malverav

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First one in a series - "Faerie Circus", the first one is an aerial hoop trick "girl in the moon" in... the moon...

Traditional ink, watercolour, coloured pencil.

I'm maybe going to table at the once upon a ball market in Coburg in march, so any Melbournians maybe I'll see you there?

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kel posted this about cas right

finished book 2 this seems accurate to me. was imagining the "i'm a little birthday boy, c'mon, i'm a little birthday guy" through the entire birthday party scene which somewhat ruined my immersion but it was very funny

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um can we also talk about how elizabeth helen is two sisters writing this book too? how

like yo i would kill myself if my family or my brother knew the freak shit i'm into/write. not even my friends!!!

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beasts of the briar: 2 books in 9 hours and absolutely all of mega rambly stream of consciousness thoughts about beasts and i shill for garth nix, not for the last time

So i started reading book 1 at 2am as an insomnia read, because once my insomnia hits, it stays, and i'm awake until bedtime tomorrow (thanks vyvanse!). Wanted easier than my recent bedtime reading, a small town in germany by john le carre. It's dense and i read the looking glass war right before it, which was clever but a slow burning, subtle novel. i was in the mood for something lighter, and was thinking about trying to read more sarah j maas (i read acotar in 2022 and hated it. I'm giving the next one a fair crack once my reservation comes in, but it was just so... not fun? Not boring but really dry). I have a fairytale themed market coming in march, know fey are big, but haven't been keeping up with popular fey lit At All so if i want to make fanart to get people to look at my stall, it should probably be a throne of x an y?

ANYWAY

(also don't follow me please if you want like, uncritical take or breathless praise of a series/author (unless it's garth nix, we stan nix on this blog). i'm not attacking you personally if you love it, but i'm over 25 and this is my tumblr blog where i have my opinions. peace)

also im spoiling stuff if you care about that

My friend recced beasts of the briar as totally unconsciousness madness with a plot as subtle as a sledgehammer, so obviously i'm in for it. I'd rather have rubbish someone cooked with pure joy/horny than something boring and technically "good".

Anyway i finished book 2 at about 11am. I'm a fast reader and couldn't sleep, but i like it a lot! I read 2 books in 9 hours! Like let's be real, it is not Classically Good and it definitely reads like fanfic of something else, but it's like, fanfic on a03 in 2010 that's got an air of respectability, it's had a couple of betas and a regular update schedule for a while. You can tell that someone's having a blast writing it. I'm interested to see if they keep the core heat of the dynamic as they start to you know, spoilers, pair people off and solve curses. For me, I feel like the dynamic is starting to cool/stale with Kel/Rose and Farron/Rose. Kel/Ez? *sucking in a breath thru my teeth, leaning back in my chair, white knuckled* anyway Book 2 has barely touched this ship and I'm reading for it. Thank you, EH, for writing this for Me, your horniest nb reader. I appreciate the slow burn while Day/Fare make me roll my eyes so much they roll onto the floor after a while. Don't ever talk about your feelings directly in a romance unless you're forced to. My cardinal sin. Tension evaporates when people therapy talk. Therapy fuck instead, that's how kink works and you get an insight into a character with how they process what scares them into what turns them on this is a post for another time moving on

It's a common issue in romance imo where once the initial tension wears off or breaks, if there's no other "plot" to carry the book it's really hard to keep me hooked. It's best short and sweet, in maybe 20-80k word bursts imo. More than that wordcount I think you need to dream up a plot first and a good romantic dynamic second - most writers (including EH) aren't good enough to carry full novels on characters alone. I can write smoking hot 10k word smut scenes. That's the hard limit for me before I have to start spinning a plot around it, which is so much fucking harder so I absolutely sympathise with the dilemma - if she'd solved the personal issues of the 4 MCs (and +1 secret love interest with Cas, honey, EH, that flower on the ground representing her mate bond with him was so blunt I flinched but you know what I like it anyway because I think you liked too). The plot/worldbuilding is on the thin side, not meaty enough to carry the book all by itself without the romance. There's a huge disparity in stakes with the fate of the Enchanted Vale HANGING in the BALANCE of this ROMANCE and not on the actions of any other character's plots or actions

I think this book reading like fanfic (and let's be real, the trope marketing of these types of books) makes the romantic conclusion generally a sure thing, which takes the air out of any non-romance plot conflict because the characters will solve it with romance. Eg, the bond/mate thing here being the plot answer means that characters who aren't in the main romantic sphere mean very little. So you can kill them as the author because we know they're "safe". . Niamh (queen shit rip miss u already) did nothing meaningful. The side characters (Fare's cool adorable brothers, Rose's dad, Astrid, Marigold (love her tho)) and even the VILLAINS all feel really cardboard because we as the readers know they won't impact the final stakes unless it's to drive our MCs further in love. We know the resoution is that they're all gonna live in a happy polycule and Cas will be fixed with the power of love. But, that means that when you kill Niamh or imprison/defeat uh... Jafar - sorry, evil vizier Perth (reading this book as an Aussie is so fucking funny but that's a separate post ok) it's a bit meaningless. Perversely (hah!) it has a negative impact on the sex, too, because it's too much sweet and not enough vegetables (other plot stuff/character connections). It's like watching a movie that's nonstop action scenes - you feel tired watching it because there's no variety. How many times are Day/Fare/Rose/some combination going to fuck with basically the same beats in the sex scene? Too many. I was getting bored. Sorry.

side note GIIIIIRL PERTH IS VILLAIN QUEER CODED LIKE JAFAR IN A BOOK WITH 4x QUEER MALE MCs I praise EH for the courage to fall back on the classic lazy tropes in book 1 so they can handwave politics and get back to the porn. Shine on.

And the author's game of keep away with the specifics of Kel's vow with Cas, what exactly happened there at the start is wearing preeeeetttttyyy fucking tired. Fucking talk to each other. This stuff only works in a romance with a small cast because there's very few other characters Rose isn't romantically involved with that she can talk to, and fewer still that she's on equal terms with - remember, Astrid and Marigold are servants and serving in Castletree is a big honour, and while they act like the prince's friends/fans let's not forget how some of the pretty boys (Day) kill their own citizens pretty thoughtlessly, so if Astrid was to betray her liege lord's trust and tell Rose (and the reader) the truth, she's risking death by Kel's hand, being banished back to Winter, or having to flee to the Below. And there'd be no concequences for Kel apart from Rose probably having a huff a bout it but getting over it eventually. Not great!

The "oh I can't tell Rose this it's my GREATEST SHAME" is dull after the first two reveals, and I feel like we have more of these to go where she accepts them and heals them because Castletree is a fucking construction site with how Rose is fixing these boys (lame! hate how she's always the damsel/healer/fixer - ez is literally a healer but doesn't fill the healer/heart/gendered female caretaker role in this polycule and i reckon i'd like it a lot better if he did - based on sexual tension with kel and the early line about mummy and daddy fighting, this shit writes itself (ok personal ick to daddy/mummy dynamics but im too genderqueer to not like to fuck with power + gender/roles another post another post omfg)). There's other ways to create tension in a romance, but you need to lean harder into the Other Plot to make it richer. Or have Rose be a Bad Person and be disgusted at what they've done, but imo backstory reveals are boring, tell your story onscreen, coward.

In my opinion. In minecraft. This is longer than I thought. Also for the record! I like this series! I think it's still fun and the narrative voice is cheesy but I really like it, and I'm looking forward to reading more books. Oh, and looking at the community on here, it's been so long since I engaged in a fandom.

Ok last side note I also like how everyone's super normal about everyone being bi/pan, at least in the male MCs. I haven't caught much queer/poly romance elsewhere in other characters - lots of 2 parent households and het monogomous relationships, apart from the random hot fae people of various genders except Rose fuck. No nbs so far but I'm used to not seeing anyone resembling me in a book.

(Notable exceptions to the romance notes above? Garth Nix's recent books (Frogkisser, Terciel and Elanor, Booksellers books) all are a great romance and have a fabulous plot, so the romance in a book like that feels fleshed out and meaningful. But that's another blog post. But, rest assured, you like Regency fantasy? Read Frogkisser. You like to read/like books (or like American Gods, Good Omens, Skulduggery Pleasant)? Read Left Handed Booksellers of London. Butchy FMC and NB love interest in the 80s, come OnNNNnnnNNnNNNnn Garth Nix writing books for healing my inner queer teen. If I read Angel Mage or Booksellers I'd probably be out with they/them pronouns being a blazing queer in all spheres of my irl life, not just the close ones. I cried a bit reading Booksellers when Merlin is just, very genderqueer as a matter of fact because that's a character like me and my favourite childhood author knows people like me exist and lets them be awesome in his books. I tear up thinking about it and I'm nearly 30. Fucking read it even if there's no smut. Angel Mage is on the three musketeers. There's a great female villain. If you're from the US you may not have heard of Nix. You're missing out so fucking bad and I'm sorry.)

I ramble. My vyvanse wore off a couple hours ago so this is my diary now. Never expect short posts.