(no subject)

I just spent about an hour and a half articulating to myself why

1. I intensely dislike media that prioritize a magical world over a real one—the real world has all the stuff I care about in it already, and if your shiny cool magic world is full of sparklies but not one goddamn personal conflict I will not give a drop of ink for it—and

2. Real conflict is not in events but in how people react to them.


Piece of articulation I am fairly proud of, considering the lateness of the hour:

I don't care about your huge fireballs and your dragon-slaying and your oh-so-special self who is so privileged to be in this oh-so-special world. I care about fights between friends and social (in)justice and household chores and academic research and culture clash, I care about actual difficulties that have to be dealt with.

It doesn't matter if it's physically impossible, so long as it's real.

Not entirely unrelated to this: The Magicians is a very good book so far, and the author seems quite aware of what he's doing, but I kind of hate Quentin a lot of the time. And Loveless is fast becoming my comfort manga for not-enough-internal-conflict media. INTERPERSONAL DIFFICULTIES WHAT HO. (Other things good for this: gateway_girl's Blood Magic, dolores_crane's In Loco Parentis, kirinin's Secret of Slytherin and Geas of Gryffindor, and all things Utena.