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gumi-writes · 4 months ago

Note

i love it when people give me essays about their characters... they are more than characters!!! they are pieces of the soul and the living person and i have life threatening rabies. i really enjoyed hearing what you have to share about her and would always like to hear more!

also, i just really love the concept of being a leper, a face not even a mother loves - lingering on the outskirts of both human and monsterkind since birth. not quite one or the other, and the lack of the security a suffocating binary provides might as well be worse (but what does it matter to tien when love cannot change this story).

is humanity a choice? is it memories, our passion, our experiences? one cannot ponder theseus' paradox if the ship was born of war's wounds. no matter how you look at it, she's like a bystander. even monsters have desires like a thorn in their ribes (ais has desires the enormity of which disgusts him, vere swallow his through his pride, mhin presses down on it like a bruise), and when you live your live rejected and whittled by desire, the tender intimacy even the strongest ache over mean nothing to you. manmade horrors, the thrill! they say god is man but man is not god because He was born of their desire for goodness and greatness (but they are not clean). they are of humans but she is not a human.

also really big fan of characters who are apathetic in the sense they can 'like' you, but you will never have a place for yourself amidst the patchwork of their life. to be guilty over such thing would prove the tragedy's nature so she feels no guilt. they feel no shame. there is no goodness hiding inside the hollow heart. loving in a world that is cruel is to be lion hearted - then, you are brave. then, you are strong. and a heart that never loves, even in shame and disgust, is strong as the sentinel tiger is.

which really ties into the foxglove also meaning insincerity and a hardened heart! it can heal, but it is unfeeling. the foxglove can be used therapeutically to increase heart contractions. again it ties to the heart. maybe the only way she can feel is if another's poison will die on her lips like with every forgotten memory under the graveyard of their tongue and take them with it. but the foxglove will always bloom in spite of hardship. that is the real shame. she will come back again and they must forget again.

something about tien saving the mc from death with her blood. something about binding each other together like a cursed vow.

on another note, i think one of the many reasons i like tien is because i have an oc who works as a soulless hunter for a church in one of the cities outside of eridia. to be whittled away into a blade until you do not even know the privilege of desperation. wow. my jam!

you know at the very least if i'm going to continue writing this much i only hope it all makes sense HAHA

i think so too! i actually recently had a discussion about the kind of things that compel us when it comes to the creation of characters and relationships, and though the answer is obviously very varied, there is something to be said about those that essentially use it as a method of processing or even healing, if it comes down to it. this way makes it impossible to not pluck some of you to put into an oc, but i think it’s more fun that way. but i’m really glad you did! 🥰 i do have a ludicrous amount of thoughts on her, so the opportunity to put some of it down on paper and not floating in my brain like some kind of haunting essay is well, it’s really nice!

a leper is honestly a great way to put it. hard to form any sense of belonging, of kinship, if you know nothing of personhood. it’s somehow both an objectification and an ascension, and without the firsthand of a before experience, how can you imagine a change let alone manifest it? things have always been like this. they will always be like this. what good is an indomitable strength if it only keeps you bound? and how can love hope to change anything other than to make an end worthwhile? she can’t hope for more. she doesn’t even know what that would look like. in a kinder world, love would be the answer. but this isn’t a kind world. and tiên herself would not exist as she is in one.

“one cannot ponder theseus’ paradox if the ship was born of a war’s wounds” goes hard as hell actually. i think so too. it’s not like we can look to see a before where there was a start and a descent—tiên was already in the thick of it the moment she was cognizant, and perhaps the tragedy here is that the opportunity to learn how to be remotely human was never offered and now too late to be of any use. she doesn’t want for nothing but are desires not the core tenet of being alive, one of the things that both man and monster share? (your summary of ais, vere and mhin was delicious btw <3) even an end, about the only thing she could crave feels a futility—so her existence is one of stagnancy, a transient, liminal ache of a thing where, on her own, she can only hope to experience thin slivers of humanity through the tiny bites of connection her blood allows her. and even then, it is barely above a nothing—a curiosity that will fade as soon as the moment passes with it.

guilt or shame are largely human emotions, anyhow. taught in response to something you’ve done wrong, but a living weapon has no such need for such humanity. a tool can only do the thing it was meant to do or it doesn’t, and such binary options leave no room for the internal maze of remorse. any goodness died as the world itself lay dying till the very last death rattle. you want to survive? you need to match the violence you were born in the cradle of. maybe the truth is we’re all a little monstrous here.

and honestly? i kind of liken tiên to a lonely, chained god. it accounts for that stagnancy and strength, and that strange purity despite being embroiled in blood. even her amorality and being seemingly above human things—joys and despairs alike. her heart, though i have not actually thought the specifics of the where, may as well have origins something both timeless and yet, long gone.

but it is a shame. being a certainty where nothing else is. she can’t even hope to realise she loves you, and can only afford you recognition where she has almost next to none. is it enough? is it fair? she can’t even honour anything you have, though she can only vaguely feel an absence that will only be devoured by the rest of her ceaseless existence.

oh, anon. you are speaking my language <3 for all her expertise in the dealing of death, she can deal life where she is invested enough to do so. she can compensate for blood loss, gently plug and sew your wounds, even mend your bones, but are you prepared to have her in you in a way that not even she understands the full extend of? if there is something other than nothing, her blood will help instead of harm. but it is the hand of something older than you both.

ooh! 🥰 as someone that (obviously) loves the psychological and emotional implications of living weapons, that sounds so exciting? you must tell me more if you’re up for it. sounds like they’re married to the job, so to speak, and all the hardening that comes with it! to fight monsters for a living is to become a bit of one yourself, and i have to wonder myself if your oc had a choice when it came to such a living. but maybe they’re not even cognizant of the lack of choice. but i’m just spitballing. i’d love to hear more regardless!

#gumi answers #anon sending me a glorious essay like this like i'm not going to pour over it #your word smithery is exquisite. i'm devouring it whole as we speak. your ability to engage with themes and motifs... i haven't even posted #—all my tien lore and yet the understanding you've shown is as if you've peeked into my brain haha

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ash-and-books · 1 year ago

Text

Rating: 1/5

Book Blurb: Ninth House meets A Deadly Education in this gorgeous dark academia fantasy following a teen mage who must unravel the truth behind the secret society that may have been involved in her classmates’ deaths.

Emory might be a student at the prestigious Aldryn College for Lunar Magics, but her healing abilities have always been mediocre at best—until a treacherous night in the Dovermere sea caves leaves a group of her classmates dead and her as the only survivor. Now Emory is plagued by strange, impossible powers that no healer should possess.

Powers that would ruin her life if the wrong person were to discover them.

To gain control of these new abilities, Emory enlists the help of the school’s most reclusive student, Baz—a boy already well-versed in the deadly nature of darker magic, whose sister happened to be one of the drowned students and Emory’s best friend. Determined to find the truth behind the drownings and the cult-like secret society she’s convinced her classmates were involved in, Emory is faced with even more questions when the supposedly drowned students start washing ashore—alive—only for them each immediately to die horrible, magical deaths.

And Emory is not the only one seeking answers. When her new magic captures the society’s attention, she finds herself drawn into their world of privilege and power, all while wondering if the truth she’s searching for might lead her right back to Dovermere…to face the fate she was never meant to escape.

Review:

In a world where people are gifted with different types of magics that correlate with the tides/moon phase, a teen mage must unravel the secret behind the death of her former friend and the secret society that she was caught up in. Emory is a student at the prestigious Aldryn College for Lunar magics, yet her healing magic is mediocare at best. Yet what happened to her the previous summer haunts her, what happened when she stumbles in on her ex best friend and a group of the most talented students committing a ritual that results in everyone dying but Emory.... she can't remember what happened or why and she'll do anything to figure it out. The only problem is that her own magic has changed since that incident and now she is discovering she has forbidden magic and that the only person to help her is the school's most reclusive student and her former best friend's brother. As Emory seeks answers she'll find herself drawn into the secret society and a world of privelege and power. Unfortunately for me this book fell completely flat after the 30% mark. I tried and tried to make this book work but I was completely bored and it was such a trudge to make it to the end. This book was SLOW and so long for no reason whatsoever. It's the first book in the series and I am not interested in continuing it at all. Emory is so annoying and there is literally NO chemistry between any of the characters. The mystery itself was boring and I really wish it wasn't. This book was advertised as Ninth House meets A Deadly Education, two book series that I absolutely adore and yet this one completely missed the mark in all cases. The characters weren't interesting, the mystery felt lacking, the pacing was clunky and slow, and honestly this kind of felt like a mess. I pushed myself to finish this books in hopes that it would get better, yet it didn't. Maybe it's a case of "its me not you" but for a book that features a magical school, murder mystery, and some romance, it should have been perfect for me yet it just wasn't. If you enjoy super slow magical school mystery stories then give this a go, maybe it'll work for you.

*Thanks Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing, Margaret K. McElderry Books for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

#book review #bookish #curious tides

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alexsiple · 2 years ago

Note

I just read through In Terms of Rain and I found it exceedingly beautiful in illustration AND writing (tf how do you do that). It really captured what I like in a lot of Death Note fan creations, which is some abstractness and ideas left up for interpretation. That being said, I would really love some insight and analysis on your end of certain choices you made while creating it. Just any meanings from certain pages or your general thoughts would be incredible for my plebeian mind <3

ohhhh anon thank you so much. this is so kind of you- thank you for reading it and enjoying it. and thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk at length about this thing i've made HAHAHAHA i'm rubbing my hands together like a little creature (i'm putting this under a cut)

listen i think about death note too much. like, too much for what it is. it's one of my favorite things ever but i'm hyper-aware of its flaws. that said, i think a lot about L and light and how the creators managed to make this really crazy story about being known and what we hide from others. it's so romantically tragic to me. it's so romantically violent to me. i wrote about this more on my substack but i'll keep going with some more specific death-note-lore sort of analysis (i guess i'm a person who links their substack unprompted. great).

L is like, one of my favorite characters of all time? i read a lot of death note fanfiction (i know ok) and my favorite hobby is analyzing people's interpretations of him. literally a year or so ago i was reading so much fanfic and it was kind of rotting my brain and i had this sudden wave of inspiration/wrote the whole script of this comic in one sitting. i kept starting this comic since then and the visual style never felt right until i managed to land on this one.

L makes me very sad. i both relate to him and watch him from afar as an omniscient observer. i wanted to capture all these feelings he gives me at once; it's a really L-centric comic. the tragedy of living a life in so much isolation. the tragedy of living life not exactly for beliefs or morals or justice, really, but because it's your job, and all you have, and you're good at it, so you do it. whatever. shrug, shrug. you do it. if you die, you die. apparently i also for some reason fixated on the thing about L being adopted by wammy and being raised to be this child prodigy. a gifted kid narrative, etc. that makes me sad. i think L and light have this parallel going on where they both feel misunderstood by most people because of their own making, maybe, but also because of how they were raised and because of their ""intellect"" and their superiority complexes. light's complex coming more from privilege, of course, and being more analyzed in the source material. both of them jaded by and cynical of the world and its extreme violence.

i wanted to hone in on that loneliness. L and light are very lonely characters. they are very internal and thoughtful and weird and express this in opposite ways (but they're the same! of course!) hm. i like thinking that L was raised in a church. dropped off in that movie-orphan way as a baby during a snowstorm or something. how did wammy find him at eight years old and adopt him like that. what does a child have to see and do to become a "detective prodigy" at age eight. canonically, the whole wammy's house thing is fucked up. canonically, L is the first and best. what does a child have to see and do to become the First and Best. does intelligence make a child more mature, more able to "handle" anything thrown in their line of view? some people seem to think so. i think it's creating a sort of ghost that haunts you when you're old enough to look back and see it behind you.

also i wanted to explore religious [catholic] imagery. albeit in a more earnest way than the source material but yeah- i imagine L grew up around catholicism. wammy's house with its big cross on it! i think sometimes when you've been lonely for a long time, or your whole life, and you have never felt truly seen, there's this euphoria that arrives with the person who finally Sees you. you know? sometimes that feels like religion. sometimes being known feels holy. sometimes it feels like being loved. shrug, shrug. sometimes it feels like dying.

i've always really loved that L likes that light could be kira. is. i think it's so insane and endearing and personal to me. light hates that L knows him, has never been known before, translates this feeling into violence. L is like, i get this guy completely, he's a mirror, but somehow he's like no one else i've met before and it's still exciting! i'm laughing at him (i'm crying.) i like that light hides all strong emotions deep within and that L occasionally releases strong emotions with, like, a detached acceptance. he's not exactly afraid to be vulnerable but more picks and chooses what to let people see. plays off of something real, sometimes. is willing to play a character for fun. light just doesn't show anything real at all. is very uncomfortable with any vulnerability. is also very afraid of death. in some ways i feel that L seems to halfway accept his death. he's like, yeah, i'm dying now. this is where my life has led me. i lost but it's out of my control anyway. with in terms of rain i wanted it to feel like this foggy reflection on a life from a ghost, i guess? hence all the references to specific years or cases/the opening part. lol. won't explain the one hundred years of solitude reference but i feel as if the stars aligned with that one.

hopefully this is interesting to SOMEONE? LMAO?

and as for certain pages, the only ones i think i want to point out are these two, which are references to B and A respectively because i actually love the los angeles bb murder case novel with like. a fervor. even though i don't think it's actually good but i also think they really nail something with it. i just think about beyond birthday a lot. ugh. DEATH NOTE. I USED TO LAUGH AT BEYOND BIRTHDAY AND NOW IT'S SERIOUS TO ME

thx bye.

#death note #in terms of rain #????? half of my brain is death note lore for no reason.#ask

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thingsthatmademe · 2 years ago

Text

Die #19

I will probably have a lot to say about the work of Kieron Gillen over the life of this emotional process blog but today is a quick note about a work that didn't mean much to me until it did, Die.

One of Kieron's ur works, Phonogram, is the one that got me. Specifically, The Singles Club. It came to me at the peak of my own late-blooming retro, goth, and indie-pop club years. Die, on the other hand, came later. The peak of the grim Trump and pandemic years in America and reconciling myself to my forties after a decade of heavy drinking, partying, and living in the moment. Trying to make my first attempt at cohabitation work and finding it incredibly difficult, not realizing how hard having another person around to perceive me as who I was (and more importantly, who I was not) was going to be.

It was the summer of '22 when all of that crested and I realized that I both was, and allowed to be, trans. But that's a different story and a different book for a different time.

In some ways, the concept of Die was perfect for me -- four middle-aged people revisiting the sins of their youth. In other ways -- less so. Role-playing games were a part of my past that I set down in my twenties and have not picked back up again. My particular brand of (faint?) borderline autism makes me a bit of a rules lawyer, and my creativity is something that's a very private thing. I love the explosion in gaming that's been ongoing for the past few decades (I live in Portland, OR after all) but it's not for me.

I still bought Die of course -- but it wasn't a must-read and I wasn't following the characters and story as intensely as I had with other comics. Part out of slowly growing out of living my life through fictional characters and part out of denial around needing reading glasses.

But also Ash, and not wanting to look at myself too closely.

I had put down drag and "the thing I could only call genderfluidity in my head and fantasies" sometime around 2012/2013. I had entered the club and kink scenes because they seemed like places where anything could happen. Over time you discover there are, in fact, only twelve things that can happen -- and having them happen over and over again gets a little boring. Growth is a thing, I suppose. And then realizing your health is starting a massive decline from the drink and occasional drugs and that you can only process feelings through altered states?

So my femme persona became a thing I put down. I shrugged internally and said "I guess that was something I did for a while" and other non-answers when close friends asked what was up. My venues for those opportunities were gone, and the need to show up professionally and spend some male privilege for slightly more financial security was in the air.

Every year, particularly around the dark holidays, an old familiar depression would haunt me. A crushing sense that my life was over and there was nothing to look forward to.

When Die #19 came along I wasn't quite ready to listen to the voice my resurrected depression was suffocating -- but unresolved feelings around genderfluidity with no clear model to guide you? Tying it up with sketchy problematic behavior in your past? Capital kay KNOWING this in your head but not knowing it in your heart or what to do about it? I played it off to myself as "oh that's interesting" and moved on.

It would take me another ten months until I was curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor crying my eyes out about who I was and the time I'd wasted.

Re-reading this issue today as I box up some comics the tears come again, but this time they're mostly from gratitude and joy. Mostly.

#die comic #kieron gillen #trans #stephanie hans

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racetrackhigg · 4 years ago

Text

Hunger Games AU

kinda

thank you so much to @bitchiaintanonymous for helping me with this!!! she wrote all the descriptions of the districts and she helped me figuring out stuff for the characters!

also i wasn’t supposed to make morris’ moodboard, but i didn’t realize until too late- so whoops

please don’t let it flop ive been working on this literally all day akdhsksbw

!!! TW: DEATH (kinda graphic? i mean i say how they died but that’s it), ABUSE, CHILD ABANDONMENT, MENTIONS OF STARVATION !!!

please don’t continue reading if any of those things trigger you

District 1: luxury

They produce jewelry and the people take pride in living there because of it. Most of the people from there are named after expensive material like “Cashmere” and “Glimmer” and as you know, they train and volunteer for the games so they have a higher chance of winning.

Oscar Delancey

Morris Delancey (died)

Morris lived with his uncle and his brother

He had a fairly privileged life, living in the richer side of the district.

However, his uncle was an abusive drunk and he usually took the hits from him to stop his brother from getting hurt

He trained for the games his entire life and eagerly volunteered to be a part of them when he was 17, hoping that if he won it would mean him and his brother could get away from their uncle and have a better life

Sadly, he died during the games by being stabbed in the back by the one and only Jack Kelly

He made 2nd place

District 2: Masonry and Defense.

These people work on weapons for peacekeepers and even have a training center for the peacekeepers, and they also volunteer for the games. It’s illegal for them, but because they’re so buddy buddy with the Capitol, they’re let off. They usually have Ancient Roman and Greek names.

Romeo (victor)

Romeo grew up having a somewhat decent life

Hs mother died when he was young, so he lived with his father and younger sister (who’s only 5 when he goes to the games) (he’s 15)

He trained for the games since he was young, and at first. he wanted to volunteer

However, as the reaping came near, he was starting to regret his decision, especially after overhearing some of his friends talk about the true horrors of the games

His dad threatened to kill him himself if he didn’t volunteer, claiming he would rather have no son at all than one who was a coward

So Romeo was forced to volunteer

Jojo (his mentor) becomes like an older brother or even father figure to him

Jojo de la Guerra (former victor, died)

Jojo lived in the poorer side of the district

He used to work a lot in weaponry to provide for his family Jojo was 17 when he participated in the games, and won

He was 22 when he mentored Romeo

And 23 when he died

He “trained” for the games for years, but unlike Romeo, he never volunteered

By “training” i mean that he was just a sparring partner for people who wanted to volunteer for the games

Because of this, he just picked up different fighting techniques over time

Unlike most people in that district, he hated the games and was not eager at all to be a part of them

He was assigned as Romeo’s mentor

At first, Jojo thought he was just another cocky kid who was overconfident he’d win

But then he actually met him. and realised Romeo didn’t want this

He made it his goal to make sure Romeo would get out of the games alive. After all, he was just a kid.

He was killed by peacekeepers after trying to protect Romeo. Pulitzer wanted to prostitute Jojo, and he refused, so as a warning they went to kill Romeo, but Jojo managed to stop them the cost of his own life

District 3: Technology.

They produce technology and electronics for the Capitol and usually use their knowledge of that in the games. They’re really smart and in the 10th Hunger Games, it’s said that a district 3 tribute hack into a drone that delivered supplies to use for themselves (doesn’t work that great cause they get killed though) but they’re still really smart.

Antonio “Racetrack” Higgins (victor)

Race never met his mother, She died a few days after he was born

So he was raised by his father

When he turned 6, his father started drinking

When he turned 7, he started hiring him

He met a girl named Sarah after trying to steal from her, and instead of reporting him to a peacekeeper, they actually became friends over time (even though Race was 2 years younger than her)

He often went to hide at the Jacobs’ house when things got too bad at home

Just a year after David volunteered, on the next reaping, Sarah’s name was called

So Race volunteered. (he was 16)

The jacobs’ had already done so much for him, and Sarah didn’t deserve to go through that, chances were she wouldn’t come back alive.

Race knew he probably wouldn’t either, but he had nothing to lose. He wouldn’t be leaving any family behind, because the man that called himself his father was not his family.

David was his mentor.

Much like David had before him, Race used parts of traps to make his weapons better, though he mainly used a bow and arrow.

For most of the game, he made a truce with a guy named Albert from district 4, and they became /very/ close.

He was killed by a guy from district 6, Finch, who was also the last person remaining apart from him.

Race killed him by shooting an arrow directly in his heart. It’s the only kill he doesn’t regret so much.

David Jacobs (victor)

David lived with his parents, twin sister and younger brother.

He was especially close to his sister.

His father got sick and died a few years later, when he was 15, so he had to work extra hard to help support his family

When he turned 17, his worst nightmare came true and his younger brother, Les was selected for the games

He volunteered to save his brother, and was determined to make it back alive, wanting his family to have a better life.

He trained a lot in physical combat, since he knew that without at least a somewhat proper training, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Once in the games, he spent most of his time trying to avoid other people, not wanting to kill anyone else and not wanting to risk his own life.

However, he ended up having to kill a boy from district 10, Mike, to save his own life using a makeshift explosive he made out of parts from a trap he disarmed (or however it’s said).

He wins by tricking the last person left, Itey, into eating poison berries.

He never forgave himself for the lives he took, and it’s something that would always haunt him.

Just a year after that, he became Race’s mentor.

District 4: fishing.

First off, people say that this district had the most “decent-looking” people. As you may have guessed, these people specialize in “aquaculture” It sounds useless, but a character named “Mags” actually won her games because she was the only one able to swim the longest when the arena was flooded. They also use tridents and things like that and volunteer as “Careers” too.

Albert Dasilva (died)

Albert came from the more poor side of the district

He lives with his father, who fell ill a few weeks before Albert was selected for the games.

He’s only 16

He never really trained for the games, unlike many people. He didn’t have the time or money for that.

One of his friends, Sniper, promised to take care of his father while he was gone.

Albert knew he probably wouldn’t be coming back.

Early in the games, he befriended Race, and they survive throughout almost the entire games together.

He knew one of them was going to have to die, but Albert decided to ignore that. He was going to find a way around it.

However, while Race went out hunting, the only other tribute left strangled him to death and stole all their supplies.

He never made it back home to his father.

Sniper (victor)

Sniper was an orphan

Her family abandoned her when she was 5, and she lived in the streets for a short while until a kind man took her in

It was Albert’s father

When she got older, she started working to make her own living

Albert became her best friend, despite being 4 years apart. He became almost like an older brother to her.

Her best friend, almost brother, got sent away for the games and never returned.

Sniper moved back in with Mr. Dasilva to take care of him as he fell ill, and his son was no longer there to take care of him.

He got better, eventually, and was horrified and heartbroken at the news of his son’s death.

A year after his best friend was sent away to die, she got chosen for the games.

She vowed to make it back alive, no matter what.

She learned everything there was to know about the plants of the arena. She was already good at combat.

She won by poisoning the last other tribute.

Much like David, Sniper was never able to forgive herself for the lives she took.

District 5: power.

They specialize in providing power for the Capitol with electricity (they power homes and stuff so not technology like in district 3). They’re pretty smart and they use the coal district 12 mines to generate the power.

Specs

Itey (died)

Itey lived with their parents

They were an only child

Their life was pretty good- at least their family life

They were pretty poor, but still better off than a few other people, so they were grateful for what they had.

They were chosen for the games when they were 15

Their parents prayed Itey would make it back alive, but they knew it was unlikely, since he had no training whatsoever

They were right

Itey almost won, but they were starving, and didn’t know that the berries were poisonous

They came 2nd

District 6: transportation

The tributes shown from here are actually pretty nice and cool. During the 75th Hunger Games the tributes were nicknamed “morphlings” because of their addiction to the drug. The male tribute didn’t do much, but the female tribute sacrificed herself for Peeta and jumped in front of an animal that was trying to kill him.

Finch Cortez (died)

Finch lived with his younger brother

His parents died when he was relatively young (12 years old- his brother was 9) but they managed to scrape by

He started working pretty young to make sure his brother could have a roof over his head and not starve.

He was 17 when he was selected for the games, his brother was only 14

He was terrified, but determined to come back home to his only family

He made it to 2nd place

He was killed by an arrow straight through his heart.

Tbh if Race would’ve known Finch had a family to go home to, he would’ve eaten poisonous berries and let him win

Skittery

District 7: lumber.

They specialize in forestry and wood and paper and all that. They are strong-willed and hard headed, and don’t have many qualms about killing people. but more or less are loyal depending on the situation.

Sean “Spot” Conlon (victor)

Spot was an orphan

Well, kind of

He lived with his parents up until he was 10, when he ran away

They were both abusive and manipulative, and he knew if they kept this up, he’d end up dead

After he ran away, he made friends with a guy his age named Hotshot.

Hotshot had the perfect family. Loving parents and a younger sister.

Honestly, Spot was jealous

But they became quick friends, and Hotshot’s parents let him move in

Hotshot nicknamed him Spot because of the cigarette burns across his arms and back

He was 17 when he was selected for the games

Surprisingly enough, he didn’t think he’d come back

Because as strong and as much of a skilled fighter as he was, there were people out there that had been training for this their whole lives.

However, he managed to win. Had a pretty big kill count too- not because he wanted to, but because a surprising amount of people went after him. He had many good supplies and they wanted them.

The last person left apart from him was Buttons.

He won by bashing his head against a rock and then pushing him off a cliff for good measure.

In his defence, Buttons had tried to push him off a cliff first. Spot just took his chance.

Hotshot

District 8: textiles

Clothing. They fight for what’s right, and we’re actually among the first to rebel against the Capitol and follow Katniss, which, sadly, also made them the second most targeted district (the first being district 12 which was outright destroyed) A leader from district 8 actually became president after Katniss killed this woman named “Alma Coin” (the president of district 13)

Buttons (died)

Buttons lived with her younger brother, Elmer, and their parents

She was only 14 when she was selected for the games

She knew she wasn’t making it back

However, she let her hopes up w hen she was one of the only two left, and was a bit more careless with her actions

This is what led to her the death

Elmer

District 9: grain.

They specialize in grain, and salts. It’s the least mentioned of the districts, there is no known character mentioned from here, and all that is known is that both tributes died in the initial bloodbath

Henry

Smalls

District 10: live stock.

Believe it or not, no one except a crippled boy is mentioned from here. This is the second least mentioned one, it’s only known that a refugee from here told Katniss about district 13 so we can assume they know their rights and wrongs.

Mike (died)

Mike lived with his twin brother and parents

He was 15 when he was selected for the games, and he knew there was no chance he’d make it back alive

He was right, since he was killed by David, after trying to kill him and steal his supplies.

Ike

District 11: agriculture.

Common traits of this district are “dark skin and brown eyes” They are heavily abused by the Peacekeepers and are the most brutal treated ones. Their electric fences are activated 24/7, they have extreme knowledge of herbs and foods. Again, security here is greatly unforced and there are a lot of harsh measures like summary execution. (an execution where someone is accused of something and is immediately killed without a fair trial) It was one of the first districts to rebel, it was their response for what happened to Rue (a former 12-year old tribute who was Katniss’ ally and was killed during the games).

Graves

Rafaela

District 12: coal mining.

This district is divided into housing areas. The Seam is where people who work in coal mines live, and the others are centered around “The Square''. People from The Seam generally have dark hair, grey eyes, and olive skin, and the others have blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. Katniss and Gale are from The Seam whereas Peeta is a bakers son in the town. District 12 is the poorest out of the districts, and starvation is a big issue, and because of this, the Capitol usually bends the rules a little by turning off the electric fence surrounding them so people can go hunt for food for their families or sell their catches to the black market for money. District 12 is known for having only 2 victors in the history of the games before the 74th. A female named Lucy Gray Baird who died before the events of The Hunger Games happened, and Haymitch Abernathy. This is why the district is usually a laughingstock and volunteering for the Games is seen as suicide.

Jack Francis Kelly (victor)

Jack’s parents gave him up at a very young age, when he was only 2 years old

They sent him to live with an old family friend, William Snyder

Snyder was horrible to him.

He constantly abused and starved and neglected him, treated him more like a slave than anything else.

Jack had to balance doing whatever Snyder said and also making his own food and money by working so he could eat

When he was 14, his parents came to visit. He didn’t recognize them, and he didn’t know who they were until the end of the visit- when they were leaving

He was both hurt and furious

Although he was miserable and his life sucked, he did manage to make a friend

Crutchie

He was 3 years younger than Jac k, and his leg was injured beyond repair in a mining accident

When he heard Crutchie’s name at the Reaping, he immediately volunteered

Unlike him, Crutchie had a family. People who loved him.

Jack had nothing to lose

He didn’t expect to come back alive, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Multiple people tried to kill him throughout the game, thinking it as a fun game since he was of the “worse” district

Jack won by killing Morris

He didn’t know he had a brother, if he did, he wouldn’t have done it. Jack didn’t have anything to come back to, Morris did

He found out about this and his situation a day after his victory.

He was horrified, knowing he killed a man that was just trying to help his family.

Jack didn’t have a family. He just took a poor kids only family away.

So he made sure Oscar was away from his uncle and safe

It was the least he could do.

He was never able to forgive himself.

Charlie “Crutchie” Morris

District 13: nuclear weaponry.

Before they were “extinct” they made and built nuclear weapons for the Capitol, but after they tried to rebel, they were bombed and became “extinct”. In reality they lived underground and struck up a deal with the Capitol, that they’d be able to live in hiding, and in return, they would not rain war on the Capitol. Every food ration is cherished in this district and everything is very orderly as to not rouse suspicion. The lifestyle is very strict because of the circumstances. District 13 is the center for the rebellion in the books, and is where Katniss and everyone planned out the war between the districts and the Capitol.

Mush Meyers and Kid Blink

Blink came from district 12

He was an orphan, and his only family, his younger sister, died from starvation when he was 17, soon turning 18

She was only 10

Not even a year later, Blink snuck out of his district, except instead of just going hunting, he ran away.

He narrowly escaped a peacekeeper finding him

After a few days of being completely alone, he ran into Mush Meyers, who (slightly reluctantly) took him into his distract (he got into a shit ton of trouble for that)

However, Blink was allowed to stay.

Eventually, they got together (because we all need some Blush in our lives)

Capitol

Katherine Plumber

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starkey · 4 years ago

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[Spoilers for The Haunting of Bly Manor!]

I know everyone is super loving Bly Manor cause ~80′s gays~!!! but some stuff about it sat really bad for me so I’m gonna try to verbalise it. Obviously if you loved it and aren't vibing with a critical analysis I'm not offended if you don't read lol. Also I’m not trying to say that there’s anything wrong with liking it! I just...didn’t, and I want to think about why, for a sec. (Sorry this got a bit long)

I think part of my problem is that I count Hill House as one of my favourite shows ever and I had ridiculously high hopes for Bly Manor, which probably couldn't ever have been fully realised. And there was actually a lot about it that I liked, especially at the begining. I thought the kids were great, and I loved the core group of Mrs Grose, Owen, Dani and Jamie. I liked the fact that the Henry Wingrave element was expanded upon, and I liked the complexity of Rebecca and Peter, and the room it gave them to be fully realised human beings. I quite enjoyed that they kept to the Hill House ghost mythology - that ghosts are lost in time but fixed in place, and that they jump from memory to memory, and haunt the people that they care about without knowing. But there were lots of things I wasn't so keen on...

Until the last episode my issues were mainly that it felt a bit...lazy? I can't stress it enough but the british accents were really really bad. Old!Jamie’s accent was deeply unbelievable and jarring, as was Henry Wingrave's, and although Peter’s accent was passable (I assume because the actor is English and not American like the others) it still didn’t match his mothers, or his ‘background’ - i.e. it sounded like a private school Edinburgh accent, not a Glasgow kid dragged up through poverty in the scheme - and yes there is a significant difference in those accents. I appreciate there’s a degree of privilege at play here - I’m used to the BBC producing high quality television where these details aren’t messed about with, and the production of Bly Manor was thoroughly American, but to put it in perspective, it would be like... if a character had a deep south dirt-poor Louisiana upbringing and spoke like somebody from a private school in Virginia. Other details also felt off - Rebecca’s costumes all seemed weirdly 2020-adjacent, none of the fashion or ancillary details seemed to match the UK in the 80s (which has a distinct feel), and the house that Peter returned to on his ‘memory bumps’ looked much more like an LA condo than a Scottish council house. Really, they should have just set it in America, because it felt more American than British, and they clearly didn't have any British people involved in the production.

I really didn't enjoy the narrative framing device of 'someone telling a story to a group of people at a party'. It makes sense in the Turn of the Screw, because the narrator is reading from a document written at the time of the events, so the narration becomes a first person one where the degree of detail is logically accounted for. In this take, the story alternated from being one which made sense - us just watching the characters move around normally - to one in which 'Jamie' (who’d apparently had a complete personality transplant that had turned her from a feisty northern lesbian into a coy, mysterious victorian englishwoman with a severe accent problem) adopted a falsely old-fashioned manner and told the wedding guests a ten hour long story about a haunted house. And somehow neither Flora nor Miles recognised any part of this story in the least, in spite of what must have been overwhelming similarities? It was very jarring.

I also kept waiting for a twist on a level with Hill House, but never got one. The big twist about Mrs Grose was, I thought, obvious from almost the first episode. I mean the woman didn’t eat or drink anything and spent most of her time confused about where she was, I thought it was fairly clear that she was a ghost. And yeah, I suppose because I’ve read the book I was never in any doubt that Peter was already dead. The ghosts in the background were much less spooky than in Hill House. They stood around in broad daylight while the characters talked and joked and it kind of felt like the ghosts had wandered in by accident and felt too awkward to leave. I really liked how spooky Hill House was - even apart from the jump scares I thought the psychological elements and the open discussion of death and grief was really affecting. I didn’t feel that at all in Bly Manor, and by the time we found out the details of Mrs Grose’s death, I’d already come to terms with it. But all of this would have been fine, if it hadn’t been for the last episode.

I really really didn’t enjoy the bury your gays ending. And I’m not even usually against this in principle! I think in a dark/horror context, where there’s implied to be an ever-present threat of character death, it’s unreasonable to expect that no characters will die or experience tragedy - and in cases where there’s abundant LGBT rep some of those characters will by necessity not be cis/straight. So I don’t have a problem with gay characters meeting tragic or dark ends, as a general rule, particularly when it serves a narrative purpose and isn’t gratuitous. My problem here was in the manner and necessity of that death.

There were ways in which Dani could have died in this story that I would have felt were narratively meaningful and cathartic, but the manner in which she did die failed to hit those beats for me. This is a story in which two women in the 80's fall in love and are doomed by the world around them (we're already in Meryl Streep 'groundbreaking' territory here, in terms of metaphor). They know death is coming for them, that it will likely destroy them both, that they won't have an opportunity to grow old together, that eventually one day it will catch them and everything will be over - they're on borrowed time, and they spend a lot of that time looking over their shoulders waiting for shit to break bad. In the end, they're destroyed by a force in Dani's body/mind that she can't fight, that she can't win against, and the spectre of which haunts her through the years. Like... the obvious parallel here is mental health, and suicide - they even go out of their way to feature that classic heartsink moment with the overflowing bath. And to me, any story that has a message of 'no matter how strong you are, no matter how much love you have and give, or how beautiful the life you've built is, eventually the dark forces in your mind will Get You and it'll probably be before you make it to middle age' is... really shitty. The other echo that struck me was the HIV/AIDS crisis - obviously wlw were relatively spared from this, in comparison to mlm, but it still carries a cultural legacy of pain and trauma, and I really didn't need this show to grind down on that for me.

And the thing is... in the original story, the governess doesn't even die! Miles does, so maybe there's an argument here that Dani sacrificed herself in exchange for Miles's life in this retelling, but I'm still struck by this element of, like... they added this in! They chose to do this! Only one character dies in the course of this show (with Mrs Grose dying before the show starts) and it's the gay woman?? Why?? What did it show?? Why was it necessary?

Not to mention, the 'epilogue' scene paints Jamie as being very lonely and isolated. I'm not sure why the children didn't recognise ANY elements of this story from their past - even assuming they forgot the ghostly elements of their childhood, they should be able to see the similarities in the characters, but the scene also seems to imply that Jamie really isn't very close to Miles and Flora, and that she doesn't even really get to have a relationship with them as adults, in spite of losing everything to protect them, and not having any family of her own.

Almost everybody else gets a happy ending, but Jamie ends the night of the epilogue standing alone at a table, with the love of her life dead in a cursed lake, doomed to spend eternity watching over a crumbling house, and idk to me? that kind of sucked.

#the haunting of bly manor #bly manor #the haunting of hill house #hill house #bury your gays #spoilers #long post

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innittowinit · 4 years ago

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Clair de Lune, L. 32

Summary:

Tommy has a nightmare about Wilbur's death and Ghostbur comforts him

YOOO just to be clear this is an AU that was created before cannon ghostbur and schlatt so all you need to know for this fic is that Wilbur is a ghost that haunts the sleepy bois, he's from the 1700's or something and he was murdered.

Not tagged MCD as a warning because Wil is technically still a character but his death is described a bit so stay safe!

Word count: 1536

Google doc with more info on this au

AO3

The air was bitter and cold, cracks in the walls seethed with a breeze that never seemed to go away, it helped in the summer months when the homes felt like a sauna but on a late December evening like tonight, all it did was remind the townsfolk that they weren’t nearly as wealthy as those who wouldn’t be worrying about this.

After having served his time, on account of slandering a wealthy businessman in a song, he had made the decision to invite the gentleman over to have dinner and hopefully reconcile. Bad blood was never a good thing to have with someone, especially not the rich, and even if the intent was not to suddenly become good friends, Wilbur still felt it was important to be civil with him. While the point of his song had been to humour the situation, he still recognised that it had offended the man to the point of wanting legal action to be made.

Unfortunately Wil had been the only one to feel this way.

He had placed down his own food first before going back to the kitchen to get the gentleman’s meal. In hindsight this had been a horrible decision, giving an easy way for him to spike his food with no witnesses at all. That had definitely been easier than planned, perhaps Wil was just too trusting. He had just assumed that now that he had been punished all resentment had faded into what was a potential reconciliation.

The poison hadn’t taken long to fall into place, half way through the dinner Wil would start coughing, only for that to turn into long, breathless gasp, until eventually he was left scraping at his neck trying to grasp for some air as if it were a privilege.

The man watched with humour as Wil suffered, tears streaming down his face as he focused every inch of his energy into his breathing, not fully able to comprehend what was happening until a knife was pressed against his neck, blade cold and sharp as a swift swipe let out all the pressure in his body and left him to fall to the floor.

------ ------

Tommy swung up in bed, arms flailing around the blankets, as if he was searching for physical evidence that Wilbur was okay. Heart pounding and sweat glazing his forehead, he spun his head around the room, as if he was scanning for either Wilbur or the scumbag who had killed him. Knowing Wil was a ghost hurt. Even though they could still communicate through a range of media, even though he could still physically hug him if he possessed someone, it wasn’t the same. He knew Wilbur had been hurt and that just didn’t feel right. He didn’t want to accept that the Ghost who they had lovingly welcomed into the family was hurt by someone, he loved him too much to really accept that as a reality.

It took a solid ten minutes before he calmed down from his frenzy, left just to breathe heavily, rested against the bed frame as if he had just run a marathon.

Despite the fact that he had never known Wilbur in life, since he had learned of his tragic demise, he hadn’t been able to get the horrible thoughts out of his mind, it was like a curse. Wilbur was like a big brother to him, even if he wasn’t exactly alive they could speak easily through spirit boxes and voice recorders and when he was too tired to try and manipulate radio waves, he would sometimes knock things off of counters and shelves to make his presence known.

Learning guitar from a ghost had been surprisingly easy, he had a video tutorial of some song playing and every now and then Wil would pause the video to talk through the spirit box, sometimes giving tips and other times just straight up teasing Tommy for being bad at playing the guitar.

Wiping his teary eyes, trying to remind himself that even though Wilbur was dead, even though he had gone through something bad, he was still there (Not even in those ‘he’s with us in spirit’ facebook post kind of ways, Wilbur had been haunting them, he was quite literally still around) he reached for the spirit box, switching it on and leaning back in his bed as relief washed over him.

There was something about knowing that Wil could freely talk through that, that comforted him. It reminded him that Wil was okay, he had been poisoned, he had been stabbed, but he was okay.

“Wilbur?” he muttered, rubbing his eyes, waiting for the ghost to make his presence known.

Every now and then Wil would go off to mess with Minx or the lunch club, during the night, paired with Schlatt of course, Tommy hoped to God that tonight wasn’t one of those nights.

“Nightmare?” The box spoke back at him, he nodded.

It was hard to talk to the spirit box sometimes, Wil could only talk in a couple words with that, that’s why they had started the family tradition of Wilbur possessing one of them each Friday so they could have some actual time with him instead of mainly one sided conversations.

Today wasn’t a Friday but Tommy wished it was.

“Techno.. Techno won't mind if you use his body.. You can still take control when he’s sleeping right? I just need to hear you talk for real..”

By now, Tommy was sitting upright in his bed, knees pulled up into his chest. They’d been through this exact situation so many time’s that Tommy had even set up a mirror near his bed since sometimes Wilbur showed up in them, He wasn’t showing up today though.

“Yeah. Wait.”

As always, the spirit box was choppy and left room for interpretation as Tommy nodded and tried to think about anything other than the frightening thoughts of death in his head. Tomorrow was a Week-day, that’s why he’d chosen Techno, he would no doubt be pissed that he had missed a chunk of sleep but being sleepy at school had far fewer consequences than being sleepy at work, which would happen if Tommy asked Wil to possess Phil.

After a while of Tommy staring at his ceiling, ‘Techno’ peeked his head into the door and walked over to Tommy’s bed, sitting down next to him.

“It’s Wilbur, you know that right?” Wil smiled, Techno’s glasses -which Wil still needed to wear while possessing him- glinting against the moonlight.

Nodding, Tommy leant his head onto Wilbur’s shoulder, hands wrapping around him and squeezing with as much force as he could muster.

“I shouldn’t miss you this much. I didn’t even know you. Wil, it must have hurt so much”

Wilbur just nodded and stroked his hair as he whispered reassurances and kind words, there was no certain way to fix this, the fact of the matter that Wilbur had died and he probably shouldn’t have let a 16 year old know the fully gruesome details of his death but that being said it was all readily available online and sure enough he would have eventually found out anyway. Wilbur much preferred being the one to tell him himself rather than him reading a blog post made by a teenager that was probably way too into true crime to accurately report what happened.

He supposed what attracted those kinds of people was that he had led a fairly eccentric life, only to be killed and the killer to never be caught.

Wil had always thought his killer to be obvious but the justice system had not been very good in those days, in many ways it still wasn’t very good.

“It did hurt Tommy. I was so scared that was going to be the end of everything but y’know what? If I hadn’t died like that, I might not have ever met you or Phil or Techno. If I had died up in some other city, since I did like to travel a lot, I might have never thought to mess with you guys. If that hadn’t happened I wouldn’t have the family I have now”

“But you hur-”

“That was hundreds of years ago Toms, I hardly remember it”

Liar. He thought about it every time he saw people using cleaning chemicals or cooking with knives.

“Tommy you’re a good kid. You’re empathetic, that’s really good, but you can only die once and that’s never going to happen to me again, okay?”

Tommy nodded into his chest

“Do you wanna watch that movie you like? I know I can’t really fix how you feel about what happened but sometimes a distraction helps” “Up’s good. Let’s watch Up”

Ironically, Tommy had fallen asleep right after the wife died but Wil hoped that would give him some closure since it was a very nice film. Not wanting to wake the boy, after him already having such a rough night, he didn’t bother taking Techno back to his own room, leaving his body to sleep next to Tommy as he watched the rest of the movie alone.

-----

“Why the fuck am I in your bed?”

“...I had a nightmare?”

#wilbur soot #ghostbur #fanfic #tommyinnit #hurt/ comfort #nightmares

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she-who-fights-and-writes · 5 years ago

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She-who-fights-and-writes Coronacation Book Rec List

I know that a lot of people are stuck at home right now in dire need of entertainment, so I decided I’d put out a book recommendations list of all the books I’m currently reading and all of my must-reads!

(Just a note that a lot of these are Fantasy because I’m a fantasy nerd haha)

Books/Series I am currently reading

1. The Folk of the Air Trilogy by Holly Black (Currently on #2, The Wicked King)

Genre: High Fantasy

Setting: The land of Faerie which is kind of historical, but in the human world it is modern day

Main cast :

Jude Duarte (white, human, cutthroat, if I saw her in a Denny’s Parking Lot at 3am I would RUN)

Cardan Greenbriar (white, faerie, the true embodiment of Bastard)

Vivienne (Jude’s half-sister, lesbian with canon gf, half-human half-faerie, I would totally try to be her friend)

Taryn Duarte (Jude’s twin sister, queen doormat, still, I would take a bullet for her she’s jUST TRYING TO FIT IN)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

These books have been on my “To Read” list for so long now and for some reason I just never got around to reading them! Hands-down, these are some of the best high fantasy books that I’ve read in a long, long while.

I finished the first book, The Cruel Prince, in just two days and rated it 5/5 stars! Even though these books are high fantasy and focus on the traditions and ways of life of faeries, somehow all of the characters seem like I could meet them in real life!

The main character actually has genuine flaws and not just “””“flaws”””” and is a Bad Bitch down with murder, and the plot had me on the edge of my seat from page one!

The summary makes it sound like it’s going to be about their romance, but it’s really mostly about a power struggle and Jude being a badass.

Goodreads summary for The Cruel Prince:

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

2. The Raven Cycle Series by Maggie Stiefvater (Currently on #1, The Raven Boys)

Genre: Present-Day/Realistic Fantasy (?)

Setting: The fictional town of Henrietta, Virginia

I haven’t gotten around to much of the book, so there’s not much I can tell you about the characters and I can’t properly give it a rating yet.

These books were also on my “To Read” list for a while; I was a huge fan of her book The Scorpio Races and have also been looking for something to quench my thirst for “private school/ghosts/magic” that I’ve been dealing with ever since I read The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.

I’ve only JUST started The Raven Cycle yesterday, but so far I am hooked! I’m super worried because I’m TERRIBLE at juggling two series at a time but both of these are just so interesting!

Goodreads Summary for The Raven Boys:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.” It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little. For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

MY MUST-READ BOOK LIST

1. The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Genre: Historical Fiction

Setting: 1700s Europe (England, Paris, Barcelona, Marseilles, Venice)

Main cast (I’ll try my best not to spoil anything because you find out a LOT of different stuff about these characters throughout the book):

Henry “Monty” Montague (white, bi/pansexual, attitude problem)

Percy Newton (mixed race, gay, very sweet boy, definitely got “most likely to bring home to mom” in the yearbook)

Felicity Montague (white, Monty’s little sister, headcanoned as asexual, I love her to death)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Daring adventure, gay representation, historical setting, hilarious characters!

This book literally has it all! I would consider it one of my favorite books of all time, yet for some reason I’ve never gotten around to reading any of the sequel books! The ending is very satisfying and ties everything together, which I feel is part of the reason why I haven’t gotten around to them yet.

Therefore, it can serve as a one-shot read or a full series if you want to dive into something good!

The humor made me laugh out loud at points and all of the characters are very real and very, very relatable, not to mention the vivid settings of 1700s Europe!

Goodreads summary:

Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men. But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy. Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

2. The Ninth House By Leigh Bardugo

Genre: Horror, Fantasy

Setting: Yale University and the town of New Haven, Present Day

Main cast:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern (Hispanic, sees dead people, very scary)

Daniel Arlington “Darlington” (white, rich, an angel who can sometimes be a dick)

Pamela Dawes (tbh I honestly don’t remember what she looks like, only that she’s a tired grad student with big nerd energy)

Detective Alan Turner (Black, takes shit from nobody, husband material)

Rating: 4/5 Stars

(NOTE: THIS IS VERY DARK ADULT FICTION AND CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT MAY BE TRIGGERING FOR SOME PEOPLE, WOULD NOT RECOMMEND FOR PEOPLE UNDER 16)

This book is a great read for someone who’s looking for a disturbing, gritty book with layers upon layers of secrets that you have to peel away as the mystery unfolds. I love the secret societies and the intricate magic systems that the book introduces, and it actually made me hungry for more books like it!

Alex is a three-dimensional, very real character who also serves as an unreliable narrator who witholds or warps the information that she’s telling you, making the narrative all the more riveting.

The only issues that I have with it are the fact that Leigh Bardugo kind of just dumps you in the middle of it without explaining stuff first, to the point where it kind of feels like you’re reading the second installment of a series rather than the first one, so things can get a bit confusing at first.

The book also can drag and draw things out for a bit too long, but once the plot fully kicks into gear, you will not be able to put it down!

Goodreads summary:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

3. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Setting: Earth, Space, The Moon

Main cast :

Linh Cinder (Chinese, based on Cinderella, cyborg, certified badass)

Scarlet Benoit (French, based on Little Red Riding Hood, farmer who is not afraid to shoot you)

Cress Darnel (White, based on Rapunzel, nerd, I will protect her with my life if I have to)

Kaito “Kai” (Chinese, based on Prince Charming, kind of has to run a whole country, a very kind soul, deserves a nap)

Carswell Thorne (White, based off of Rapunzel’s Prince, bastard)

Winter Hayle (Black, based off of Snow White, royalty, has super special powers)

Wolf (Race unspecified, based off of the Big Bad Wolf, charming killing machine, furry????)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Do you like fairy tales?

Have you ever wanted to know what fairy tales would be like if they took place in the FUTURE instead of the PAST?

Do you like an amazing, hilarious cast paired with a super interesting plot?

These are the books for you!

I haven’t read them in so long, but I remember how much joy I felt while devouring these pages. Definitely something you will not able to put down!

Goodreads Summary for Book #1: Cinder:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . . Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

4. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Genre: Fantasy

Setting: Ancient Greece

Main cast:

Patroclus (Greek, Gay, quiet pining)

Achilles (Greek, gay, very strong, student athlete energy)

Brisies (Anatolian, clever, literally the only one in this story who has a brain cell)

Rating: 100000/5 stars

This is basically the Iliad but if historians hadn’t completely erased Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship. “Haha yeah these guys were totally bros” they say, even though I have read the Iliad and their relationship isn’t even subtle.

This book made me cry at least ten times. It’s just so beautifully written and has such a distinct vibe to it that whenever I crack it open for another time, it takes me straight back to the vacation that I read it on. (Needless to say, sobbing your eyes out can be less than helpful when you’re on the beach)

If you can only read one book on this list, it should be this one. I could talk all day about it and write novels on just how much of an incredible writer Madeline Miller is, but I feel like you’d get my drift a bit better if you actually read the book.

Goodreads Summary:

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear. Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.

Hope this list helps you through your coronacation, and please don’t be afraid to reblog or message me to tell me if you’ve read/will read any of these!

#books #book recs #book rec #book reccomendation #book reccomendations #coronacation #corona #coronavirus #covid-19 #book rec list

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dillydedalus · 4 years ago

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september reading

there is literally no way it is september. impossible. anyway this month we have horror, Fake Dating, the rashomon effect, a time war, and most importantly, no neutrals to be found anywhere

the old man & his sons, heðin brú (tr. from faroese by john f. west) published on the faroe islands in 1940 and the first faroese novel to be translated into english, this is a story about the dramatic shift in life style during the 30s on the faroe islands, from hardscrabble subsistence farming/fishing to market economy. interesting look at changing life on isolated isles, and a much lighter (and shorter) take on the stubborn autonomous subsistence farmer than laxness’s independent people. 3/5

the white shroud, antanas škėma (tr from lithuanian by karla gruodis - english/claudia sinnig - german) a modernist, fragmented, nonlinear novel about a lithuanian poet gone into exile, now working as an elevator operator in a new york hotel, who is involved with a married woman but might also be terminally ill. in between the present timeline, the book flashes back (both in the character’s own writing and in third person) to his youth in lithuania, his torture at the hands of the soviet regime, his time at a DP camp in germany and so on. quite interesting, with some great writing. 3/5

things we lost in the fire, mariana enríquez (tr. from spanish by megan mcdowell) really good collection of horror-ish short stories that also touch on gendered violence, child abuse, poverty and argentinian history (esp. dictatorship and disappearances) - some stories are more overtly horror, with clear supernatural elements, others are more ambiguous. i don’t read (or watch) horror stuff so i’m a bad judge of how scary this is - i found it more gruesome and upsetting than terrifying, but the dread is strong in this one. favourites: adela’s house (hungry haunted house), end of term and the title story (women & self-inflictred violence), under the black water (the poisoned oil-choked river is very bad but maybe.... there’s something worse in there). good, vividly gruesome, sharp sharp sharp. 3.5/5

axiom’s end, lindsay ellis i really like lindsay ellis, of all the ~youtube video essayists~ she’s probably my favourite and this book a) has a cool premise - aliens + conspiracies + alien communication and b) a really cool cover, and it’s lindsay, so i was super excited for this one. and it would be unfair to say i was disappointed with it; it’s a fun first contact romp with really good pacing, cool aliens, on-brand lindsay ellis humour and some interesting ideas on communicating with someone who is truly alien and incomprehensible. it’s fine! i enjoyed it and will definitely read the sequel, it’s just... i was hoping it would be AMAZING, and it just wasn’t. no huge problems (except for a few lines i would have liked to take a red pen to), just.... it was fine. 3.5/5

zeno’s conscience, italo svevo (tr. from italian by william weaver) imagine you’re a businessman in trieste who does a little unsuccessful writing on the side and one day you decide to take english lessons to improve your business opportunities with the uk and your english teacher is JAMES FUCKING JOYCE who tells you that you need to keep writing. incredible. anyway these are the autobiographical notes of one zeno cosini, a hapless hypochondriac smug self-delusional fool, who just cannot quite quit smoking, marries the one sister out of three he least desires, & works as an accountant (for the man who married his most-desired of said sisters) despite his rather tenuous grasp on bookkeeping. my favourite scene is when his future sister in law (2nd most desired) complains lightly about her difficulties with latin, he tells her that he believes latin is a man’s language and even roman ladies probably didn’t actually speak it, only for her to correct him on a latin quotation. i will say tho that this book is way to long to maintain the endearingness and often drags. 3/5 tfw u write for an audience of one but that one is james joyce so fair enough

der hund/der tunnel/die panne, friedrich dürrenmatt dürrenmatt (in addition to having a cool-ass name) really fucking slaps! his stuff is really good, and often really really wild. these three stories are all weird & slightly existentially scary, two degrees left of reality, and just. so interesting! we have a man stalking a street preacher and his monstrous dog, a train going through a tunnel for way too long (and it is very scary), and a man becoming involved in a pretend-trial (or is it) and becoming convinced that he actually is a murderer (or is he, really?). anyway, dürrenmatt.... slaps. 4/5

wow, no thank you., samantha irby a mix of memoir and comedy blogpost and social critique blogpost about growing up poor & black, dating while fat, chronic illness, and settling down in rural america. it’s fine. i haven’t read irby’s previous collections so maybe i’m missing that emotional connection, but i thought it was mostly...okay?? not especially funny imo & i prefered the more serious chapters of which there weren’t enough. 2/5

they say in harlan county: an oral history, alessandro portelli really impressive oral history about life in harlan county, appalachia, focusing on the labor strikes and conflicts in the 30s and 40s, but really exploring life and politics in the region from the first non-native settlement there to today. really interesting, sometimes inspiring and often infuriating and probably worth reading if you’ve ever listened to which side are you on. 4/5

rashomon & other stories, ryunosuke akutagawa (tr. from japanese by jay rubin) fun fact: if you read the short story “rashomon” expecting to get the, y’know, rashomon effect, you won’t get it bc the film actually takes its plot from the story “in a grove”. anyway this is an interesting collection of classic japanese short stories, many of which are actually about unreliable witnesses/narrators. i particularly enjoyed “in a grove” and the truly disturbing “hell screen”, but found this particular collection just a bit too long. 3/5

women without men, shahrnush parsipur (tr. from farsi by kamran talatoff & joceyln sharlet) a magical realist feminist novella about 5 women in iran who all try to liberate themselves from men in one way or another, more or less successfully (one of them turns into a tree, another becomes undead), until they end up in a semi-utopian garden together for a time. disturbing in its depiction oppression and sexual/gendered violence. i don’t really know how i feel about it, but it’s a really unique and interesting reading experience; very fraught and ambivalent in the end. 3.5/5

take a hint, dani brown, talia hibbert i think this is the first actual pure genre-romance book i’ve read... in years??possibly ever? idk. anyway this is mostly a pretty fun & sweet story about ambitious & emotionally constipated phd student dani brown and security guy with tragic past zaf ansari, who begin a fake relationship for Various Reasons (as you do) and both develop Real Feelings (as you do, predictably). it’s mostly really enjoyable but man i’m really not used to Romance writing & it’s a lot. in the end everyone is very genuine & earnest & emotionally honest which.... not to be even more emotionally repressed than dani but i cannot deal with that. anyway given that 2020 truly is the gift that keeps on giving this was a fun fluffy delight & i might read more from the series. 3.5/5

this is how you lose the time war, amal el-mohtar & max gladstone two agents (red and blue) on opposing sides of a time war (the futuristic techy Agency vs the eco/organic Garden - neither of them is Good or Bad exactly) start writing letters as they hunt each other through the strands of time’s braid and eventually (inevitably) fall in love. really interesting concept of time travel and different timelines (if, like me, you conceptualise past as down and future as up, this will trip you up so much), very lyrical writing that sometimes toes the line to overwritten but mostly really works. 3.5/5

DNF: the madman of freedom square & the iraqi christ, hassan blasim (tr. from arabic by jonathan wright, german tr. by hartmut fähndrich) bindup of these two short story collections about iraq. these are incredibly brutal, depressing & horrifying stories about a country in a constant state of war & struggle. couldn’t bear it, probably not ever & certainly not right now.

allegro pastell, leif randt (audio) this is brilliant, bitingly funny novel about a millenial couple, tanja & jerome, and their on-and-off long distance relationship. they are privileged (and half-aware of it), attractive, successful, very in touch with their own feelings (couldn’t be me), self-reflective, faintly ironic in everything bc sincerity might be cringe, and you will hate them. these are people who perform their feelings rather than feel them, dissect all their opinions and impulses to the point of both paralysis and narcissism, engage in constant navelgazing and cannot form any relationship that isn’t based in constant evaluation and judgment. they pride themselves on their nonconformity but are really the greatest conformists of all, and the most square, boring, spießig people under the veneer of their urban liberal drug-and-club lifestyle. had so much fun with it even as i was constantly cringing at these people. 4/5

#the books i read #long post

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homenum-revelio-hq · 5 years ago

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Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, Gina!

You have been accepted for the role of SEVERUS SNAPE with the faceclaim change of Aneurin Barnard! We really enjoyed Severus’ ambiguous motivations that might come back to bite him in the butt later on! Your personality section was on point and we’re looking forward to having the resent grump come back to the Order. We are so excited to have you as part of this roleplay!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Gina

AGE: 25

TIMEZONE: MST-Arizona

ACTIVITY LEVEL: First and foremost, I’m a promotions producer at a local news station, so I’m on call if breaking news happens. Thankfully, for my job, doesn’t happen too often. Also, my boss is currently on maternity leave, but will be back mid-March. In the meantime, I’ve been given a lot of extra tasks that sometimes make me work 60 hour weeks. Luckily, The Academy Awards was one of our biggest nights with deadlines, news, etc., so things have somewhat calmed down. Thank goodness! Weekends are usually when I’m on the most. I’ll try to get on during the week – especially on my early days. All that being said, I’ll definitely will be able to post at least once a week! As long as writing is still fun, and doesn’t feel like a chore, I’ll be on the dash frequently (and I’m very good about keeping admins informed if there’s ever going to be an issue with activity check)!

ANYTHING ELSE: trigger: non-con.

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Severus Snape

AGE: 21

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cis-Male, He/Him, Heterosexual.

BLOOD STATUS: Halfblood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Slytherin

ANY CHANGES: Request FC change: Aneurin Barnard. I can see Adam Driver work as well. Either way, I am comfortable - just happen to have more resources of Aneurin.

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Generally, Severus is seen rather than heard.

The mind of Severus Snape is complex – to be sure. Filled with calculations, fragile threads of truths and lies he’s told and webbing them all together, and innovations for many different forms of magic. To keep all of these thoughts collected, Severus keeps a journal that he has heavily bound to keep secret. There, he states the deepest parts of his soul, creates new potions, spells, and whatever else he deems worthy. It is protected by a blood spell that only he knows the enchantment to. Like him, everything is kept very private and close to his chest.

While Severus has plenty of thoughts coursing through his brilliant mind, he does not initiate conversation. In fact, he says much more with his eyes. Even if they can be cold. However, this does not mean Severus will keep silent – nor is it out of shyness. When Snape graces others with his opinions or ideas, they should not be taken lightly. Every single word uttered has meaning.

Being around Death Eaters and the Dark Lord, he’s kept a keen eye – finding everyone’s tells and when it is best for him to speak his true sentiments. As well as this, if he feels provoked or given an opportunity to speak freely, he will not cower. Often, his retorts have a bite to them, thick with sarcasm or bitterness; or both.

Severus Snape is profound in potions – and dare we say even more skilled in the Dark Arts. Books were a comfort for him growing up, finding company with leather-bound pages and becoming well-versed in their contents. A strength he chooses not to boast about is his ability to create new spells, new magic, even. Most of these, however, were being saved to get a slight revenge over his old school enemies. And therein lies the rub. Snape’s insecurities are tightly bound to Hogwarts and being bullied – not to mention his inability to reveal his true feelings toward the one girl who showed him kindness all those years.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

A broken family. That was the home of Tobias Snape and Eileen Prince.

A Muggle father and a Pureblood mother. Such parents didn’t give Severus an opinion on blood purity – but rather if an individual could prove themselves. While his parents may have had married for love at some point, something shifted their feelings.

For Snape’s father, nothing seemed to please him. Except for, perhaps, a bottle of gin. This instilled a primal instinct for Severus to do better; be better. Strive for power.

As for Snape’s mother, she grew sickly and thin. Her grief taught him empathy. It also made him value any comfort; starving for any sort of love and affection. This was, most likely, the cause for Severus’ immediate interest in Lily Evans – and the roots of his near-obsession with her.

Both of his parents were unhappy, and let it affect both their home and their son. Living near-destitution, the Snape house was filled with hateful words, arguments, loud shattering of priceless heirlooms or objects, and other things that still haunt Severus to this day. When thinking back on his past, Severus prefers the memories of when they both neglected him altogether, rather than any other aspects of his upbringing.

OCCUPATION:

Potions Apprentice to Professor Slughorn.

Invaluable to the Dark Lord, the talents of Severus Snape brought him closer to his inner circle. For Voldemort, it also meant he could manipulate the young man’s talents to foil any plots that the Order may have against him. Knowing his passion for potions, Voldemort encouraged Snape to take on an apprenticeship with Professor Slughorn – while also peeking behind the curtain at Hogwarts and keeping an eye on the Headmaster.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER:

**I read the following note: “Severus will not be in the plotline until a player is accepted in his role. Him turning on the Death Eaters and coming to the Order as a spy will be considered a “roulette” plot drop whenever he becomes a taken character. Until that happens, players should write as though he is not yet in the Order.” AND he plot drops, *so I’m writing him as if he’s newly joined the Order at first as a DE spy, but now as a means to win Lily’s friendship back. 😊

Walking a thin line between hero and villain had never once crossed Severus’ mind. Yet, here he was. An Order member. At first, in a plot for the Dark Lord, carrying out the order to spy on the organization; find out how it could crumble. The young wizard had already grown steadily in their ranks, garnered enough trust, and was even listening to Voldemort’s other requests like his employment. All for the sake of war. It was a task daunting enough for anyone; however, Severus knew pretending to be an Order member would bring him closer to Lily. That, and potentially erase any suspicions Frank Longbottom might have if he thought he saw the Slytherin’s face during the arrest. At first, it was all an act.

Now, within the Order, Severus is a black sheep. Many of his childhood bullies are within their ranks, and many who distrust him. Although, with Severus’ lust for power, proving himself is nothing new to him. In fact, he thrives on it. No more fighting behind a mask…watching those he cares for nearly meet their end. An easy task to spy, being a great reader of both people and their minds. However, an overwhelmingly difficult task to want to continue fighting for something he didn’t believe in. Not that he believes in the Order either, but his lust for power has now been overcome with a desperate need to win an old friendship back. Perhaps to take Lily Evans far away from any wars as well, forgetting the two sides; no more choosing between what is right, and what is easy. Severus faces this new challenge, while fighting off those he once stood beside. For now, he’ll leave it to fate – if he’s able to win Lily’s friendship back. Maybe even try and win her heart as well.

SURVIVAL:

Severus Snape survives purely relying on his skills – and providing them to whichever side he feels is winning. It was part of the reason why he joined the Death Easters in the first place. Unfortunately for the Order, Snape believes the Dark Lord will win; that they will fall – and not rise from the ashes, as their namesake. A lust for power has blinded him most of all. But with it, he’s earned the trust of Voldemort, become invaluable. A faithful servant. Once the war s over, Severus believes he will be rewarded for his acts. At least, as long as he continues to do his bidding…

While with the Order, Severus has taken up housing in Hogwarts during the school year under his apprenticeship with Slughorn. During the summers, he’s found a small flat down near Hogsmeade to keep close enough. Beforehand, he often stayed with Lucius Malfoy in their incredibly large manor. It made it easy to stay near his comrades and to carry out any dark deeds.

Until there seems to be a clear winner, Severus will carry out his work as a spy. Even if it means slightly changing sides to do it as time goes on. The skills he carries with Occlumency are not to be trifled with. It seems he’s one of the few to have mastered such magic, making him the perfect soldier for espionage.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Severus’ relationship with Lily Evans was broken long ago. However, he will try and make peace with her, at the very least. If they rekindle their friendship, Severus would likely switch sides; happily die for her and prove himself. If it blossomed even more (something he fears even daydreaming about will jinx it), Severus would give up everything with the Dark Lord and his following. Everything with the Order. All to be with her – away from the rotting parts of the Wizarding World.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS:

Ships: Snape/Lily & Snape/Chemistry.

Anti-Ships: None

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

Having gone through a very traumatic animalistic incident in his years at Hogwarts, Severus has a large bias against werewolves. The whole experience left a nasty memory for him, left in complete shock and disagreement with Dumbledore. And having Fenrir Greyback at the Dark Lord’s disposal certainly didn’t make matters any better.

There is one thing that will never chance for Severus Snape, and that is his hatred and bitterness towards certain Gryffindor boys he now has to work with in the Order. The thought alone makes his blood boil and skin crawl. Yet, he will do what he must for his cause…and maybe even throw in a snide remark or two every so often.

Muggleborns are something of a mystery to Snape now. When he first met Lily, he thought she was different from any other one – slumping the rest together with the likes of his father. Although seeing how fierce Dorcas has become – and so well integrated with the Wizarding World – Severus has gained a new understanding. Of course, he’s still untrusting, at first, and even a little cold; but, that doesn’t mean his mind cannot be changed.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

Jess and I were talking because I’ve been itching to write again. She linked me to the RP, and there was a spark to my muse once more! Had to apply because I love the Wizarding World and exploring it. This is an interesting take on the Marauders era, in that it’s concentrating on one organization and its inner workings. I’m excited to explore that!

PLOT DROP IDEAS:

There was a head cannon I had once read where Irma Prince is actually Severus’ mother in disguise. That might be something to play around with! Perhaps to prove his loyalties to the Dark Lord, he must eliminate his parents. Instead of this, Severus uses his connections to hide her as the librarian at Hogwarts and keep her safe.

ANYTHING ELSE? Super excited to be applying! 😊

#homenumaccepted #harry potter rpg #harry potter rp #marauder rp #Marauders RP

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landofwordsandnonsense · 5 years ago

Text

And Love Said No

Fandom: Critical Role Rating: Teen and Up Category: Gen Characters: Caleb Widogast, Trent Ikithon, Nott the Brave, Fjord, Caduceus Clay, Beau, Jester Additional Tags: Team as Family, Fuck Trent Ikithon, Temporary Character Death, Canon Typical Violence, everyone loves Caleb and they’re going to make him realize it, this confrontation is inevitable and I have Strong Feelings on how I want it to go, Counterspell is sexy, playing fast and loose with D&D mechanics

Fanfic Masterpost

It couldn't have been avoided forever, even he had to admit that, and it was, perhaps, no more than he deserved. And he was stronger than he'd ever been.

He needed to be, because now he was alone and face to face with the worst person in the world.

In retrospect, they probably should have known better than to plan.

It had been meant to be a quick in-and-out smash and grab at an isolated Cerberus Assembly tower not far from the Xhorhassian border. Mostly for anything Beau could send back to the Cobalt Reserve plus enough of whatever else they could carry to disguise what they’d been after. They'd planned to get in, avoid as many people as they could and incapacitate any they couldn't, then get out before anyone could do anything about it. They were stronger now, but the idea of fighting an entire tower full of Cerberus researchers and warmages wasn't an appealing one.

But of course, their plans had a history of going... awry. Occasionally, something would go approximately the way they wanted it to, but usually, that was absolutely not the case.

This plan had been irrevocably fucked since its inception because they hadn't known who was in residence. Caleb wasn't sure if they would have aborted the plan entirely and stayed away if they'd known, or if they'd have gone in intending to murder everything between them and-

They'd gotten separated, splitting off to cover as much ground as they could as quickly as possible. Nott had been with him, naturally, but while she worked on a stubborn lock he'd felt a familiar thread of magic. He hadn't entirely meant to, but he'd followed it.

It couldn't have been avoided forever, even he had to admit that, and it was, perhaps, no more than he deserved. And he was stronger than he'd ever been.

He needed to be, because now he was alone and face to face with the worst person in the world.

He was trembling from a tangle of emotions too complicated to put a name to, but certainly fear and anger made up the larger portion of it. Caleb wanted to run, but it would have done him little good. So he held his ground, not trusting himself to speak, and glared across the chamber at Trent Ikithon.

"Bren, my boy," Ikithon said in that commanding voice that had once seemed so enticing, a beacon of truth and trust, that promised power if only he'd do as he was told without question. It made Caleb's skin crawl. "I'm so pleased to see you've returned to us, healthy and whole of mind again." He'd always been good at saying the right thing, but now Caleb could hear the poison under it, the deep, sardonic evil in every word.

"That is, that is not my name anymore," Caleb snarled. His hands were clenched tight in an unsuccessful attempt to minimize the shaking. "And I, I did not... I did not return to you." It was a statement he never could have imagined uttering, not to Trent Ikithon, and if he'd had time to think about it the words would have caught in his throat. But he'd spoken without thought, and now that he'd said it he wouldn't take it back. Even if having said that to the man who had once been the center of his universe made his heart try to beat out of his chest.

Ikithon's pleasant smile vanished. "You always were too stubborn for your own good. I see I shall have to re-educate you." His hands started moving in arcane gestures. "You belong to me, Bren. I made you. I own you."

Once, that had been true. There was no denying that Bren had belonged to Trent Ikithon, mind, body and soul. But- and Caleb hadn't realized it until just now- Bren was dead. Bren had been dead for a long time. "No," he said, surprising even himself as he held up his own hands and his Counterspell unravelled the enchantment the archmage was weaving. "My name. Is Caleb. Widogast." And Caleb belonged only to the Mighty Nein. His hand started to crackle and blacken, bursting into flames.

Ikithon sneered. "You wouldn't dare attack me. I, who taught you so much, who did my best to make a weak boy strong. I, who was like a father to you. Stop making a fool of yourself and cease this meaningless posturing this instant."

For a moment, Caleb thought he was right. Even now, even after everything, there was a part of him that doubted. A part of him that thought Trent had always been right and he was simply too weak to bear it. But the fire in his hand didn't go out, and he took a step forward. "No. You will, you will never, you will never use me again. Or anyone else."

And Trent Ikithon, the man who had haunted Caleb's waking nightmare for years, the person Caleb feared most in the world, took a step back. Caleb lifted his hand, and for a timeless moment, Caleb had the unthinkable privilege of seeing something in Ikithon's eyes he'd never thought to see.

Fear.

Then the moment shattered as the pain hit. It wasn't a spell, not really, at least, it was nothing that could be counterspelled. Caleb inhaled sharply, fighting the urge to double over in agony. A countermeasure, he realized dimly. Or a contingency. He'd been unaware of it until just now. But he'd been trained to fight through the pain, to ignore mere physical discomfort if it meant accomplishing his mission. He kept his hand up, despite the way he was shaking, and reached for the fire.

Another spasm wracked him and he couldn't help dropping to one knee. His breathing was harsh and he couldn't get enough air in, and the world kept swimming in and out of focus. But even now he wouldn't back down. He tried again. The third spasm was worse than ever, and he could taste blood bubbling up in his mouth.

"You stupid boy," Ikithon hissed. "What good is a weapon that can be turned against the man who made it?" He'd recovered his self-possession once it was clear that Caleb couldn't attack him. "Did you really think I'd ever give you the capability of harming me? All you are is a defective tool that needs must be destroyed. What a waste."

Caleb fell to his knees, oddly serene through the haze of pain. He was going to die here, but he had one comfort. He wasn't Trent's, and he never would be again. Here in this moment, he wanted nothing more than to kill Trent. He wanted it more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life, up to and including a way to turn back the time. The will was there, and the fire in his hand flared brighter as he tried one last time. He wanted to do it. He genuinely wanted to kill this man.

He just.

Couldn't.

Physically.

Do it.

He choked on blood and slumped over backwards. In the end, he thought muzzily, he was his own. He had no idea what was waiting for him in the Raven Queen’s realm, doubtless nothing pleasant. But he was his own, he didn’t belong to Trent Ikithon and he couldn’t take him back.

Then Nott’s voice shrieked “NO!” Two bolts flew out of the darkness and hit Ikithon in the torso, making him stagger back.

Before he could regain his balance, three streaks of light sizzled through the air over Caleb's head. Ikithon was able to bring up a shield that caught two of them, but the third went through and Caleb could hear the strangled curse as the old man spent a few precious moments patting the flames out of his ornate robes. Fjord strode past Caleb and halted two steps in front of him, glove still smoking.

Caleb was so startled by the half-orc's sudden appearance that he was slow in noticing he hadn't fallen against the stone tiles of the floor, but was propped up against someone's chest, with an arm around him. "I've got you, Mister Caleb," Caduceus rumbled, and there was a warm surge of magic that smelled like leaf mould and tea. His vision cleared a bit and it was easier to breathe, but there was no hope of him getting to his feet just yet. Behind him, he could hear movement, but there was too much Caduceus in the way to see.

"Fjord?" Beau's voice was rough and there was a restrained fury in it that Caleb was astonished by.

"I've got them," he said quietly, never taking his eyes off of Ikithon. "Fuck him up."

With no more warning than that, there was a blur of blue off to one side, followed almost immediately by a second, and the bright pink of Jester's floating lollipop. And maybe once he'd have tried to convince the rest of them to stay out of harm's way and let him deal with Ikithon. It was his problem, after all, and if it was a fight he couldn't win, well, he had it coming.

But he knew better now. Easier to convince the sun to rise in the west than to keep the Mighty Nein from protecting one of their own, and he was, for better or for worse, one of the Mighty Nein.

Everything became a little frenetic at that point, and Caleb could barely keep track of what was going on. Caduceus wouldn't let him up, worried that the wizard would aggravate the internal injuries he'd managed to give himself... and it wouldn't have made much difference anyway. Caleb couldn't attack Ikithon, that had been made abundantly clear... but he'd been watching Ikithon's hands, which started to twist together in arcane gestures as the girls bolted towards him. "Nein," Caleb whispered, and the Counterspell dissipated the magic before it had a chance to be anything. Beau and Jester were laying into the archmage, Beau's hands glowing with the Wildmother's light as he jerked out of the way just in time to narrowly avoid a shattered jaw. Periodically, crossbow bolts would rain down as well, but between Nott's natural stealthy nature and what was almost certainly the Traveller's blessing, even Caleb couldn't spot her.

They had, Caleb realized with dull wonder, managed to force Ikithon to go on the defensive. Between the unpredictable crossbow bolts, Beau's relentless attacks, and Jester's floating lollipop and the dull bong of Toll the Dead, he could barely get the time to cast. And when he did, Caleb was waiting.

His head was enough in the game that he recognized the somatic components of the spells as Ikithon started to cast.

Charm Person. "Nein..." Counterspell.

Sleep. "Nein." Counterspell.

Feeblemind. "Nein."

He didn't recognize that one, it was one he hadn't learned but it looked indescribably nasty. "NEIN."

Ikithon whirled, throwing up a Shield at the last moment to block a devastating blow from Jester's spiritual weapon. His urbane, controlled mask had fallen, and he was nearly unrecognizable with his face twisted in rage and fury. "You dare!" he screamed. "You who were born nothing and will die nothing! I made you, and you are mine to destroy!" He pulled his hand back, and flung a fistful of crackling death directly at Caleb.

Fjord had been keeping out of the fight, standing protectively in front of Caleb and Caduceus, but he moved then. He threw his arm out, and his shield glinted with an otherworldly light as it caught the spell and sent it careening away to impact harmlessly on the wall. Then he grabbed the spiral-carved seashell hanging innocently from a cord around his neck. "Stop," he said in a quiet, commanding tone that could not be argued with.

And Trent Ikithon's body locked up.

Jester darted forward with her hands filled with necrotic energy laced with green. She grabbed Ikithon and he bellowed in rage and pain. Then the Hold Person failed, and he jerked in her hands. Lightning crackled against her before Caleb could do anything about it. He made an incoherent sound of rage, and the only reason he didn't forget himself and try to set Ikithon alight then and there was Caduceus's gently restraining grip. By some miracle neither Jester nor Beau had taken a hit yet but that couldn't last and he knew that but like hell was Caleb going to let this monster ruin his family the way he ruined him...

"Just trust us, Mister Caleb," Caduceus said softly. "We've faced worse." Caleb made a breathless, hysterical noise at that. Hard to imagine anything worse-

There was a startled squeak as the lightning discharged, then Duplicity vanished with a soft pop.

If Beau had been furious before, she was enraged now, in a way that rivaled Yasha in the heat of battle. "Fuck you," she snarled. Of course, they all tended to get offended when anyone targeted Jester, so that wasn't surprising. What was surprising was what she said next. "You don't get to talk about my brother like that, you son of a fuck." Before he could sneer a response, her fist slammed into his spine hard enough he went down to one knee, and whatever spell he'd been trying to cast fizzled as his arms went limp.

"Do you- do you even know what you are protecting?" Ikithon snapped. "Do you know what he's done? Who he's ki-"

"Yeah. I do." Beau crossed her arms as two more crossbow bolts found their mark and Ikithon cried out. "I know exactly what you made him into and what you convinced him was the right thing to do about it. And it doesn't fucking matter."

"We've all done super shitty things," Jester said as she appeared out of the darkness. "And we've killed a lot of people. We love him and we don't care! You don't even care, you're just trying to make us hate him!" Green light flared in her hands and he fell to his other knee when it hit him and he screamed.

"You've lost," Beau said in a dangerously soft voice. "There's hell to pay and we've come to collect. We didn't know you'd be here today, but we were always going to come for your ass. And I really hope there's a special place in the Nine Hells all set up just for you."

The reality of the situation seemed to hit Ikithon all at once. He couldn't teleport away or even run; he'd used a lot of magic already and Caleb was waiting with at least three more Counterspells. He was barely alive at this stage, after the damage the girls had done. And it was plain to anyone with eyes or ears that they weren't going to let him walk away. For the first time, he was faced with his own mortality and realized that for all of his cunning and all of his planning, this ragtag bunch of barely functional assholes had beaten him. "There may be a place in the Nine Hells marked for me," he growled. "But I won't be going there alone." Then a Word rumbled through the air. It didn't matter that a crossbow bolt immediately sank into his eye or that Beau almost instantly snapped his neck, because the Word had already been spoken.

And Caleb choked before slumping lifelessly in Caduceus's arms.

----------------------------------------

Wind whipped around him, and nothing seemed to stabilize long enough for him to make out any details. Pink and blue and green flared, and he didn't know if he should be comforted or afraid. Then purple added to the mix and even though his surroundings were still a chaotic mess, the sound of the wind died away and gave him space to think.

'I like this person, right now, is a good person, a fine person.... That person is dead, and not- It's just a person who had this body. They abandoned it...'

A sensation he couldn't identify ghosted across his forehead. 'Time for that later.'

----------------------------------------

"-leb! Caleb!"

There was a small weight in his lap, and he blinked dazedly at the blurs of green and blue and pink that surrounded him before they resolved into the rest of the Nein clustered around him. He was still half in Caduceus's lap, with Jester kneeling on the other side and Fjord looking at him upside down from somewhere above his head. Nott was crouched on top of him, her claws caught in his coat and tears running down her face. Beau was a little distance away, taut as a wire and worrying at her thumbnail.

Caleb took a rattling breath and coughed. Then he shifted a little, and became aware of the dull shards of useless stone scattered across his chest and the floor around him. Nott's reaction was immediate. "Caleb!" She threw her arms around his neck and clung to him like she'd never let go again. It practically knocked what little air he had out of him, but that didn't stop him from slowly putting his own arms around her in a shaky hug.

Over her shoulder, Caduceus gave him a surprisingly relieved smile. "Welcome back, Mister Caleb."

Jester clutched at one of his hands tightly. Her eyes were red, and there were still tear tracks down her face. "Caleb! I'm so so sorry we didn't kill that dickhead sooner! We should have- we let him-"

He managed to squeeze her fingers slightly. "It is, it is all right, blueberry. I was..." He trailed off, then offered her a brittle half-smile. "I had long... come to terms with... the idea that... I would.... I would have to die... to... to be free of him."

Fjord's hand came down on his shoulder and squeezed comfortingly. "He can't hurt you again. We made sure of that. You or anyone else."

"...Ja. Ja. That is... that is gut. Th.... thank you..." He wouldn't ask. They'd done so much for him, more than he'd ever dreamed, it would be churlish to ask. He trusted them, after all, and if they said it was so, then-

Beau understood him better than most, though, and she saw something in his shadowed eyes that even Nott didn't. So after a few minutes, while everyone clung to him and reassured themselves he was alive, she stepped forward. "C'mere." She reached down to give him a hand up, gently shooing Nott off of him and taking his hand from Jester. They obligingly moved, and she hauled Caleb up like he weighed nothing at all. She pulled one arm around her neck and held onto it, and put her other arm around his waist. He probably could have kept his feet without the support, but for once in his life he wasn't going to protest the contact.

No one said anything as she kept hold of him, walking him over to the center of the room. Trent Ikithon's body was lying in an unceremonious, inert heap. It was impossible to tell what had killed him, the crossbow or Jester's magic, or the extremely comprehensive beating Beau had dished out. Maybe it didn't matter. But seeing it... that made it real. Caleb took a shuddering breath, then closed his eyes for a moment. "You okay, man?" Beau asked quietly.

"...No. But... but perhaps... I will be. In time. With... with help." He didn't look at her as he said it, but he didn't have to.

She squeezed the hand she'd pulled over her shoulder. "You've got it," she said. "We're here to catch you."

"I know." And funnily enough, he did. He was surprised to realize he actually believed her. "Beauregard?"

"Yeah?"

"...I would, I would be honored. To call you my sister."

Her dark skin flushed a little and she looked away. But he could tell she was pleased. "You ready to get out of here?"

Caleb looked down at his free hand for a moment. Beau didn't jump when the flames licked out of his palm to cover it, but she did raise an eyebrow. He stared at his hand for a heartbeat longer, then looked at the body on the floor. This time, there was no pain, nothing prevented him from casting Fire Bolt. And when the body burst into flames there was no reaction after all. Caleb sagged against Beau. A weight had lifted off of him, so heavy that its absence was a physical thing that left him disoriented. "It's over," he murmured. "It's finally over."

"Yeah. Come on, we stole a bunch of shit you should look at."

He gave her a breathless little laugh, and let her help him out of the room, with the others trailing behind. It was, he thought, a good way to start the rest of his life.

#fanfic #critical role #mighty nein #one shot

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no1else-but-me · 5 years ago

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Book Recs if you love Jaime and Brienne

This is a collection of all the book recs I could find from @briennesjaime tumblr books rec, the reddit, and my own. Please reblog your own if you have some.

1. The Queen of Attolia which is book#2 of the The Queen’s Thief series

This is definitely more for the enemies to lovers trope. The thief even loses a hand like Jaime but under much different circumstances. The Queen is like the colder version of Brienne.

Revenge When Eugenides, the Thief of Eddis, stole Hamiathes’s Gift, the Queen of Attolia lost more than a mythical relic. She lost face. Everyone knew that Eugenides had outwitted and escaped her. To restore her reputation and reassert her power, the Queen of Attolia will go to any length and accept any help that is offered…she will risk her country to execute the perfect revenge. …but Eugenides can steal anything. And he taunts the Queen of Attolia, moving through her strongholds seemingly at will. So Attolia waits, secure in the knowledge that the Thief will slip, that he will haunt her palace one too many times. …at what price? When Eugenides finds his small mountain country at war with Attolia, he must steal a man, he must steal a queen, he must steal peace. But his greatest triumph, and his greatest loss, comes in capturing something that the Queen of Attolia thought she had sacrificed long ago…

2. The Lumatere Chronicles

One of my favorite series of all time. It’s character driven and it’s has many surprises. Starts off with Finnikin has lost hope like Jaime but gains it slowly over time. Evanjalin her honor and her pursuit of her quest reminds me very much of Brienne.

Finnikin of the Rock and his guardian, Sir Topher, have not been home to their beloved Lumatere for ten years. Not since the dark days when the royal family was murdered and the kingdom put under a terrible curse. But then Finnikin is summoned to meet Evanjalin, a young woman with an incredible claim: the heir to the throne of Lumatere, Prince Balthazar, is alive. Evanjalin is determined to return home and she is the only one who can lead them to the heir. As they journey together, Finnikin is affected by her arrogance … and her hope. He begins to believe he will see his childhood friend, Prince Balthazar, again. And that their cursed people will be able to enter Lumatere and be reunited with those trapped inside. He even believes he will find his imprisoned father. But Evanjalin is not what she seems. And the truth will test not only Finnikin’s faith in her … but in himself.

3. Howl’s Moving Castle

This one might be a stretch but hear me out. Howl is pretty much the embodiment of Jaime but probably more vain. While, Sophie really conveys Brienne self-esteem issues but still noble in her own right. Plus, their banter very reminiscent to Jaime and Brienne.

Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl’s castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there’s far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.

@temporiibus recommends The Raven Cycle!!

The Winners Trilogy

As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions. One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined. Set in a richly imagined new world, The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski is a story of deadly games where everything is at stake, and the gamble is whether you will keep your head or lose your heart.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone recommended by @realduality

Errand requiring immediate attention. Come. The note was on vellum, pierced by the talons of the almost-crow that delivered it. Karou read the message. 'He never says please', she sighed, but she gathered up her things. When Brimstone called, she always came. In general, Karou has managed to keep her two lives in balance. On the one hand, she's a seventeen-year-old art student in Prague; on the other, errand-girl to a monstrous creature who is the closest thing she has to family. Raised half in our world, half in 'Elsewhere', she has never understood Brimstone's dark work - buying teeth from hunters and murderers - nor how she came into his keeping. She is a secret even to herself, plagued by the sensation that she isn't whole. Now the doors to Elsewhere are closing, and Karou must choose between the safety of her human life and the dangers of a war-ravaged world that may hold the answers she has always sought.

The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Hard SF, and the romance is definitely not a major plot, but one of the characters involved in the trope is legit my favorite fictional character of all time and that journey from enemy to friend to lover is a big part of it.

In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research & cutting-edge science in the 1st of a trilogy chronicling the colonization of Mars: For eons, sandstorms have swept the desolate landscape. For centuries, Mars has beckoned humans to conquer its hostile climate. Now, in 2026, a group of 100 colonists is about to fulfill that destiny. John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers & Arkady Bogdanov lead a terraforming mission. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage & madness. For others it offers an opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. For the genetic alchemists, it presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life & death. The colonists orbit giant satellite mirrors to reflect light to the surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth. Massive tunnels, kilometers deep, will be drilled into the mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves & friendships will form & fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed. Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope & ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in evolution, creating a world in its entirety. It shows a future, with both glory & tarnish, that awes with complexity & inspires with vision.

The Folk of the Air

Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever. And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe. Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

Feyre's survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is a cold, bleak place in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it for the flesh. But to do so, she must kill the predator and killing something so precious comes at a price ... Dragged to a magical kingdom for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding far more than his piercing green eyes would suggest. Feyre's presence at the court is closely guarded, and as she begins to learn why, her feelings for him turn from hostility to passion and the faerie lands become an even more dangerous place. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.

@swainlake recommends the darkest powers trilogy by kelley armstrong is really good

My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again. All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don't even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost - and the ghost saw me. Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won't leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a "special home" for troubled teens. Yet the home isn't what it seems. Don't tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? It's up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House... before its skeletons come back to haunt me

@imladriss recommends: We hunt the flame by hafsah faizal

People lived because she killed. People died because he lived. Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the king. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways. Both are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya—but neither wants to be. War is brewing, and the Arz sweeps closer with each passing day, engulfing the land in shadow. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore magic to her suffering world and stop the Arz, Nasir is sent by the king on a similar mission: retrieve the artifact and kill the Hunter. But an ancient evil stirs as their journey unfolds—and the prize they seek may pose a threat greater than either can imagine. Set in a richly detailed world inspired by ancient Arabia, We Hunt the Flame is a gripping debut of discovery, conquering fear, and taking identity into your own hands.

@moirindeclermont recommends anything from Jacqueline Carey (she is a goddess and my favourite writer) but also Deborah Harkness (A discovery of witches) which is amazing, I’m obsessed with it. Nemesis by Isaac Asimov touches some themes similar to Brienne’s. Arn the knight

The land of Terre d'Ange is a place of unsurpassing beauty and grace. It is said that angels found the land and saw it was good... and the ensuing race that rose from the seed of angels and men live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt. Phèdre nó Delaunay is a young woman who was born with a scarlet mote in her left eye. Sold into indentured servitude as a child, her bond is purchased by Anafiel Delaunay, a nobleman with very a special mission... and the first one to recognize who and what she is: one pricked by Kushiel's Dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one. Phèdre is trained equally in the courtly arts and the talents of the bedchamber, but, above all, the ability to observe, remember, and analyze. Almost as talented a spy as she is courtesan, Phèdre stumbles upon a plot that threatens the very foundations of her homeland. Treachery sets her on her path; love and honor goad her further. And in the doing, it will take her to the edge of despair... and beyond. Hateful friend, loving enemy, beloved assassin; they can all wear the same glittering mask in this world, and Phèdre will get but one chance to save all that she holds dear. Set in a world of cunning poets, deadly courtiers, heroic traitors, and a truly Machiavellian villainess, this is a novel of grandeur, luxuriance, sacrifice, betrayal, and deeply laid conspiracies. Not since Dune has there been an epic on the scale of Kushiel's Dart-a massive tale about the violent death of an old age, and the birth of a new.

Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

In a hail of fire and flashing sword, as the burning city of Acre falls from the hands of the West in 1291, The Last Templar opens with a young Templar knight, his mentor, and a handful of others escaping to the sea carrying a mysterious chest entrusted to them by the Order's dying Grand Master. The ship vanishes without a trace. In present day Manhattan, four masked horsemen dressed as Templar Knights emerge from Central Park and ride up the Fifth Avenue steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the blacktie opening of a Treasures of the Vatican exhibit. Storming through the crowds, the horsemen brutally attack anyone standing between them and their prize. Attending the gala, archaeologist Tess Chaykin watches in silent terror as the leader of the horsemen hones in on one piece in particular, a strange geared device. He utters a few cryptic Latin words as he takes hold of it with reverence before leading the horsemen out and disappearing into the night. In the aftermath, an FBI investigation is led by anti-terrorist specialist Sean Reilly. Soon, he and Tess are drawn into the dark, hidden history of the crusading Knights, plunging them into a deadly game of cat and mouse with ruthless killers as they race across three continents to recover the lost secret of the Templars.

Irissa and Kendric Series

Irissa was the last of the sorcerous Torlocs, untutored in magic and abandoned upon this decaying world by her people. Kendric was one of the Six of Swords, gifted with a legendary weapon to guard the Realms from harm. But now he was an outcast, and his death was sought with reason by the other Five. Sorceress and swordsman, they were thrown together; each filled with ancient prejudices against the other. But only by combining her uncertain powers with his remaining skills could they survive. Survive they must, however. Rule was a world formed upon magic - but now magic was failing and there would soon be no place for it. And destiny in strange guise had chosen them to make one last stand against the dark forces that were waiting at the Gate of Valna, seeking to destroy their world

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard.

But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?

Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England

In the medieval and fantastic realm of Tortall, Keladry of Mindelan (known as Kel) is the first girl to take advantage of the decree that permits women to train for knighthood. But not everyone in Tortall believes a woman is up to the task, and Kel faces harsh discrimination. With unparalleled determination and a knack for leadership, she captures the hearts of her peers and proves that she is not a girl to underestimate!

#jaime x brienne #braime #brienne of tarth #jaime lannister #We should start a book club #only half joking #but for real we should #next up does anyone have shows and movies that fit the dynamic of Jaime and Brienne #long post

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you-are-my-neverland · 6 years ago

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Book Recommendations (1)

Lost in the Sun by Lisa Graff

Summary: “ Everyone says that middle school is awful, but Trent knows nothing could be worse than the year he had in fifth grade, when a freak accident on Cedar Lake left one kid dead, and Trent with a brain full of terrible thoughts he can't get rid of. Trent wants middle school to be a fresh start, if only he could make that happen. It isn’t until Trent gets caught up in the whirlwind that is Fallon Little—the girl with the mysterious scar across her face—that things begin to change. Because fresh starts aren’t always easy. Even in baseball, when a fly ball gets lost in the sun, you have to remember to shift your position to find it.”

Personal thoughts: It’s definitely a book geared to more younger audiences, but I think it’s a good read for all ages. I actually haven’t read it in a while, but Trent is a character I think lots of people can relate to. He struggles with anger and rage; emotions he has no idea what to do with. Fallon is a quirky character that you can never quite get a hold of, and she makes for a spectacular story.

Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Summary: “ A half-Japanese teen grapples with social anxiety and her narcissist mother in the wake of a crushing rejection from art school in this debut novel. Kiko has always struggled with saying what she’s thinking, and an overbearing mother makes things even harder. Her one hope and dream is Prism, a fancy art school. But then Kiko doesn’t get into Prism, at the same time her abusive uncle moves back in with her family. So when she receives an invitation from her childhood friend to leave her small town and tour art schools on the west coast, Kiko jumps at the opportunity in spite of the anxieties and fears that attempt to hold her back. And now that she is finally free to be her own person outside the constricting walls of her home life, Kiko learns life-changing truths about herself, her past, and how to be brave.”

Personal thoughts: ‘Starfish’ is a book that touches on a lot of sensitive issues, such as emotional and verbal abuse, presumed sexual assault (my memory isn’t that clear on what exactly happened so djkadhf), and Kiko herself is a very complex character. She’s a survivor who has to face every survivor’s worst fear; the abuser returning. Art is her only escape, but when that too fails, she feels like she’s spiraling. On many levels, she’s a character so many people can connect to, and the story really shows the reality of life.

Turtles All the Way Down by John Greene

Summary: “ Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett’s son, Davis. Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.”

Personal thoughts: You’ve probably either read or heard of this book, but if you haven’t yet, this is a definite book you should read. Aza is really an intriguing character, and one of the things I like about her is that she doesn’t really get a happy ending. The book is her trying (and sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing) to find a way to cope with her disorder. It’s a really deep book (lots and lots of good quality quotes). It’s not supposed to be a positive or negative book; it shows the real struggles of dealing with mental illnesses and trying to balance your normal life along with it.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Summary: “Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price–and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone…A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.”

Personal thoughts: This book is genius. It’s part of a duo-logy, and is set in the same universe as the author’s Grisha trilogy. In my opinion, you don’t have to read the Grisha trilogy (I didn’t), though it would probably be helpful. You’re able to figure things out pretty quickly though. I’m serious about this book being spectacular though; it’s one of those books where the main character is so clever that you wonder how the author possibly wrote them. Kaz is a trickster and a conman, and makes the book filled with twists and turns that leave you shocked. The other five main characters will grab your heart just as much though; wily and clever and heart wrenching with every page and every new thing you learn. It leaves you holding your breath-but don’t hold it for too long, because there is a sequel, Crooked Kingdom (I...sobbed).

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Summary: “Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.”

Personal thoughts: For once, we meet a main character as twisted and cutthroat as the ‘villain’-who also happens to be the love interest, if you can call them that. Jude is vicious and bitter after surviving for years as a human in Faerie. The Fey are cruel, tricky, deceptive, especially towards her. This whole book was just awesome, really, but in a dark way. Jude goes past just trying to save herself; and in turn endangers so many people.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvator

Summary: “An unlikely group stumbles across ancient magic in Virginia: Blue, the daughter of the town psychic in Henrietta, Virginia, who has been told for as long as she can remember that if she ever kisses her true love, he will die. Gansey, who seeks the Welsh magic he believes saved his life. Adam, who searches for a way out of the circumstances he was born into. Ronan, who seeks to recover the magic of his childhood.”

Personal thoughts: Another series I give my heart too. The first book in The Raven Cycle series, this book is rich with mythology set in a realistic world. Rich boys with backstories, headstrong girl with physic abilities, ley lines-what could go wrong? It’s a story about youth, mystery, romance, friendship, fantasy-a little bit of everything thrown in between. Each character is unique, from your perfect rich boy Gansey to scholarly Adam, cold Ronan and spunky Blue. Even if the book doesn’t sound exciting, I can guarantee that you’ll probably be completely absorbed in one way or another.

Conviction by Kelly Loy Gilbert

Summary: “Ten years ago, God gave Braden a sign, a promise that his family wouldn’t fall apart the way he feared. But Braden got it wrong: his older brother, Trey, has been estranged from the family for almost as long, and his father, the only parent Braden has ever known, has been accused of murder. The arrest of Braden’s father, a well-known Christian radio host, has sparked national media attention. His fate lies in his son’s hands; Braden is the key witness in the upcoming trial. Braden has always measured himself through baseball. Now the rules of the sport that has always been Braden’s saving grace are blurred in ways he never realized, and the prospect of playing against Alex Reyes, the nephew of the police officer his father is accused of killing, is haunting his every pitch. Braden faces an impossible choice, one that will define him for the rest of his life, in this brutally honest debut novel about family, faith, and the ultimate test of conviction.”

Personal thoughts: Honestly, this is a book I can reread over and over again. Maybe because it’s a book that focuses on Braden’s faith and his struggle as one of the main topics, but it really pulled me in. I practically devoured this whole book in one day. Braden really struggles internally on what is the right thing to do, as well as externally when his brother, Trey, returns to be his guardian. It focuses a lot on their brotherly relationship-in which of them have two very different perspectives of what their lives have been like-some romance, but mostly it’s a book about Braden himself. When the line between right and wrong is blurred, what path do you choose?

#books #book recommendations #i paraphrased the summaries from goodreads #because i suck at my own summaries #lost in the sun #lisa graff #starfish #akemi dawn bowman #turtles all the way down #john greene #six of crows #leigh bardugo #the cruel prince #holly black #the raven boys #maggie stiefvator #conviction #kelly loy gilbert #tw: mentions of abuse

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travllingbunny · 6 years ago

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The 100 rewatch: 2x09 Remember Me

Unlike the previous episode, this one is one of my favorites. Very character-based and emotional, wonderfully written, acted, great music and cinematography, editing, everything is perfect. Maybe it doesn’t have a crucial event like some others, but it’s very important for character development and some of the key relationships. (This was also the episode where I thought that “the subtext is rapidly becoming text” when it comes to one such relationship. But it turns out that what I find obvious may not be as obvious to the entire fandom.)

Rating: 10/10

I love the way this episode focuses on Clarke’s emotional state and the way the trauma of having had to kill Finn, and how that affects her. I may not have liked Finn as a character much, but he makes for a really effective hallucination haunting Clarke, as an embodiment of her guilt and trauma and her fear of the pain that love can bring. (Although the title feels kind of ironic now, since the fandom has pretty much forgotten Finn and his significance for Clarke’s character arc.)

What happened makes Clarke all the more determined to make the truce with the Grounders work, as a way to feel that the sacrifice was not for nothing: “If this truce doesn’t hold, I killed Finn for nothing”. Now, the alliance will ultimately fail, the Grounder army won’t help her against the Mountain Men, and instead it’s Bellamy’s inside mission (which was his idea – something that people tend to forget for very strange reasons*) that will play the crucial role in saving their people from Mount Weather. However, if not for the truce, the Grounders would have attacked them, more people would die, and they would have probably never gotten the chance to save the 47 from the MW. So, in the end, it was not for nothing.

One relationship that’s changed due to Finn’s death – and in this case, maybe poisoned forever – is Clarke’s friendship with Raven. Raven starts off being completely furious at Clarke over killing Finn, even sucker-punching her at one point and calling her a murderer. By the end of the episode, after seeing Gustus executed in a prolonged and torturous way, she realizes that Clarke was sparing Finn. But while it seemed that their friendship was fixed, I’m not sure that things were ever the same – because Raven will go on to have a few other occasions where she was unfair to Clarke and blaming her to things like deciding who lives or dies, even when she was one of the people entrusting her with that responsibility. When she was possessed by ALIE in season 3, did she still really blame Clarke on some level for Finn’s death (and ALIE picked up on that and made her say it)? Or was it just ALIE (and Raven’s subconscious) coming up with something that plays on Clarke’s insecurities – the idea that she causes harm and death to the people she loves and who love her?

One of the most emotional scenes is Clarke’s argument with Abby, which shows how complicated their relationship is, and is a resolution of the grudge Clarke has carried against her for her father’s death. Abby tries to comfort Clarke, telling her of her own experience (“The pain will fade… What got me through is my love for you”), and Clarke lets her mother comfort her only until she realizes that Abby is talking about Jake, and gets furious over that comparison, pointing out that Abby’s betrayal of Jake is nothing like Clarke having no choice but to kill Finn. She still hasn’t forgiven her, even though they have been on good terms – the wound is still there. But when Abby tries to explain herself, saying she didn’t know Jaha would execute Jake, and Clarke calls her out on the fact that she must have still realized Jake wouldn’t give up, Abby basically admits that she prioritized the big picture – what she thought was for the well-being of all her people – over her husband, and Clarke concludes, shocked, “We are the same”.

It’s interesting that, after Abby finds love again with Kane, she will do the opposite and absolutely refuse to sacrifice him in season 4, when Jaha asks that of her. It’s a do-over, determination not to do the same this time (as she said in season 3 when Kane was threatened with execution, “I cannot do this again” – which was the first time she pretty much admitted she loved him. Then she goes on to kind of betray him during the Dark Year (not at cost of his life, but at the cost of his principles and emotional well-being), which is one of the things she felt guilty about (in addition to pushing Octavia into more extreme actions and being responsible for a lot of the deaths and horror) when the guilt broke her and made her an addict. But at the end of season 5, she was again fully determined to “save the man I love”.

Clarke herself says something very similar to Bellamy (similar to what Abby later told Kane in S3), when he tells her about his plan to infiltrate Mount Weather and disable their acid fog from the inside, and she opposes it on the grounds that it’s too risky: “I cannot lose you, too”. But she eventually changes her mind, after being told by Lexa that “Love is weakness”.

This phrase is one of those repetitive phrases that we hear many times during the show (like “Blood must have blood” or “My sister, my responsibility”) – and characters either believe in it, or oppose it and declare the opposite, that “Love is strength”. In this episode, it seems like it’s something that Lexa herself came up with, due to her own traumatic experience, after the Ice Nation queen captured, tortured and killed her lover, Costia, and then sent Lexa her head. (This is the first mention of the Ice Nation, or any of the separate Grounder clans. Queen Nia was established as extremely ruthless from the start even before we knew who she was.) Later in S3, we learn it was originally something Lexa first heard from her mentor, Flame-keeper Titus. Then in S5, we learn it’s actually something that all Flame-keepers tell all Commanders. It’s probably a retcon, but a really good one. It makes sense, from what we’ve seen of the Grounder culture that this is what all Commanders would be taught. It’s not a healthy way to live, and it’s very questionable advice, but you can see where it comes from: a leader may be compromised if someone they love is captured or threatened, enemies or rivals may use that to manipulate them to their advantage, or a leader may be influenced by someone they love (and I’m sure Flame-keepers would like to be the only ones to influence them) for better or worse, or a leader may make decisions prioritizing their loved ones over the well-being of the entire group – because it’s human to care more about those close to you than a big number of people you don’t know.

Now that we know her entire history, Lexa’s entire life seems pretty sad: from a very young age, she’s been both enormously privileged and powerful, and given an enormous amount of responsibility and denied anything like normal childhood (not even what goes for normal childhood on average in this post-apocalyptic world) – raised to fight a bunch of other kids to the death, winning the Hunger Games-like Conclave at around 12, getting a chip put into her head with a bunch of dead people’s memories, seeing all the adults around her fawn over her, obey her and expect her to make decisions about everyone’s fate, while at the same time being told that she must be “strong” at all times, not show any weakness – which includes not loving anyone – because her rivals and enemies may use that to kill her and take over. (I doubt that Commanders can ever retire, or lose power and survive.) She’s still human and a young woman who wants love so she fell in love, but then her terrible experience convinced her that her mentor was right. It’s very ironic that she’s the one to tell Clarke that “love is weakness”, because she’ll soon fall in love with Clarke and start wanting Clarke to love her. I think it’s in the next episode that you can see the moment when she falls for Clarke. At this point, I think she was just impressed with/drawn to Clarke and saw in her an equal, another, slightly younger girl who’s a leader with a lot of responsibility, intelligence and courage, and who can make tough decisions. This is something new for her, because everyone else she’s ever been close to has been her subject: Costia, Gustus, Anya, even Titus. But she doesn’t know how to live without power, it or how to treat people as equals (as seen in her attempts to control Clarke in S3). Another contradiction is that Clarke is warmer and more idealistic than Lexa, and I believe that Lexa is drawn to Clarke partially because of the way Clarke can love and fight for people she cares about – but at the same time, Lexa, with her leadership lessons, is constantly trying to make Clarke more like herself, teach her to be less caring, more ruthless, readier to treat people as expendable and sacrifice them, as she herself has been taught a leader must be.

As far as I’m concerned, Clarke was a much better leader the way she was, and those lessons are not good for her. She’ll change her mind later and won’t really accept the “love is weakness” philosophy. But in this episode, in her vulnerable state and faced with the reality that she will have to make more terrible choices, she feels that it’s the only way to both do her duty, and avoid pain – by trying to repress feelings of love. Which makes her change her mind and decide to let Bellamy go to Mount Weather, after all.

…And this is the point where I thought “Wow, the show is really getting obvious about Bellarke?” The show has been making romantic hints about them since 1x08, but it was mostly subtexty and ambiguous about the nature of their feelings for each other, except for that one moment in 1x08 where Bellamy obviously realized he was attracted to Clarke but seemed like he didn’t want to deal with it. This is the first time the word “love” is mentioned in connection to their relationship, though indirectly (and the last time before Octavia’s “another traitor who you love” remark to Bellamy in season 5). First we have Clarke saying “I can’t lose you, too” and explicitly equating Bellamy’s role in her life with Finn’s. Later, Bellamy is the one to figure out that the person who actually poisoned the cup and apparently tried to kill Lexa was actually her loyal bodyguard Gustus, who was framing the Skaikru (and Raven specifically) as a way to destroy the alliance and ��protect’ her from the backlash Gustus thought it would cause to her (his scheme did not involve any immediate danger to her, as he drank the poison, knowing he would survive). And then there’s dramatic transition from a close-up of Clarke’s face to a close-up of Bellamy’s face, all emotional and under dramatic lighting, in another scene, as he’s explaining how he figured out the culprit: “He would do anything for her, to protect her… It just makes sense” It couldn’t be more obvious he’s talking about himself and his feelings for Clarke. (Earlier on there was a scene where we can notice if we pay attention that he was standing next to Clarke protectively and even threw her cup, which was kind of funny, because it’s not like she was going to drink from it.) Octavia is like “Look at the thanks he got” – which is kind of stupid, why should Lexa be grateful that Gustus went behind her back, schemed and nearly ruined her alliance and caused a war “for her own good”? But it’s either Octavia talking about Bellamy and Clarke and bashing Clarke as she often likes to do, or the show trying to set up “Oh noes!! Will Clarke sacrifice Bellamy?? Stay tuned!” tension for the rest of the season in a slightly over-dramatic way. Then we get dramatic close-up of Clarke and Bellamy, as she tells him to go to Mount Weather after all, explaining her change of heart: “I was being weak”. Followed by the scene of her saying goodbye to Hallucination!Finn: “Love is weakness!”

As far as subtle hints go, I thought this was more like hitting the viewer on the head with a sledgehammer? But it turns out that what I thought was obvious isn’t at all obvious to many other fans, so whatever. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now, I’m not sure what exactly Clarke and Bellamy at this point thought on the conscious level their feelings for each other were, and maybe they didn’t even have the same idea what their relationship was or could be. It’s interesting that Bellamy was making the parallel between himself and Gustus – who obviously had a close platonic relationship with Lexa (going by their relative ages and the fact she used to be a child ruler, he had probably been her bodyguard since she was a little girl, and was something like a father or uncle figure to her, in addition to just a subject’s devotion to the Commander). So it can be argued that’s how Bellamy sees their relationship to Clarke at this point – or that he’s just realized how devoted he is to her, but isn’t sure about the nature of those feelings. (Which is certainly not for lack of attraction, since we know since season 1 that he’s attracted to her.) But Clarke is making parallels between Bellamy and Finn, her dead love interest, and Bellamy and Costia, Lexa’s dead lover. The implication was clear: if you are a leader and you love someone, harm can come to them exactly because of your relationship; you may be “weak” and fail to do your duty because of your feelings (like not let someone go on a mission they may be uniquely qualified for), or you may risk their life (say, letting them go on a dangerous mission) and lose them and them feel terrible pain, so it’s best to repress all such feelings. To be fair, they kind of intermingle the non-romantic and romantic relationships here in all the parallel, since there’s also a parallel between Finn and Gustus as Clarke watches Lexa kill Gustus, and Abby declares “We are not so different after all”.

The only thing I dislike about this episode are fandom’s bad interpretations of this moment. I loved the dark atmosphere of these scenes, but I was scratching my head when I saw people going on about how it’s all about Bad Clarke who doesn’t care about Bellamy and finds his life to be an acceptable risk (even though the rest of the season and subsequent seasons make it clear she doesn’t find it acceptable) and how he’s so devoted to her but “look at the thanks he got” (you mean all the times she showed she’s just as devoted and protective of him as he is of her? But let’s take characters’ lines literally instead and ignore actual events). She’s just practically said she loves him, you dummies! Bellamy himself doesn’t understand that, because he has no context to her line “I was being weak”, so he looks hurt and obviously think she doesn’t care that much as it seemed for a moment – but the audience does have the full context and should be able to put 2 and 2 together! Or even worse – people who write long ranty posts about how Bad Clarke was “abusive” to Poor Bellamy because he’s in a subjugated position to her and how she “sent” him to danger and he got tortured in Mount Weather for doing her bidding (?). As in, when she decided to stop objecting to him going on a mission that was his idea and his plan and that he wanted to do because he cares about saving his friends? When was Bellamy in a subjugated position to Clarke? He even said he didn’t take her orders and she had to appeal to their personal relationship to stop him from going. They often argue and disagree and take stands and even get in a big conflict almost every season. Funny how some people who claim to be Bellamy fans are eager to ignore his agency, accomplishments and strength of character. I guess that’s what happens when hating Clarke and being anti-Bellarke (in any form) is the priority. To be fair, the show kind of gave them something to build that one when they had ALIE!Raven taunt Bellamy in season 3 about supposedly just listening to Clarke’s orders, but to take ALIE’s attempts to play on characters’ insecurities as gospel truth, in spite of what we actually see of the character dynamics, is like taking it literally that Clarke is actually “poison” to her loved ones. (Then again, I guess some do take that literally.)

But I refuse to let bad fandom interpretations ruin a great episode for me.

*end of regularly scheduled daily rant*

Meanwhile, in Mount Weather, the last prominent Mountain Man villain is introduced – Carl Emerson, head guard and Cage’s right hand man. Probably the Mountain Man I hate the most, for the fact that he kept on being a nuisance in season 3 and wasn’t just evil at that point but also annoying. Emerson seemed to be in quite a senior position, since he was reporting to Cage about Lexa’s actions (explaining that she’s a kind of leader who makes alliances – referring probably to her efforts to unite the clans). Probably intel gotten from torturing captured Grounders.

It’s not often that the Mount Weather portion of the episode is the lighter one, but that’s the case here. It feels almost like Adventure Squad from season 1, as Miller and Monty use their respective skills in thieving/hacking, with Maya’s help, to send Jasper’s message out and reach other Arkers. Like Raven a couple of episodes ago, Monty has figured out the stuff about radio frequencies, including the fact that the Mountain Men crashed the Exodus ship in season 1.There’s also a rare comic moment with Monty as he manages to send a message by pretending to be doing maintenance work, but then has to run away when Emerson figures him out.

But it ends in a dark way, with Monty and Harper both put in cages, and the revelation that the Mountain Men had already built one for each of the 47.

(Fortunately, Monty and Harper were too smart to ever use the line “We found each other in cages” as foreplay.)

TImeline: the next day after Finn’s death, which was a day or so after 2x06, and that was 2 days after 2x05. This is maybe a week since the end of season 1 – 10 days at most?

Body count: Gustus –executed in a painful, prolonged way by a bunch of Grounders, with Lexa delivering the final blow, and telling her to “Stay strong” as his last words.

#the 100 #the 100 rewatch #the 100 season 2 #the 100 2x09 #remember me #clarke griffin #bellamy blake #raven reyes #abby griffin #finn collins #monty green #bellamy x clarke

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