I Finished Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver. Y'all. Such A Beautiful Book. It Did, In Some Ways, Go The

I finished Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver. Y'all. Such a beautiful book. It did, in some ways, go the way of Beauty and the Beast with the love interests. The romance with the tsar was implied at the end, but much more explicit with the Staryk lord. So while I had perhaps hoped it might have ended in them escaping the trappings of forced marriage, I can't be entirely mad. The romance was earned.

I had more coherent thoughts about this last night when I was lying in bed, thinking about the book, but wanted to share what little I still remember.

There was another theme that I picked up on the further I read, which was this: what you do in the end is more important than why you are doing it, how long it took you to get there, or what you did before. So many times, characters do good things for their own self-benefit, and the book doesn't condemn this motivation. It is a neutral thing. Everyone has their own reasons for doing what they do. Irina wants to save her homeland from war and starvation, and it doesn't matter what happens to anyone else. At first, Miryem wants to win back for her family what her father's kindness has stolen, in the way of health and wealth. And then, she wants to win back her freedom to make a future of her own choosing. Wanda wants a full belly and to avoid her father's beatings and his plan to sell her for drinking money. First she is only concerned for herself, but then for her brothers, too.

And there's a second part to this theme: you can change your mind. When presented with new information, each character changes their mind about their course of action, and takes a different course instead. Character growth is less about become a better person, and more about how learning about others changes your perspective and naturally leads to different actions. Even the proud Staryk lord, when Miryem proves her worth over and over, reassesses and changes his behavior towards her. But he has not become less proud, he has not changed who he is.

Ultimately, this is a book about people making decisions, about those who influence those decisions, and the actions that follow.

Also, the romance is incredibly understated, which is a huge bonus in my book.

I enjoyed it immensely and could see myself coming back to this story and reading it again.

Going to be a bit grumpy here, but-

I hate the idea that fanfiction "fixes" or "improves" on canon.

Fanfiction is for having fun! Fanfiction is for exploring other possibilities, or filling in missing scenes, or speculating wildly about what might have/could have/would have happened if something went just a little bit differently!

Sometimes fanfiction is silly! Sometimes fanfiction is objectively bad! Sometimes fanfiction builds on what canon created, but it wouldn't exist without canon giving it a place to begin!

Sometimes fanfiction is for writing love letters to a canon that sits close to your heart for highly personal reasons, and it doesn't really matter what anyone else feels about it because it is important to you.

Sometimes fanfiction is for writing hate letters to a canon that infuriates you, even if the fanfiction is objectively no more well done than canon was.

Sometimes fanfiction is for dipping your hands into a bunch of random-ass fandom buckets, pulling out handfulls of wildly disparate tropes/characters/storylines/etc, and stitching them into a Frankenstein's monster of a story that bears only passing resemblance to any of the stories it was ostensibly based upon.

Fanfiction doesn't need to fix canon. It doesn't need to make a story "better," for whatever definition of "better" has gained the most traction among some segment of fandom at any given moment in time.

Fanfiction can be stupid. Fanfiction can be bad.

Fanfiction can be one person going, "You know what would be fun for me, personally, to see these characters do?" and then sharing it with the world in the hopes that someone else smiles or laughs or goes, "Oh my god, me too!" about it.

Fanfiction can be a group of people who are interested in some hyperspecific story trope getting together online to write that trope over and over till half of them are sick of it and the other half have moved on to a new hyperfixation with the same trope in another fandom.

Fanfiction doesn't have to be Good Art.

Fanfiction doesn't even have to be good.

And fanfiction certainly doesn't have to be, in any way shape or form, better than canon, in order to justify that fanfiction existing anyway and making someone smile.

This one is so old I don't even remember when I started but tried finishing it today. Still experimenting on how to blend skintones with pastels. Also I don't even go here, I haven't even watched this movie, but I saw a lot of pretty gifs and fanart and his look captivated me so here we are XD

i'm literally begging people to relearn how to use earbuds and headphones. i don't wanna hear your fucking tiktok while im waiting for my flight.

Let fanfiction be bad.

Let fanfiction be ridiculous, and silly, and nonsensical.

Let it be weird, and awkward, and ugly, and then bring it to the fanfiction party anyway and show it off with all the pride of a new dad with a wallet full of new baby pictures that everyone will see whether they want to or not.

I haven’t posted here in forever : o