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Midway thoughts on book

I'm a little over a seventh of the way into House of Leaves and thought I'd share my current opinion(without any major spoilers)---largely just so I can look back on it.

So far Zampano's book and The Navidson Record are incredibly interesting, and while at times it may seem he rambles, I've found it pays off. I look forward to seeing what further developments revolve around the closet, and whether or not they will eventually move on from it and have the house shift to reveal some new, impossible oddity. At the same time I'm not sure as so far it feels---though who knows if it'll stay like this---like things are about to go terribly wrong at the closet (in part they've already started to).

Truant also provides some interesting background information and he at his best he too can be rather interesting. But every now and then he throws a run on sentence spanning across the page(one even seemed to be two in length, but I might have missed so periods in all that mess of words). Then there's the bigger thing I find annoying about his perspective.

Sex

For the love of whoever has the authority to silence you, shut up about sex. And strippers, and breasts, and legs, and how all the girls look, and their privates, and cum, and doing drugs while thinking about sex, and again, sex. It provides nothing to the story but I keep having to read it anyways to make sure I don't miss out in anything important.

I like me thrilling and surreal meta-mystery without crappy adult smut, personally

But that aside the story is going well, still a lot to uncover and fail at understanding as it's 709 pages long, will update later.

The theory that Brennan Lee Mulligan himself will be the final boss of Dimension 20 Neverafter doesn't ring true to me, and I think I've unpacked why. Let me show my work.

1. Lazy

"What if it turns out the big bad is the Dungeon Master themselves?" is an idea most DMs have when planning their first campaign. Brennan Lee Mulligan is a professional, DMing on a show that people pay money to watch. It's too route 1 of an idea for someone in that position.

2. Cheesy

This is the horror season, gang. Plopping down a mini of yourself and telling your friends "now your PCs have to fight ... me!!" is inherently goofy and would go against the tone of the series.

3. Inconsistent

It doesn't fit the lore! For one thing, The Authors are described as fundamentally unknowable: unthinkably vast, Lovecraftian entities operating on a plane of consciousness that makes their minds utterly unfathomable to the players' characters. To then say "and here's the Author you're gonna fight, it's me, your pal who does bird facts on command" would undercut all that (see point 2. Cheesy).

And another thing: yes, Brennan Lee Mulligan is a storyteller. But he's not the same type of storyteller as The Authors. The Authors are all about canonicity. They take their own preferred versions of stories and fix them in Ink, trapping the characters into a destiny they have no control over. That's not how BLM tells stories! He runs roleplaying games! He willingly gives six other people control over where the story goes, and flings dice about to take it even more out of all of their control. To then put himself on the board as the avatar of The Authors, upholders of 'this is how I've decided the story goes, you just shut up and listen', would be a funny gag but wouldn't ring true.

Me: Plays Pokémon Brilliant Diamond

Also me: Starts writing a self-indulgence story that takes place in Alola