I hope everyone had a great week! Hang out. Chat. Talk about what's going on. Have fun :3

  • Cromalin [she/her]M
    ·
    8 months ago

    yeah chapter/book 4 is a big slowdown. one of those things where in retrospect it has a lot of really important stuff that goes into some really interesting places, but even as someone who was a little more into the regency romance stuff it was still kinda frustrating

    it introduces some incredible stuff, but i was very happy to return to the gay commies

    • ashinadash [she/her]
      ·
      8 months ago

      I can tolerate it, I can forsee some of the cool stuff fwiw. It's a shame though because everything from the 3rd Battle of Thassal Plain through the Yana Drama to boarding the Brigand to the leviathan battle was 10/10 nonstop awesome. I don't mind Elena & Gertrude, or Bethany even, but as the cast of characters ballooned I was worried it'd cause pacing issues :/

      • Cromalin [she/her]M
        ·
        8 months ago

        yeah the pacing is at its worst at this point. it suffers a bit with the big cast at some future points, but generally i think madiha has a much stronger handle on it going forward

        • ashinadash [she/her]
          ·
          8 months ago

          Good :3 I still love it fwiw, like there's honestly probably nothing the author could do to make me not read the entire thing at this point. I recommended it to a woman I know in a lib queer discord, it's SUCH a great story to sell people, it has everything ✨

          Also the prince is definitely secretly gay with his twink guy right? Like I'm not misreading the sexual undertones there, am I?

          • Cromalin [she/her]M
            ·
            8 months ago

            oh 100%, if you assume any given character is queer you'll basically always be right

              • Cromalin [she/her]M
                ·
                8 months ago

                unjust depths is borderline heterophobic. like, if you wanted to invert the way standard homophobic storytelling is done it would look very similar to unjust depths. very few straight characters, it's treated very clearly as a personality flaw in all of them

                • ashinadash [she/her]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  8 months ago

                  Is it a personality flaw to uncritically support fictional heterophobia? 'Cause uh =)

                  • Cromalin [she/her]M
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    no, i think heterophobia is good as hell. more stories should engage in heterophobia. it's a shame unjust depths is the only truly heterophobic story i can think of

                    the closest thing is a few stories that have lots of gay people and also some straight people and all the straight stuff leads to disaster while the gay stuff has messy drama but isn't as bad, but that's not the same

                    • ashinadash [she/her]
                      ·
                      8 months ago

                      THANK YOU, I feel deeply satisfied being able to just safely assume that every single named character is queer. Bury your gays, more like bury your straights comfy-cool Unjust Depths is such a treasure, I haven't read anything else since I started.