passport on leg 1…and the foreshadowing. I prefer their messy dynamic rather than them just being nice and boring for 2 legs.
   
6. Natalie/Nadiya - screamed at eachother through the whole 1st episode and I loved every minute they were on screen “It’s in Asian, I can’t read it!” haha They were such a hot mess in their 1 episode and possibly my favourite first boots! This season would have been so much better if we saw them involved in the Brenchel drama later, and I would have loved to see some more crazy moments and seeing them get to visit Sri Lanka.
   
7. Margie/Luke - the last 4 didn’t really contribute much this season. These 2 are ahead because I always enjoy watching their dynamic with their sweet bond and occasional bickering (nothing bad, just normal healthy struggles). Luke’s sexuality was finally brought up (a nice scene where Luke explains his coming out to Margie) and I liked Margie saying that when Luke pulls her this time, he has to be gentler because she’s older haha Felt very likeable this time, like when they were reflecting on the train ride in Sri Lanka.
   
8. Flight Time/Big Easy - they were fine but didn’t do much this season. They had a nice moment dancing with the locals in Borneo, joking about the Beekmans winning with roller bags, and talking to their wooden donkey when they couldn’t work out what they did wrong. So ultimately a few more fun moments than the 2 ranked below them. Didn’t feel like they wanted to be there as much as previous seasons.
   
9. John/Jessica - didn’t do much this time. They were at the centre of lots of storylines in TAR22 but I think that was just “lucky circumstances” rather than them being big characters. They were just a generic nice couple here. It was nice though seeing Joey/Meghan and John/Jessica helping each other again like last time (and Brendan/Rachel having a random final 3 alliance with them haha). Their only moment here was them working with other teams thinking Caroline/Jennifer were behind them, and losing a footrace.
   
10. Joey/Meghan - Also didn’t do much and the only difference is John/Jessica made it further. Joey just played up to the cameras like last time (screeching “White is not my color” at the wedding dresses) but they were still likeable enough. Their only storyline was Meaghan helping John despite the 2 of them being in last place. So not the smartest move but nice that they still have that friendship.
    

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Leg Rankings
1.Leg 8 - Italy (F6 - Flight Time/Big Easy eliminated) - the most entertaining episode of the season! So much drama going on between all teams and great scenery. Brendan/Rachel U-Turning Dave/Connor…with Dave’s irrational hatred for the rest of the leg plus Brendan/Rachel disagreeing over who to U-Turn. Then Dave/Connor helping Leo/Jamal (despite U-Turning them too and calling it a “blessed u-turn” haha). Decent challenges - racing donkeys (teams falling off especially Rachel, and the donkey struggling with Big Easy haha), building a wooden donkey (teams not using the box as part of it, many switches) and writing the Ancient manuscript (dull but some teams still struggled and was made better with Dave not accepting an apology and later mocking Brendan/Rachel). Rachel was hilarious “They can’t get me in a place of worship” haha Also had Dave/Connor and Caroline/Jennifer working together (with Dave/Connor accidentally losing them just like Bates/Anthony did) and just a good mix of fun and drama! Not for everyone, but I liked it.

1. Leg 4 - Malaysia (F8 - Non elimination) - fantastic, especially the Kuala Lumpur section at the end. The beginning in Kota Kinabalu had the trampoline challenge which had Jessica struggling and injuring her foot and Rachel having to take off her pantyhose because she was slipping haha But Kuala Lumpur had the Petronus Towers and Batu Caves, a night leg plus a fantastic Detour (if you ignore that it was impossible for Luke to do the DJ routine). Pouring the cocktails and the DJ routine had lots of teams struggling with placement shifts from the flights (one of my favorite Detours). Luke has a meltdown and smashes the glasses (Margie yelling like a mother to pick them up haha) and Rachel of all people calms him down. 3 hours later Brendan/Rachel pray and have a very positive edit and music (and don’t accept Margie/Luke’s offer for both to take a penalty) and a great ending between these 2. Loved the music and close up of Rachel’s cross haha Would be the best leg of the season if the whole leg was in Kuala Lumpur.
   
2. Leg 2 - China (F10 - Mark/Mallory eliminated) - it looked like a cheap Covid leg but pretty exciting overall. Some great drama with Mallory forgetting Mark’s bag and arguing about going back for it, “People from Kentucky don’t act this way” and Mark being like “I don’t have much and I mean nothing to her”. A trainwreck but can’t stop watching! Jet/Cord walk for a long time and lose their 1st place lead and some okay navigation drama at the start. Building the toy car at “Chuck e Cheese on steroids” was fun - a little girl annoying Flight Time, Meghan helping her ally John (despite being last), and especially Caroline struggling and Jen managing to get the Express Pass off Jet/Cord, “I knew I’d get it off him” hehe. The featherball was also fun with all teams so close together, and Mark/Mallory just not working well together at all. No team chose the massage, and I don’t mind watching teams in pain haha but I prefer skill based challenges so I don’t mind. 7 teams then check in together at the pit stop together. Very fun and fast paced!
   
3. Leg 11 - England/Wales (F4 - Leo/Jamal eliminated) - was decent and felt competitive enough but not as top tier as past final 4’s - mediocre tasks for a final 4 elimination and not many storylines but not too dull. Soccer task was ok but nothing special, shooting the clay pigeons/tossing wellingtons was terrible (still felt tense though at the end…and I guess it made Rachel crack), but I really enjoyed remembering the Welsh poem on the aqueduct (good scenery, cultural and challenging). The costumes and castle looked nice - “we’re in Downton Abbey” and Rachel finally has a TAR20 type meltdown when she picks the wrong size shoe and cries like a child (the foreshadowing at the start when Rachel says “I’m proud that I haven’t freaked out yet”). Placement shifts, self driving, Rachel meltdowns are always a positive for me, and actually had a strange positive edit where the final 4 were getting along. So still enjoyable overall and a sad ending for Leo/Jamal. Just needed a few better challenges, especially the Detour at the end.
   
4. Leg 7 - Italy (F7 - John/Jessica eliminated) - a good enough leg but would rank higher if it had bigger moments or storylines. It had the Coliseum, many teams together at the final puzzle (Roman Numerals) which is always a plus (Flight Time hilariously having no clue how to do it, Rachel not helping teams, and Leo/Jamal strategically helping last place teams)…and a foot race for last with teams thinking Caroline/Jennifer were behind. However the challenges were embarrassingly bad - remote controlled chariots seemed so silly and out of place (feels very inauthentic to the Ancient Roman theme), the gladiator routine was silly, and counting the Spanish steps wasn’t that hard as long as a local could tell you the Roman Numerals. Finding the site of the “unhappy Roman holiday” had some difficulties, Rachel thinking the “eternal city” is Ethiopia for some reason haha and while the detours were silly, they had some funny struggles with Leo “I watched all 4 seasons of Spartacus”. And of course a very close finish!
   
5. Leg 9 - Switzerland (F5 - Non elimination) - challenges were okay and nice Swiss scenery…but very big on the “We hate Brenchels” drama! I don’t mind it but can understand why some may find it annoying this episode. The “Accidental Alliance” is created on the train with teams mocking Rachel’s “I want to race around the world with my best friend” haha. And celebrate getting to clueboxes before Brendan/Rachel, helping one another “their family” and also complaining about them A LOT! Cleaning the room was okay as an attention to detail task and Jet was like “Now my wife knows I can clean”, and Helga “Figure it out!” was a great judge! Working out that the object is a drillbit for a tunnel plus the Mustang Puzzle were nice simple tasks - Rachel thinking it’s a wheel haha and Dave/Connor giving their allies answers. Delivering the milk through the snow at the end was a bit dull besides Brendan writing “TAR24 WINNERS BRENCHEL” on the gondola haha So just an okay leg but depends whether you like the “We hate the Brenchels” storyline.
   
6. Leg 6 - Sri Lanka (F7 - Non elimination) - another “okay” leg. Started strong with the tuk tuk Road Block - Rachel was fantastic screaming “GREEN GREEN GREEN” but her colours being wrong (her ally John eventually helps her). Lots of fun chaos with everyone manhandling tuk tuks “I was booty bumping rickshaws out of the way” haha But then there’s a train equaliser and delivering logs with an elephant/make paper from elephant dung was boring (and arguably animal cruelty making the elephant do that). “You’re only as fast as your big fat elephant”. They’re okay cultural tasks but not that difficult or interesting besides a few bubbles when making the paper. Nothing much happens besides some foot races - Jet/Cord vs Leo/Jamal “It’s Indians vs. Cowboys! And the Indians are WINNING!” haha and also Dave whining that John/Jessica outrun him “Yeah beat the old man”. The tuk tuk segment was a highlight of this season and it’s unfortunate that there was an equaliser and that the 2nd half dragged.
   
7. Leg 10 - Spain (F5 - Jet/Cord eliminated) - felt like a bit of a cheap and underwhelming final 5 elimination leg with some really silly challenges - shaving a balloon and running with bull costumes. A bit of the Brenchel drama (Dave saying the U-Turn was “kind of inappropriate” when it really wasn’t haha and “Dave/Connor are the sweetest guys on the planet”). Leo/Jamal decide to U-Turn Jet/Cord instead of Brendan/Rachel…but not that interesting “There’s only room for two cowboys on this race and it’s Leo and Jamal! Yeehaw!” Haha Shaving the balloon was terrible, nothing much from the flamenco dance, delivering the hams was a boring and generic Speed Bump, and the bull costumes were silly but at least had some fun moments - Rachel was hilarious as always getting knocked around like crazy saying the bulls were ”bullies”, Dave complaining “I’m an old matador”, Jet/Cord missing parts of the phrase, plus Jamal’s knee injury. It wasn’t necessarily too boring which is why it isn’t ranked lower.
   
8. Leg 1 - China (F11 - Natalie/Nadiya eliminated) - was terribly designed! The challenges were finding the Chinese symbols on the band members (very quick and forgettable starting line task), finding wedding dresses (had an okay navigational element and the only decent task), the Canton Tower bubbles (luck based and terrible) and summersaults (terrible, impossible to fail, too tame of a height challenge for All Stars, Caroline “Flight Time looks like a sexy piece of spinning meat”). Natalie/Nadiya were fantastic entertainment and saved this episode from being terrible by yelling “YOU IDIOT” and “I TOLD YOU” over and over (and even argue over who is doing the Road Block). “Those are Chinese flags, not race flags you lunatic!” It also had Bopper’s medevac which was a dramatic start and it’s nice seeing all the returnees bantering with one another (Brenchel army at the airport and Natalie/Nadiya joking about Rachel’s crying). But not much content besides Twinnie craziness, Jet/Cord dominating, and teams struggling to find the wedding dresses.
   
9. Leg 12 - USA (F3 - Finale) - for a finale, let alone the All Stars finale, the challenges were too easy - digging for a chest (boring), David Copperfield routine (impossible to fail and only designed to show off David Copperfield), putting lightbulbs in the Mirage sign (not challenging and only designed to show off Las Vegas) and looking for the neon sign in the helicopteskydive (didn’t look that hard to find). Very unsatisfying. But it wasn’t too boring with some minor drama with Brendan/Rachel and Caroline/Jennifer having a fight at customs (not caught on camera so just explained through talking) and there’s some arguing while digging for the chest (throwing sand in each other’s holes). Plus Brendan screaming at a taxi “We’re in a race so we can have a baby” haha plus Brendan/Rachel lost in a hotel that Rachel once worked at. And to be fair, it was very close between Dave/Connor and Caroline/Jennifer - sprinting to the final clue and waiting to see who skydived first. And a night leg in Las Vegas was a great idea…just terribly designed!
   
10. Leg 5 - Sri Lanka (F8 - Margie/Luke eliminated) - unfortunately a dull leg because Margie/Luke were an obvious elimination. It did have some great airport scrambles which is always welcome in the modern era (Brendan/Rachel taking a risk on a short connection and Margie/Luke failing to get on standby). Sewing the t-shirt had potential to be a tough interesting challenge…but needed to have all teams together. Several teams struggled, teams worked together (Jessica and Brendan, as well as Connor helping a struggling Jennifer) and Big Easy really struggled “If I have to sew something I’ll just ask my fiancé or my mother…or just buy something new” haha and Flight Time just shows off his basketball skills. The fishing had to be one of the dullest challenges ever and balancing the plates wasn’t much better (although Rachel is the one telling Brendan to calm down here). Printing the t-shirts was also a boring Speed Bump. Margie/Luke are way behind and have a nice scene enjoying the Sri Lankan train ride, but not much excitement.
    
11. Leg 3 - Malaysia (F9 - Joey/Meghan eliminated) - was terribly designed - boring challenges (repelling down a waterfall, delivering goods, blowdart) and separating the flights by 3 hours just didn’t make sense as there was little drama for the top 6…and then 3 teams far behind. And flight scrambles are always better than sign-ups. The top 6 just went through three tasks robotically, and even the bottom 3 had little drama or stress. I guess there was a bit of a storyline about the Brenchel army being the bottom 3 and facing the fact one of the friends will go. But Joey/Meghan are obvious boots after struggling to find a taxi. The only interesting parts were the rafts falling apart in the rapids and Rachel repelling in her underwear so her sequins don’t get wet “God forbid she lose some sequins along the way” haha The promos really hyped up the dangerous rapids and they were fine for that short segment but no drama came from them in the episode.
    

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Summary
Not a great season but I feel gets unfair hate (just like the Family Edition which also had bad leg designs, bad route, drama that some found annoying). I don’t think it was terrible as most legs had things happening that made each one interesting enough. Everyone vs Brenchels was similar to Everyone vs Weavers (had some interesting aspects, better than nothing, but was a bit annoying at times). The cast, route and challenges were unsatisfying but entertainment is most important to me and this season was usually not boring. TAR8 and TAR24 had similar weaknesses/frustrations so I’m ranking them together. I enjoyed TAR24 slightly more but I could see TAR24 getting a 5 or less if it wasn’t a returnee season, as it had some similarities to TAR16 (many teams were compelling because of their history rather than things they did on this season).
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So after each season I will place it on a ranking:
1.TAR5 - 10/10

1. TAR3 - 10/10
   
2. TAR12 - 9/10
   
3. TAR17 - 9/10
   
4. TAR18 - 9/10
   
5. TAR2 - 8/10
   
6. TAR7 - 8/10
   
7. TAR20 - 8/10
   
8. TAR11 - 8/10
   
9. TAR13 - 8/10
   
10. TAR6 - 8/10
    
11. TAR10 - 7/10
    
12. TAR22 - 7/10
    
13. TAR14 - 7/10
    
14. TAR1 - 7/10
    
15. TAR9 - 7/10
    
16. TAR21 - 6/10
    
17. TAR15 - 6/10
    
18. TAR23 - 6/10
    
19. TAR4 - 6/10
    
20. TAR24 - 6/10
    
21. TAR8 - 6/10
    
22. TAR19 - 5/10
    
23. TAR16 - 5/10
    

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Full article: Creators of ‘Percy Jackson,’ ‘Avatar’ and More Series Explain Why Adapting YA Books Is Uniquely Challenging: ‘The Bar is Different’
Albert Kim, the showrunner for the first season of Netflix’s “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” had to take things a step further: create a live-action adult series from an animated series that is inspired by the mysticism surrounding Chinese martial arts. He compares it to building a new puzzle out of an old one.
“Take the original and break it all down, and then decide which pieces were the most important, which were the ones that especially the young fans were going to remember and definitely want to see and put those into the new picture that you are creating,” Kim says. “Now, that said… there are certain things that probably weren’t going to work in a live-action show. A lot of the humor, which tended to be more juvenile or more specific to the original animated medium, didn’t translate that well.”
He says fan favorites from the animated show, including a guy who foams at the mouth, “would have been more like an Easter egg rather than an essential plot point for the story” this time around. Kim says he and his team also had “a tightrope we had to walk” regarding how gruesome or evil they could show this world, so as to not scare off new audiences while also appeasing older ones. They opted to show a genocide happening because he says it “set the stakes for the whole world” versus the first show, which just alluded to it
Some dialogue, such as lines spoken by Ian Ousley’s sardonic Sokka, wasn’t intentionally meant to make this character more progressive than his animated predecessor. Rather, Kim says, it was simply that you can be “a little more direct in a 30-minute cartoon, [and] sometimes characters, basically, just said things out loud — exactly what they were feeling or what they believe.”
“For a live-action show, we wanted to play things a little more subtly,” he explains.

In season 2 episode 6, Rich rants to Kim about how he got abandoned by his boss when he was just starting out. He was assigned second chair to a preliminary hearing. His boss didn't care enough to show, so Rich was left on his own to argue a losing position. This stuck with Rich his entire career. He tells Kim that low level associates shouldn't just be tossed to unwinnable positions which the partners can't bother to deal with themselves. What I didn't realize for a while is that he wasn't bullshitting.
In season 1 episode 9, Jimmy begins litigation against Sandpiper. Sandpiper's first "counter-attack" was a restraining order against Jimmy, which would prevent him from approaching the residents. Rich was there alone to argue for the restraining order and the judge doesn't grant it. Chuck later tells Jimmy that the judge was never going to grant it. It was an unwinnable position. And yet,Schweikart was there by himself to argue for it. Because he does believe in that, I guess.
I'm not really sure what to think of this guy. I always thought he was an asshole for defending a company like Sandpiper. But, as time passes, I think of him as more of a lawful neutral character. As a boss,I think he was better than Howard. At the very least, he seems to respect his associates more.

One of the popular theories floating around the fandom which I think has a lot of merit is the reboot theory. Namely this says Tim Minear was using Season 7 to get the characters back to where he left them at the end of Season 4 when he stepped away as showrunner, and then tell the stories in Season 8 that he wanted to tell in Season 5 onwards. Although I'll admit it feels a bit odd to effectively undo two entire seasons and still have the showrunner for those seasons (Kristen Reidel) still on the writing team.
If this is true, one important consequence is that it pushes back against the narrative that Tim is chaos and didn't have a destination in mind as he was writing the season. It would suggest the season was more planned than what fans are saying based on how rushed they found the finale. Nevertheless, the finale was still incredibly rushed filming wise, with the show wrapping less than 2 weeks before the finale was due to air, and the crew being made to work crazy shifts at that. Furthermore, cast members were getting scripts for critical scenes the night before and Tim even said he was "laying the tracks as the train was coming".
In this post I'm going to compare where the main characters have been left off at the end of Season 4 compared to Season 7, and my own personal opinion as to how much their arcs in Season 7 felt planned or improvised. Sit down, get comfortable, this is going to be a long post!

Bobby and Athena

Of all the characters that give credence to the Season 7 finale is rebooting from Season 4 finale, it's Bobby and Athena. They are the characters whose finale bears most similarity to Season 4:

• Bobby and Athena have a serious argument due to their inability to communicate important life decisions and this seems to threaten their marriage (Bobby hiding his AA meetings from Athena in and then being angry at Athena for going back to work so quickly in S4 and Bobby suddenly retiring without telling Athena in S7).
  
• Bobby then gets injured (shot by the sniper in S4, attacked by the cartel in S7) and Athena has her big damn hero moment in a burning building.
  
• The crisis brings Bobby and Athena back togther, along with the kids (although for obvious reasons not Michael in S7) but the underlying communication problems are not addressed and the elephant of their eventual retirement as first responders is still in the room.
  

Given then Bobby and Athena were the main A plot in over half the episodes of the season (7x01 - 7x03 and 7x08 - 7x10), their story arc must have been the core plot that underpinned writing of the season. Also, given that Peter and Angela are Executive Producers of the show, these are the characters that Tim has least ability to mess around in terms of last minute rewrites or filming date changes.
This makes me think the entire arc, along with Amir, was planned out long ahead of time and that the season was always going to end with Athena being an action hero against the cartel and Bobby recovering from his injuries. But it felt like Tim took on too many other storylines and they ran out of time and so had to force Athena chasing the cartel into the finale in a way that absolutely felt wrong pacing wise. All in all in felt like both bookends of the Bathena story was at least half an episode too long and in a ten episode season, using six to tell their story made it difficult to satisfyingly tell many other characters' arcs, even if Bathena's was completely planned from the start.

Hen and Karen

Hen and Karen are probably the characters with the next most similar endings in Season 7 compared to Season 4. The key difference though is at the end of Season 4, Nia is reuinted with her birth mother and further Henren contact with her is uncertain whereas Mara is with Maddie and Chimney and therefore we know Henren will still be in close contact. Furthermore, Season 7 leaves Hen with a cloud (Ortiz) in a way she didn't have at the end of Season 4.
The issue though is that to get to a similar place as in Season 4, Tim had to essentially rehash the same fostering storyline for Season 7, making the entire season for Hen feel a little stale and a sense of "we've seen this before". It's also telling that Tim quickly jettisoned the ending Kristen gave Hen in Season 6 of adopting a baby and had them adopt a girl of roughly the same age as Nia, had she continued to Season 7. That Tim was willing to do that makes me think if the reboot theory is true, Tim had wanted to have Nia and her mum return in Season 5, which never happened, and he's putting Mara in Madney's care to ensure they do find a sibling for Denny this time.
Again, the fact Tim used the same storyline he had done previously suggests that this was probably planned all along for this season. Tim also said in interviews he wanted more Hen and Maddie interactions, noticeable in the cruise ship arc, and this fostering arc also allowed for the Madney and Henren moments.

Buck

It is widely speculated that Tim had wanted to make Buddie happen with the Season 4 sniper arc finale but the storyline was canned by someone above him at the studio, and that this contributed to Tim stepping away from showrunning OG 9-1-1 for Lone Star. Therefore there's two versions of the end of Season 4 Tim could have aimed for: the actual end and the ending he originally wanted.
With Buck coming out as bisexual, Buck is certainly closer to Tim's original ending. Ignoring the gender of his love interest, Buck is actually in a very similar situation (having just started a relationship with Taylor in the Season 4 finale and being early into a relationship with Tommy at the end of Season 7). Buck also in both seasons had a heart to heart moment with Eddie, with Chris being an important topic.
However, it also feels like Buck coming out is the only thing that happened to Buck this season and thanks to the atrocious Season 5 and 6 writing for Buck, it is weird to think that end Season 4 Buck is basically end Season 7 Buck but swap the love interest. This feels less like it was planned and more just neglectful writing for Buck. Unfortunately it still feels like Tim doesn't know what to do with Buck as a character still.
Moreover we know Bi Buck wasn't planned until the third episode of the season and was also a result of a bunch of serendipitous circumstances: Lucy and Natalia's actresses being unavailable whilst Marisol's actress being always available, and Ryan feeling the Eddie and Tommy storyline wasn't right for this season. Speaking of which...

Eddie

It's probably a stretch to compare being shot by a sniper to cheating with your dead wife's doppelganger but somehow Tim has left Eddie more broken at the end of Season 7 than at the end of Season 4. Eddie finished Season 4 recovering and deciding to put Buck in his will, he was still in a relationship with Ana and Chris was around. This suggests, in Eddie's case at least, we're not quite in Season 4 finale reboot and Tim is somewhat bringing Season 5 Eddie into the mix or at least jumping ahead half a season.
We also know from Devin's interview that when she came back to read Shannon's letter as a ghostly flashback for Chris that she didn't know she was going to be back again as Kim. This suggests to me that Tim rewatched Vertigo after the season had started and the bizarre doppelganger plot was not conceived originally for the season.
I feel like of all the characters, Eddie was the most unevenly written in Season 7 with his characterization from 7x04 onwards being utterly bizarre and inconsistent and suggesting multiple writers, rewrites and frankly a season arc that most resembled Tim's "laying the tracks as the train was coming" comment. Eddie's story was chaos, and I don't even think Tim quite knows where he's ended the season with Eddie other than he's lost Chris which I don't feel was planned for at the start of the season. If it was, they really shouldn't have had it fight for screen time with the end of Bathena arc.

Maddie and Chimney

I've left Maddie and Chimney to the end so I don't have to write everything else angry having revisited their wedding and my ever increasing anger at the worst writing decisions the show has made in 7 seasons, namely making the Madney wedding a silly angst filled, Doug filled episode where Maddie is barely a main character and is relegated to damsel in a wedding dress in distress. The same Maddie who previously was badass enough to single handedly fight off her abusive husband, turn the tables on her hostage taker using an epipen and also professionally direct the emergency whilst her fiance was involved in the bridge collapse.
(Tim managed to slightly salvage the season for Madney fans the next episode by giving us a heartwarming moment with the Hans and Maddie being seen to be an wonderful mother to Jee-Yun but I wonder how much of that was fanservice from Tim knowing he was going to upset Madney fans with the wedding.)
Anyway, rant aside, the wedding was long planned for this season but what with the Bathena arc being this season, it seemed like Tim couldn't make the wedding the finale like with Tarlos, nor could he make it the 100th episode because the cruise ship arc and logistics with that, it meant the wedding couldn't be filmed in time for 7x04. This scheduling conflict felt like it was never resolved going into the season and it left Madney in limbo this season.
As for where Tim has left Madney, it's certainly not Season 4 ending since that ended with Madney starting the PPD arc as they knew JLH was pregnant and would be gone for most of S5A, which isn't the case here. So Maddie and Chimney are thankfully not where they were at the end of Season 4, which I don't think is where Tim really wanted them to be anyway but I worry Tim doesn't actually know where he wants them other than "just happily married" and doesn't have a plan yet for Season 8.
As unfortunate as the news is that Grace may not be appearing in Season 5 of Lone Star, I wonder if Tim should recycle some of the ideas he originally had for Grace and Judd and use them for Madney in Season 8. Only the heartwarming ideas though please Tim.

Conclusion (or too long didn't read bit)

I think going into this season Tim had a very clear idea for Bobby and Athena and wanted to bring them back by the end of Season 7 in the same place as the end of Season 4 (up to Michael being gone). I also think he wanted to the same for Hen's fostering journey with Mara being the new Nia. But I don't think that was the case for the others.
However, Bathena's story took up so much of the season, it didn't leave enough time for a satisfying Madney wedding, which was also planned for. And alas it feels like Tim's lack of endgame vision for Buck and Eddie and his penchant for chaos meant those two got the last minute, spur of the moment story arc decisions that led to ultimately very unsatisfying season arcs.

Ok so no one responded to my Africa post lol but this is the only place that I have to talk about Survivor. My college is on strike so I've finished Marquesas much earlier than I though. Some people from Australia were interesting (found out a lot of them suck in real life), Africa was really good and Borneo felt the most real, almost in a found footage kind of way, but Marquesas was the one I had the most fun watching. Such a great season and in a beautiful place, geography has always been an interest of mine and I love to know more about the Pacific Islands in particular, it has such an unique scenary and culture
This cast was the most reality tv-ish, it was almost like Total Drama they seemed like caricatures of the people from other seasons, John was cartoonish villainous, Gabe talked like a 60s hippie, Neleh and Paschal were like Rodger and Elisabeth but Neleh is fun, Hunter wishing nothing but the worst to everyone, Peter and Zoe are the two strangest people to be on this show, Sean and Rob with personalities made for tv, also Rob has such a strong accent sometimes I couldn't understand what he was saying and Gina being constantly frustrated with everything. This isn't a complain, everyone on this season was memorable (except Patricia who I forgot was there), but it makes me a little apprehensive for the future seasons. On Big Brother Brazil after people saw how much having a good image could bring to them opportunities and money the new participants would start emulating popular players from other years and exagerate so much to the point that they didn't even act like a person anymore (what's worst is that people buy that they are like that in real life), and I hope that this will not happen to Survivor, it is a one two step for a show to prefer casting people who learned what appeals to the general public and put on a fake personality rather than authentic people, I think it will not because they don't depend on what the audience thinks to get further in the game. I really liked that they had a way different point of view of the morality of the game, it really surprised me, though for sure that they would maintain this mentality for a few more seasons. It had 4 key moments of "selfishly thinking" and winning 1 million dollars is more important than being loyal to this person I met 3 weeks ago: Rob and Sean voting out Hunter despite him being the "leader", Rotu voting out Gabe, even though he wasn't there to play the game, Neleh and Paschal not being content with 5th or 6th and going against their alliance and Vecepia making the deal with Neleh seconds after Kathy lost. I wanted so much for Kim Johnson last season or Amber on Australia to do something like that, go against the people you pledged loyalty when you know if you stick to them you will lose, and it frustrated me they didn't and this one had 4. The tribes too had a way more fun dynamic, I learned that I really don't care if a person is lazy or works hard on camp, as long as they are entertaining, last season I sympathized a lot more with the older Samburu members and now on Maraamu Sean, Rob, Peter, Sarah and Vecepia were way more fun. It still baffles me that they managed to lose every challenge, despite living on the beach with more food, having fire since the beggining and the tribe being physically stronger.
I think Vecepia is the best winner so far, she was so sneaky that she managed to be apart of three different tribes where she could survive at least a couple of eliminations, on Maraamu she wouldn't be eliminated before Gina, on Rotu before Rob and Sean and on Soliantu before Sean, Rob and Kathy, and after Neleh and Paschal betrayed Rotu she again was in no real danger until the top 4, Ethan had a similar path, I think he didn't even receive a vote to be eliminated, but it was easier for him, since he was in the majority the whole game, after the swap V was always out numbered and still found a way, also the betrayal on Kathy was so cold blooded I didn't even think she could pull something like that, it was the best decision, Kathy for sure would win, but doing it immediatly after Kathy lost she hadn't even sit yet, the best moment. One think that I though it was odd is the way they edited her, Richard was the only "main character" who won, but still Tina and Ethan appeared a lot and was always shown what they were thinking, nothing Vecepia was doing was shown, rather it was told by Sean or Rob in a confessional, I think she only started showing up after John was eliminated. This connects to another thing that it was so weird to me that everyone who was on screen a lot got eliminated early: Hunter, Sarah, Gina, Rob, John. After John is gone only Kathy and Sean had a lot of screen time and I though for sure it would happen just like Australia after Jerri is gone it becomes boring, but after they made like a "story for the episode" with Zoey trying so hard to pretend that she was never part of the alliance in the weirdest way with her friendship bracelets and telling Tammy she doesn't like her eyes, Neleh offering chewed gum to 6 starving adults and Kathy's decision of either siding with Neleh and Paschal or V and Sean, also I didn't understand the whole argument of Sean and Vecepia having an alliance, I got that they didn't but it was not like they would vote for each other, they just didn't say that but if it was up for Sean to vote against V or Kathy he would eliminate Kathy and V would do the same.
I only have two complans of this amazing season. The challenges still are boring, were they out of budget this time? On the other seasons the challenges were boring too but they always had some kind of structure for them, this one had flying kite, walking on stilts and making popcorn as challenges, which made me like a little for the absurdity, the slingshot, balance on the sea and coconut ones were fun. The other one is the new tiebreaker was so unfair to Paschal, not that I wanted him to win but it is unfair for him to be eliminated on a tribal counsil he didn't even receive a vote

If you've never seen "24," scroll on by because there are major spoilers ahead.
I love "24"; knew what it was ever since it debuted in 2001, but didn't get into it until season five and got all caught up Through a combination of reruns in syndication and buying all the seasons on DVD. I love the fact that time is so critical in that show, as it really adds to the drama and suspense not to mention all the unexpected twists and turns it takes. Of course, Kiefer Sutherland will forever be known and associated with the character of Jack Bauer; he played that role so perfectly!
In season seven, you can argue that jack faces a reckoning of sorts when he's confronted with everything he has had to do in the name of protecting and defending America from terrorists. The season gets especially powerful and poignant after he is exposed to a weaponized virus the season's bad guys have developed, in a similar vein to when George Mason, played by Xander Berkley, was exposed to a lethal level of plutonium and was forced to come to grips with the choices he'd made in his life. Watching the toll that virus takes on Jack not only physically, but mentally as well...
There's this scene in the final episode of season seven between Jack and his partner for that season, Renee Walker (played by the late Annie Wershing,) that really captures who he is, what he's had to do and how conflicted he is about all of it; coupled with his knowledge that the virus is extremely advanced at this point, he isn't long for this world and has accepted that, but wants to pass the baton so to speak… Probably one of the most powerful and poignant scenes in the entire series, and that's saying something.
What I think should've happened was have Kim, Jack's daughter still volunteer herself for the experimental stem cell treatment that had a chance, however slim, of neutralizing the virus, but Jack succumbs to it before the procedure can be performed. You talk about an unexpected twist? Viewers would expect Jack to go out like a bad ass in a blaze of glory, thanks to the series turning him into this invincible tough guy; no one would expect him to die like this and because "24," in my opinion anyway had declined in quality throughout season six due to their over-reliance on previous plot devices, improved in season seven for sure but then became way too over the top, even borderline cartoonish and almost pathetically predictable in seasons eight and nine, this would've been a good way to send him off. Not everyone goes out like a bad ass; in fact, I'd venture a guess that most people don't. The fact he has accepted, embraced, even welcomed death at the point of the scene I'm linking to here. This is how he should've gone out, not as a fugitive on the run from his own government or being tortured in a Russian prison. https://youtu.be/8xj-a1n8puI?si=qkcmtIDejsOcQGo9

My fellow gamers, for too long has our community suffered the indignation of an intolerable culture that has denigrated, besmirched, exploited, and has outright demonized our culture of unique individuals with a genuine love of a hobby that they see as profitable and progressive. They have taken beloved IP’s (Intellectual Properties) and twisted them into their own personal ideological crusade of undermining and humiliating the core aspects of characters they deemed as “Toxic” or “White Supremacy”. Through the guise and protection of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity) & ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) they have used our influence in the entertainment industry to push their narratives and agendas that have stigmatized our culture with numerous anti-consumer practices that they call “being progressive”. But the truth of the matter is they were never really looking to be a part of our community, they simply wanted to use our community as a tool of activism and propaganda in the entertainment industry as it was extremely profitable, and they wanted inclusion in that division. Ever since GamerGate & Female Frequency, we have had to endure the incursion of forced ideologies, xenophobic behaviors and inferior overpriced products that have never been in our best interest and have been flat out disgraceful towards foreign media.
Before Gaming had become a major source of entertainment, we were often categorized as anti-social or societies rejects where because we found more enjoyment in playing fictional characters and not spending as much time out and about, we never fully assimilated in society (which is a good thing if you ask me). From 1998 to 2007, at the height of innovation, creativity and production, Gaming had reached a golden age in which it had revolutionized society. Hollywood Execs who had ruined the movie industry turned their attention to video games as a source of income since video games had outperformed movies in terms of profit. No one was concerned about gaming, much less diversity or inclusivity until it became profitable. This makes people like SBI look extremely disingenuous as they were not interested in gamers as a community with its own culture. They simply wanted to use it as another weapon in identity politics.
Microtransactions; the hidden enemy to gamer progress and inducer to mental laziness of our community. Microtransactions have been around for a long time; however, it has never been more potent and apparent than in recent years. It has aided in the dismantling and segregation of players on the ideology of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and has created another sub-culture of gamers who have no real drive to be better outside of how much money they put into the game. This has degraded our culture as well as we have become “fat” off transactional gaming but at the same time we have been “starved” of purposeful gaming where our achievements were our sustenance. I am not saying that microtransactions are bad, but when they are exploitative and predatorial like they have been and don’t give gamers room to grow, we become lethargic and unwilling to improve ourselves as gamers. Oversaturated microtransactional games are one of the many reasons why we have become complacent and unwilling to fight against the exploitative tactics used by big brand game companies such EA, Ubisoft, ActivisionBlizzard, NaughtyDog and so many other western business model companies. Western style games were not like this in the past, they had much more depth and actual effort put into them with the gamer in mind. This has not been the case for over a decade and our connection to western developers has been whittled down to just being transactional. That is one of the reasons why you see so many remasters and remakes in today’s gamer community. They have lost their willingness to improve as developers of games and simply accept corporate/share holder rules.
Game journalists also do not have any real integrity or purpose outside of being funded for their involvement in promoting IPG (Identity Political Games) in a positive light to the public whether it’s positively received or not. They are not interested in what we have to say, they all support the same agenda and that is why they are a dying breed. Within the next couple of years, they will be out of the job and more than likely they will not be able to stay in the industry giving how they have responded to past articles that have clearly been scripted on the premise of diversity and racism. Not only that, but most of them are also extremely hostile to the community as they stereotype and defame the individuals that are a part of the community they are supposed to serve. We have been mentally liberated from their lies and coercive tactics as we tend to laugh at their obvious attempt at virtue signaling while hiding their misdoings so that they can play the victim.
My gamer brothers & sisters, I would not suggest the following action that we must take now without good cause. I have weighed our options and the best option for us now is this…...CULTURAL SECESSION. Naturally this is a form of segregation where they would more than likely claim they are being segregated by the dominant culture of the gaming community but that is incorrect. For years now we have been the ones who are often marginalized and ostracized for the smaller portion of our community. And when we aren’t, we’re exploited for more funds so that these companies can stay in business only to subject us to low quality products that coincide with the “WOKE Agenda” that are often huge expenses to these big brands i.e. AAA/AAAA games that will eventually flop for its obvious forced diversity and bug infested product which will undoubtedly piss off the consumer to the point of wanting a refund. Losing copious amounts of capital and stock in the process, not to mention their reputation is permanently marred.
We must separate on every cultural level in terms of entertainment and ideology. We must reject everything from the west that promotes toxic western beliefs, practices, and exclusion from other cultures (i.e. Southeastern Countries such as Japan and Korea). Japan & Korea have been the targets of unjust discrimination from Western Developers, Western Journalists, Western Localizers (The Wokelizers) and Western Society Prejudice regarding their sense of aesthetics as Westerners hate the aesthetic sense of these countries. The reason why they resort to such base tactics isn’t just because it weaponizes the ideal female form but it’s also because they have deep-seated insecurities about their own looks so when they see attractive female characters, they use terms such as “unrealistic” or “hypersexualized” to establish the moral high ground. But the truth is, they want to feel superior to that which is ideal, so they insult and dehumanize this figure that portrays natural female beauty because they see it as an insult to their own social superiority in what they believe is a hierarchy of them being at the top of all other women. Because of this and so many contributing factors, their movies flop harder than the Fat Chocobo landing on a group of enemies and their games seismically fail just as much if not more. We must sever our connection to Western Developers, Publishers, and ALL Western-Centric Entertainment for they seek to mentally enslave us to their Xenophobic ideology.
Let’s define Western Culture and its traits. Western Culture/Society is composed of more than several different ideologies that work in unison with one another to facilitate dominance over multiple aspects of society. Business, Social, Political, Technological, and sometimes even Global Affairs are affected by these ideologies that portray a specific mindset of Western beliefs. What are those ideologies you ask?

• Perpetual Victimhood: By weaponizing the fact that they are marginalized and of a small portion of western society, they can push their agenda to absurd standards that ultimately ostracize the main demographic. And when companies don’t capitulate, they are labeled as anti-progressive/misogynist’s or cohorts of White Supremacy. They use this to cancel their targets and silence them through societal defamation to keep the public on their side. They also use this mindset to justify their own lack of self-agency as they tend to throw companies who do adhere to their demands but miserably fail to turn a profit under the bus so that they can maintain face in front of the public while denying their actual involvement. They will never accept “Sense of Agency” when it’s negative but will gladly accept it when a positive outcome shines on them as if they are entitled to it.

Official Wiki GamerGate Page)
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• Societal Terrorism: This is another form of ideology weaponization that they use in order to make companies “toe-the-line” with their agenda. By weaponizing cancel culture, they exert dominance over these companies but in exchange they also reimburse those companies with DEI & ESG funds that raise their credit score as well as having social status with the marginalized demographic. However; cancel culture has not succeeded in years and developers and publishers probably only want the money and the DEI ESG rating. But they have to maintain the image of having social economic power so that they can continue to strong-arm other developers into compliance and promoting financial benefits of DEI & ESG. In other words, if you are not for sale, they discredit and stigmatize you in the industry.

Asmongold Clips.
https://youtu.be/Iq86DnmX2xY
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• “Its not us, its you who’s wrong” Mentality: This mentality is especially annoying as they tend to use it to hide their incompetence. They often look down upon gamers who are not in the industry to hide their obvious lack of knowledge on game development thinking that their job title grants them special status that they believe gives them the right to be condescending. But the truth they never wanted revealed has already strangled their careers of all credibility. They were never GAMERS, they were INVADERS. Community Colonists that seek to indoctrinate next generational gamers into their hive-mind and brand previous generations of gamers as villains.

@GeeksandGamers
https://youtu.be/1HbrTkqQFuM
​

• Double-standard Enforcement: By labeling something as “unrealistic” or “hypersexualized”, they can claim this is morally wrong if it promotes traditional dynamics between men and women. Heterosexual relationships are condemned while at the same time Same-sex relationships are praised. Additionally, heterosexual relationships with main white male characters turn antagonistic and spotlight stealing. This is deliberate as to promote the “Girl Boss” ideology to indoctrinate women into the Feminazi state of mind. While at the same time, should a male character also adopt the “I don’t need male/female” ideology its seen as Toxic Masculinity which isn’t even a real thing. The idea of a strong male character is taboo while enforcing strong female characters is the ideal.

@MugenLord
https://youtu.be/to5Uciy_yeg
@EndymionTv
https://youtu.be/7TPTR8-qmbk
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• Dehumanization/Demonization: This is something that most military branches use in order to remove conscious inhibitions such as mass slaughter is wrong or categorization. By enforcing ideologies to denounce humanity in certain targets, it deactivates your conscience by saying this is not human therefore its ethically okay to treat this target without compassion and deny the fact it has sentience. We gamers fall under this category for journalists, developers, companies and society at large. This is a tactic we are familiar with to an extent as it implies that we are not normal when we do not do what everybody else is doing. “Geeks are the worse” or “Nerds need to fall into a pit of lava” are verbal dehumanization forms that most people in society say and we as Gamers tend to be relegated to those categories. This is their way of imposing the social hierarchy on us by establishing superiority. We know this as Gamers as we see it very often in the games that we play and some times experience it in real life.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gamergate#The_end_of_their_relevance
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• Deflection/Projection: This is basic psychology 101. By redirecting the conversation away from their mistakes and back on to the opposing view to avert blame and justify their innocence they can avoid criticism. However; deflection is a CONSCIOUS decision, meaning they have no real argument to justify their incompetence. If you can consciously process the situation, you have self-agency which means you don’t have a legitimate excuse. Projection is something else entirely. Most times, Projection doesn’t work on conscious decisions rather it is automatically deployed when feeling threatened, anxious or both. Instead of accepting accountability for feelings or actions that are deemed socially unacceptable they accuse others of committing that unacceptable behavior thereby exonerating themselves and proving that those feelings and/or actions are not their own.

@TheTrentReport
https://youtu.be/bPIPSKruYRo
These traits are so nefarious and unconscionable that I have a hard time believing that anyone could harbor them. However, given the social, political, and economic climate that we are in, those in power who use their influence on controlling society most definitely possess these insidious traits. Everything that they do is all about control and since video games are the biggest market in the world, they want control over it and the communities built around it to accrue more wealth and to use that wealth to subjugate other cultures. Mainstream media is a tool as well as mainstream organizations and sites to help accomplish this goal.
The government recently announced its intentions towards what they believe is “GamerGate 2.0” and now even the ADL has made an official appearance, referring to gamers as “extremist’s”. We know EXACTLY what they are doing, and they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore because they don’t think we are aware of their motives. This is just a pretext for them to exert even more control and we know why, it’s because they want the influence we as a community have to must serve them. So here is what we do my fellow gamers-
“In light of recent events and years of mainstream stigma, we the members of the Global Gaming Community [GGC] must officially renounce ALL TIES to the corporate western video game market. We have been financially exploited through predatorial monetization schemes, pelted with numerous articles of disdain and intentional misrepresentation from game journalists, news outlets regarding us as dangerous individuals and, even subjected to inferior products not only riddled with bugs but also products meant to push political agendas. For the preservation of our community and its unique culture, apart from a few select game development studios we officially sever all connections to western owned video game companies & their mainstream affiliates. From this point onward, we will no longer support western corporate developers, journalists and publishers that do not coincide with the goals of our community.”
Naturally this is completely optional. If you are okay with the state of the gaming community as it is, feel free to ignore this. But if you wish for real change and a break away from oversaturated monetization in the games you play and the push for radical ideological reform, then you are in the right place. Lets sever these rotted miasmic ties once and for all so that our community can be preserved and made better for future gamers. If you agree with this, share it with whoever you think might be interested. The more gamers who get involved, the easier it will be for us to finally break free from mainstream game companies and their associates.

(SPOILERS FOR FIRST TIME VIEWERS)
I've been thinking that one of the most underrated episodes, and arguably one of the most important episodes of the series is the season 1 finale "Marco". I know it's in Cicero most of the time (and as a contained episode, I still really enjoy it) but dammit Marco was a great character and they really developed his and Jimmy's relationship in a really short amount of screentime.
But something else I noticed on rewatch is before he leaves, he talks to Kim about Chuck's betrayal. What's interesting to me is at this point, we saw him kick the garbage can out of frustration after losing the Kettlemen's. But this time, he just tells Kim "Chuck thinks I'm a scumbag, there's nothing I can do to change that" and leaves. What's interesting to me on rewatch is that this feels like the first time Jimmy really holds his emotions in about how he's feeling. Season 4 obviously goes way further into this idea, but it's interesting that it feels like the end of season 1 is really the first time he really represses his emotions, and subsequently let's it out as Slippin Jimmy for most of the remainder of the episode. It feels like a more toned down version of a season 4 episode, where Jimmy does bad things to avoid how he's feeling.
It's also interesting that Kim responds to him as saying he's being mature. In this case, it feels like it, but once we get into season 4, his emotional repression gets to a point where it's not mature, and feels almost dangerous. And then we know the rest.
So yeah. Marco is an underrated episode and kind of feels like it set the foundation for the major character development of Jimmy later down the line.

Jimmy thoughts were out in open (after s4) about chuck’s death. Kim knew and was clear after 2-3 interactions of Kim and jimmy about chuck’s death but she never countered Jimmy about that despite of her character. And many a times she knew that jimmy is conning someone but she never argued. Thoughts on this.

Ok it may be controversial but Tom, Maxine and Sambuca shouldn't have left the show so early.
Like ok Grantly can go he was on his way out a while ago but why did the producers have to boot out the characters with the most potential. Like I can literally imagine Tom Clarkson as the head teacher unlike Kim because she's such a cow even from the get go.
Like Tom was the school's mutual father figure. He was compassionate and he understood the kids. But Kim, she is so ready to jump at anything for example she immediately blamed Phillip Ryan for touching that woman even though he said he was pushed (which would be reasonable since there is such a large crowd).
For Maxine, she was just starting to sort of get her life back together. She had a somewhat stable home with a guardian who'd look out for her and protect her. She threw it all away for Earl Kelly and when she was finally breaking away from him. She had so much potential to go from problem student to star student like Scout Allen.
Sambuca, same reason. She was a role model for her siblings, especially Denzil. She had a rough start at school and slowly made friends and was getting into less and less trouble. Then Boom she has a terminal brain tumor. It was so sudden that even I couldn't get my head around it. She wanted to finish school. She wanted to make a life for herself. Then it was all taken away from her. She didn't want to be one of the "problem Kellys" like Earl. She wanted happiness but that was taken away.
Well that's my opinion and I'd love to hear your opinions aswell!

A lot of characters in media are relatively easy to place on the alignment scale but I have a really difficult time with Jimmy. Kim too for that matter. Thoughts?

This years Nebulas are being awarded tomorrow night, so I thought I’d give my rankings of the Hugo and Nebula nominees. The Hugos are awarded on August 11th. Obligatory mention of how the Hugos appear to have been fixed last year, but that has been thoroughly discussed elsewhere, so I don’t really want to rehash it. And this year appears to be completely transparent, and I’m guessing and hoping will include efforts to prevent any similar corruption again.
For those who don’t like the Nebulas or Hugos, or don’t find them useful ways to find things you like to read, that’s certainly understandable. I’d love to hear your thoughts on any nominees you did read, or on works from 2023 that you enjoyed and feel are award worthy!
Notable things from this year: Martha Wells declined Murderbot nominations, a classy move for an already well awarded series. Lot’s of our usual nominees, while the only notable absence I caught was Seanan Mcguire’s Wayward Children novella, which is a bit of a shame as #8 is easily the best of the series, and it functions as a stand alone like all of the even numbered ones. But also, once you’re 8 books in, it does seem past due to start nominating other things. I’ll be curious to see if it was the Chinese works that edged it out.
A couple last things. Fantasy is doing their Hugo read, and it has some great commentary. u/brent_323 put out his rankings and comments on the Nebula novel nominees, and they differ from my somewhat if you want a different perspective. Lstly, I’ve added Goodreads ratings (out of 5 stars) for novels and novellas to give some context on how generally liked and how widely read each book is.

Best Novel

9: (Nebula Nominee) Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi (DAW, Gollancz)
Stars: 3.70
Number of ratings: 633
Thematically, Shigidi is pretty similar to American Gods but with an emphasis on the Yoruba religion. My apologies in advance for any potential inaccuracies, my knowledge of Yoruba is based on this book, and some cursory Wikipedia reading. Different creators or gods have their own corporate structure, with minor sub-deities as employees. Olorun is the creator in Yoruba, with Orisha’s being lower level gods. One of these, Shigidi (a nightmare god in the book, although Wikipedia lists him as Guardian of Home and Environment), is trying to split from the Yoruba corporation and be an independent entity, along with his lover, the succubus Nneoma (based on Naamah, a demon from Jewish mysticism). To pay off his debt to the company, Shigidi has one last job.
It’s an interesting world, but despite the thematic American Gods comparisons, it feels nothing like that and has little else in common, and its structure ultimately makes it a much less successful book. Approximately a third of the book is the present day story, but most of that is in the second half of the book. The first half is brief tastes of the present in between longer chapters of background events. Those events are telling a single secondary story, just filling in the info you need to understand how we got to the present situation. Everytime we finally had some momentum, that thread would be done and I’d have to ‘get into’ the book all over again. If it wasn’t so broken up, I think I would have really enjoyed it, but as it is I was pretty done with the book by the time I got to where the bulk of the present day heist story was, and ended up skimming the last 50 to 100 pages.
8: (Nebula Nominee) The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz (Tor; Orbit UK)
Stars: 3.38
Number of ratings: 5,213
I loved The Future of Another Timeline, and on that alone will read any future Newitz novels, but so far nothing else of hers has come close to the same heights. The Terraformers is a set of 3 novellas set around 500 years apart, watching the terraforming of a planet over time through the eyes of the workers owned by the corporation terraforming the planet. Most of the plot is focused on terraforming, the corporation’s shenanigans, civil engineering, and civil rights, as the populace works to win the freedom to enjoy their home.
Very interesting, but it definitely drags at times. I loved the themes explored, although the civil engineering could be a bit much at times (said as a Kim Stanley Robinson fan). I did love the sentient buses, naked mole rats, and the cat reporter! Ultimately, more interesting than it was enjoyable.
7: (Hugo Nominee) Starter Villain by John Scalzi (Tor, Tor UK)
Stars: 4.18
Number of ratings: 43,367
I really enjoyed Starter Villain! There was some criticism of The Kaiju Preservation Society for being ‘light’, and that seems somewhat fair, although I likewise enjoyed it. People have leveled similar criticism at Starter Villain, but that seems less true. It’s quippy, a bit light hearted, but so are the other Scalzi books I’ve read (Redshirts, The Android’s Dream) it’s not exactly dealing with light topics despite that. It’s a critique of capitalism, and how wealth can become entrenched to both oppose what’s good for society, and oppose innovation. That said, I found the ‘villain’ idea pretty silly, as it’s essentially being used as a shorthand for disruptive technology, not for anything actually villainous or bad. I probably wouldn’t vote for it for a major award, but it was a fun and thoughtful novel.
6: (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) Witch King by Martha Wells (Tordotcom)
Stars: 3.71
Number of ratings: 16,432
While Martha Wells declined nominations for Murderbot, she did accept them for Witch King! It’s really imaginative and interesting world, and I’m hoping we get more of it (I hear she’s working on another book in the setting, so I trust we will). It has two narrative threads, the present day, where the main character Kai has been held prisoner during a pivotal political moment. The story focuses on his escape and the efforts to figure out what’s going on. The second thread tells the backstory of Kai’s life, and how the world came to the current situation.
I loved the world, and really enjoyed the book! It seems like quite a few of the people who didn’t disliked it because they thought the back story was a lot more interesting than the present day story, which I have to agree with, honestly. I wish they were told as two separate books, or in a way where splitting them contributed to the story. For example, a historian character that wheedled Kai about what has actually happened in the past could have been a vehicle for exploring the past events. Regardless of these qualms, I still enjoyed the book and look forward to more.
5: (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) Translation State by Ann Leckie (Orbit US, Orbit UK)
Stars: 4.11
Number of ratings: 9,848
Translation State is yet another book set in Leckie’s Raadchai universe. It’s not necessary to read the Ancillary books first, although I think it would help (and they’re awesome). Not sure how much Provenance relates, as I didn’t enjoy it and DNFed. Translation State is really good though, looking at the life and society of the Presger translators (as you might imagine), and giving some glimpses of what’s going on in the broader setting. I have enjoyed the books giving hints of that bigger picture, but would love one like Ancillary Justice where that’s more of a primary focus. I’d say this book is award worthy (as are all the ones I ranked higher), but I also feel like it’s linked enough to the setting that it’s fair to treat it more like a sequel, and I’m less inclined to award sequels major awards.
4: (Nebula Nominee) The Water Outlaws, S.L. Huang (Tordotcom; Solaris UK)
Stars: 3.82
Number of ratings: 2,326
The Water Outlaws is a queer, gender bent retelling of the Chinese classic Water Margin. And by classic, I mean in the sense that Don Quixote or Middlemarch is classic. It’s (probably) a 14th century novel, set around 1120 and following the rebellion of the outlaws at Mount Liang against the Northern Song dynasty. It is one of the 6 classics of pre-modern Chinese literature. At least, that’s what Wikipedia says, and it sounds like retellings and adaptations are pretty common.
I really enjoyed The Water Outlaws, and it’s the first that I would actually be happy to see win. It was fast paced and fun, but also had quite a bit of interesting insight into gender. It was also interesting to see how more Eastern values played into the story. I’m not necessarily very attuned to that, although it sounds like other readers can attest that it felt both like a Western and an Eastern novel. But I definitely noticed that the outlaws weren’t rebelling against the Emperor or the Empire really, just the corrupt people just under the top who were managing it. To me at least, it seemed to reflect the Eastern collectivism over Western individualism. S. L. Huang also has a great AMA on Fantasy from a month ago that’s worth checking out. This and the following novels are the ones I’m really hoping win.
3: (Hugo Nominee) The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty (Harper Voyager, Harper Voyager UK)
Stars: 4.28
Number of ratings: 44,645
A 12th century century Muslim lady pirate comes out of retirement for one last job. It’s fantastic! It’s also apparently set in the same world as Chakraborty’s Daevabad Trilogy, albeit some centuries earlier. I appreciated the obvious effort that went into research and world building, and writing that made it a lot of fun even when it was dealing with heavy subjects. And I loved when things finally got on the weird side, and supernatural entities took over the story. I also thought that it was pretty interesting to see how Chakraborty was able to incorporate quite a lot of diversity and modern ideals in a way that genuinely felt authentic and believable. Related, but perhaps a bit different, it was interesting to see Amina as a devout Muslim, despite not always being a great person (she is a pirate after all). So often, religion is portrayed in pretty uncompelling ways, either as bad or dumb (sometimes in ways that feel accurate and sometimes in ways that feel like caricatures), or in ways that are very pro-religion such that some big bias is showing. In Amina, it was a significant part of her life, but didn’t feel in your face. It felt lived in, if that makes sense, but well balanced with the other aspects of her life.
I’m very much looking forward to the next two books!
2: (Hugo Nominee) Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (Tordotcom, Orbit UK)
Stars: 4.06
Number of ratings: 7,957
This book appears to be pretty well regarded, but also a bit divisive. The main character, Kyr, lives on Gaia Station, the last outpost of (real) humanity in the fight with the broader galactic society of aliens and their reality warping AI, the Wisdom. Despite losing the war and most other humans moving on and integrating with galactic society, Gaia Station is still fighting. The book is ultimately an exploration of indoctrination, how your upbringing and surroundings shape your worldview, and what can later shake you into new perspectives. It reminds me of a scene from the book, Touching Spirit Bear, where a counselor demonstrates that people change from slow, steady pressure that pushes them off the course they’re on, or by a single big push that jolts them out of their path. Some Desperate Glory is several of those large pushes. In some ways, that does make it feel a little less authentic, as we don’t see Kyr really change over time, just have some pretty abrupt shifts (the first of which very much was unexpected, although the second not so much), but it also makes those changes much more accessible, since that time could be pretty hard to show. Despite that, it’s a really interesting look at indoctrination and deprogramming. As someone who grew up in and subsequently left what could be called a ‘high demand religion’, albeit one that is much, much milder than Gaia in the book or Jonestown in real life on the cult-o-meter, there’s a lot of resonance.
It seems like the main reason people didn’t like the book is that Kyr is a pretty unlikeable character. To be honest, that isn’t a thing that normally affects me, at least not for main characters. I tend to be in their headspace, as that’s what’s presented, so I’m usually not seeing them as unlikeable. Some obvious exceptions if they’re really annoying, and of course it became pretty clear over time that Kyr wasn’t exactly a considerate or kind person, but Kyr’s growth throughout the book is pretty specifically the point, so that wouldn’t really bother me either, honestly. The other issue is a scene towards the end where Kyr is touching (with consent) an alien’s feathers as a show of acceptance that he’s a person too, but some people have felt it comes off racially coded and offensive. I feel like that is pretty clearly not the author’s intent, and it’s a bit overblown, but I’m also not from a group where that would be triggering. Someone on the publishing team definitely should have seen that this would come off wrong, and changed it to something else that got the idea across in a way that wouldn’t be offensive.
I do hope that we get more of the world. It’s an interesting setting, and I would love a book exploring how the Gaians integrate into society. And also looking at Kyr’s dynamics with her group now that she has a broader perspective, and isn’t always a well meaning asshole, as we didn’t get a whole lot of that once she had grown out of it.
1: (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)
Stars: 3.71
Number of ratings: 2,056
My wife bought this for me as a birthday present, thinking I’d like it based on the description. And I did! He is now on my must read list, and I’m pretty excited for Rakesfall, which comes out this month. I had never heard of The Saint of Bright Doors, or Chandrasekera, but I absolutely loved it. Then I was surprised to see people periodically mentioning it on reddit, and then I was thrilled when it was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula. This is easily the most daring and innovative book on this list, mostly because it’s pretty atypical. Honestly, the closest thing I can think of to it is Some Desperate Glory due to reality warping, but they’re mostly nothing alike. The Saint of Bright Doors follows Fetter, with a brief bit of his childhood, and then a jump to his 20’s or so. Fetter appears to be based on Rāhula, the son of Siddhārtha Gautama (the Buddha), with Rāhula meaning fetter, as he was a fetter on Gautama’s path to enlightenment. The book also appears to engage quite a bit with Sri Lankan politics, particularly surrounding Buddhism. I’m not super familiar with any of that, although some Wikipedia reading gives some clear parallels. Even without that added depth, the story was fascinating. The world is complicated and at times pretty opaque, and it has a tendency to shift and change as the story progresses. There’s a pretty deep sense of mystery with the bright doors, but they ultimately end up becoming just another part of the world for most people in the setting. Fetter ends up being part of a support group for ‘Unchosen Ones’ from different religions that, for whatever reason, were meant to be ‘Chosen’ but ultimately weren’t. Interestingly, each of the religions appears to be true. We don’t get nearly as much of the other members of the group as I would have liked, but maybe some day we’ll hear about their stories. I hope so.
The primary complaint I see is that the story meanders a lot and is quite aimless, and that’s mostly because Fetter doesn’t really act. He has little agency, and instead things just happen to him. When he does make choices, it’s pretty unclear why. That’s a pretty fair assessment, but again, not something that bothered me at all. I loved how I never knew where the book was going. I’d get comfortable with where it was at and what was happening, and then it’d shift pretty quickly. I can see why that could bother some, but it worked for me in this book, and kept me interested. The other aspect of that is how the story is told. There’s a big reveal towards the end that I won’t spoil here. We get a few hints of it along the way, some that if you catch it you definitely know something is going on, even though you don’t know what. But it goes a long way towards explaining why the story has jumps in time, why we don’t get much view into Fetter’s mind and decisions, and just how the story is told. The one downside is that the story ends a bit abruptly, and while it makes sense in context, it’s also less satisfying. But it makes me think about what I want from a story, and the place the storyteller has in it. Sometimes things being unsatisfying can stir more thought, and maybe that’s worth it. Should a storyteller always give us everything? It makes me think of a song from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The End of the Movie (some spoilers for that show). It captures some of the ambiguities in Bright Doors, but that ends up just adding to why I like it, whereas for some it definitely seemed to detract.

Best Novella

9. (Hugo Nominee) Rose/House by Arkady Martine (Subterranean)
Stars: 3.76
Number of ratings: 1,850
I really didn’t care for this story. I admittedly listened to it as an audiobook, rather than read it, and that isn’t usually as good an experience for close readings for me. Plus the only place I could find it was Hoopla, my least preferred app for audiobooks, because it’s pretty glitchy on the audio. My library has it on order, so I’ll give it another shot when I can do so in print, but all of that speaks to the larger issue that this novella was really hard to get a hold of, which is maybe not ideal if people are going to vote for it.
Anyways, on the story itself, it seemed a bit ambiguous. I couldn’t always tell what was going on, and on looking at reviews, that wasn’t just my listening experience, that was other people’s experiences as well. I didn’t feel like it added much to the AI discussion, although I did enjoy the house being convinced that a police detective was not in fact a person, but rather a police precinct. The story wasn’t all that interesting. All around, not a great read, with the above caveat on the listening experience, which is a shame since I loved the Teixcalaan books.
8. (Hugo Nominee) “Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet”, He Xi / 人生不相见, 何夕, translated by Alex Woodend (Adventures in Space: New Short stories by Chinese & English Science Fiction Writers)(Originally published in 2010)
This was a bit of a frustrating story. Some of the setting was interesting, but the insistence on both modifying humans to adapt them to other worlds, and that those modifications can’t be too much not human, because then they’re aliens, and humans can’t cultivate alien intelligences because they may at some point turn on us. The story is a bit more complicated than that, but it has quite a few things that just don’t make a lot of sense.
7. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Tor, Titan UK)
Stars: 4.01
Number of ratings: 25,644
I loved What Moves the Dead and Nettle and Bone! As did many others, given the nominations they received. It’s starting to look like Kingfisher might join the ranks of the usually nominated at this point. And I definitely look forward to more of her work, with What Feasts at Night one of my next several reads. That said, Thornhedge was not my favorite. I loved Toadling, pretty much everything about her and her life, and the twist on Sleeping Beauty was interesting, but the story just doesn’t shine the way the others of hers that I’ve read do.
6. (Nebula Nominee) “Linghun,” Ai Jiang (Linghun)
Stars: 4.00
Number of ratings: 1,594
A thoughtful meditation on grief, and what it looks like if we could be haunted by those we’ve lost. In some ways it feels a little unrealistic, as people are more or less fighting to the death to get access to the houses where said hauntings can actually happen, but I can see how society might not have the will to ban such obviously harmful things if they also offered the chance to see your loved one again. The one and only reason this isn’t one of my top picks is because it falls apart in the last third. There’s a second story element that is introduced early on, but doesn’t take on much prominence until towards the end, and it doesn’t really fit. It’s another character whose story is relevant, and does add nuance to the themes, but it just feels like an insertion that distracts from the rest of what’s going on in the story. Linghun would ultimately work better if that character was stripped out.
5. (Nebula Nominee) The Crane Husband, Kelly Barnhill (Tordotcom)
Stars: 3.89
Number of ratings: 6,326
This is an odd book, to say the least. It's a retelling/subversion of the Japanese folktale, The Crane Wife. The main character is a 15 year old girl telling us the story years later. The setting is a pretty normal, slightly dystopian near future, with elements of magical realism when the girl's mother brings home a crane to be her new husband, and horror as that relationship turns (more) bizarre and abusive. It’s a symbolic exploration of both abuse and generational trauma, and it’s pretty interesting, but I’m still not sure how I feel about it. It definitely feels like the most ‘out there’ of the novella nominees, but this is the first I’d be happy to see win.
4. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older (Tordotcom)
Stars: 3.64
Number of ratings: 5,689
I rather liked this story, and I'm pretty excited for when I get around to reading the sequel! While I've seen complaints about the language and style, that's a large part of what I like. More than almost any book I've read, besides ones by Gene Wolfe, every word Older uses feels specifically considered and used intentionally. And unlike in academic texts, the other main place that writing feels like this, this doesn't makes the meaning confusing or hard to sort through. Older uses complex, nuanced sentences with quite a bit of clauses and qualifiers, but it illuminates rather than obscures. It feels like the way I think (or at least the way I think I think), so I appreciate that. There's also a story and characters and such, and those are pretty nifty. One of the things I love on that front is how deftly words are used; without explicitly telling us things, the setting, characters, and world really come clear. While there is a story, the driving force really is the interactions between the two main characters, particularly as the viewpoint character deduces that thoughts and intents of the other main character through subtle signs. Anyways, more than any other element, the writing for this story really worked for me!
3. (Nebula Nominee) Untethered Sky, Fonda Lee (Tordotcom)
Stars: 3.90
Number of ratings: 8,153
Another book about birds, where the main character is a ruhker, someone who trains with rocs so they can be used to fight manticores. The book feels quiet, with the primary relationship being two humans who are both quiet introverts, and their birds who of course don’t talk. There’s action and violence and terror , but on the whole, it feels like a quiet meditation. This book is one of the reasons I’ve grown to love novellas. It could easily be a novel, but instead it just tells its story and is done. There’s a power in limiting your scope like that, a purity, and I feel like this book has that more so than any other novella on this list.
2. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)
Stars: 4.25
Number of ratings: 4,478
My comment from the Fantasy Hugo discussion of Mammoths at the Gates:
Each of the 4 books to date have Chih take on a greater role in the story.
In the 1st, they mostly seem like the context of the frame narrative, and not really a main character.
In the 2nd, the framing has its own story with the tigers that's as significant as the story being told by Chih and the tigers.
In the 3rd, the story told merges with the framing story, and they become one at the end.
In the 4th (Mammoths at the Gate), the framing story is the story, dealing with the grief of Cleric Thien passing, with the other smaller stories about him within adding or illuminating but never really being separate from the framing.
It seems that over time, it's shifting from Chih and Almost Brilliant being a means of telling different stories to Chih and Almost Brilliant being the story. It makes me curious what book 5 and beyond will be, because I can only imagine one more book of following that trend before I'm out of ideas on how they could be more of the story.
At the same time, it shifts the focus from what a story is and how we tell it, how we know what the 'right' version is, and makes it more and more personal. Book 1, the historical figures had different understandings of what was happening, to the detriment of the overthrown kingdom. Book 2, Chih and the tigers had different understandings, and together told a fuller story by sharing that. Book 3, the story becomes much more complicated when you actually meet the characters. Book 4, a person you know becomes more complicated and nuanced when you learn from others their experience with the person. There's more to the story of who a person is than your personal experience of them.
All that's super interesting to me. Each of the books really does function fine as a stand alone, and I'm not sure that there's a clear overarching storyline outside of Almost Brilliant's having a kid, but there's a thematic evolution that seems to be following a specific path. I'm pretty curious to see where it's headed. (In the Fantasy Hugo read along, u/tarvolon confirmed that book 5 is thoroughly The Adventures of Chih, so I guess that trend is accurate, and u/Nineteen_Adze thought that perhaps later books could have Chih hear stories where he featured as a main character, an idea I really like).
1. (Hugo Nominee) “Seeds of Mercury”, Wang Jinkang / 水星播种, 王晋康, translated by Alex Woodend (Adventures in Space: New Short stories by Chinese & English Science Fiction Writers)(Originally published in 2002)
This was ultimately my favorite of the stories. It’s about secretly seeding life on Mercury. Sometimes the language is clumsy, and I’m not sure if that’s the original writing or the translation, but ultimately it’s not too much of an issue. I loved the look at the alien life and their society!

Best Novelette

10. (Nebula Nominee) “Imagine: Purple-Haired Girl Shooting Down The Moon,” Angela Liu (Clarkesworld 6/23)
This is a weird story, and one I really didn’t care for. It deals with memory and how that shapes who we are, and quite a bit with people being used. Oh, and purpose haired girls. But if it was trying to say something in particular, I missed it.
9. (Nebula Nominee) “A Short Biography of a Conscious Chair,” Renan Bernardo (Samovar 2/23)
The story of a chair, as you might guess from the title, but just as much it’s the story of the family that owns the chair. It has an interesting family secret that’s eventually revealed and which hinges on the chair, but ultimately, this was a more interesting idea than story.
8. (Nebula Nominee) “Saturday’s Song,” Wole Talabi (Lightspeed 5/23)
This is the sequel to Wednesday’s Story. Like Talabi’s novel nominee this year, Saturday's Song features Shigidi as a nightmare god again, but also Hausa spirits. Both stories feature a frame narrative, with a story within a story similar to Vo’s Singing Hills noellas. I enjoyed it, and Saturday’s Song does tell you what you need to know from Wednesday’s Story, but it works better if you read them in order, as it functions more as a resolution than anything.
7. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) I AM AI by Ai Jiang (Shortwave)
This is a decent story, looking at capitalistic dystopias. Specifically, the pressure to be better while competing against AI, to the point where the main character is slowly morphing into a machine to catch up but in doing so loses what makes them unique and human. I don’t know that it adds a lot to the conversation exactly, but it makes some good points and summarizes some common concerns pretty well. I would have likely ranked it higher, but there were quite a bit of plausibility issues in the setting that I couldn’t really get past, and which made it much more dystopian than it would otherwise be.
6. (Hugo Nominee) “Ivy, Angelica, Bay” by C.L. Polk (Tor.com 8 December 2023)
This is a sequel to St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid. And it was pretty good! I wouldn’t say there’s anything super special about it, but I enjoyed it. The lead of the previous story has grown up and taken on her role keeping her area of the city safe through small magics, but trouble is stirring. This story onwards are ones I’d feel comfortable voting for.
5. (Hugo Nominee) “One Man’s Treasure” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, January-February 2023)
Our only Pinsker nominee this year! And while it’s pretty good, it doesn’t seem like a top contender to me. It reminds me of Wiswell's DIY from last year, thematically. It’s about several garbage collectors who remove magical items once a month, and the rich people who don’t particularly care about basic safety. Like DIY, it focuses on finding common person solutions since the rich don't care, something I can sympathize with. It’s a well told and interesting story, but that’s hardly a surprise from Pinsker.
4. (Nebula Nominee) “Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge,” Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny 9-10/23)
This is a story about the bargains and sacrifices we make for grief, and how they can further harm and traumatize us. Also, it’s about how the devil exploits our grief and trauma to mess with us. It turns out when you go under the Devil’s bridge, you really ought not to make deals. This story and the following are the ones that I actually hope win.
3. (Hugo Nominee) “On the Fox Roads” by Nghi Vo (Tor.com 31 October 2023)
This story was pretty light on magical or sf elements, at least until the end, much like Vo’s other early to mid 1900s books (The Chosen and Beautiful, Siren Queen). This one is about finding yourself, and how relationships with others can help you do it. Even when those others start as complete strangers. Oh, and it’s about heists. I really enjoyed this one, and the ambiance Vo summons with her more real world settings.
2. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) “The Year Without Sunshine” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine, November-December 2023)
On the Fox Roads was pretty light on the magical elements, but they were there, and they were integral to the story. The Year Without Sunshine could pass as non-genre fiction just as well as it could as SF. The only element is an unspecified calamity that temporarily put a bunch of ash in to the air. THe story itself focuses on community working together when social safety nets are only semi functional, and resources become pretty scarce. I really enjoyed the the characters and how people worked together. It felt genuine and realistic, if optimistic, and seems much more helpful for real world disasters where things start to break down but aren’t post-apocalyptic. I would say it’s a very inspiring story.
1. (Hugo Nominee) “Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition”, Gu Shi /〈2181序曲〉再版导言, 顾适 translated by Emily Jin (Clarkesworld, February 2023)(Originally published in 2020)
This is science fiction is the most classic sense, and done well, in that it looks at a technology (cryosleep) and extrapolates what kind of impact it would have on society. The closest comparison I can think of to it would be Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke’s The Light of Other Days. But of course, this is completely different in that it’s written as an introduction to a fictional nonfiction book, which gives Gu Shi a lot of freedom to tell the story in a unique way, with fictional quotes with commentary from fictional people who are important to the history of cryosleep. Towards the end, it gets into the personal story behind that history, the creator of the book, and the person writing the introduction, and that allows the technical and sociology exploration to add a really touching emotional component. While I don’t agree with all of the extrapolations (hardly a surprise for a story like this), this is easily the best of the translated nominees this year, and one of my absolute favorites overall from this year.

Best Short Story:

(Hugo Nominee) 美食三品 (“Tasting the Future Delicacy Three Times”), 宝树 / Baoshu (银河边缘013：黑域密室 / Galaxy’s Edge Vol. 13: Secret Room in the Black Domain)
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to read this story. It appears to have only been translated into English for the Hugo voter packet. Since I’m not actually a member of the Hugos (maybe one day, if I can attend the actual convention), I don’t have the packet.
9. (Hugo Nominee) “Answerless Journey”, Han Song / 没有答案的航程, 韩松, translated by Alex Woodend (Adventures in Space: New Short stories by Chinese & English Science Fiction Writers)(Originally published in 1995)
Easily the worst of the translated fiction this year, or really just the worst nominee. The writing is stiff and clumsy, and it’s not just the translator as we have 2 other nominees to compare it with that were also translated by Alex Woodend. Minimal plot. The main character, who is human, is called ‘Creature’, presumably because amnesia has made him forget his name. It just doesn’t make a ton of sense all around.
8. (Hugo Nominee) “The Mausoleum’s Children” by Aliette de Bodard (Uncanny Magazine, May-June 2023)
This feels like an interesting story, except I can’t really tell what's going on. The setting isn't particularly clear, despite seeming pretty interesting. The story was ok outside of that, but not amazing, and it’s hard to come back from not really getting what’s happening.
7. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) “The Sound of Children Screaming” by Rachael K. Jones (Nightmare Magazine, October 2023)
This piece has some insightful comments on gun violence, but those make up approximately 2 or 3 paragraphs. It goes from a somewhat generalized description of a shooting to a specific one to a portal fantasy to a world with evil mice. Interesting, but it doesn't make a ton of sense and doesn't really all fit together.
6. (Nebula Nominee) “Bad Doors,” John Wiswell (Uncanny 1-2/23)
I didn’t care much for Wiswell on first reading him, with The House on Haunted Hill. I mean, I liked that and thought it was a cute story, but it wasn’t something I’d vote for. But his writing has grown on me, with each year getting better and better. Bad Doors breaks that trend though. It’s not a bad story, it just wasn’t that interesting to me. Not much happens besides a family falling out over political drama, and honestly that is a bit too much like real life to be worth reading unless it’s going to give some good insight or be really good.
5. (Nebula Nominee) “Window Boy,” Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld 8/23)
A strange story about the anxieties around the other, set mostly in post apocalyptic underground bunkers. It looks a lot at the relationship between the haves and the have nots, and the imbalance around friendships in that context. Are have nots always only friends to take advantage of the haves? Is that actually unreasonable if it is the case? But also maybe they have nots are actually weird 20 foot grackle bird things. The reality filters on the cameras to see outside the bunkers make it hard to tell.
4. (Hugo Nominee) “How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub” by P. Djèlí Clark (Uncanny Magazine, January-February 2023)
This is where I’d really start voting for the nominees. How to Raise a Kraken is a funny story about an ambitious idiot who gets a newspaper ad kraken, one that is actually real, and the fall out from doing so. It addresses colonialism and hubris in a pretty amusing and satisfying way.
3. (Nebula Nominee) “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont,” P.A. Cornell (Fantasy 10/23)
This is a thoughtful story about time. It’s set in an apartment building with tenants from different points in time going about their normal lives. Because of that, there are lots of rules to prevent info being transmitted to the past and to stop any harm from foreknowledge. The story centers on a lady from the present in a relationship with a man from the 1940's. It’s one of the more interesting ways of playing with time that I’ve seen.
2. (Nebula Nominee) “Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200,” R.S.A Garcia (Uncanny 7-8/23)
This is set in Tobago, with the local vernacular, and tells of a robotic farmhand trying to take care of an old lady's goat, and gaining further intelligence in the process. It’s a powerful, moving story. It’s occasionally a little unconvincing, in that the old lady used emojis in her youth but seems unfamiliar with what would be basic tech from her childhood, but also old people do frequently tend to struggle with technological things, so perhaps that’s unfair of me. It does a really good job looking at the social isolation of the elderly though. Tantie Merle and the following story are both the ones that I’d really hope win.
1. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) “Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld May 2023)
The second Naomi Kritzer story, this one is about an AI app that directs people on what to do to make them happy. It’s a nifty idea, well executed, and something I could actually see lots of people being interested in in real life if it worked as described. It also has well written, interesting, and relatable characters. I’ve only read the CatNet books by Kritzer, and while I liked them, it didn’t have me searching her out. After Better Living and The Year Without Sunshine though, I’ll have to check out the rest of her work.

This years Nebulas are being awarded tomorrow night, so I thought I’d give my rankings of the Hugo and Nebula nominees. The Hugos are awarded on August 11th. Obligatory mention of how the Hugos appear to have been fixed last year, but that has been thoroughly discussed elsewhere, so I don’t really want to rehash it. And this year appears to be completely transparent, and I’m guessing and hoping will include efforts to prevent any similar corruption again.
For those who don’t like the Nebulas or Hugos, or don’t find them useful ways to find things you like to read, that’s certainly understandable. I’d love to hear your thoughts on any nominees you did read, or on works from 2023 that you enjoyed and feel are award worthy!
Notable things from this year: Martha Wells declined Murderbot nominations, a classy move for an already well awarded series. Lot’s of our usual nominees, while the only notable absence I caught was Seanan Mcguire’s Wayward Children novella, which is a bit of a shame as #8 is easily the best of the series, and it functions as a stand alone like all of the even numbered ones. But also, once you’re 8 books in, it does seem past due to start nominating other things. I’ll be curious to see if it was the Chinese works that edged it out.
A couple last things. Fantasy is doing their Hugo read, and it has some great commentary. u/brent_323 put out his rankings and comments on the Nebula novel nominees, and they differ from my somewhat if you want a different perspective. Lstly, I’ve added Goodreads ratings (out of 5 stars) for novels and novellas to give some context on how generally liked and how widely read each book is.

Best Novel

9: (Nebula Nominee) Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi (DAW, Gollancz)
Stars: 3.70
Number of ratings: 633
Thematically, Shigidi is pretty similar to American Gods but with an emphasis on the Yoruba religion. My apologies in advance for any potential inaccuracies, my knowledge of Yoruba is based on this book, and some cursory Wikipedia reading. Different creators or gods have their own corporate structure, with minor sub-deities as employees. Olorun is the creator in Yoruba, with Orisha’s being lower level gods. One of these, Shigidi (a nightmare god in the book, although Wikipedia lists him as Guardian of Home and Environment), is trying to split from the Yoruba corporation and be an independent entity, along with his lover, the succubus Nneoma (based on Naamah, a demon from Jewish mysticism). To pay off his debt to the company, Shigidi has one last job.
It’s an interesting world, but despite the thematic American Gods comparisons, it feels nothing like that and has little else in common, and its structure ultimately makes it a much less successful book. Approximately a third of the book is the present day story, but most of that is in the second half of the book. The first half is brief tastes of the present in between longer chapters of background events. Those events are telling a single secondary story, just filling in the info you need to understand how we got to the present situation. Everytime we finally had some momentum, that thread would be done and I’d have to ‘get into’ the book all over again. If it wasn’t so broken up, I think I would have really enjoyed it, but as it is I was pretty done with the book by the time I got to where the bulk of the present day heist story was, and ended up skimming the last 50 to 100 pages.
8: (Nebula Nominee) The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz (Tor; Orbit UK)
Stars: 3.38
Number of ratings: 5,213
I loved The Future of Another Timeline, and on that alone will read any future Newitz novels, but so far nothing else of hers has come close to the same heights. The Terraformers is a set of 3 novellas set around 500 years apart, watching the terraforming of a planet over time through the eyes of the workers owned by the corporation terraforming the planet. Most of the plot is focused on terraforming, the corporation’s shenanigans, civil engineering, and civil rights, as the populace works to win the freedom to enjoy their home.
Very interesting, but it definitely drags at times. I loved the themes explored, although the civil engineering could be a bit much at times (said as a Kim Stanley Robinson fan). I did love the sentient buses, naked mole rats, and the cat reporter! Ultimately, more interesting than it was enjoyable.
7: (Hugo Nominee) Starter Villain by John Scalzi (Tor, Tor UK)
Stars: 4.18
Number of ratings: 43,367
I really enjoyed Starter Villain! There was some criticism of The Kaiju Preservation Society for being ‘light’, and that seems somewhat fair, although I likewise enjoyed it. People have leveled similar criticism at Starter Villain, but that seems less true. It’s quippy, a bit light hearted, but so are the other Scalzi books I’ve read (Redshirts, The Android’s Dream) it’s not exactly dealing with light topics despite that. It’s a critique of capitalism, and how wealth can become entrenched to both oppose what’s good for society, and oppose innovation. That said, I found the ‘villain’ idea pretty silly, as it’s essentially being used as a shorthand for disruptive technology, not for anything actually villainous or bad. I probably wouldn’t vote for it for a major award, but it was a fun and thoughtful novel.
6: (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) Witch King by Martha Wells (Tordotcom)
Stars: 3.71
Number of ratings: 16,432
While Martha Wells declined nominations for Murderbot, she did accept them for Witch King! It’s really imaginative and interesting world, and I’m hoping we get more of it (I hear she’s working on another book in the setting, so I trust we will). It has two narrative threads, the present day, where the main character Kai has been held prisoner during a pivotal political moment. The story focuses on his escape and the efforts to figure out what’s going on. The second thread tells the backstory of Kai’s life, and how the world came to the current situation.
I loved the world, and really enjoyed the book! It seems like quite a few of the people who didn’t disliked it because they thought the back story was a lot more interesting than the present day story, which I have to agree with, honestly. I wish they were told as two separate books, or in a way where splitting them contributed to the story. For example, a historian character that wheedled Kai about what has actually happened in the past could have been a vehicle for exploring the past events. Regardless of these qualms, I still enjoyed the book and look forward to more.
5: (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) Translation State by Ann Leckie (Orbit US, Orbit UK)
Stars: 4.11
Number of ratings: 9,848
Translation State is yet another book set in Leckie’s Raadchai universe. It’s not necessary to read the Ancillary books first, although I think it would help (and they’re awesome). Not sure how much Provenance relates, as I didn’t enjoy it and DNFed. Translation State is really good though, looking at the life and society of the Presger translators (as you might imagine), and giving some glimpses of what’s going on in the broader setting. I have enjoyed the books giving hints of that bigger picture, but would love one like Ancillary Justice where that’s more of a primary focus. I’d say this book is award worthy (as are all the ones I ranked higher), but I also feel like it’s linked enough to the setting that it’s fair to treat it more like a sequel, and I’m less inclined to award sequels major awards.
4: (Nebula Nominee) The Water Outlaws, S.L. Huang (Tordotcom; Solaris UK)
Stars: 3.82
Number of ratings: 2,326
The Water Outlaws is a queer, gender bent retelling of the Chinese classic Water Margin. And by classic, I mean in the sense that Don Quixote or Middlemarch is classic. It’s (probably) a 14th century novel, set around 1120 and following the rebellion of the outlaws at Mount Liang against the Northern Song dynasty. It is one of the 6 classics of pre-modern Chinese literature. At least, that’s what Wikipedia says, and it sounds like retellings and adaptations are pretty common.
I really enjoyed The Water Outlaws, and it’s the first that I would actually be happy to see win. It was fast paced and fun, but also had quite a bit of interesting insight into gender. It was also interesting to see how more Eastern values played into the story. I’m not necessarily very attuned to that, although it sounds like other readers can attest that it felt both like a Western and an Eastern novel. But I definitely noticed that the outlaws weren’t rebelling against the Emperor or the Empire really, just the corrupt people just under the top who were managing it. To me at least, it seemed to reflect the Eastern collectivism over Western individualism. S. L. Huang also has a great AMA on Fantasy from a month ago that’s worth checking out. This and the following novels are the ones I’m really hoping win.
3: (Hugo Nominee) The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty (Harper Voyager, Harper Voyager UK)
Stars: 4.28
Number of ratings: 44,645
A 12th century century Muslim lady pirate comes out of retirement for one last job. It’s fantastic! It’s also apparently set in the same world as Chakraborty’s Daevabad Trilogy, albeit some centuries earlier. I appreciated the obvious effort that went into research and world building, and writing that made it a lot of fun even when it was dealing with heavy subjects. And I loved when things finally got on the weird side, and supernatural entities took over the story. I also thought that it was pretty interesting to see how Chakraborty was able to incorporate quite a lot of diversity and modern ideals in a way that genuinely felt authentic and believable. Related, but perhaps a bit different, it was interesting to see Amina as a devout Muslim, despite not always being a great person (she is a pirate after all). So often, religion is portrayed in pretty uncompelling ways, either as bad or dumb (sometimes in ways that feel accurate and sometimes in ways that feel like caricatures), or in ways that are very pro-religion such that some big bias is showing. In Amina, it was a significant part of her life, but didn’t feel in your face. It felt lived in, if that makes sense, but well balanced with the other aspects of her life.
I’m very much looking forward to the next two books!
2: (Hugo Nominee) Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (Tordotcom, Orbit UK)
Stars: 4.06
Number of ratings: 7,957
This book appears to be pretty well regarded, but also a bit divisive. The main character, Kyr, lives on Gaia Station, the last outpost of (real) humanity in the fight with the broader galactic society of aliens and their reality warping AI, the Wisdom. Despite losing the war and most other humans moving on and integrating with galactic society, Gaia Station is still fighting. The book is ultimately an exploration of indoctrination, how your upbringing and surroundings shape your worldview, and what can later shake you into new perspectives. It reminds me of a scene from the book, Touching Spirit Bear, where a counselor demonstrates that people change from slow, steady pressure that pushes them off the course they’re on, or by a single big push that jolts them out of their path. Some Desperate Glory is several of those large pushes. In some ways, that does make it feel a little less authentic, as we don’t see Kyr really change over time, just have some pretty abrupt shifts (the first of which very much was unexpected, although the second not so much), but it also makes those changes much more accessible, since that time could be pretty hard to show. Despite that, it’s a really interesting look at indoctrination and deprogramming. As someone who grew up in and subsequently left what could be called a ‘high demand religion’, albeit one that is much, much milder than Gaia in the book or Jonestown in real life on the cult-o-meter, there’s a lot of resonance.
It seems like the main reason people didn’t like the book is that Kyr is a pretty unlikeable character. To be honest, that isn’t a thing that normally affects me, at least not for main characters. I tend to be in their headspace, as that’s what’s presented, so I’m usually not seeing them as unlikeable. Some obvious exceptions if they’re really annoying, and of course it became pretty clear over time that Kyr wasn’t exactly a considerate or kind person, but Kyr’s growth throughout the book is pretty specifically the point, so that wouldn’t really bother me either, honestly. The other issue is a scene towards the end where Kyr is touching (with consent) an alien’s feathers as a show of acceptance that he’s a person too, but some people have felt it comes off racially coded and offensive. I feel like that is pretty clearly not the author’s intent, and it’s a bit overblown, but I’m also not from a group where that would be triggering. Someone on the publishing team definitely should have seen that this would come off wrong, and changed it to something else that got the idea across in a way that wouldn’t be offensive.
I do hope that we get more of the world. It’s an interesting setting, and I would love a book exploring how the Gaians integrate into society. And also looking at Kyr’s dynamics with her group now that she has a broader perspective, and isn’t always a well meaning asshole, as we didn’t get a whole lot of that once she had grown out of it.
1: (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)
Stars: 3.71
Number of ratings: 2,056
My wife bought this for me as a birthday present, thinking I’d like it based on the description. And I did! He is now on my must read list, and I’m pretty excited for Rakesfall, which comes out this month. I had never heard of The Saint of Bright Doors, or Chandrasekera, but I absolutely loved it. Then I was surprised to see people periodically mentioning it on reddit, and then I was thrilled when it was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula. This is easily the most daring and innovative book on this list, mostly because it’s pretty atypical. Honestly, the closest thing I can think of to it is Some Desperate Glory due to reality warping, but they’re mostly nothing alike. The Saint of Bright Doors follows Fetter, with a brief bit of his childhood, and then a jump to his 20’s or so. Fetter appears to be based on Rāhula, the son of Siddhārtha Gautama (the Buddha), with Rāhula meaning fetter, as he was a fetter on Gautama’s path to enlightenment. The book also appears to engage quite a bit with Sri Lankan politics, particularly surrounding Buddhism. I’m not super familiar with any of that, although some Wikipedia reading gives some clear parallels. Even without that added depth, the story was fascinating. The world is complicated and at times pretty opaque, and it has a tendency to shift and change as the story progresses. There’s a pretty deep sense of mystery with the bright doors, but they ultimately end up becoming just another part of the world for most people in the setting. Fetter ends up being part of a support group for ‘Unchosen Ones’ from different religions that, for whatever reason, were meant to be ‘Chosen’ but ultimately weren’t. Interestingly, each of the religions appears to be true. We don’t get nearly as much of the other members of the group as I would have liked, but maybe some day we’ll hear about their stories. I hope so.
The primary complaint I see is that the story meanders a lot and is quite aimless, and that’s mostly because Fetter doesn’t really act. He has little agency, and instead things just happen to him. When he does make choices, it’s pretty unclear why. That’s a pretty fair assessment, but again, not something that bothered me at all. I loved how I never knew where the book was going. I’d get comfortable with where it was at and what was happening, and then it’d shift pretty quickly. I can see why that could bother some, but it worked for me in this book, and kept me interested. The other aspect of that is how the story is told. There’s a big reveal towards the end that I won’t spoil here. We get a few hints of it along the way, some that if you catch it you definitely know something is going on, even though you don’t know what. But it goes a long way towards explaining why the story has jumps in time, why we don’t get much view into Fetter’s mind and decisions, and just how the story is told. The one downside is that the story ends a bit abruptly, and while it makes sense in context, it’s also less satisfying. But it makes me think about what I want from a story, and the place the storyteller has in it. Sometimes things being unsatisfying can stir more thought, and maybe that’s worth it. Should a storyteller always give us everything? It makes me think of a song from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The End of the Movie (some spoilers for that show). It captures some of the ambiguities in Bright Doors, but that ends up just adding to why I like it, whereas for some it definitely seemed to detract.

Best Novella

9. (Hugo Nominee) Rose/House by Arkady Martine (Subterranean)
Stars: 3.76
Number of ratings: 1,850
I really didn’t care for this story. I admittedly listened to it as an audiobook, rather than read it, and that isn’t usually as good an experience for close readings for me. Plus the only place I could find it was Hoopla, my least preferred app for audiobooks, because it’s pretty glitchy on the audio. My library has it on order, so I’ll give it another shot when I can do so in print, but all of that speaks to the larger issue that this novella was really hard to get a hold of, which is maybe not ideal if people are going to vote for it.
Anyways, on the story itself, it seemed a bit ambiguous. I couldn’t always tell what was going on, and on looking at reviews, that wasn’t just my listening experience, that was other people’s experiences as well. I didn’t feel like it added much to the AI discussion, although I did enjoy the house being convinced that a police detective was not in fact a person, but rather a police precinct. The story wasn’t all that interesting. All around, not a great read, with the above caveat on the listening experience, which is a shame since I loved the Teixcalaan books.
8. (Hugo Nominee) “Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet”, He Xi / 人生不相见, 何夕, translated by Alex Woodend (Adventures in Space: New Short stories by Chinese & English Science Fiction Writers)(Originally published in 2010)
This was a bit of a frustrating story. Some of the setting was interesting, but the insistence on both modifying humans to adapt them to other worlds, and that those modifications can’t be too much not human, because then they’re aliens, and humans can’t cultivate alien intelligences because they may at some point turn on us. The story is a bit more complicated than that, but it has quite a few things that just don’t make a lot of sense.
7. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Tor, Titan UK)
Stars: 4.01
Number of ratings: 25,644
I loved What Moves the Dead and Nettle and Bone! As did many others, given the nominations they received. It’s starting to look like Kingfisher might join the ranks of the usually nominated at this point. And I definitely look forward to more of her work, with What Feasts at Night one of my next several reads. That said, Thornhedge was not my favorite. I loved Toadling, pretty much everything about her and her life, and the twist on Sleeping Beauty was interesting, but the story just doesn’t shine the way the others of hers that I’ve read do.
6. (Nebula Nominee) “Linghun,” Ai Jiang (Linghun)
Stars: 4.00
Number of ratings: 1,594
A thoughtful meditation on grief, and what it looks like if we could be haunted by those we’ve lost. In some ways it feels a little unrealistic, as people are more or less fighting to the death to get access to the houses where said hauntings can actually happen, but I can see how society might not have the will to ban such obviously harmful things if they also offered the chance to see your loved one again. The one and only reason this isn’t one of my top picks is because it falls apart in the last third. There’s a second story element that is introduced early on, but doesn’t take on much prominence until towards the end, and it doesn’t really fit. It’s another character whose story is relevant, and does add nuance to the themes, but it just feels like an insertion that distracts from the rest of what’s going on in the story. Linghun would ultimately work better if that character was stripped out.
5. (Nebula Nominee) The Crane Husband, Kelly Barnhill (Tordotcom)
Stars: 3.89
Number of ratings: 6,326
This is an odd book, to say the least. It's a retelling/subversion of the Japanese folktale, The Crane Wife. The main character is a 15 year old girl telling us the story years later. The setting is a pretty normal, slightly dystopian near future, with elements of magical realism when the girl's mother brings home a crane to be her new husband, and horror as that relationship turns (more) bizarre and abusive. It’s a symbolic exploration of both abuse and generational trauma, and it’s pretty interesting, but I’m still not sure how I feel about it. It definitely feels like the most ‘out there’ of the novella nominees, but this is the first I’d be happy to see win.
4. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older (Tordotcom)
Stars: 3.64
Number of ratings: 5,689
I rather liked this story, and I'm pretty excited for when I get around to reading the sequel! While I've seen complaints about the language and style, that's a large part of what I like. More than almost any book I've read, besides ones by Gene Wolfe, every word Older uses feels specifically considered and used intentionally. And unlike in academic texts, the other main place that writing feels like this, this doesn't makes the meaning confusing or hard to sort through. Older uses complex, nuanced sentences with quite a bit of clauses and qualifiers, but it illuminates rather than obscures. It feels like the way I think (or at least the way I think I think), so I appreciate that. There's also a story and characters and such, and those are pretty nifty. One of the things I love on that front is how deftly words are used; without explicitly telling us things, the setting, characters, and world really come clear. While there is a story, the driving force really is the interactions between the two main characters, particularly as the viewpoint character deduces that thoughts and intents of the other main character through subtle signs. Anyways, more than any other element, the writing for this story really worked for me!
3. (Nebula Nominee) Untethered Sky, Fonda Lee (Tordotcom)
Stars: 3.90
Number of ratings: 8,153
Another book about birds, where the main character is a ruhker, someone who trains with rocs so they can be used to fight manticores. The book feels quiet, with the primary relationship being two humans who are both quiet introverts, and their birds who of course don’t talk. There’s action and violence and terror , but on the whole, it feels like a quiet meditation. This book is one of the reasons I’ve grown to love novellas. It could easily be a novel, but instead it just tells its story and is done. There’s a power in limiting your scope like that, a purity, and I feel like this book has that more so than any other novella on this list.
2. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)
Stars: 4.25
Number of ratings: 4,478
My comment from the Fantasy Hugo discussion of Mammoths at the Gates:
Each of the 4 books to date have Chih take on a greater role in the story.
In the 1st, they mostly seem like the context of the frame narrative, and not really a main character.
In the 2nd, the framing has its own story with the tigers that's as significant as the story being told by Chih and the tigers.
In the 3rd, the story told merges with the framing story, and they become one at the end.
In the 4th (Mammoths at the Gate), the framing story is the story, dealing with the grief of Cleric Thien passing, with the other smaller stories about him within adding or illuminating but never really being separate from the framing.
It seems that over time, it's shifting from Chih and Almost Brilliant being a means of telling different stories to Chih and Almost Brilliant being the story. It makes me curious what book 5 and beyond will be, because I can only imagine one more book of following that trend before I'm out of ideas on how they could be more of the story.
At the same time, it shifts the focus from what a story is and how we tell it, how we know what the 'right' version is, and makes it more and more personal. Book 1, the historical figures had different understandings of what was happening, to the detriment of the overthrown kingdom. Book 2, Chih and the tigers had different understandings, and together told a fuller story by sharing that. Book 3, the story becomes much more complicated when you actually meet the characters. Book 4, a person you know becomes more complicated and nuanced when you learn from others their experience with the person. There's more to the story of who a person is than your personal experience of them.
All that's super interesting to me. Each of the books really does function fine as a stand alone, and I'm not sure that there's a clear overarching storyline outside of Almost Brilliant's having a kid, but there's a thematic evolution that seems to be following a specific path. I'm pretty curious to see where it's headed. (In the Fantasy Hugo read along, u/tarvolon confirmed that book 5 is thoroughly The Adventures of Chih, so I guess that trend is accurate, and u/Nineteen_Adze thought that perhaps later books could have Chih hear stories where he featured as a main character, an idea I really like).
1. (Hugo Nominee) “Seeds of Mercury”, Wang Jinkang / 水星播种, 王晋康, translated by Alex Woodend (Adventures in Space: New Short stories by Chinese & English Science Fiction Writers)(Originally published in 2002)
This was ultimately my favorite of the stories. It’s about secretly seeding life on Mercury. Sometimes the language is clumsy, and I’m not sure if that’s the original writing or the translation, but ultimately it’s not too much of an issue. I loved the look at the alien life and their society!

Best Novelette

10. (Nebula Nominee) “Imagine: Purple-Haired Girl Shooting Down The Moon,” Angela Liu (Clarkesworld 6/23)
This is a weird story, and one I really didn’t care for. It deals with memory and how that shapes who we are, and quite a bit with people being used. Oh, and purpose haired girls. But if it was trying to say something in particular, I missed it.
9. (Nebula Nominee) “A Short Biography of a Conscious Chair,” Renan Bernardo (Samovar 2/23)
The story of a chair, as you might guess from the title, but just as much it’s the story of the family that owns the chair. It has an interesting family secret that’s eventually revealed and which hinges on the chair, but ultimately, this was a more interesting idea than story.
8. (Nebula Nominee) “Saturday’s Song,” Wole Talabi (Lightspeed 5/23)
This is the sequel to Wednesday’s Story. Like Talabi’s novel nominee this year, Saturday's Song features Shigidi as a nightmare god again, but also Hausa spirits. Both stories feature a frame narrative, with a story within a story similar to Vo’s Singing Hills noellas. I enjoyed it, and Saturday’s Song does tell you what you need to know from Wednesday’s Story, but it works better if you read them in order, as it functions more as a resolution than anything.
7. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) I AM AI by Ai Jiang (Shortwave)
This is a decent story, looking at capitalistic dystopias. Specifically, the pressure to be better while competing against AI, to the point where the main character is slowly morphing into a machine to catch up but in doing so loses what makes them unique and human. I don’t know that it adds a lot to the conversation exactly, but it makes some good points and summarizes some common concerns pretty well. I would have likely ranked it higher, but there were quite a bit of plausibility issues in the setting that I couldn’t really get past, and which made it much more dystopian than it would otherwise be.
6. (Hugo Nominee) “Ivy, Angelica, Bay” by C.L. Polk (Tor.com 8 December 2023)
This is a sequel to St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid. And it was pretty good! I wouldn’t say there’s anything super special about it, but I enjoyed it. The lead of the previous story has grown up and taken on her role keeping her area of the city safe through small magics, but trouble is stirring. This story onwards are ones I’d feel comfortable voting for.
5. (Hugo Nominee) “One Man’s Treasure” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, January-February 2023)
Our only Pinsker nominee this year! And while it’s pretty good, it doesn’t seem like a top contender to me. It reminds me of Wiswell's DIY from last year, thematically. It’s about several garbage collectors who remove magical items once a month, and the rich people who don’t particularly care about basic safety. Like DIY, it focuses on finding common person solutions since the rich don't care, something I can sympathize with. It’s a well told and interesting story, but that’s hardly a surprise from Pinsker.
4. (Nebula Nominee) “Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge,” Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny 9-10/23)
This is a story about the bargains and sacrifices we make for grief, and how they can further harm and traumatize us. Also, it’s about how the devil exploits our grief and trauma to mess with us. It turns out when you go under the Devil’s bridge, you really ought not to make deals. This story and the following are the ones that I actually hope win.
3. (Hugo Nominee) “On the Fox Roads” by Nghi Vo (Tor.com 31 October 2023)
This story was pretty light on magical or sf elements, at least until the end, much like Vo’s other early to mid 1900s books (The Chosen and Beautiful, Siren Queen). This one is about finding yourself, and how relationships with others can help you do it. Even when those others start as complete strangers. Oh, and it’s about heists. I really enjoyed this one, and the ambiance Vo summons with her more real world settings.
2. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) “The Year Without Sunshine” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine, November-December 2023)
On the Fox Roads was pretty light on the magical elements, but they were there, and they were integral to the story. The Year Without Sunshine could pass as non-genre fiction just as well as it could as SF. The only element is an unspecified calamity that temporarily put a bunch of ash in to the air. THe story itself focuses on community working together when social safety nets are only semi functional, and resources become pretty scarce. I really enjoyed the the characters and how people worked together. It felt genuine and realistic, if optimistic, and seems much more helpful for real world disasters where things start to break down but aren’t post-apocalyptic. I would say it’s a very inspiring story.
1. (Hugo Nominee) “Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition”, Gu Shi /〈2181序曲〉再版导言, 顾适 translated by Emily Jin (Clarkesworld, February 2023)(Originally published in 2020)
This is science fiction is the most classic sense, and done well, in that it looks at a technology (cryosleep) and extrapolates what kind of impact it would have on society. The closest comparison I can think of to it would be Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke’s The Light of Other Days. But of course, this is completely different in that it’s written as an introduction to a fictional nonfiction book, which gives Gu Shi a lot of freedom to tell the story in a unique way, with fictional quotes with commentary from fictional people who are important to the history of cryosleep. Towards the end, it gets into the personal story behind that history, the creator of the book, and the person writing the introduction, and that allows the technical and sociology exploration to add a really touching emotional component. While I don’t agree with all of the extrapolations (hardly a surprise for a story like this), this is easily the best of the translated nominees this year, and one of my absolute favorites overall from this year.

Best Short Story:

(Hugo Nominee) 美食三品 (“Tasting the Future Delicacy Three Times”), 宝树 / Baoshu (银河边缘013：黑域密室 / Galaxy’s Edge Vol. 13: Secret Room in the Black Domain)
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to read this story. It appears to have only been translated into English for the Hugo voter packet. Since I’m not actually a member of the Hugos (maybe one day, if I can attend the actual convention), I don’t have the packet.
9. (Hugo Nominee) “Answerless Journey”, Han Song / 没有答案的航程, 韩松, translated by Alex Woodend (Adventures in Space: New Short stories by Chinese & English Science Fiction Writers)(Originally published in 1995)
Easily the worst of the translated fiction this year, or really just the worst nominee. The writing is stiff and clumsy, and it’s not just the translator as we have 2 other nominees to compare it with that were also translated by Alex Woodend. Minimal plot. The main character, who is human, is called ‘Creature’, presumably because amnesia has made him forget his name. It just doesn’t make a ton of sense all around.
8. (Hugo Nominee) “The Mausoleum’s Children” by Aliette de Bodard (Uncanny Magazine, May-June 2023)
This feels like an interesting story, except I can’t really tell what's going on. The setting isn't particularly clear, despite seeming pretty interesting. The story was ok outside of that, but not amazing, and it’s hard to come back from not really getting what’s happening.
7. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) “The Sound of Children Screaming” by Rachael K. Jones (Nightmare Magazine, October 2023)
This piece has some insightful comments on gun violence, but those make up approximately 2 or 3 paragraphs. It goes from a somewhat generalized description of a shooting to a specific one to a portal fantasy to a world with evil mice. Interesting, but it doesn't make a ton of sense and doesn't really all fit together.
6. (Nebula Nominee) “Bad Doors,” John Wiswell (Uncanny 1-2/23)
I didn’t care much for Wiswell on first reading him, with The House on Haunted Hill. I mean, I liked that and thought it was a cute story, but it wasn’t something I’d vote for. But his writing has grown on me, with each year getting better and better. Bad Doors breaks that trend though. It’s not a bad story, it just wasn’t that interesting to me. Not much happens besides a family falling out over political drama, and honestly that is a bit too much like real life to be worth reading unless it’s going to give some good insight or be really good.
5. (Nebula Nominee) “Window Boy,” Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld 8/23)
A strange story about the anxieties around the other, set mostly in post apocalyptic underground bunkers. It looks a lot at the relationship between the haves and the have nots, and the imbalance around friendships in that context. Are have nots always only friends to take advantage of the haves? Is that actually unreasonable if it is the case? But also maybe they have nots are actually weird 20 foot grackle bird things. The reality filters on the cameras to see outside the bunkers make it hard to tell.
4. (Hugo Nominee) “How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub” by P. Djèlí Clark (Uncanny Magazine, January-February 2023)
This is where I’d really start voting for the nominees. How to Raise a Kraken is a funny story about an ambitious idiot who gets a newspaper ad kraken, one that is actually real, and the fall out from doing so. It addresses colonialism and hubris in a pretty amusing and satisfying way.
3. (Nebula Nominee) “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont,” P.A. Cornell (Fantasy 10/23)
This is a thoughtful story about time. It’s set in an apartment building with tenants from different points in time going about their normal lives. Because of that, there are lots of rules to prevent info being transmitted to the past and to stop any harm from foreknowledge. The story centers on a lady from the present in a relationship with a man from the 1940's. It’s one of the more interesting ways of playing with time that I’ve seen.
2. (Nebula Nominee) “Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200,” R.S.A Garcia (Uncanny 7-8/23)
This is set in Tobago, with the local vernacular, and tells of a robotic farmhand trying to take care of an old lady's goat, and gaining further intelligence in the process. It’s a powerful, moving story. It’s occasionally a little unconvincing, in that the old lady used emojis in her youth but seems unfamiliar with what would be basic tech from her childhood, but also old people do frequently tend to struggle with technological things, so perhaps that’s unfair of me. It does a really good job looking at the social isolation of the elderly though. Tantie Merle and the following story are both the ones that I’d really hope win.
1. (Hugo & Nebula Nominee) “Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld May 2023)
The second Naomi Kritzer story, this one is about an AI app that directs people on what to do to make them happy. It’s a nifty idea, well executed, and something I could actually see lots of people being interested in in real life if it worked as described. It also has well written, interesting, and relatable characters. I’ve only read the CatNet books by Kritzer, and while I liked them, it didn’t have me searching her out. After Better Living and The Year Without Sunshine though, I’ll have to check out the rest of her work.

In BCS I see Kim IS literally JESSE and Saul is Walt....you see in the last couple episodes when Kim and Jesse smoke a cigarette that really confirmed it for me that symbolized them being the same person (or same type of character)

Although I didn’t quite know it back then. I only had a vague sentiment that I didn’t want my children to associate church/God as being a place that lacked joy and agency, with our “Christian lives” being dictated by rows on a Google Sheet (the notorious What’s Up Doc). All I knew was that this (GP culture) was not the kind of faith I wanted to pass down to my children because that was an inaccurate picture of who God is. Of course, I never told this to anyone because like I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t know how to articulate (or I was too scared to admit to myself, lest I be called “rebellious”) what all the reasons were for me to want to leave GP. So the following thoughts have been brewing inside of me for the last couple of years since we left in 2019, and I want to share it here because I think there’s a lot of needed discussion around the effect that GP’s theology and culture has on families in GP.
As I read through Scripture, read and listen to Bible experts, and reflect on my own experience working with youth through Element and IH, I can’t help but see God’s wisdom in creating natural families as the first irreducible building block of his community, including the church. This is a helpful article that can explain it much better than I can. https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/families-and-the-household-of-god-not-rivals-but-allies/ (Please take particular note of the section called “The Church Does Not Replace the Family” and onward) Essentially, Scripture even demonstrates that our “ministry” (which simply means “to attend to the needs of someone”) is foundationally to our family, per God’s design. And ideally as we cultivate the spiritual health within our families, then we can connect deeply and minister to one another in the communities we are in, from a place of health in our family. GP dangerously frames our God-given responsibility to be the main stewards of our families as “idolizing family.” Like most things, they flippantly call things “idols” so that members are perpetually living in fear of possibly “idolizing” something (i.e. marriage, family, career, money, hobbies, etc., but I won’t get into that here.) So in calling some basic things like spending time with your kids, actually showing genuine interest in their sports/hobbies, having regular family getaways without needing an excuse that it’s grandparent’s 70th birthday, visiting parents just because you love them (not for a holiday, birthday, or they’re sick or dying), etc. as “idolizing family,” has inevitably created a culture where it encourages and even praises “sacrificing” your time with family.
Oh, and why were we encouraged to sacrifice time with family and flee from the “idol of family”? Irony of ironies: it’s for the idol of ministry! In GP, ministry trumps family. And this kind of theology breaks apart the most crucial institution that God ordained: the family unit. Firstly, deeper involvement with GP starts to create a wedge between members and their parents as their lives get busier with church activities as a college student, and then with ministry as they get older. I still regret that I never got to go on a longer vacation with my parents right after I graduated because I had been drilled in my mind that I will be tempted to leave church and God when I am away for too long, especially if it was on vacation which is full of worldly temptations, so my parents were heartbroken that I kept insisting that I wouldn’t go. I was told multiple times by my leaders to be careful of what I told my parents too, especially when it was time for me to join our first church plant team in Austin, in case they make it difficult for me to actually move out there. My leaders told me not to even tell them the main reason was to plant a church, and told me to up-play my attending MBA school, and not mention too much about church. However, this felt kind of disingenuous to me, so I did end up telling them that I was moving for church and my parents wanted to meet with my leaders, so I kind of got in trouble for that. Also, I was just reminded as I was thinking about this, that when Sam and I mentioned that we would love to go to SoCal to work with youth there, my leader’s first question was “But doesn’t your family live down there? That won’t work out then.” OK people, think about why she would’ve asked me this? It’s obvious, right? She then said “They are going to want to see you guys.” And guess what I said? “Oh, you’re right.” Ugh.
(As an aside, I have a theory, which I’ve read might be confirmed by psychology, that many of us who were pulled deeply into GP and truly came to a point where we saw it as “family” had some kind of brokenness or unhealth in our natural families, so that it left a deep gap in our souls that was supposed to be filled by our parents and extended families. But when GP came along, it filled that gap so that the first time we were told as college students the suggestion to spend less time at home during the breaks, that was a no-brainer for a lot of us because home wasn’t necessarily a life-giving place anyways. It definitely wasn’t the case for me since I rarely looked to my parents or any other extended family members for any spiritual or emotional support or guidance on real life issues when I was growing up. So starting freshman year as I experienced all these older sisters taking care of me and guiding me, when my leaders encouraged me to stay during Thanksgiving, summer, etc., I didn’t even question it. I already didn’t want to go home so it wasn’t a sacrifice. I probably can count on my fingers among the people I know who are currently in GP who actually have a very healthy relationship with their parents and families, and even now no one immediately comes to mind as I write this. This conclusion was further highlighted when I spoke with someone recently who had regularly attended GP during her freshman year and went to Thanksgiving Retreat. She grew up in church, and had a very tight relationship with her family, and wanted to be a pastor’s wife when she was older because she had so much respect for the ones she knew. But when she experienced TR, she was so appalled by how arrogant Kelly Kang seemed to be and how the videos were all about praising the staff, that her first thought was to call her mom right afterwards to discuss it with her and the both of them felt that GP was not a healthy church, and she never came back. I told her in that moment, that what took her only a few minutes in a phone call with her mom to realize, took me more than 20 years to figure out, and she really dodged a bullet thanks to the fact that she had that kind of relationship with her mom. All this to say, I’m realizing that those of us that don’t have that kind of relationship with our parents and family are more susceptible to be sucked into groups like GP.)
Secondly, I think GP’s culture does a lot of damage to the families they are creating within their church. I personally feel so bad for GP kids, because it’s not their fault, they have no control over how they are being brought up. I’m afraid they will grow up believing some version of a God who only cares about “ministry” that even their own parents are willing to neglect their parental duties to their own children as they deprioritize family. So either they will grow up perpetuating this belief in the church, or abandon this God who seems far from loving and caring. A pastor who heard about GP predicted that the aftermath of their theology will show up in the children. I feel like we’ve already been seeing this amongst some of the kids that are growing up. 😥 A former GP member once told me how bad she felt for some of the GP kids she interacted with. She remembers how she saw the disappointment on one kid’s face when she found out last minute that her mom had to go to some ministry house for a last minute staff meeting, and was frustrated that someone else was picking her up instead of her mom AGAIN. Much of good parenting advice talks about being present with your kids in their childhood, and to make sure that you as the parent has the most influence on your kids, and that it is through the parents that children will first learn about God’s character. Sadly, one ex-GP older couple told me that one of the deepest regrets they have was that because their lives were so busy with ministry and responsibilities, they actually don’t have that many memories of their first child. This child, now a teenager, has also voiced similarly, that they were always with “aunties and uncles” but don’t recall spending much time with parents and as a family, so they feel like they are still getting to know each other. One time, Sam told me how one of his peers said he felt like he should just “leave it up to Joyland teachers” to share the gospel and lead their child to salvation, and we were horrified, like why absolve your parental responsibility to tell your own child about God? 🤦🏻‍♀️ I still remember when I was serving in Element, and one of the students, who generally had a very somber countenance, was beaming one day. I asked her why she was so happy, and she said how her family read through the Bible together one night for the first time, and it was the best time she’s had in awhile with her family. That made me sad that it wasn’t something that was a common thing for this family who was high up in leadership, and it made me think how her spiritual health was outsourced to the youth teachers…
Now sharing from more personal observation… Our family has discovered to varying degrees, the joy of youth sports (oh no, we’re such bad Christians!). Being in Alameda, we actually come across a good amount of GP kids, some who have been on the same sports teams as our kids. What we’ve observed (not all the time, but still noticeably and consistently enough), is that the parents would: rarely attend the sports games to support their kid, rarely attend together as a couple, rarely bring other family/extended family members to watch even if they lived close by, rarely come to watch the whole thing as they usually come towards the end, rarely pay actual attention to the game when they are there since they are on their phone, and rarely interact with the other parents as they tend to keep to themselves. OK, I’m very far from being a sports fan, but for the sake of my kids, I’ve had to learn A LOT so I can cheer for them and be genuinely interested in what they’re interested in, so I feel like I’m loving them by simply showing up and paying attention, and perhaps letting my crazy cheering side come out too. 😛I was so saddened by some particular things, like I would hear a couple of GP kids mention how they wished their parents came to their games more often, or when some of the other sports parents talked about how the parents of so-and-so GP kid rarely show up and just seems like they don’t really care about him. And also when another parent told me (and this one really got me bothered) how so-and-so GP kid’s parent was complaining about how coming to his sports games is such a waste of time, these sports parents are too much especially when they try to coordinate fun walk-up songs for the players, and that she shouldn’t have even showed up at all, should’ve just stayed in the car… During one game, one GP kid got hurt pretty bad and was on the ground crying, but his parents of course weren’t there, and I thought as that kid, it would’ve been really comforting for him to at least get some acknowledgement or hug from his parent. (I’ve made extra effort to cheer for these kids… Sigh…)
So, I want to address specifically the college students here, and anyone who is new to GP and coming down that funnel. I was once in your shoes. I received soooo many benefits from the ministry that GP produces. I had leaders invite me over for dinner, hanging out almost every other night, studying together, outings, not to mention weekly TFNs and SWS. And apart from those times, the leaders were also having their own multi-hour staff meetings and bible studies. However, please know that this is what’s going on behind the scenes. The time our leaders spent with us and in countless meetings all stem from this idolatry of ministry, that this “work of God” should supercede their first God-given stewardship of their own families. This is why GP is able to get so much done, you have all these older people who are almost always parents, willing to sacrifice the health of their own families to bring you this “amazing”, well programmed experience. All while saying that it’s such a blessing that their kids have so many “aunties and uncles” (which is completely inadequate as a substitute for your own parents!) At the end of the day, it’s the kids that experience the brunt of all of this obsession over ministry.
Also, I think GP’s obsessive view of sin also shows up in how we believe we should parent. So much of GP’s disciplinary focus is for members and staff to fit the mold, comply, get in line and behave like a good GPer. So when they don’t, we harshly correct, yell, shame, belittle. And of course this is going to trickle down into how we parent. I was so appalled one time when I was at a wedding ceremony and one of the GP moms who was there was getting so frustrated with her little toddler walking around and not sitting still, that she pulled him into a side room and started yelling at him at the top of her lungs (I know because we heard her even though the door was closed), and saying he needs to sit down, why are you not listening, you need to LISTEN!... And I’m thinking, my God, he’s 2yo, he’s not capable of sitting still for 2 hours, just let him walk around outside or something! This is how early the abuse can start for GP kids. When your theology tells you that your child is going to always act out of sinful desires, then that kid has already lost in this world. When most of your parenting is borne out of behavior modification, then there is precious little that is going to connect that family deeply, even if it is a “Christian” family….
I recently watched that Dancing for the Devil cult documentary, and I also agree there are some similarities. But what really stood out was the disconnection with family as being so similar to GP. During Covid, I think a lot of people woke up to the reality of the importance of family, and I witnessed a lot of people moving to live closer to family. But it’s sad that GP is cutting so many of those necessary ties, whether it’s cutting students off from the families they came from, (and sometimes even between siblings who attend GP together!), or cutting the natural bonds that should have formed between children and parents at GP. I thought it was interesting in the documentary how when the girl in the cult all of a sudden started to talk with her sister and parents again, that the sister thought it was all for show when she would post pictures of herself with her family on her social media to show everyone how she’s with her family since that was the whole drama that was being brought up against the cult. I don’t know if others noticed, but there was a period of time like in the last couple of years perhaps? When a bunch of GP people who initially didn’t have social media (since Ed would preach that we should not be on social media) all of a sudden got accounts and started posting pictures of them with their families, like either for Thanksgiving, or birthdays. I even heard about one couple who posted a picture of their baby’s birthday party where they invited the students they were ministering to, but they didn’t even invite their own family members and one family member didn’t know about the party until they saw it on IG! Anyways, it just made me wonder if there was some MBS or email that got sent out letting their members know that hey, our stance has changed about social media, and you can get an account and try to post pictures of you with family so people don’t accuse us of being a cult…???
Anyways, in conclusion, I think any church that isn’t helping you cultivate healthier families is a massive red flag. I think GP tends to overutilize the reasoning that “oh you’re a college student, you don’t need to tell your parents everything or ask for their opinion, you’re an adult now”. That sounds very enticing to a freshman trying to be their own person away from their parents, and of course some of that does need to happen. But regardless of our age, we need healthy families in our lives. And to the extent that it’s possible, churches can play a beautiful role in patching up the brokenness in families. A controlling group will do what they can to take the place of our natural families. Every year I am reminded how my decision to leave GP has brought so much blessing into our family that I could’ve never fathomed. And I am filled with immeasurable gratitude whenever I think about the life-giving kind of gospel, the true Jesus, the true God, that we get to show our children. I hope that by intentionally doing this for our children, that it can somehow cult-proof them as they grow up. Side note, there really should be a mandatory seminar on “How to spot cults” for college freshmen. It is so bizarre how many high control groups and cults target colleges and universities….
I would love to hear people’s thoughts on this, and apologies in advance if I don’t respond to every comment. I hope my learnings have been helpful for someone here.
Lillian Kim (formerly Chung) c/o 2004

I got here yesterday and was wondering how everyone’s firsts was like, how you felt, and what other pathways you explored. My first attempt I tried total diplomacy, least violence, and following the guidance of the thoughts. Elizabeth was saved. Most of the Hardie boys died except for two. At the end I just stood in the middle and hoped for the best. Ended up shot and thinking I got a game-over. I still thought it was a bonus ending where I’d die even though I was able to hand Kim my gun so he could save himself from Raul.
To my surprise Harry lived. Kim was happy we lived and thanked me for passing the gun while thinking what would of happened if I didn’t. Still he was sad about how it turned out, thinking what more could of been done, and being troubled by not having saw Raul behind him, Raul surviving and being safely taken away, and the casualties.
After that I wanted to give it another shot. I had in the back of my mind The Blue Spirit and the desire to see if true peace was possible. After googling it wasn’t I went with the Spirit bomb route. I knew I’d throw a bomb but I didn’t expect everything that would happen. What a scene, I thought of it as a such an epic moment to throw it. It turned out in my eye becoming a tragic beautiful hilarious scene of a character I wish I wore more often. Only this game will have you talking to the tie in your head in the middle of a shootout while a man and tie are burning on fire. Well that’s a sentence. That and afterwards Titus came to my rescue to protect my fallen body after I still got shot in this run. Titus makes my heart melt 🌈❤️.
Still Harry was sad to have to directly kill. All the mercs died but we got the least Union casualties I believe. I thought the exchange went a bit different with Kim. A bit colder maybe with him still not liking how it turned out. Though I think there was an understanding between us that this is our job and what was necessary was done. He was also happy we lived and thanked me. That and I saved Shanky And Titus as well this time. He also didn’t feel bad this time about the merc he shot. I think that was due to him managing to kill De Paul with the gun I passed him vs only injuring Raul in the last run. I think in this run when thinking of why reinforcements aren’t coming Kim also suggests our victory against the mercs may have had an influence as much as Joyce keeping her word.
But yeah not sure which one I’ll definitely move forward with. Prob with the second since at least Titus and Shanky live as well. Still I like how they both went and their unique outcomes and exchanges. I think I will though after finishing the game check out the route of Cuno being my partner and see that through to the end. I just imagine it being very funny for an endgame. Well not for Kim but can’t have two partners at the same time.
So yeah, just wondering how it was like for everyone and wanted to share my own experience and thoughts.

I am 18+ and all characters are 18+
Hello everyone! In this roleplay I’m looking for you to play as a celebrity as she decides to venture into porn professionally for whatever reason. She decides to go with a higher class studio (for me TUSHY/BLACKED would be perfect but I’m easy to go with any high class studio, or even an onlyfans account if you’d rather). We’ll start the scene arriving on shoot day and beforehand we’ll get to know each other a bit better before we get started. During the shoot itself we have an amazing time together, both of us having some of the best fun of our lives and when we’re done it’s safe to say that your character, even if she doesn’t want to do it on cam, will definitely be inviting my character around for some fun in her own time!
I’m looking for someone who doesn’t want to rush things and likes a good detailed role play ideally, so if you’re someone who does one line responses/ low effort replies then I’m afraid I’m not the partner for you! My only other request is that so I know you have read the full post I’m asking you to in your opening message tell me who you would like to play as and also how long your responses are, and please do not open with just ‘hey’ or ‘roleplay?’, you will definitely be ignored. Thank you!
Celebrities: Sydney Sweeney, Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Kendall Jenner, Kourtney Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Madison Beer, Margot Robbie, Chantel Jeffries, Sommer Ray, Katie Sigmond, Charli D’Amelio, Jenna Ortega Olivia Rodrigo, Pineapplebrat, Maren Turmo, Lauren Alexis, Leah Halton, Millie Bobby Brown, Anne Hathaway, Sabrina Carpenter, Erna Husko, Bella Poarch, Sssniperwolf, Taylor Swift and Addison Rae. Or bring your own suggestion and maybe we can make it work!