Go to surfshark.com/... for 4 extra months of Surfshark ! *CORRECTIONS* -The character in the Crucible who says “more weight” when he is being crushed is actually Giles Corey, John Proctor just gets told about it later lol -Apparently Johann Christian Bach is different from Johann Sebasation Bach which arguably makes that reference worse -2:06:20 repeats itself lol sorry I’m gonna try and cut it out!
I hope you know that your video essays are far more interesting than the source material they discuss, and that with the exception of Midnight Mass, I will never consume them because they don't live up to your highly educational, nigh-schizo-yarn posterboard rants.
Biz, I am so sorry, both in real life and in The Crucible, the man who is crushed to death and instead of confessing said 'More weight,' is Giles Corey. I was in a local production of The Crucible when I was 15, and our set was almost entirely bare except for a series of 19 trees, one for each of the victims of the trials, plus one that was flat against the back wall, for Giles Corey who was pressed to death, which i think is kinda super neat. The central tree was also made up of 19 ropes. Vetween the first and second act we were sent out onto the stage to spread real autumn leaves to show the passig of time, which then made the chaos of the courst scene far more dangerous haha. I love your work, and your last few videos just got me through a recent house move, so thank you!
As a student of (among other things) medieval lit, the open disdain Diana displays towards books, academia, and historical study drove me up the wall. The lack of curiosity?? PAIN. I am in PAIN.
I was thinking the same thing! Also, like,' the book was unremarkable' is a terrible opening line for any book, let alone one that involves ancient & lost texts (haven't read the books, but this is my understanding 1 hour into this video essay lol)
Can't believe you're out here giving a passionate diatribe about vampire sparkling while your highlighter is the most gorgeous, sparkly thing I've ever seen. Pick a struggle.
I’ve had the show on my watchlist for years without starting it, and as a wheelchair user, when I saw the “E” word in the thumbnail, I realized I was ready to be talked out of it
I've never had a unique experience, I'm also a wheelchair user who's been debating whether or not to watch this for YEARS and just got swiftly and summarily disavowed of that notion
3:57:30 okay I hate to do this to you but johann christian bach is not in fact The bach he is the son of The johann sebastian bach, the man had eleven billion children and all of them were composers named johann so there is *technically* a reason to full name jcb however the passage is still very silly and it honestly makes the sentence even more pretentious, like god forbid he choose a piece by the most famous bach we must use one by his seventh son and make sure everyone knows it or we'll be PLEBIANS
I got about 10 pages into “A Discovery of Witches” before I completely gave up because it was so intolerable. I have been waiting for this video for years.
I don't even need to know what it's fucking about, this shit makes me feel at ease. You make me happy to be intelligent, mildly unhinged, and full of oddly specific, jarring interests.
I audibly gasped when I saw the video length and subject matter. I remember seeing the premise for this series and being so pumped to watch/read it, and I simply could not, I just found it excruciating. So excited to watch!!!
Oh I love half recap, half alchemy lesson, half my formal audition to play Pammy in ninth house and half eugenics disparaging commentary. How did you know? Also your hair looks lovely and I’m insanely jealous.
i feel like it’s especially weird that deborah harkness doesn’t even touch the thing about the gay aunts being so uncaring about their interspecies dating stuff considering that harkness herself is gay and married to her partner
If this is going to drive Biz batshit crazy she's going to drag us all down with her by not proving chapters...and I don't blame her for the punishment... 😂
The death of John Proctor you talk about in the Crucible is actually the death of Giles Corey in real life. I’m slowly making my way through this (I finally picked up the third book after putting it off for a year because of you). I love this analysis so far!
First an insanely long video on The Magicians (by certified genius Laura Crone), now this?? I kinda feel like the next step should be one of these on Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
I have a factum due after the holidays and this was exactly what I needed to snap myself back into an academic research hyperfixation. Thank you for your service.
I get so excited when you upload. Hope to see that Lord Byron video! I don't care if another RUclipsr did one. I'd watch you talk about the process of paint drying
To me it really felt like the second book was just a way for the author to show off how much she knew about Elizabethan England. Also I found it weird when some blogger hated Twilight (and talked about how problematic it was) but loved Discovery of Witches when DoW is literally just Twilight with grown ups. It's the same thing. Same tropes and everything.
I heard via Hiromu Arakawa's hit manga (and later anime series), Full-Metal Alchemist, that alchemy is the science of deconstructing and then reconstructing matter. To get something, you have to give something of equal value and mass. This can be seen in the idea of turning lead into gold. If you ever do want to learn more about the subject with an infinitely more understandable magic system and more likeable characters, I highly suggest it.
Arakawa engages with the metaphysics of alchemy, with Hermeticism, but less with alchemy itself which was very laboratory & experiment orientated. Arakawa turns a science into a magic & the story is all the richer for it, because in the *i dunno*s that abound she weaves a very hopeful message
Fullmetal alchemist was so well done. Turning all the obfuscation, metaphorical instructions and symbolism of alchemy into a magic system was very much a perfect way to handle the mysticism of alchemy. I heard biz mention gates and i inmediately remembered fma's truth gate.
I actually remember loving the series when it just came out, but I never got around to watching the third season. Glad to find out I didn’t miss anything 😅 All the inserts about alchemy, history, and social justice were really interesting. Sorry you had to go through all of that to give us another great video.
I'm beyond excited to listen to this. I just wanted to thank you for your very long form rabbit hole tangent videos. They're like a massage for my brain. What you're doing is awesome and appreciated and as long as it's healthy for you please never stop. Also, your pacing is perfect, never change! This is a pausable video so there's no such thing as too long.
I haven't read these books, but from your description, they are giving "discovery writer struggling to control her worst impulses." I.E. Random magical powers popping up with no foreshadowing, characters meandering around a particular setting without moving the plot forward, characters who are moved through the story by outside forces rather than making decisions and taking actions. So, I googled her writing process and I was correct. She is a discovery writer. It's a super fun kind of writing, but it requires a lot of editing out of repetitive scenes and killing random subplots that don't contribute to the theme or overall plot.
The weaving thing makes me think that a certain someone has probably read (or watched) the Wheel of Time Also, all the John Dee references made me think of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, which is another trippy fantasy series that I absolutely recommend.
Your vids are my newest obsession. This feels this a mashup between a video essay/breakdown & just chatting about random stuff with a bestie. I c o n i c
I've been watching this video in chunks over the past few days. It's crazy watching Biz slowly descend into madness as this book series gradually worms into her mind. It's a good thing I never watched the Netflix show because I'd probably be drawing arcane symbols on the wall and convinced I could speak to the dead as they try to get the straightjacket on me...
another amazing essay biz!! a lot of what you're talking about here re the historical persecution of "witches" (and Shakespeare lol) reminded me of Silvia federicci's book "caliban and the witch" !
oh lets go!!! i remember reading this series and i always thought the "no species intermixing" thing made no sense and was also super weird, so i guess this video was made for me?
Oh my god!!! I was (am in like a nostalgic way?) obsessed with this series in like middle/high school. I literally own the history lore book thing Deborah published which is like just as big as the third book😂😂 needless to say this video rocks and i can’t argue with any of your points. What can i say, 14 year old me REALLY wanted to be Diana
this video is high art, although I love twilight, but like lets be real, they're not even actually vampires, technically they're more like those Celtic fairies, please dear god i need you to talk about it
It's kinda funny how both you and Laura Crone have released 4 or so hour videos about magic books/TV shows. Also this video even mentions the Magicians.
I read omegaverse semi-regularly, its absolutely poorly scratched out het omegaverse serial numbers. The scent thing was the big give away, other than the odd mentions of bad wolf biology. Plus the getting married multiple times followed by being more submissive kind of cemented it for me. Also like 90% sure the original twin creation event was initially a heat cycle. Anyway this is a great video dropped at a good time for me to watch while knitting last minute christmas gifts at like 3am.
I was just about to make the same comments regarding the subdom aspect of omegaverse being integrated into the story, as well as the emphasis on pregnancy. Although the lack of primal desire/instant fucking in the books gives me pause to it truly being an omegaverse story. Edit: I was also knitting/crocheting whilst watching this video 😊 Crafting buddies!
I was SOSOSOSOSO hyper fixated on The Magicians for a while, and its still as horrible and amazing as I remember so the little goblin in my brain went apeshit when you mentioned it
I was sold this series as magical realism. When it turned out to be more paranormal romance, I was disappointed since that wasn't what I was expecting. I got the first two books on sale and managed to get through the first but only part way through the second before giving up on it😅
u rock bro. consistently producing original, thoughtful, critical, and intentional videos. theyre real fucking labors of love (or ire, lol) and im overjoyed i get to exist in a world where i can hear what you have to say. keep at it friend
I think you included a section twice. Some stuff around the 2 hour mark is repeating. The part that starts "It's a fix-it fantasy in a way..." plays at 1:56:30 and starts to repeat at 2:02:26
You just reminded me that I tried to watch the show like a year ago and couldn't get into it and I have a book club coming up where the prompt is second chance so.... Thanks for helping me with my book club pick I guess lol. It was that or a Nora Roberts book and tbh I'd just rather not. So i'll be coming back to this video once i've read that
I just love how you dropped this video right after I lent the first book to my sister XD Personally I loved both the book and the show, but I love your rants even more and I'm having a blast!
This is insane and everything about it screams “I watched the labyrinth” and then wrote half a fanfic about it before realizing that fairy porn was an overcrowded genre and they needed to switch real quick to vampires
I started watching the show on Netflix and I was enjoying myself during season 1. Some melodramatic Twilight for adults was amusing. Then season 2 frustrated me as the main couple time travel back to the 1500s and their relationship is strained. Then I stopped watching when she becomes pregnant and the black aunt is killed. At that point the story drifted away from what I enjoyed.
i tried to watch the show desperately needing more vampire content after interview w/a vampire but it was so cringy and so was the book 😭✋🏽 yet somehow ur video essay is literally 10x better 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽 ate this up sis
Sorry this is a third comment. I really hope your next topic brings you more joy. I really appreciate how you look through the layers one by one and let me borrow foreign perspectives. Just ideas if you ever want ideas Wheel of Time, specifically futility, repeating cycles, rebalancing, world building, and fundamental dichotomies. I didn't see any Byronic connections, but I really enjoyed how Jordan played with the idea of no hero being complete unto themselves and the futility of railing against fate. The show is... Terrible. Every time you make a video it reminds me of talking on the phone to someone 3000 miles away til dawn about anything and everything. It feels like taking turns asking the no holds barred questions did. It feels like starting a really good fantasy or sci-fi book with all the tones inflected. Your videos are so much more than the sum of their parts. The fact you gradually get loopier from exhaustion (I wish you health and rest) adds a certain grace and magic and openness to your videos. Ya got something special and ss much as the adds took me out of the world yiu were spinning, I'm very happy for you that you're getting paid. These types of themes are why i can't really recommend books to my friends. Because if I recommend a lot of the classic sci-fi, I'm recommending sexism. If i recommend a song of ice and fire, I'm recommending... All manner of brutality and filth. If I recommend my childhood favorite (class of 2013) I'm recommending bigotry and racism and the celebration of characters who would have laughed me off as loony and not quite there; a world where you're brave, smart, evil, or hapless and nothing else. I can't stand worlds where the heroine falls in crush, fundamentally changes and sacrifices for the man, rejects any friends and family pumping the brakes, and lives happily ever after.
3:01:58 ok as someone who read The Sparrow years ago and felt like its politics were kind of yikes but didn’t think any harder about it the fact that this was Russel’s explicit motivation is a WILD twist
I read all these books as part of a book club and 100% agree with your assessment that these are bad and yucky! Yucky in a specific yt woman way that is cowardly towards topics the author raised unnecessarily and also the weird woo kumbaya "i don't see color but only if that means I can have sex (specifically sex and children) with those I consider othered" way that as a Black woman raises my hackles specifically! Thank you for putting that into words ❤
The Sparrow mentioned but not discussed 😢 Edit: I have progressed in the video. I can’t tell if you’ve read The Sparrow? It specifically grapples with a lot of the themes raised in that portion of your video and the way that Sandoz’s membership in the Catholic Church strips him of his connection to his own history. When Sandoz is mutilated, it isn’t because the aliens are savage and evil, it’s because of a miscommunication. A major premise of the book is that missionary work is not the blanket good it’s often portrayed as, and that a first contact story must grapple with our colonialist past. Sandoz being Puerto Rican is crucial to the plot because when he pushes for the mission to Rakhat to happen, he stresses that it must not be a colonial mission or even a mission in the preaching sense. He wishes only to “meet God’s other children”. But he still suffers, because he was naive to think it could be so simple. A desire to exonerate Columbus or whatever may be something Russell expressed but I feel that she ironically did the opposite. The mission that Sandoz is part of fundamentally causes terrible suffering and despair despite having the best of intentions by modern standards. Idk how she could look at the book she wrote and think it’s an exoneration of Columbus in any way, but maybe that’s why she never went back to speculative fiction. Having mentioned your own struggles with Catholic guilt, I think the book and its sequel could be an interesting read for you. The author herself was raised Catholic and left the church, so it does have a really interesting religious angle.
Omg you should read the Alchemical Journeys series by Seanan Mcguire. Particularly book 1: Middlegame. I think bopks 1 2 & 3 are in that same order in terms of how good they are
Welp… guess I ain’t going to bed until the middle of the night. Thank you Biz! (Tho seriously your stuff is literally some of the greatest on RUclips. I rewatch and listen to your video essays over and over all the time. Like listening to a sister or a friend geek out about her passions and it’s very therapeutic, informative, and exciting. Keep being amazing, Biz!🫶🏻)
I didn't realize how badly i want your twilight hot takes until just now--because I'm sure you've got solid philosophical reasons for appreciating the sparkle and i wanna know them. Also, how did you know I've been researching gnosticism for that fantasy novel I'm sure I'll finish someday--so thank you!
Go to surfshark.com/... for 4 extra months of Surfshark !
*CORRECTIONS*
-The character in the Crucible who says “more weight” when he is being crushed is actually Giles Corey, John Proctor just gets told about it later lol
-Apparently Johann Christian Bach is different from Johann Sebasation Bach which arguably makes that reference worse
-2:06:20 repeats itself lol sorry I’m gonna try and cut it out!
I hope you know that your video essays are far more interesting than the source material they discuss, and that with the exception of Midnight Mass, I will never consume them because they don't live up to your highly educational, nigh-schizo-yarn posterboard rants.
Biz, I am so sorry, both in real life and in The Crucible, the man who is crushed to death and instead of confessing said 'More weight,' is Giles Corey. I was in a local production of The Crucible when I was 15, and our set was almost entirely bare except for a series of 19 trees, one for each of the victims of the trials, plus one that was flat against the back wall, for Giles Corey who was pressed to death, which i think is kinda super neat. The central tree was also made up of 19 ropes. Vetween the first and second act we were sent out onto the stage to spread real autumn leaves to show the passig of time, which then made the chaos of the courst scene far more dangerous haha. I love your work, and your last few videos just got me through a recent house move, so thank you!
WHOOPS YOU ARE VERY RIGHT will add to my list of corrections 😭😭😭
As a student of (among other things) medieval lit, the open disdain Diana displays towards books, academia, and historical study drove me up the wall. The lack of curiosity?? PAIN. I am in PAIN.
I was thinking the same thing! Also, like,' the book was unremarkable' is a terrible opening line for any book, let alone one that involves ancient & lost texts (haven't read the books, but this is my understanding 1 hour into this video essay lol)
The number of plot points from this trilogy that seem like they were ~heavily inspired~ by The Mortal Instruments is quite funny
Can't believe you're out here giving a passionate diatribe about vampire sparkling while your highlighter is the most gorgeous, sparkly thing I've ever seen. Pick a struggle.
Thank you for giving me the holiday gift of knowing that somewhere out there, there's someone who disliked this book as much as I did.
You have the best combo of long, quality content and frequent uploads ever
I’ve had the show on my watchlist for years without starting it, and as a wheelchair user, when I saw the “E” word in the thumbnail, I realized I was ready to be talked out of it
I've never had a unique experience, I'm also a wheelchair user who's been debating whether or not to watch this for YEARS and just got swiftly and summarily disavowed of that notion
biz: it was a book with flowers and shit
me: omg it was not the voynich manuscript was it.
biz: it was the voynich manuscript
me: YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH
4 hour flight , 4 hour biz video perfect timing! 😮
"historians push aside something if it doesn't agree with their thesis" is such a batshit narrative, both in real life and in fiction???
makes the author's label as "historian" VERY suspect
3:57:30 okay I hate to do this to you but johann christian bach is not in fact The bach he is the son of The johann sebastian bach, the man had eleven billion children and all of them were composers named johann so there is *technically* a reason to full name jcb
however the passage is still very silly and it honestly makes the sentence even more pretentious, like god forbid he choose a piece by the most famous bach we must use one by his seventh son and make sure everyone knows it or we'll be PLEBIANS
truly cannot tell if this makes it better or worse (but I do appreciate there correction lmao)
I got about 10 pages into “A Discovery of Witches” before I completely gave up because it was so intolerable. I have been waiting for this video for years.
I don't even need to know what it's fucking about, this shit makes me feel at ease. You make me happy to be intelligent, mildly unhinged, and full of oddly specific, jarring interests.
Part 5 ending has some issues, the section starting 1:56:30 repeats itself starting 2:02:24 and then ends abruptly. Just to let you know.
Thank you for commenting this, I was rewinding back to 1:56:30 because of that, as I thought I didn't hear anything that was said in these 12 minutes
OMG MY BAD I had to re-edit this like 4x for youtube lol I think I can cut it out though! Thank you!!!
a 4 hour video about some piece of media I never heard of? Yes, please
Never clicked so fast, you’re my favourite video essayist! I’m always left chewing on all the ideas you present hours after
So glad biz knows I fall asleep to the Jenny Nicholson vpd video every night and wrote every joke in this script for me
My Mom called her late step-dad, "step-daddy" and it gave me a grey hair every time.
Another great vid, Biz! SO pumped whenever you post!
I audibly gasped when I saw the video length and subject matter. I remember seeing the premise for this series and being so pumped to watch/read it, and I simply could not, I just found it excruciating. So excited to watch!!!
I watched like the first 20 minutes of episode 1 of this series and simply couldn't go on. Soooo stupid and annoying.
Oh my God thank you so much for uploading this right after I got off of work I just got done waiting on a family who hate each other
Oh I love half recap, half alchemy lesson, half my formal audition to play Pammy in ninth house and half eugenics disparaging commentary. How did you know?
Also your hair looks lovely and I’m insanely jealous.
i feel like it’s especially weird that deborah harkness doesn’t even touch the thing about the gay aunts being so uncaring about their interspecies dating stuff considering that harkness herself is gay and married to her partner
A four-and-a-half-hour video should really, really have chapters.
If this is going to drive Biz batshit crazy she's going to drag us all down with her by not proving chapters...and I don't blame her for the punishment... 😂
FOUR AND A HALF HOURS GIRL, DAMN. these just keep getting longer and longer and tbh i'm not complaining but i am in awe.
The death of John Proctor you talk about in the Crucible is actually the death of Giles Corey in real life. I’m slowly making my way through this (I finally picked up the third book after putting it off for a year because of you). I love this analysis so far!
Also, congratulations on your sponsors. I really enjoyed when there were not adds, but I'm glad you're being paid.
Silly Biz, alchemy is obviously the science of understanding deconstructing and reconstructing matter however, it is not an all powerful art...
First an insanely long video on The Magicians (by certified genius Laura Crone), now this?? I kinda feel like the next step should be one of these on Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
the moment you said discovery of witches i was sat, i cannot express the deep and abiding hatred i have for this book
Seeing a new 4+ hour biz video as soon as i get up is the best fucking way to start the day
Sorry, can’t make it for Christmas, mom. Biz just dropped another four and a half hour video.
I have a factum due after the holidays and this was exactly what I needed to snap myself back into an academic research hyperfixation. Thank you for your service.
What's a "factum"? That's a word I've never heard before. If I had to guess it's a short research paper? Am I close? I'm probably not close...
2:23 the Dan Olsen line goes up reference reaffirms what great taste you have. Pamela is also my favorite Ninth house character! So excited for this!
i had never heard of this series but i'm actually studying history at oxford so now i'm even more intrigued in this 4 hour video
I get so excited when you upload. Hope to see that Lord Byron video! I don't care if another RUclipsr did one. I'd watch you talk about the process of paint drying
I cannot explain to you how excited I got seeing a FOUR hour video from you. time to get ALL the artwork done
To me it really felt like the second book was just a way for the author to show off how much she knew about Elizabethan England. Also I found it weird when some blogger hated Twilight (and talked about how problematic it was) but loved Discovery of Witches when DoW is literally just Twilight with grown ups. It's the same thing. Same tropes and everything.
LFG!!! I'm doing my last pass of Christmas gift shopping here in sunny sweaty Australia and I am so glad for this audio company
u are literally my favorite video essayist ever thank u sm ik what im gonna listen to at work tmr
I heard via Hiromu Arakawa's hit manga (and later anime series), Full-Metal Alchemist, that alchemy is the science of deconstructing and then reconstructing matter. To get something, you have to give something of equal value and mass. This can be seen in the idea of turning lead into gold. If you ever do want to learn more about the subject with an infinitely more understandable magic system and more likeable characters, I highly suggest it.
Arakawa engages with the metaphysics of alchemy, with Hermeticism, but less with alchemy itself which was very laboratory & experiment orientated.
Arakawa turns a science into a magic & the story is all the richer for it, because in the *i dunno*s that abound she weaves a very hopeful message
Fullmetal alchemist was so well done. Turning all the obfuscation, metaphorical instructions and symbolism of alchemy into a magic system was very much a perfect way to handle the mysticism of alchemy. I heard biz mention gates and i inmediately remembered fma's truth gate.
I actually remember loving the series when it just came out, but I never got around to watching the third season. Glad to find out I didn’t miss anything 😅 All the inserts about alchemy, history, and social justice were really interesting. Sorry you had to go through all of that to give us another great video.
I'm beyond excited to listen to this. I just wanted to thank you for your very long form rabbit hole tangent videos. They're like a massage for my brain. What you're doing is awesome and appreciated and as long as it's healthy for you please never stop.
Also, your pacing is perfect, never change! This is a pausable video so there's no such thing as too long.
I haven't read these books, but from your description, they are giving "discovery writer struggling to control her worst impulses." I.E. Random magical powers popping up with no foreshadowing, characters meandering around a particular setting without moving the plot forward, characters who are moved through the story by outside forces rather than making decisions and taking actions.
So, I googled her writing process and I was correct. She is a discovery writer. It's a super fun kind of writing, but it requires a lot of editing out of repetitive scenes and killing random subplots that don't contribute to the theme or overall plot.
The weaving thing makes me think that a certain someone has probably read (or watched) the Wheel of Time
Also, all the John Dee references made me think of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, which is another trippy fantasy series that I absolutely recommend.
Your vids are my newest obsession. This feels this a mashup between a video essay/breakdown & just chatting about random stuff with a bestie. I c o n i c
Your essays are always an absolute delight, please know that your thoughts, efforts and insanely hard work are always loved and appreciated ♥️
I've been watching this video in chunks over the past few days. It's crazy watching Biz slowly descend into madness as this book series gradually worms into her mind. It's a good thing I never watched the Netflix show because I'd probably be drawing arcane symbols on the wall and convinced I could speak to the dead as they try to get the straightjacket on me...
another amazing essay biz!! a lot of what you're talking about here re the historical persecution of "witches" (and Shakespeare lol) reminded me of Silvia federicci's book "caliban and the witch" !
oh lets go!!! i remember reading this series and i always thought the "no species intermixing" thing made no sense and was also super weird, so i guess this video was made for me?
Oh my god!!! I was (am in like a nostalgic way?) obsessed with this series in like middle/high school. I literally own the history lore book thing Deborah published which is like just as big as the third book😂😂 needless to say this video rocks and i can’t argue with any of your points. What can i say, 14 year old me REALLY wanted to be Diana
this video is high art, although I love twilight, but like lets be real, they're not even actually vampires, technically they're more like those Celtic fairies, please dear god i need you to talk about it
Omg perfect timing! I'm going to download this and listen to it on a flight! Thank you so much! 🥹🩷
It's kinda funny how both you and Laura Crone have released 4 or so hour videos about magic books/TV shows. Also this video even mentions the Magicians.
I literally wrote a paper a month ago about medieval dragons and referenced an Ashmole book 20:25
I read omegaverse semi-regularly, its absolutely poorly scratched out het omegaverse serial numbers. The scent thing was the big give away, other than the odd mentions of bad wolf biology. Plus the getting married multiple times followed by being more submissive kind of cemented it for me. Also like 90% sure the original twin creation event was initially a heat cycle.
Anyway this is a great video dropped at a good time for me to watch while knitting last minute christmas gifts at like 3am.
I was just about to make the same comments regarding the subdom aspect of omegaverse being integrated into the story, as well as the emphasis on pregnancy. Although the lack of primal desire/instant fucking in the books gives me pause to it truly being an omegaverse story.
Edit: I was also knitting/crocheting whilst watching this video 😊 Crafting buddies!
I was SOSOSOSOSO hyper fixated on The Magicians for a while, and its still as horrible and amazing as I remember so the little goblin in my brain went apeshit when you mentioned it
biz discovers homunculi
Well now I want to write my own alchemy-esque story which is an elaborate metaphor for the reactions between elements.
I was sold this series as magical realism. When it turned out to be more paranormal romance, I was disappointed since that wasn't what I was expecting.
I got the first two books on sale and managed to get through the first but only part way through the second before giving up on it😅
4:05:00 the stars breaking up the paragraphs and POVs is sooooo fanfiction lol
u rock bro. consistently producing original, thoughtful, critical, and intentional videos. theyre real fucking labors of love (or ire, lol) and im overjoyed i get to exist in a world where i can hear what you have to say. keep at it friend
biz have u seen the interview with a vampire tv show I feel like you’d really fw the interview with a vampire tv show
I think you included a section twice. Some stuff around the 2 hour mark is repeating.
The part that starts "It's a fix-it fantasy in a way..." plays at 1:56:30 and starts to repeat at 2:02:26
13:27 "If you don't have a leather-bound codex containing an illuminated manuscript at home, magic book is fine."
To see that biz was covering this series really lifted a weight from my chest. 4 1/2 hours? Appropriate. Measured.
I'm a bit unclear on my degree plan but I never miss a class
HELL YEAH SPONSORS GET THAT BAG, BIZ
I never made it past the first episode once I learned that the vampires didn't have fangs.
You just reminded me that I tried to watch the show like a year ago and couldn't get into it and I have a book club coming up where the prompt is second chance so.... Thanks for helping me with my book club pick I guess lol. It was that or a Nora Roberts book and tbh I'd just rather not. So i'll be coming back to this video once i've read that
I'm always happy to catch these when the video is newer than it is long. Thank you!
I hallucinated this video before I saw it posted. Thank you, biz!
I just love how you dropped this video right after I lent the first book to my sister XD
Personally I loved both the book and the show, but I love your rants even more and I'm having a blast!
Buffy reference in a Biz video, life complete.
Im 10 minutes in and you simply must know I am obsessed w alchemy and gnosticism and their overlaps and this is like drug to me
This is insane and everything about it screams “I watched the labyrinth” and then wrote half a fanfic about it before realizing that fairy porn was an overcrowded genre and they needed to switch real quick to vampires
Finally!!! I've had so many feels about this series from when I read it in college and no one to gab at.
girl i am not gonna have time to watch this until after Christmas 😭 can't wait though! love your thought provoking content
I started watching the show on Netflix and I was enjoying myself during season 1. Some melodramatic Twilight for adults was amusing. Then season 2 frustrated me as the main couple time travel back to the 1500s and their relationship is strained. Then I stopped watching when she becomes pregnant and the black aunt is killed. At that point the story drifted away from what I enjoyed.
TRULY the only xmas gift i needed. gosh i’m so grateful for you and so excited hehehe
Omg Biz video!! Now _that's_ early Christmas 😌🙌✨
I’m worried now that you have never seen Jim Henson’s Labyrinth.
someone should take one for the team and pay biz enough money to read the novella 😮
i tried to watch the show desperately needing more vampire content after interview w/a vampire but it was so cringy and so was the book 😭✋🏽 yet somehow ur video essay is literally 10x better 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽 ate this up sis
Sorry this is a third comment. I really hope your next topic brings you more joy. I really appreciate how you look through the layers one by one and let me borrow foreign perspectives. Just ideas if you ever want ideas
Wheel of Time, specifically futility, repeating cycles, rebalancing, world building, and fundamental dichotomies. I didn't see any Byronic connections, but I really enjoyed how Jordan played with the idea of no hero being complete unto themselves and the futility of railing against fate. The show is... Terrible.
Every time you make a video it reminds me of talking on the phone to someone 3000 miles away til dawn about anything and everything. It feels like taking turns asking the no holds barred questions did. It feels like starting a really good fantasy or sci-fi book with all the tones inflected. Your videos are so much more than the sum of their parts. The fact you gradually get loopier from exhaustion (I wish you health and rest) adds a certain grace and magic and openness to your videos. Ya got something special and ss much as the adds took me out of the world yiu were spinning, I'm very happy for you that you're getting paid.
These types of themes are why i can't really recommend books to my friends. Because if I recommend a lot of the classic sci-fi, I'm recommending sexism. If i recommend a song of ice and fire, I'm recommending... All manner of brutality and filth. If I recommend my childhood favorite (class of 2013) I'm recommending bigotry and racism and the celebration of characters who would have laughed me off as loony and not quite there; a world where you're brave, smart, evil, or hapless and nothing else.
I can't stand worlds where the heroine falls in crush, fundamentally changes and sacrifices for the man, rejects any friends and family pumping the brakes, and lives happily ever after.
3:01:58 ok as someone who read The Sparrow years ago and felt like its politics were kind of yikes but didn’t think any harder about it the fact that this was Russel’s explicit motivation is a WILD twist
FOUR HOURS OF BIZ OH MY GOD
MERRY CHRISTMAS GIANT BIZ JUST DROPPED !!!!!
So happy to see this video pop up in my reccomendations. Recently hate watched the tv show being a little surprised it had good reviews...
I can’t wait to watch this video in a couple days when I’ll finally be freed from the shackles of finals
oh yes... getting these christmas crafts DONE. thank u biz. your mind is like a beautiful labyrinth for us to all become lost in.
I read all these books as part of a book club and 100% agree with your assessment that these are bad and yucky! Yucky in a specific yt woman way that is cowardly towards topics the author raised unnecessarily and also the weird woo kumbaya "i don't see color but only if that means I can have sex (specifically sex and children) with those I consider othered" way that as a Black woman raises my hackles specifically! Thank you for putting that into words ❤
I just rewatched the midnight mass video today (I’ve seen it like 4 times now whoops) and now I get a new Biz video?? Yessss
The Sparrow mentioned but not discussed 😢
Edit: I have progressed in the video. I can’t tell if you’ve read The Sparrow? It specifically grapples with a lot of the themes raised in that portion of your video and the way that Sandoz’s membership in the Catholic Church strips him of his connection to his own history. When Sandoz is mutilated, it isn’t because the aliens are savage and evil, it’s because of a miscommunication. A major premise of the book is that missionary work is not the blanket good it’s often portrayed as, and that a first contact story must grapple with our colonialist past. Sandoz being Puerto Rican is crucial to the plot because when he pushes for the mission to Rakhat to happen, he stresses that it must not be a colonial mission or even a mission in the preaching sense. He wishes only to “meet God’s other children”. But he still suffers, because he was naive to think it could be so simple. A desire to exonerate Columbus or whatever may be something Russell expressed but I feel that she ironically did the opposite. The mission that Sandoz is part of fundamentally causes terrible suffering and despair despite having the best of intentions by modern standards. Idk how she could look at the book she wrote and think it’s an exoneration of Columbus in any way, but maybe that’s why she never went back to speculative fiction.
Having mentioned your own struggles with Catholic guilt, I think the book and its sequel could be an interesting read for you. The author herself was raised Catholic and left the church, so it does have a really interesting religious angle.
Omg you should read the Alchemical Journeys series by Seanan Mcguire. Particularly book 1: Middlegame. I think bopks 1 2 & 3 are in that same order in terms of how good they are
I love Middlegame!
The way you speak already has me sat and listening. 💙
YIPPEEEEE NEW BIZ VIDEO!!! WE’RE SO FUCKING BACK!!!!!
Welp… guess I ain’t going to bed until the middle of the night. Thank you Biz!
(Tho seriously your stuff is literally some of the greatest on RUclips. I rewatch and listen to your video essays over and over all the time. Like listening to a sister or a friend geek out about her passions and it’s very therapeutic, informative, and exciting. Keep being amazing, Biz!🫶🏻)
I didn't realize how badly i want your twilight hot takes until just now--because I'm sure you've got solid philosophical reasons for appreciating the sparkle and i wanna know them.
Also, how did you know I've been researching gnosticism for that fantasy novel I'm sure I'll finish someday--so thank you!