"virility-brown eyes"

ceru/varun, they/them (or ve/ver if close mutuals!). media crit + projects. has a tag system. main @izukillme. aelin galathynius brings shame upon all good aliens. reblogs are loved, reposts are reviled. :)

[eadazlesbian]

yo im ceru/varun, main @izukillme! this is my media critical blog. i plan to post: 

general media criticism

anti content for creators who simply refuse to learn

and sometimes my own writing so i can receive constructive crit x)

feel free to interact or drop an ask if you have any questions or just wanna talk!! if talking about characters/authors pls censor names (alien, a*lin, a//elin wtv)

more about me in my carrd

[moonlightmarasi]

look I’m far from the most qualified person to talk about this but stormlight magically healing people’s disabilities is more than a tiny bit ableist

[moonlightmarasi]

honestly, there is so much underlying misogyny and homophobia in branderson’s work. I hate the Marasi’s entire character revolves around her infatuation with Waxillium, I hate that they were even implied to show romantic interest in each other when Wax is at least twice her age, I hate that all of his characters who start off in or are originally framed as being from poor/working class backgrounds always become or are revealed to be so rich they have so much money and power, the constant glorification of killing is exhausting there is nothing heroic, everyone is forced into heterosexual relationships even when they feel extremely unnatural or would have been better off as friends (Adolin/Shallan, Vin/Elend), the descriptions of fights that are so detailed a dedicated duck could reenact them frame for frame get to be draining when there are so many of them. There is more and I can go on and these are really most obvious in mistborn which is really only pretty good at its best and so few people seem willing to acknowledge these things and just keep piling praise on his work 

[eadazlesbian]

allergic-to-alien -> eadazlesbian

mutuals please sb??? 

[eadazlesbian]

okay, so if you follow my main (@izukillme​) you probably know how much i love brandon sanderson. but there are many things to call out with his books, and since i have not seen any posts doing so, i’m going to do it.

age gaps in relationships brandon’s age gaps are really screwed up. let’s start with elantris. though it doesn’t come to fruition, hrathen (50+) falls in love with sarene (25). then there’s mistborn, with vin (18) and elend (23-24), and the stormlight archive with shallan (17) and adolin (23), and siri (17) with susebron (50+). all three latter couples get married canonly.  now what’s my problem with this, you ask? at 50+, hrathen has a far greater deal of life experience and maturity than 25-year-old sarene. same with vinlend, shadolin and siribron (don’t come @ me with the excuse of susebron being mentally and physically 19-20. he has had that long to live and grow, and his life experience, however confined to the palace, is still vaster than siri’s. he lived out those 50 years). in summation: ew. would it really be that hard to age down the men or age up the women? no!

lgbtq+ rep brandon’s books feature little to no lgbtq+ rep. he has expressed homophobic views before (x, x) and the few gay/lesbian characters that are present in his books are very minor. though he did… vaguely confirm an MC, shallan davar, to be bi, we cannot take it as rep unless it is written right into the book

autistic rep the representation of adien in elantris was super iffy. though brandon did much better with renarin, adien was extremely stereotypically and harmfully represented

hypersexualisation of women this isn’t something he does much, so it really shocked me in warbreaker. siri was constantly hypersexualised by putting her in ‘low-cut’ dresses that take after the hallandren style. girl is 17 can we not?! also making her do it with susebron (who is 50+ btw) is just disgusting

I don’t like how the fandom immediately jumps to defend a straight cis white male author. I don’t like how we are glorifying him for doing the bare minimum. The rep we have from Branderson is not enough. It is nowhere near enough. If his religious beliefs and his church do not allow him to represent the LGBTQ+ community right, then hell… we don’t want any other rep. We need to push for more and not let this go. Okay, fine, Branderson has changed his stance and is trying for more rep. But we cannot just excuse shit like that because he is changing. We have to keep it in mind and bring it up to make sure we get the rep that we deserve. 

Don’t say they’re “his books” and “he can do what he wants” – the harmful portrayal and/or exclusion of any marginalised community should not exist, and those who do not fall under any marginalised communities must do better. We cannot sit here and make excuses for privileged people – we gotta get after them to change!  Branderson can do better, we ALL know this. We need to look at shit through a critical lens. A rose-colored glass over our eyes will just obscure all the things we need to be calling out.

If there’s anything I missed, please feel free to add on more! I am tagging in the fandom tags because the fandom needs to acknowledge these things.

[kingvamps-archive]

the age gap thing has been mentioned before i think but everything else yeah. the whole ‘mind of a child’ thing is super ableist too. like the only good reasons i know of to use a phrase like that is when someone is age regressing or if an alter is a child, not 'x character is disabled and isolated’

also! the inherent ableism in curing renarins epilepsy and giving lopen another arm! which i have talked about before! and the fact that “thats how the magic system works” isnt an excuse. like even if that was true (which it is not) he! made! the magic system! which btw has already been shown to not be able to heal some stuff. if i remember correctly the healing thing is based on how you percieve yourself which like… disabled people dont think of themselves as abled lmao

[croissantcitysucks]

okay but if you’re talking abt or reviewing or etc c//city and you don’t even mention the colonialism, glorification of oppression/villainization of the oppressed, & how violence and torture are romanticized then i don’t trust your opinion on c//city! i just don’t. it’s so ridiculously, painfully blatant that if you don’t Get It then you’re just being willfully ignorant at this point.

[croissantcitysucks]

PSA

(this is the last one, i swear…)

so this isn’t going to be addressing what happened yesterday (other than to say that i have screenshots and i’m perfectly willing to share them if anyone wants to see what happened), but it is sort of inspired by it.

recently the anti s/jm community on tumblr has been getting a lot bigger, so i wanted to lay some things down real quick that newer antis or ones who have just transferred over from instagram or other websites might not know!

we have always had behavioral standards here. yes, we mainly critique s//jm, but it is always important to be able to call out people in our own community when they do something wrong. racism, disrespect, & pettiness/general rudeness have never been tolerated. this is not a “new” thing invented to gatekeep the community. you simply do not get a free pass for shitty behavior just because we all don’t like s//jm’s books. 

certain antis getting blocked for shitty behavior is also not something new. antis who have just joined us may not know this, but there have been multiple instances where someone in the community (for example, marta) has done something shitty, refused to apologize & fix the problem, and then been blocked by all or most of the main antis. once again, this is not something recently invented to gatekeep or personally antagonize people (harassment is always bad, folks), we are merely not going to compromise on our behavioral standards just bc we all don’t like sjm’s books.

we are in the ANTI tags for a reason. we censor names FOR A REASON. and that reason is to keep us away from stans, who have a long history of invading our tags, sending anon hate, & harassing people. newcomers may not know this (though recently we have had a slight uptick in anon hate & one person was driven off tumblr by stans), but it’s always good to educate yourself on the etiquette of the communities you join. going around picking fights with stans (who will, at the end of the day, probably not change their opinions so quickly) and giving us excessive publicity will likely only contribute to an increase in harassment from stans, which we’d like to avoid. it’s always nice to help educate ppl on s//jm’s flaws but at the end of the day we want a calm space where we can critique her books without being harassed.

that’s all i have to say for today, hopefully this gets to some ppl who didn’t know this & helps them understand the anti community better! i would appreciate it if some of my anti s//jm mutuals would reblog this to get it circulating, bc i’ve recently changed my posts to show up on the dashboard only so it won’t be appearing in the main tags.

[alectology-archive]

Also, as a general notice: your being an s/jm anti doesn’t give you the right to discuss anything that doesn’t have to do with her being an author. Do not under any circumstances discuss stuff about her family/husband/and other super personal things. Any hate speech against her will also not be tolerated. 

And just so we’re clear, being an ‘anti’ isn’t about hating on s/jm or mocking her books just because you don’t like certain plots/characters etc. We’re here to critique her books and point out why the content in them is hurtful and unacceptable.

[croissantcitysucks]

PSA

(this is the last one, i swear…)

so this isn’t going to be addressing what happened yesterday (other than to say that i have screenshots and i’m perfectly willing to share them if anyone wants to see what happened), but it is sort of inspired by it.

recently the anti s/jm community on tumblr has been getting a lot bigger, so i wanted to lay some things down real quick that newer antis or ones who have just transferred over from instagram or other websites might not know!

we have always had behavioral standards here. yes, we mainly critique s//jm, but it is always important to be able to call out people in our own community when they do something wrong. racism, disrespect, & pettiness/general rudeness have never been tolerated. this is not a “new” thing invented to gatekeep the community. you simply do not get a free pass for shitty behavior just because we all don’t like s//jm’s books. 

certain antis getting blocked for shitty behavior is also not something new. antis who have just joined us may not know this, but there have been multiple instances where someone in the community (for example, marta) has done something shitty, refused to apologize & fix the problem, and then been blocked by all or most of the main antis. once again, this is not something recently invented to gatekeep or personally antagonize people (harassment is always bad, folks), we are merely not going to compromise on our behavioral standards just bc we all don’t like sjm’s books.

we are in the ANTI tags for a reason. we censor names FOR A REASON. and that reason is to keep us away from stans, who have a long history of invading our tags, sending anon hate, & harassing people. newcomers may not know this (though recently we have had a slight uptick in anon hate & one person was driven off tumblr by stans), but it’s always good to educate yourself on the etiquette of the communities you join. going around picking fights with stans (who will, at the end of the day, probably not change their opinions so quickly) and giving us excessive publicity will likely only contribute to an increase in harassment from stans, which we’d like to avoid. it’s always nice to help educate ppl on s//jm’s flaws but at the end of the day we want a calm space where we can critique her books without being harassed.

that’s all i have to say for today, hopefully this gets to some ppl who didn’t know this & helps them understand the anti community better! i would appreciate it if some of my anti s//jm mutuals would reblog this to get it circulating, bc i’ve recently changed my posts to show up on the dashboard only so it won’t be appearing in the main tags.

[alectology-archive]

Also, as a general notice: your being an s/jm anti doesn’t give you the right to discuss anything that doesn’t have to do with her being an author. Do not under any circumstances discuss stuff about her family/husband/and other super personal things. Any hate speech against her will also not be tolerated. 

And just so we’re clear, being an ‘anti’ isn’t about hating on s/jm or mocking her books just because you don’t like certain plots/characters etc. We’re here to critique her books and point out why the content in them is hurtful and unacceptable.

[inthemidstofbuddie]

Hunt, with his gray wings and common blood, despite his lightning, had never even been in the running. Being asked to join Shahar’s elite 18th had been privilege enough. He’d loved her almost instantly for seeing his worth—and Isaiah’s. All of the 18th had been like that: soldiers she’d selected not for their status, but their skills. Their true value.

sad backstory dance

look i’ve gotta do something to entertain myself. this entire chapter has been Micah, Isaiah, and Hunt on a roof talking and Hunt providing exposition 

[alessandriadebardanio]

So the wing colors are status symbols?

[discountalien-pancake]

They’re fantasy racism. Isaiah is prized for having pure white wings 🙄🙄🙄

[eadazlesbian]

so... the black slave is ‘prized’... 

[eadazlesbian]

writing part 1: show, don’t tell

the fundamental rule of any writing is “show, don’t tell” -- i’m sure you have heard this a million times. but does anyone ever provide a helpful instruction guide for this? NO. lucky for you, your local idiot has decided to make one of these guides!

PART I: PRACTICAL ADVICE

immerse yourself in your character. make sure you are thinking like the character, talking like them, moving like them. the author no longer exists -- only the character does, so it makes it that much easier to put them down on paper. think of it as writing about yourself, except you... aren’t you

everyone has a very different thought process with particular hallmarks of that process. for example, i think in long and full sentences, but i also jump steps and connect dots in a way that seems out of the blue. you want to figure out how your character thinks, and then implement that thought process onto paper, with slight changes to fit that character’s personality

know what you’re doing. you need to know your character, their personality and motivation, and you need to weave this into your story seamlessly. you need to know where the story or scene is going and what emotion you want to create in the reader’s mind. this allows for a cleanly structured and well written story

the above also helps in choosing a good writing style. now when i say writing style i dont mean a personal style but the overall method of writing. so if you were writing a historical fiction or fantasy, you would do simple past and third person; less is more with this story type. it creates greater immersion and immersion is always the goal. but there is always an exception: sometimes you don’t want to immerse the reader in the character. you want them to feel as if they are outside looking in, to create that slowly-growing horror. in that case, you’d go for present tense third person. in conclusion to this overly long point, writing style is the greatest key for the effect you want to leave on a reader

tone is super important, especially for emotionally charged scenes. you can set the atmosphere with a colour scheme or an environment or a sentence style. it can either drive home how the character is feeling and make the reader feel the same, or set a contrast to make the reader curious. for example: “As the first rays of sun painted the room light yellow, they lingered on the tear tracks almost etched into his cheeks.” this sentence both shows us what’s going on (a new day, symbolic of hope, but character is upset) and excites us for more (why is the character sad on a happy day?).  “The sea battered against the rocks just the way her heart was battering against her ribcage, drumming a tattoo of fearful excitement there.” this sentence makes you ask what the character is gonna do. why is she near the sea? it also sets up tension (why is she fearfully excited, isn’t that contradictory?)

when writing, turn your brain off. you need to feel the story with your heart rather than see it with your mind. readers relate to human emotion and feeling the most -- would it be a fun book if we didn’t feel hollow when dobby died, or laugh out loud when fred and george pulled their pranks? (ftr i dont give a shit about hp but its the simplest example i can give) so yeah, feel first think later.

PART II: TECHNICAL ADVICE

try not to use filter words. words such as “felt”, “heard”, “realised” are like being told what the character is feeling/thinking/realising instead of letting the reader see it through character’s eyes. they filter the experience completely and make it bland. consider:  “She heard a sudden loud noise, which made her jump. Her heart rate slowly returned to normal as she realised the noise had come from outside.”  versus “A sudden loud noise made her jump. It had come from outside, she thought, as her heart rate slowly returned to normal.” the second is both more concise and far cleaner to read. you can actually feel your heart jump in your chest because you, at that point, are the unnamed woman.

watch out for crutch words. we all do this -- we overuse certain words. for me, that word is... ‘word’. this repetitiveness tends to stick out and ruin the feel of the story, but this is also what editors are for. so summary of this point: listen to your editor please. they know what they’re doing

LESS IS MORE!! overly long sentence that loses its thread in the middle? break it up or cut out some of the flowery language. to an extent it depends on the character and their thought process, but at some point you have to pick conciseness over pretty words. at all times it is most important that the reader understands what you’re going for. simple, to the point language is the best way to go (and by using this, you can create a much greater impact when you do use poetic words!)

adding on to the previous, don’t go for too much complicated real-world science and maths and fight choreography. break it down for your readers and let them come to understandings on their own. KISS - keep it simple, smartass

now this post is long enough already and i wanted to talk about a lot of other things but i guess i will do those in a part 2. hope this helped :D

[eadazlesbian]

i think im gonna make a rant on writing styles

[eadazlesbian]

finally starting lmao 

[eadazlesbian]

i think im gonna make a rant on writing styles

[caliphamoved2]

what’s wrong with leigh?

okay so i’m gonna put this under the cut. this is mainly about her writing! i don’t have much care to keep up with leigh herself but if any of my mutuals wanna add smth, feel free!

ok so basically two things that absolutely make me mad is the ableism and misogyny that goes unchecked through soc. so like, first! boys are damaged and become unfeeling, murdering monsters, but girls are damaged to an equal or worse extent but still possess feelings and maintain their humanity. nina and inej are both shackled as young teens, sold into slavery/made into slaves, put in cages, beaten and tortured, both are forced to work in brothels, Inej is raped every day for years in a brothel, Nina is almost tortured to death numerous times in the story... but it is kaz and matthias who are the most super fucked up characters in this story, the characters with the highest levels of psychological and emotional trauma. not nina. not inej. nina and inej still have ethical purpose, psychological fortitude, humanity, and feelings.

leigh researched 17th century netherlands and dutch culture in order to center this book on the historical amsterdam, historical prussia, historical pussia, etc. white colonialist discourse informs this novel, on a character level, a world-building level, and a central plot-level. there are cultural and nationalistic stereotypes in this book!! the representations in this book personally left a bad taste in my mouth

and then there's kaz, who is disabled and needs a crane but that crane disappears from the page around the mid-point of this book. as someone who's disabled that trope is rly ableist. people with disabilities already face a lot of contempt from able-bodied people who believe they are "not really disabled" and could "be able-bodied" if they just "tried harder." characters like kaz, who uses a cane only as a story-prop, reinforce that harmful attitude to a startling degree.

before you come and tell me that leigh herself is disabled, the thing with kaz (and that's just. my personal feeling! like no one's obligated to agree) is that he actually has the physical prowess of a U.S. navy seal all throughout this book, and the cane even disappears from the page around the mid-point of this book so as someone who's disabled the thing was not very. good to me? or like not good but i cant find a word for it

there's also the sexualization of nina. the love cures the monster trope. there's so much MORE and this is just soc

[deactived283974938479856]

wanted to add also that not only is the universe of ketterdam inspired by the histories of colonial powers, there are literal colonies in the grishaverse. i think the most disturbing thing about this is really that this is a fictional universe; no one told bardugo that she had to include colonies--she just did that! and she chose specifically to have ravka (russia-adjacent) colonize novyi zem, her fake-africa, which should feel um. Weird. none of the colonial subjects of novyi zem are given pagetime to discuss the horrors of colonization although we know there were many, especially when we look to russian imperial history, and her latest series just glorifies the ravkan regime instead of addressing the consequences & moral implications of both their colonies AND their practice of turning grisha children into basically child soldiers, all of which leads me to believe that bardugo didn’t actually think about the implications of this decision at all.  and going back to trauma, all the characters of color in this book definitely have experienced some sort of generational trauma and none of them are ever able to process it or attempt to correct it for future generations, like. inej’s people are literally being hunted and discriminated against and chased across the continent and all we get is a throwaway line about “well no one treats us well.” and again, all of this is just laziness!! leigh set up oppressive systems (in parallel to REAL oppressive systems) and then didn’t want to do the work of critiquing or dismantling them in any substantive way, even though they’re all constructed!! they’re FAKE. what then does this say abt her understanding of real systems or her willingness to critique and dismantle those? what are readers supposed to be learning about real life colonization, or the rroma people?? why traumatize your characters of color to this extent if nothing comes of it?? in addition, as halla said, the geopolitics of this universe & even the interpersonal relations between the characters are so obviously influenced by eurocentrism that i don’t think any of these characters can necessarily be touted as “good representation”in that regard. the shu (east-asia adjacent) are villanized for being?? good at commerce?? even tho the kerch are known for the same things and we’re told that they’re cool, and this sort of double standard persists in the treatment of the main and supporting cast--when kuwei kisses the guy he has a crush on, consensually and wearing his own face, he’s like. sneaky and trying to fuck with wylan or whatever. but wylan kisses jesper mid-panic attack wearing kuwei’s face, and thats fine?? matthias gets two whole novels to deal with his violent unfounded hatred for the grisha but kuwei gets two pages to be sad about his dad? etc. etc.

[rfsgfh]

WHAT THE FUCK. Yeah, the Darkling may have been oppressed (idk much about this because I didn't read his backstory books) but NO ONE has the right to be a mass murderer, no one has the right to sexually assault people, no one has the right to do the things the darkling did.

[xie-ge]

No. For fucks sake NO. Nothing gives anybody the right to do FUCKING GENOCIDE.

[wywei-remade-deactivated2020121]

WHAT THE FUCK-

[eadazlesbian]

[ID: a screenshot of a comment on an Instagram post. It says, “Well, this is awkward because though I think you can stan a villain without defending his actions, I also firmly believe that the Darkling was in the right. It almost comes across as offensive to me that he’s not recognised as a victim of oppression who has the right to do what he did.” End ID]

What the hell? The first two sentences are literally contradicting each other. This is BS

[femtopulsed]

Poison in t/og

So in the poison challenge in t/og, I realised two of the poisons mentioned where bloodbane and monkshood.

One big problem: they’re the same plant

The active ingredient in both is aconitine, my personal favourite poison. It’s an incredibly lethal and efficient neurotoxin which is soluble in oil and fat, and has no odor nor colour. 

However, in the poison challenge it is also described as tasteless. It’s not, as aconitine itself tastes incredibly spicy (there has been a case where a chemist identified aconitine solely by its taste). It also has no cure to do this day.

The lethal dosage of aconitine is 1/60th of a grain, which is a measurement used by toxicologist which equates to about 63 mg (for imperial system users, this is 3.7 times 10 to the power of minus 5 ounces). Chances are that there’s more than this amount in the wine the contestants drank, which would lead to death in somewhere between a minute and 24 hours depending on how much there is.

Celery also identifies monkshood by dipping her finger in the wine, and looking at the purple colour on her finger. I’ve said earlier that the poison is colourless, and it is also soluble in fat and oil, meaning she would have been introduced to the poison. There have been cases of gardeners dying from brushed their hands against monkshood flowers.

In her fight against cane, Celery’s symptoms are completely unrelated to aconitine. Aconitines symptoms are quite characteristic and also incredibly painful, Celery wouldn’t be able to stand, let alone fight. 

Her symptoms are: nausea, a spinning head, hallucinations and disorientation. These can be effects of aconitine poisoning, but there are a few obvious ones missing. 

The first is excruciating pain. No matter if the dose is lethal or not, Celery should be on the floor. Aconitine causes a feeling of intense swelling and pain in the throat and mouth (although neither actually swell up). 

Secondly, loss of strength. Celery is still strong enough to stand up and fight against Cane, which would not happen. Seizures are also a relatively common effect of aconitine poisoning, but may not happen (aconitine has a lot of symptoms and some of them may not happen to an individual).

Loss of strength is combined with a shortness of breath and tachycardia (rapid heart rate). Celery describes a slower heart rate than usual, which is completely wrong in every respect. But then we all know how much research s/jm does.

There’s some more mental effects as well. Victims of aconitine state that they felt “the oncoming of death”, no matter if the dose was lethal or not. This is probably due to the brain recognising its symptoms as lethal.

tl:dr Sarah Janet didn’t realise two poisons where actually the same poison and she failed to represent the symptoms of a poison on epic proportions

[femtopulsed]

Celery V Cane Analysis: Pt 4

Last part in this series.

Pt 1

Pt 2

Pt 3

You can also read my rant about how s/jm failed with poisons here

deep inhale

Cain’s black eyes met with hers for a moment before his other arm lashed out and connected with her shoulder. She heard the crack before she felt the pain, and Celaena screamed, dropping to her knees as her shoulder dislocated. His foot met with the shoulder, and she went flying backward, falling so hard that her shoulder relocated with a sickening crunch. The agony blinded her; the world went in and out of focus. Things were so slow . .

At this point I just want to catalogue her injuries. She’s been poisoned, concussed, probably has spinal cord damage, a dislocated shoulder and soft tissue damage around that area. The fact that there is a crunch also means the shoulder has been broken another time by his kick, and her position means he probably stamped on her shoulder hard.

If you take a look at this image of the arteries in the shoulder, you can clearly see there are several major arteries around the area. The brachial artery is probably damaged or severed. Cane probably hit her clavicle or upper ribs rather than the shoulder because it’s a hard place to land a hit and not very effective, and the force of that kick combined with the force of her fall would result in the damage of all those soft tissues. This would create a hematoma and she would die of blood loss.

Cain swung his sword at Celaena, who threw herself backward—but not fast enough. She yelped as the blade sliced across her thigh, clothing and flesh ripping. Blood colored her pants. Despite it, she stood again, her face set in defiant rage.

Oh look, another potentially lethal wound. He could have potentially cut the femoral and even if he didn’t, she cannot stand up now. His blade is also embedded into her leg so he would need to pull it out of her before using it. Again there is a lack of fluidity between movements, both of them need to follow up with more attacks after they’ve landed a hit.

So he watched, in growing horror and despair, as Cain’s fist slammed into her jaw. Her knees twisted as she fell.

That comma is unnecessary, and now Celery has a fractured mandible. She’s probably upset her shoulder even more now she’s fell. 

Anyway there’s this long bit where Cane starts taunting her and she gets angry, I’ll skip that.

She let out a wordless scream that shattered through the frozen wind as she scrambled to her feet. Her pain lost in her fury, she swung at his blade with the remnant of the staff. “Good,” Cain panted, pressing her staff so hard that his blade sank into the wood. “But not good enough.” He shoved her, and as she staggered back a step, he brought up his leg and kicked her in the ribs. She went flying. 

For starters, he shouldn’t let her back up, and it would be more effective for Celery to stab at Cane instead of wasting the little energy she has left on a swing. Again, more upsetment of her previous wounds, with broken ribs as well. At this point I’m just cataloguing the damage she’s taking.

The next part there’s no combat, she just takes two more concussive blows and starts hallucinating. Oh and she gets cured from the poison by mystic spirit magic. She somehow manages to get up once again after all her injuries as well.

Cain growled as he swung his sword, making to behead her. Celaena shot forward, as fast as an arrow of Deanna. Cain’s eyes went wide as she buried the jagged end of the staff in his right side, exactly where Chaol had said he would be unguarded. Blood poured onto her hands as she yanked it out, and Cain staggered back, clutching his ribs.

A decapitation? Really? Like I know she’s damaged and should be dead but it’s so easy to dodge and duck a strike like that. Celery actually made the right move here, but she doesn’t follow up with a hit to immobilise or even kill him.

She forgot pain, forgot fear, forgot the tyrant who stared at the burning mark on her head with dark eyes. She leapt back a step and sliced open Cain’s arm with the broken end of the staff, ripping through muscle and sinew. He swatted at her with his other arm, but she moved aside, cutting the limb as well.

She should be on the offensive, and I’m not sure how effective that staff would be at ripping muscle and sinew. Cane is incredibly strong and a lot of swords have trouble ripping through heavy muscle, and Celery has only been gaining more muscle for a few weeks. He also keeps his body completely open for an attack when he’s swatting at her.

He lunged, but she dashed away. Cain sprawled upon the ground. She slammed her foot into his back, and as he lifted his head, he found the knifesharp remnant of the staff pressed against his neck.

I’m not sure what he’s using to attack if both arms are heavily damaged, and I’m unsure of how he fell over. It’s a decent ending other than that. 

So this “series” is finally over. Yay. 

[femtopulsed]

Celery V Cane: Pt 3

The third part of this “series” where I rant about how terrible this fight scene is.

read pt 1 and pt 2 here

She attacked—faster and faster, stronger and stronger. Cain laughed, and she almost screamed in anger. Each time she moved a foot to trip him, each time they came too close, she either became clumsy or he stepped away, as if he knew what she planned all along. She had the infuriating feeling that he was toying with her, that there was some joke she didn’t understand.

So I’ve said before one of the staff’s greatest advantages is reach, so she should not move close in enough to trip Cane. I’m also not sure about how he managed to fend of a barrage of strikes from a staff unless Celery is moving much slower than she thinks she is.

Celaena whipped the staff through the air, hoping to catch him upon his unprotected neck. But he deflected, and though she spun and tried to knock him in his stomach, he blocked her again

Alright this first movement is not something I would ever do against a prepared sword wielder because it can be blocked so easily, and after blocking the sword wielder can quickly close that distance. After he deflects, she spins a full 360 degrees to try and strike him in the stomach, which leaves an unprotected back and that hit is also really easy to block. Once again Celery should be dead.

She grinned as the shaft of her staff slammed into his side. He bent over, and her leg lashed out and swept him off his feet, sending him crashing to the ground. She raised her staff, but a sick feeling rushed through her so powerful that her muscles slackened. She had no strength.

So Cane has taken a full force blow to the stomach, and then immediately bends over, which is not realistic. What should actually happen depends on where exactly he is hit, but if it hits on any of the floating ribs then they are broken and if he gets hit on the liver he’ll be on the floor. Cane’s musculature means he could probably take a full force blow to the muscles on the side of the abdomen. 

Even if he is bent over, tripping someone using your legs requires a lot of force and you usually need to be heavier, or you will break your ankles in the process. It also can’t be done on a much heavier opponent unless you throw your entire weight with it, so it can’t be done while holding a staff. It’s also easier to kick him in the liver, activating a nasty reaction which will send him to the floor.

He knocked aside her blow as if it was nothing, and she retreated while he rose. And that’s when she heard the laugh—soft, feminine, and vicious. Kaltain. Celaena’s feet stumbled, but she stayed upright as she dared a glance at the lady, and the goblets on the table before her. And that’s when she knew that it hadn’t been wine in that glass, but bloodbane, the very drug she’d missed in the Test. At best, it caused hallucinations and disorientation. At worst …

Cane is on his back on the floor and manages to parry Celery’s hit. The solution isn’t hard - just hit him again but go for somewhere harder to block like the groin. Letting Cane get back on his feet wasn’t a good move as well because as you get up you are completely unprotected.

I’ve talked about how bloodbane doesn’t do this here, but if you’re not bothered to read it Celery should be in excruciating pain or dead by now. Also there was wine in the glass. Duh. Do you think it’s all poison?

She had difficulty holding the staff. Cain came at her, and she had no choice but to meet his blows, barely having the strength to raise the weapon each time. How much bloodbane had they given her? The staff cracked, splintered, and groaned. If it were a lethal dose, she’d be dead by now. They must have given her enough to disorient her, but not enough that it would be easy to prove. She couldn’t focus, and her body became hot and cold. Cain was so large—he was a mountain, and his blows … they made Chaol seem like a child …

If she has difficulty holding the staff, Cane’s hits mean its been knocked out of her hands by now. At this point her attacks are slower than his, and Cane is close enough to hit her with a sword. She has no chance in surviving. The staff should also be split by now, judging by Cane’s body weight.

He slammed his fist into her spine, and she only saw the blur of the slate tiles before they collided with her face.

There’s no recovery from this. He’s probably hit hard enough to damage the spinal cord and she definitely has a concussion. I’ve never experienced either of those but I know you absolutely cannot fight like that. 

Her breath came fast and hard, and her knees ached as she stumbled upright, charging at him. Too fast for her to block, he grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and hurled her back. She kept upright as she tripped, and stopped a few feet from him.

Again, if an opponent is on the floor you don’t let them back up. Also why is he far enough away for her to charge at him? I’m pretty sure she still has the staff, so that reach means Cane can’t grab her. She also shouldn’t be wearing something that you can grab on to, and I’m confused as to where she was thrown. Did Cane somehow manage to grab her and throw her behind or in front of him? Logically it makes more sense if he throws her behind him but the text suggests he throws her in front. Oh and she should be on the floor yet again because Cane literally threw her.

Celaena shot forward with a sweep of the staff. Wood slammed into steel. The staff snapped in two. The iron-tipped head soared to the other side of the veranda, leaving Celaena with a piece of useless wood. 

So it;s the inevitable moment I’ve been waiting for: the staff snapping. I’ve snapped my staff before swinging at another person, and it does not fly that far. It’ll go maybe 3 metres and then keep rolling but it won’t fly to the other side of the room. It also says a lot when Celery says that the piece of wood she is holding is useless, she now has a sharp stick which will splinter and cause extra damage if she stabs him. 

Alright its getting too long yet again so I will make another part tomorrow.