I’ve been thinking about Gromyko’s newest book that I felt like I was way too hype for, especially after Gromyko in a blog post told off ~those pesky feminists~ for saying her writing of gender stereotypes was sexist and her complete lack of non-straight characters was homophobic. Talk about problematic faves!

I was still very very very hype for that book. Especially after I read it.

And when I saw a review talking about how introduction of a new character similar to the ‘original’ protagonist/problem-causer was trite and overdone and Gromyko parasitising on her own work… it had such good arguments and yet it was so wrong

And I thought about it, and the thing is, a strong argument can be made about these books being about neurodiversity and abuse recovery.
Yes, specifically in tandem.
A very, very strong argument. In fact, if addressing these themes were a coincidence, it’s a Pretty Fucking Big coincidence.
(I actually wouldn’t put it past Gromyko tho, in light of how she keeps having her characters think and utter gender stereotypes uncritically for humor value but never has even the most background characters actually act on-page in accordance to them)

See, the key worldbuilding element differing this from every other sci-fi ‘verse ever is cyborgs.
The part of them that’s digitalized is, well, their brain. They are vat-grown clones with super strength durability etc implants, and with their neurosystem disconnected from their brain (which isn’t supposed to develop at all) and connected to a programmed chip instead.
They are basically (meant to be) organic robots.

Sometimes, however, the program malfunctions, and a cyborg starts disobeying, all having its own thoughts and emotions, and in global consciousness, goes spare and starts shooting people.
(Given that the most distinct occupation of cyborgs is as cannon fodder soldiers, that’s not actually too surprising a stereotype)
(Except the media presents it like they only ever start shooting people and that’s an inevitable outcome of a ‘malfunctioning’ cyborg)
(The normal proceduce in case of malfunctioning cyborg – starting with abnormally long delay between receiving a command and executing it during checkups – is to dispose of it. In an incinerator)

The story, naturally, follows the adventures of a malfunctioning cyborg, in the first book finding himself a team/crew/family willing to accept him as a person and a friend… to his big big surprise. And then the books deal with him slowly adjusting to this entirely new situation… and processing the past horrors as they come up (and the crew processing them too) (and the crew adjusting as well)

and then in the latest book they actually pick up another malfunctioning cyborg, where by pick up I mean boldly impersonate proper authorities and pretty much steal him
because they can’t not see him as a person and they are the fucking good guys okay
and then the book follows the -entirely different- recovery journey of this new guy

(the first one was a soldier and then a pirate, he was used to killing people both on command and to protect himself and to protect himself contrary to command when no-one was looking)
(he actually found the crew on his own via a ‘wacky’ set of circumstances after impersonating a member of his former crew)
(he was very good at surviving, not so good at processing humans can, in fact, actually NOT be horrible to him, even after he pretty much sacrifices his own life to save theirs)
(self-worth? what self-worth?)

(the second one was a bodyguard and a servant, and much younger, he never processed killing people on command as murder, and he never realized it was a thing he could do to protect himself, or that he was supposed to protect himself at all. the thing he rebelled over was his owner killing a cat in a fit of drunken rage at it being more attached to the cyborg than to him)
(he is awful at pretending to be normal, either human or cyborg, where the previous one has it down to an art)
(he is also terrible at interpreting commands that aren’t explicitly defined in his program and also terrible at telling how and if he is gong to be punished for his mistakes)
(very good at being passive-aggressive though, like quietly destroying the t-shirts he doesn’t like… how could he know saying out loud ‘i like this one better than the others’ was allowed?)
(they are both good at it)

(and the first one is used to distrusting other cyborgs even more than people, because cyborgs are the ones that can beat him in a fight if it comes to that, and it could come to that very easily)
(and he’s annoyed at the second one not being like him but also protective because he IS like him still)
(and the crew member who has a sister laughs and tells him that’s how siblings always work)

(the two have an entirely different set of experiences and trauma, although a lot of it they have in common, too)
(and the books are ABOUT them working through it, and coming to be healthier if still not any recognizable definition of ‘normal’)
(the first one’s reaction to strangers is to freeze up in cyborg mode and give indifferent unhelpful cyborg answers to any requests)
(it doesn’t help new people warm up to him)
(the second one has no idea how to even try to conceal he is not, in fact, a dangerous malfunctioning cyborg, which is a thing that WILL get him incinerated and his crew punished if it becomes clear because PUBLIC DANGER)

(the last book introduces activists against the company that produces cyborgs and its rules, the crew kind of bumps into them by accident due to shared enemies – this crew makes many many enemies due to their chip’n’dale tendencies and the wacky circumstances of the start of their adventure)
(it’s all very beautiful and very important)

(and I relate to every single difficulty the cyborgs have, and I have my widest smile for the crew’s frantic flailing around attempting to understand and accomodate and get along with them)

and possibly the best thing is the way it addresses the idea that cyborgs are dangerous and unstable and
and they are exactly as dangerous as humans taught them to be, making them living weapons with not a hint of morality in the program and not a hint of kindness directed at them
and the last book makes a big fat point of media only reporting violent ‘malfunctions’, both making it seem like they are the only ones happening and making them seem much more rare than they actually are
and even the most dangerous cyborg – one that is used to killing people preemptively for disliking him when he could get away with it, one that is smart and deceptive and ruthless, one that has never been in an environment where murder was not the norm, one who’s been taught that laws and rules are for breaking –
he is still a good reliable friend and a precious person, and that is what the books are about, and that is what his crew will fight you on

I love these books so much.

lilietsblog:

so there’s a Russian fantasy writer (OLGA GROMYKO HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I MENTIONED HER YET) who writes fanfiction for her own works
fanfiction for her own works
she took part in a fandom battle on the side of her own fandom, anonymously, and when at the end she de-anon’d and there was much…

#she is the best #olga gromyko#i think she is belrussian writer but whatever

Oh, she is! But the books are in Russian, so I generalize. I don’t distinguish Ukrainian writers either, when it all ends up in Russian languagespace anyway.

lilietsblog:

so there’s a Russian fantasy writer (OLGA GROMYKO HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I MENTIONED HER YET) who writes fanfiction for her own works
fanfiction for her own works
she took part in a fandom battle on the side of her own fandom, anonymously, and when at the end she de-anon’d and there was much…

#she is the best #olga gromyko#i think she is belrussian writer but whatever

Oh, she is! But the books are in Russian, so I generalize. I don’t distinguish Ukrainian writers either, when it all ends up in Russian languagespace anyway.

momfricker:

finding lewd art of a pure character that should never be lewded under any circumstances

aaaand more on this as I accept my inability to stop talking about Olga Gromyko

The character in question is named Dan. He is barely ever a POV character, but he is absolutely and unquestionably the protagonist of the series – the person the series is about.

Olga Gromyko is actually a comedy writer. And usually a fantasy writer. I might be mistaken but I think this is her first sci-fi work. The first book was written cooperatively with another author, whose books I have never read but who allegedly also does not do sci-fi.
So the setting of the series is humorously half-assed – my favorite was the footnote “The authors don’t actually know how the electromagnetic grenade works. The best guess is that it’s filled with electromagnetic waves and nails”. It’s also very conspiciously built on Russian society with most names being Russian, which is refreshing after so much English-centric fiction >_<
(Dan is not a Russian name, but it’s diminutive from Denis, which is)

anyway, so the setting is not entirely serious, but the one part of it that is is the cyborg production.
Cyborgs are cloned and then infused with cybernetics, their growth artificially sped up while not allowing the brain to develop, leaving only the cerebral functions like digesting food to it. It should be cut off from senses at all, in fact, those being connected to the electronic “command center” instead.
Cyborgs are then sold as, well, robots. Just partly biological. They serve as sex dolls, housekeepers, soldiers and more.
Sometimes the cyborgs get damaged and their brain actually does get access to the outside world. Usually, they just go murderous and are consequently destroyed.

Dan is a military cyborg who is also damaged, but he had access to the outside world from the very start of his life, survived and hid and developed his own personality. His backstory is not very detailed (yet), but basically he was smart enough to just hide that he had his own will. Most of the time. Most people who worked with him classified him as “slightly damaged” – glitching programs and decreased efficiency, annoying but nothing dangerous.
At the start of the first book he ran away from his latest owner – an abusive sadistic criminal who liked “experimenting” on cyborgs and ugh let’s just say Dan had ALL the reasons to try to escape even if it was going to most likely end in his death.

I will not spoil the entire series for you (although saying that Dan is the cyborg is a major spoiler of the first book if you are into detective mysteries. Sorry about that), but basically he is adopted by a crew who accept him as human and care about him as their friend.

AND NOW FOR THE FUN PART.
Remember that “artificially sped up growth”?
Yeah.
So when Dan was asked how old he was, he said
SEVEN
he is seven years old
which is a lot for a cyborg who are made to be cannon fodder and also get obsolete as new models are produced
but he’s a person
HE IS SEVEN
HE IS A KID

I WANT TO FIND EVERYONE WHO WROTE OR DREW SMUT OF HIM AFTER THIS REVEAL AND PERSONALLY STRANGLE THEM
ship the entire crew with each other. ship them with the cannabis plant, ship them with the electronic toy fox, ship them with a sexually aggressive ship AI (this series is comedy gold, trust me)
DO FUCKING NOT SHIP ANYONE WITH DAN IN A SEXUAL WAY
DO
FUCKING
NOT!!!!!!!!!!

he is not exactly “pure”, he’s been killing people for his entire life, and for his last as of the start of the first book owner, torturing them
but
he
is
a
little
child
do
nOT
SMUT

sleezestiel:

shit-wentz:

if i ever become famous i’m going to create a fake account on twitter and tumblr and be part of my own fandom and i will be like bffs with my fans and we’ll fangirl over myself but they would have no idea it’s me

and then one day i would call them on skype and see the blood run out of their faces

i’m afraid of you

ok but one of my favorite writers does just that. it’s been the second time that she anonymously participates in fandom battle on diary.ru for the fandom of one of her own books, then deanons at the end and promises to never ever do it again. this time she made a cake, a soap, several plasticine reliefs and the only maxi size story from their team. some people before deanon recognized it as most likely hers, wisened by the previous fandom battle, while others said it was not like her at all. well it was like her, and it will be published in an antology for that series sometime

she does not see what is wrong with her doing that, what is this fandom gatekeeping? why can’t anyone be in a fandom for anything?

(well the arts&crafts part is a-ok, but that maxi story WAS cheating, tho w/e, it’s too good to be mad)

Okay so talking about celebrity fandoms

I just thought to check out Olga Gromyko’s livejournal (I wrote about her before and I’m pretty sure not once) (she’s the one who wrote fanfiction for her own work and wrote a book with a female werewolf and one whose character became a trendsetter for Russian amateur fantasy female protagonists)

and I was not disappointed

this is the birtday of the guy sitting on top of the makeshift tank
Gromyko is the woman in the red vest loading the gun (apparently the only one who agreed)
those are just fireworks + plumbing pipe
this is glory

(nobody smoked or drank)
(it was very wet so they did not light anything on fire that way, everything was perfectly safe)

here is the link to the original post

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

so there’s a Russian fantasy writer (OLGA GROMYKO HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I MENTIONED HER YET) who writes fanfiction for her own works
fanfiction for her own works
she took part in a fandom battle on the side of her own fandom, anonymously, and when at the end she de-anon’d and there was much righteous anger about how dare she, she asked if there would have been such anger if she fought with someone else’s fandom instead – are writers not people?
her fics have been published in pirate libraries along with her “official” works, without any disclaimer that they are non-canon
(as far as I understand, their canon status is the same as Paradox Space comics – either they are definitely non-canon, or possibly canon)
she’s really pissed at that
she’s a treasure

I’m pretty sure I hadn’t heard the term “fanfiction for the writer’s own work” before her, but it seems pretty intuitive in context…

rashaka:

So many books and tv shows about werewolves worship this dominance culture, especially a male-centric dominance hierarchy, and sometimes it drives me nuts because it’s regarded as the default. That if humans transformed into beasts, of course most of the survivors would be men, and of course they’d be violent and territorial and murderous, and of course they’d be vaguely chauvinistic because ‘they can’t help it that’s just how werewolves are’.

It’s this idea that the metaphor for a beast as one’s inner nature is reserved for male characters and male violence, tossed in with  frequently-inaccurate anthropomorphic assumptions about animal pack culture.

Where are the stories about the werewolf packs that are mostly female?  Where are the stories about the fact that women who’ve born children have a higher pain tolerance than men and would better survive the bite? Where are the stories about the women who spend so much time controlling their passions and their emotions and their desires to navigate in a man’s world that they adapt all to well to controlling their mystical transformations too?

What does a pack of all female werewolves look like? Is there a hierarchical structure, or something else? Does it mean the same thing to be an alpha, a beta? What does it mean to be a lone wolf?

I want the stories about how men who are bitten are more likely to go mad  from trying to keep a duality in their minds instead of coming to consensus and sharing space with their wolf-spirit. I want stories about the female alpha wolf who only offers the bite to other girls, because dudes have already fucked up ruling the human world, let’s not let them have the supernatural one too.  

I want the story about the trans girl who’s trying to change her outside to match her inside, but all of a sudden has to deal with physically transforming her body three nights a month, because hell if you ever wanted a metaphor about not fitting right in your own skin, werewolves are a good option.

I want the story about how the hedge-witches took wolves as familiars and gave them human souls, turned them into human girls, and forced them to give up the wind and the snow and the grass for a life trapped in human flesh.

I want the story about the teenage werewolf girls who hunt down other monsters while they try to find the right shoes for prom and study for their written driver’s test.  And when people joke about them going to the bathroom in a pack, it’s not really a joke. Because girls know a journey is not an adventure unless she brings her friends, and when they travel in packs, they travel in packs.

I want more female werewolves.

OLGA GROMYKO
“THE LOYAL ENEMIES”
it’s a love story (wow wow spoilers okay this is kind of obvious from the first pages if you have ever read anything)
between a mage who hates werewolves and a werewolf who hates mages
(the hatred is kind of understandable from both sides, but only as “those people hurt me and justified it with belonging to that group, so I’ll hate that group as a whole” and they are both not really that kind of person so…)
the werewolf is female
she’s the first person POV character
and yes there is her reflection on similarities between being a werewolf and being female
(she wasn’t bit, she was born that way, but in a human culture still)
for example, transformation is very painful
a boy asks her what it’s like and she answers “do you want to know what the human feels when it’s turned inside out and farced with fur, or the wolf when it happens the other way round?”
and when he runs off to the bushes to throw up from too much imagination, she reflects on the question of why does she transform then
“women are used to paying with pain. pain for the establishing as girls, as women, as mothers. as wolves. it’s worth it”
there isn’t much feminism, the society is just accepted the way it is, the focus is on other things, but hell yes there’s an exploration of femininity, of motherhood, of love

and she /does not/ take shit from an “alpha” who appears at some point. oh yes she doesn’t