Cpt Hawk > Recent Status Updates

I'll probably say this again in my final review, but I find this anthology very intriguing for the broad spectrum of emotional contexts in this collection. It's all sex writing, yes, but--at least to me--not all of it is horny or seems to be written in a way meant to elicit desire. Sometimes the stories are disturbing or sad or functionally dead ends, stories with questions that never get answered. And I like it lots

This book is so fun, Patricia Wrede is so fun, I can't believe I didn't read this series as a kid I would have LOVED it, been just obsessed with it. As an adult I am still obsessed and delighted. Wow. Wowowowowowwow. God I can't believe she's from MN too. Just loving this.

Oh no, not a delusional pathetic queer protag with aspirations of making someone fall in love with him who clearly has abandonment issues and a nice sandwich of hubris + aspiration + being at least a little pretentious. Also he's lonely and loose ifyaknowwhatImean.

Man .... I like Ludis better still, thank god. Otherwise methinks I'd have to rethink what I'm writing.

oh boy. well at least i have an idea of what i get to look forward to now lol

The protag's getting paired up with her crush ... FOR TRAINING?! I am ready to pass to the other side, good lord

I'm reading this book at the recommendation of a friend, and at only 8 pages, this feels like the kind of thing that would entitle me to financial compensation LOL. Turned the intro on its head in 8 pages! The slush reader must have loved reading this one. "A post-coitus smile"--yick! Creep!

"If you or a loved one was traumatized by Yes, Daddy, you may be entitled to financial compensation ..."

"Rachel and I had a tradition of spending April 25 together--the day her father had died. Every year, we'd go to movies [...] I'd said to her, "No matter what happens between us, I'll always do this with you." "I won't abandon you," was the conscious message; "No one's going to love you better than I do," was the unconscious one.

Where's that GIF of Oprah in yellow slowly closing a book. Mamma mia.

New lesbian standard achieved ... not dating but not NOT dating an ex .... for SEVEN YEARS + not getting involved with anyone else at the time because you're definitely not dating your ex but also--

Another lesbian standard achieved is Not telling people my ex is still really my girlfriend and I'm still really HER girlfriend, even in front of my ex's actual girlfriend.

... I think I'm a little saner than I thought.

New lesbian standard achieved! I've never spent 3 months doing cocaine trying to get over a break-up with my ex!

... Although I suppose there's always time if I decide to get a little Silly Goofy With It, as the kids say. (I have no idea if the kids are saying this.)

Sapphic middle-aged women ... yes bisexual werewolf queen. GET IT. Sorry about the menopause! Too warm. It would be terrible.

I'm trying to stay in the zone of "Lesbians are more than their stereotypes! Lesbians don't do anything special that normal people wouldn't do!" but flying across the country to "spend five frenzied days talking and crying together" while stressed about one partner's move to a new state for business reasons is really uhhhh. It's just really um. There's something about it that just. Well.

Who would win? A writing problem I've had for the last 6 months, or the first 40 pages of this book?? (It was the book.)

Oh no, this book is turning out to be strangely therapeutic and genuinely heartwarming! And the nosy part of me is eating all this up! I can sense a 5-star review around the corner lol

"Through all of the changes in myself and in the myriad worlds around me, I have discovered facet after facet and still, I have become more and more of what I was that first day. Always, inside my soul, in the way I look out of my eyes, in the way I ache for the right kind of love, in the way I position myself in the world, the lesbian in me is forever femme."

I don't know why this has me a little teary but it does.

Wow I love being 4 pages into an anthology and feeling like you've stumbled upon crumbs of genius. Yes please let's keep this going woooo!

COOL GUYS NEVER LOOK BEHIND THEM AT EXPLOSIONS MURDERBOT TAKES ALL EAT THAT BITCHES WOOOOFUCKINGHOOOOOO

Murderbot 2.0 I love you SO unspeakably much

Ah, so ART and Murderbot are inventing love, I see. This is fine, this is normal, I am normal about this. (read: ahem. I AM NOT NORMAL ABOUT THIS.)

good god. this is SUCH a good book for writing smut. (among other things.) genius, i love it

Oh my beloved Murderbot you have so many fwiends <3

Man, I'm not sure where I'll land in my review, we've gone from a 4-star to 2 in 30 pages. Also, embarrassed to see the author confess to a skill issue.

"As a fiction writer, that freedom [of writing recreational sex] means you will have to work awfully hard to create compelling sex scenes. Without internal or external dramas to ... fuel essential conflicts and dramas ..."
HUH?? What are you TALKING about??

"Being a major homo is a never-ending challenge. Your coming out can affect the world. When we all come out, they won't be able to tell those lies about us. When we are all out, we won't be those "evil sinners," but we will be Doug, that nice fellow who runs the corner store ... and Bertha, who delivers my UPS packages."
Huh, that's funny, I've never actually had feelings before, these tears are so weird haha.

"The only sin I recognize is bad writing: prose that is imprecise, flabby, sentimental, and fundamentally dishonest about the experience of being human."

Okay, I think this writing manual and I might get along lol.

SCREAMING HISSING SPITTING NOT MY MURDERBOT

"So the plan wasn't a clusterfuck, it was just circling the clusterfuck target zone, getting ready to come in for a landing."

Ahem. slams the LOL button

Man. It's not that books 2 and 3 were BAD--they were awesome actually--but 3rd book in particular took a bit to find its sweet spot and #4 here is just a seamless take-off. Note: #3 WAS good. I just noted some slight differences.

"Gurathin turned to me. "If they do, you can take her away from them, no matter how many guards?"
I was beginning to think Gurathin's asshole expression was some congenital condition he had no control over. I said, "The more guards the better."
He lifted his brows. "Are you going to kill them?"
Scratch that, Gurathin's asshole expression is due to him being an asshole."

LMAO

Man, as a person who ends up writing a lot of characters that are emotionally reticent, obtuse, constipated, or inept + characters who don't want to talk about themselves and their true thoughts and feelings ... Murderbot is an AWESOME case study of how to get a character's personality across despite those barriers. Mwah, delicious, scrump, so good, love this.

"... Hilo swept him to the ground and pinned him with a knee between the shoulders, and Anden lay staring sideways at the world and breathing dirt, unable to move, wishing it had been anyone in the family besides Kaul Hilo that had shown up this afternoon."

Seems like the average response to Hilo, TBH. He's like a morally bankrupt puppy. And I love him for it.

Miss Fonda Lee you didn't have to write Hilo THIS sexy. Terrible person this, terrible person that--details. Hello. What's he up to Friday night. I don't even like men, but what's he up to??

Arkady, firing a gun at 800+ pages of build-up and careful secrets kept isolated between members of the cast: Who's gonna stop me? I DID say this was a duology.

**sighs and adds "Three Seagrass's g-spot' to a list of plot points I wasn't expecting**