Rain the aurtist!

Long days and pleasant nights! I'm Rain! I go by he/they pronouns!

My discord user is _aqua_rain_ so if y'all ever see me on there feel free to say hi, I'm a pretty social guy!

I currently live in Colorado! (Would switch up on my state so fast if I was in the stand.) And I have a pet cat who I adore.

I may end up posting about my ocs and stuff but rn I just do silly fandom shit.

Hobbies

Art

Writing (currently writing a book!)

RP

Hiking

Reading

Fandoms!

The Dark Tower (Currently reading)

At Dead of Night

Pokemon

Warrior Cats

IT

Probably more but those are my most prominent!

Anyways I figured I may as well drop my opinions now, while they're fresh, and then later on i can come back and see if time has changed any of them.

I suppose I'll start with some general stuff that isn't centered around any single aspect of the novel:

I really liked it overall however I do believe in my heart of hearts that the stand would have been better as a duology or trilogy; because even with all 1000+ pages in its uncut form, I still think some things were rushed, or underdeveloped, such as:

I wish we got to see more of the forming of Vegas, more Vegas in general.

Nadine's ending felt particularly rushed to me? One scene she's still fully catatonic. and the next she's suddenly able to speak and move and allat? With no explanation? Idk, when i read that it just felt like SK realized he didn't know what the fuck to do with her and just had to kill her off ASAP. The scene on its own is not bad, but i think there should have been a bit more lead up.

Now this next point from me isn't a critique; i don't think this is an *issue* with the story, however it's a part of the story that I *personally* don't like. AKA this is a completely subjective and personal matter that I am bringing up because it did impact my experience as a reader. Cool? Cool.

I didn't like the religious stuff. No hate to those who have those beliefs, I just have a personal aversion to religious stuff as a whole, and in the case of the stand it caused me to often have a very different POV from the characters. It also caused me to feel some vague senses of discomfort with certain characters, like Abigail, not in a way where she gave me bad vibes? Like she's a good person and allat. I just didn't particularly like her as much as I wanted to?

But I still enjoyed the novel overall! Stephen King is really good at writing so all the characters felt tangible and real, having survived covid also of course made it very interesting! I was also happy to see my beloved home state of Colorado get love and attention from a novel :]

Shoutout to whoever sent this ask for actually taking time to craft a response! I do wanna actually address these talking points tho.

Maybe I somehow missed some major detail, if so then lmk! But reading the stand rather recently I feel pretty confident in saying that Nadine wasn't COMPLETELY devoid of choice in regards to Harold. She didn't get much of a choice in Harold's death, but she still ultimately chose to start sleeping with a 16 year old. Is it possible that Flagg put some pressure on her? Yeah, although I don't recall that being explicitly stated. But I feel like by its harmful to claim that she didn't have ANY sort of choice in the matter because through that you fail to hold an abuser accountable. That being said Nadine is STILL a victim. Which means I suppose that calling her evil may have been too extreme but I still believe she isn't a good person. Which she doesn't have to be! A person can be a bad person AND a victim.

In regards to her story having been written with the intention to be representative of every victim - if this is true (I don't like assuming an author's intent too much unless they say what they intended so if anyone has any quotes from king confirming this that would be appreciated) then I feel like that's flawed! I don't think intent should save writing from criticism. And I think that by trying to write someone to represent every victim and then having that character sleep with a child as a full grown adult, that you as a writer are doing a disjustice to real life victims.

So yeah, I understand that Nadine is a victim and I don't recall denying this at any point, but she is also a groomer, and that intersectionality shouldn't be overlooked. A bad person can be a victim. A victim can be a bad person. I believe someone can acknowledge one side without erasing the other, and I hope y'all don't think I am neglecting her status as a victim when I bring up the bad she has done, and I apologize if it's come off that way.

Bet bet bet

The View from Halfway Down - Jhariah

Nothing I Need - Lord Huron

Almost (Sweet Music) - Hozier

Suburbia Overture - Will Wood

9 DAYS OF BEING SWEETHEARTS (1999 i guess)