I also think I'm done reading these books

they've got some good bits in them

the fights are cool

I like things like riding a dinosaur skeleton into battle against a bunch of competing necromancers while your friend plays the polka to keep your dinosaur under your control

its the right amount of silly for me

that's the part everyone remembers about dead beat yeah

but the most important thing for me are characters and after 7 books (and with 7 being the book people telling me is good) I am convinced that Butcher doesn't know how write compelling characters

it's so hype we forgot all the other weird shit going on in the beginning of the book

his characters are mostly very flat and not believable and I can't get invested in anyone but Butters

I'm really fucking tired of Morgan, I get what Butcher was going for but I just find myself irritated every time he shows up in a book

even more fun characters usually fall flat and often just feel like stereotyped cliches

I will say that reading these books HAS had the desired effect of inspiring me to get back to writing

it's just that I'm inspired to write better than this instead of aspiring to this

a relatable feeling to be honest

fuckin mood

Yeah, Dresden Files is a trial to me because I deeply admire an author being able to so cleanly set up a situation where not only does riding a zombie T-rex into battle make sense, it follows so smoothly and organically from the plot of the book that you'd be disappointed if it didn't happen- but God, he's so bad at women.

And literally anything else that's not a straight white Christian dude.

The women are particularly bad but he isn’t good at writing characters period. Almost every character has like one personality trait that he leans into way too hard and that is the entire character