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andromedaexists · 11 months ago

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Infinity Alchemist || Kacen Callender

★★★★★

TW: ABUSE (FAMILIAL, ON PAGE), DEATH (MURDER), GUILT, GRIEF, MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS (FADE TO BLACK), VIOLENCE

I always feel like I don't know where to start with these. 9 times outta 10 I'm writing reviews right off the end of the book and this one... I have tears in my eyes. This is a 6 star book for me. Firmly. My heart hurts

I received this book as an ARC in return for an honest review. Thank you to Tor Teen and NetGalley for the ARC.

Infinity Alchemist releases in just a few weeks on Feb. 6th I believe, and I highly recommend it to anyone who will listen.

Once again calling back to any book that makes me physically feel something get an automatic five star, but this book did more than that. This book wrapped my heart in tendrils of alchemical magic and refuses to let go.

Let's start with the characters: Ash, Ramsay, Callum, and Marlowe. Ash is our POV character and in a trans POC man. He is an asshole who has a rough life, growing up in the slums with a mother who passed away not too long ago. He wants to prove himself worthy of his absent father, and will stop at nothing to do so.

Ramsay is a prodigy, the genderfluid child of known and executed terrorists hell-bent on atoning for their sins. She uses he/she pronouns, though leans more towards she/her throughout the book. She is also such an uptight prick... until she's not. I genuinely love how prickly and rude she is and how much that shows to me as an autistic mask. I just love her so much.

Callum is a black man and the youngest son of the Kendrick house, more or less the police state in book. He is kind and caring despite the heavy hand of his father and all he wants to do is heal. He wants to heal and help others, like the good man he is.

These three, oh these three. They hold my heart.

Marlowe is my obligatory redhead (listen I have to point them out when they are given to me!). She is an orphan of House Lune and becomes so integral to the story in ways I never thought possible.

Without given away too many spoilers, I want to tell yous: there is so much diversity in this cast. So much! It's beautiful!! And, AND, we get not one, but two (2) separate Rivals-to-Lovers ARCs that don't end in a love triangle, but a polycule! We also get best friends to lovers to bitter exes to lovers once again!!

As far as the worldbuilding goes, I have to say that Kacen is a master at weaving these mystical and fantastical realms together in a way that not only make sense, but feel real. I felt like I was in the higher realms with the characters, like I knew exactly what each house was and why they were there.

I have aphantasia, which means that I cannot imagine what anything ever looks like. And yet, the beautiful world descriptions put me there. They called back to things that I do know and do have experience with and built off of it. I very genuinely could see myself in the world, and that is saying a lot.

I don't think I can talk too much more about this book without bringing myself to tears again, so let's pivot to some of my favorite quotes to make y'all understand the gravity of this book:

The world became a white blur. The snow turned red. It fell to the ground, drops spreading like blots of ink. The blood dripped from Amelia's cheeks. Her smile faded as the screams began.

That's what privileged assholes like you always say.

[redacted] paused, but only for a moment. He opened the [redacted]. There was an explosion of light.

It was too late. [redacted] was already there.

It wasn't death he'd feared, he realized, but the change—the transformation that forced him to release.

This light held the vibration of energy that the physical body would translate as love.

They all created the same infinite light. They were eternal.

It was an interesting place to be caught, stuck between grief and gladness that they were gone.

Okay, I think that's all I can put without spoilers.

One thing I forgot to mention: this book is genuinely funny. Maybe it's because of the autistic mask I mentioned earlier, but the interactions between Ramsay and Ash at any given point past like 20% of the book are genuinely funny. I love Ramsay's sense of humor.

Anyways, that's all for this book! I am going to curl up in a ball and cry while I purchase a physical copy to annotate and put on my recommendations shelf. This is a story that I will be thinking about years down the line, I just know it. Ash is a part of my soul now, and I can't wait to see what he does next.

#andi reads #book reviews #booklr #bookblr #lgbt books #queer books #queer book directory #infinity alchemist #kacen callender

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yumenoyousei · 3 months ago

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Since I finished posting Awaking in Gotham, here are a lot of notes I have for this universe

(It's like really long)

I refuse (for now) to write in Jason’s POV in this universe because I would have to quote books and that means doing research and reading even more old books I haven't read in forever and I just went nope. So instead here are a few facts about him in this universe:

He was always kind of interested in Shay but just didn’t want to mix a civilian to vigilante/crime lord drama. But when he came back as Jason Todd and saw her Jason Todd video (and with Dick’s meddling) started to think that he could date her and that she'd get it (get him). Got really smitten during her vigilante speech at the gala but was still reluctant because again, vigilante life. He fell a bit more at the cookout and was disappointed not to kiss her in the car (Shay is right, it was totally her fault.)

At the gala, Jason is seen smoking and then doesn’t do it for the rest of the story. That’s because he only smokes when anxious and/or when feeling nostalgic. I wanted to make Shay ask about it but never could find a scene that fitted.

I absolutely love the headcanon about Jason being Mexican and when I first wrote the story I was going to go with it but then I started having ideas about Catherine being Mexican-American (like born in the US from Mexican parents) but Willis being white. So Jason would’ve grown up with a lot of Mexican culture and thought he was half-Mexican. So he would have this guilt towards his Mexican heritage that isn’t really his when discovering that Catherine wasn't his bio mom. I have in my head this whole side story about Maria helping him get back to it and ease his guilt towards it. (I have this scene in my head of Jason and Shay dancing to a classic Latino song and Jason having a moment, remembering Catherine but again, it'd have to be in Jason's POV and 🫠)

Talking about Maria, she was like a big sister to Jason when he was little. Like Shay mentioned, she wanted to adopt him when people at the center realized Catherine had died but she was only 17 at the time. It was always one of her regrets that she hadn't been able to help Jason more.

I keep mentioning Maria and Diego's kids in the story but never took the time to introduce them lol. Mainly because I couldn't decide on names. All I know is that they have twin boys around 7 and a little girl around 5.

As mentioned in the story, Diego is working for the Red Hood, the one Shay asked to pass on the letter. Diego is mostly an informant and doesn’t get his hands dirty (but he will if necessary.) He absolutely adores Shay and Deena and is very protective of them, but mostly Shay because she doesn’t have direct family in Gotham anymore. He’s also super scared she’d put her nose in business she has no matter in and gets stuck.

Diego absolutely knows that Jason is the Red Hood. I had this prequel story where Jason had gotten hurt and Diego helped him and saw a glimpse of him but they both never talked about it, so Jason knows that Diego knows but he trust him. (He did vet him + he was happy to see Maria had gotten married to a good man). Like mentioned in the story, Diego is the reason Jason heard a lot about Shay.

When Shay started crushing on Jason, Diego was a tad worried. When they started to date, Diego did an undirected shovel talk to the Red Hood. Lmao

(Also makes that scene in the cookout when Shay introduce them to one another very funny to me lol)

We don’t see it as much as I'd like because Shay is an absolute unreliable narrator but she is a social butterfly. She’s the type that an event will be stopped at every corner to talk with people (to Jason’s annoyance). She doesn’t view herself as social because she rarely goes to people unless she knows them compared to Deena, who can converse with anyone. By the end of ‘Awaking in Gotham’ she is often asked for selfies and always chats with her fans.

Characters I haven't written about but really wanted to:

The Hoes (affectionate)

They are the group of people in the center who are known to sleep around. Monica is the one who started it all and name them. Very fun to hang around, party with or have a deep convo about love and sex. They always have tea to spill. People come and go but the core has been there for a few years. Deena used to be a more active member. They call Shay an honorary member (because Shay refused to sleep around with the people of the community)

I only mentioned them in my nsfw fic "All For You" but I do plan to mention one member in a oneshot Epilogue I wrote. I have a bunch of little scenes with them in my head and I love them so much! The fact I haven't written a full scene of Shay interacting with them is a real crime.

Anyway, the core members:

the "leader" Monica - pansexual. used to be a stripper and sex worker. enjoyed her job. is very sex open and likes to educate the young about it. sometime after "Awaking in Gotham", release a luxury line of sex toys. One line is based on (of age) Heroes and Villains of Gotham, to the Batfam's horror (people have done it before but hers are so good that it gets very popular, I have an fic idea on this that im not sure Im gonna write)

Renee - bisexual but heteroromantic. is a stripper but never sold sex. also very sexually open. had an on/off relationship with Zee. Used to be way closer to Shay (even if Shay judged her for dating her brother) until Zee died and both got too much into their grief. Are still good friends but it'll never be the same.

* if Zee had stayed alive, they would've eventually gotten together (most likely in an open relationship) and would've had a kid.

Carla - a helpless romantic who has the flair to date the worst man. she's a hoe in spite of herself. Makes terrible decisions. you wanna root for her but she a dumpster fire when it comes to relationships (she'll learn... hopefully). Absolutely terrible at school but very good with people so she works in retail and enjoys it

Julie - bisexual disaster. will sleep with anyone. always managed to get into fights for sleeping with committed people. Used to fight with Renee when she tried (and succeeded) sleeping with Zee. a grad student. Shay lowkey cannot stand her.

Luka - so gay. is a hoe mostly because he is scared of commitment. Becomes great friends with Alex. Admires Jess so much. will absolutely destroy you if you dressed like trash next to him. Undergrad in marketing because of his parents but wants to study fashion

Nick - stripper. Sometimes sell sex. Also bisexual disaster. Was reluctant to join the hoes until he slept with Julie. Had the biggest crush on Deena until she turned him down cause she saw him as a brother. A lot of self-esteem issues. Super smart but bad at school which is why he’s not in college even if he wants to.

Last but not least (because omg this is so long) here a note I wrote at work trying to decide everyone's age lol:

(Shay was on another (way more chaotic) memo but she's the same age as Jason)

If you made it here, thank you so much for reading my rambling!!❤️

#dc oc #jason todd x oc #Shay Frank #jayshay #my fic #fic writing #fic notes #it so long im really grateful if you read all of this lol

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mydaroga · 1 year ago

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Follow up on the Tune In ask, Thank you for your response!! And please, never apologize for the length, it was greatly insightful. I actually haven't started on the book yet but it came highly recommended to me as The definitive Beatles biography so I was looking around to see what others think of it. Most of the critical opinions I found on this site seem consistent with your criticisms especially about Lewisohn's tendency to cherry pick quotes or imposing a new context on them...

Well, that formatted weird. Sorry. Anyway, I will definitely try to give as thorough an answer as I have time for, so that may mean just a few examples. If you want a deeper dive I can recommend the Another Kind of Mind Series, Fine Tuning. I don't agree entirely with their approach, but I agree for the most part with their findings and concerns, if that makes sense. And then there's Serene's blog entry which does a more thorough examination of the way Lewisohn ... hrm, shall we say, stretches citations to mean... whatever he wants.

I don't know that I am going to be able to go into quite as much detail here as I didn't keep these good notes while reading. But I can think of a few things that stuck out to me before I listened/read these other takes. And I'm happy to keep talking about this or expand, I'm not saying I don't like doing this, just that I am not gonna ... okay I'm going to write an essay? But I won't be as meticulous as I should be.

The first thing that made me stop reading and just go track down what was actually going on was a passage in which Lewisohn is talking about teen Paul's resistance to getting a job, going against Jim. From Tune In:

Paul still hated anyone telling him what to do -- 'It just never occurred to me to listen to other people' -- but when Jim insisted, sometimes Paul did as bid... as John scathingly noted. He went down to the Labour Exchange and Renshaw Hall and landed a £10-a-week Christmas-period job with SPD Ltd, Speedy Prompt Deliveries.

Now, all on its own without context this is a great Paul McCartney quote because you go, "yeah that checks out." I plan on using it as a sort of Macca meme, you know? But it was soooo Paul I thought, "wait, in what context did he say that? Like, he doesn't listen ever? He's admitting he just doesn't listen to anyone?"

So weirdly, it's not actually footnoted, but I found the source. It's a 1980 interview with Tim Rice, which is entertaining in its own right because he tells the guy who co-wrote Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita and later The Lion King that, you know, musicals are boring. Anyway, not the point.

It took me awhile to find the actual quote, because it's really a throwaway, almost self-deprecating aside, in the context of how he's listening to people more now because he's realized too many smart people just talk and it might be good to listen some.

So okay. Paul did say that, and he's admitting there was a time he didn't take the time to listen, but he's doing it in a sort of jokey way. I guess it's fair to say, generally, sure, Paul has a tendency to be headstrong and go his own way and that certainly would have been a factor in his psychological battle with Jim Mac over going to get his teaching license or whatever. It's not like Lewisohn is bending the facts of anything. It's not really a big deal. But it was the moment that clued me in that he's not necessarily using like for like. There's plenty of quotes about how Paul felt about this time in his life without using a joke from 1980 to shore up your point about his resistance to dad, in a paragraph that implies he's saying it about his resistance to dad. And when you've decide that "it just never occurred to me to listen to other people" can mean "and that's why he didn't listen to Jim about work, except this time he did," I don't know. It leaves a funny taste in my mouth because then you could use it for anything Paul decides to do differently. If that makes sense. If it applies there, it applies to anything Paul does. And Paul obviously didn't mean that in 1980.

Also maybe this is more nuanced, but while "Paul still hated anyone telling him what to do" is a true statement in any time in his life, that quote itself? Is neither necessarily relevant to being told what to do or very revealing. It actually is entirely unnecessary. The passage would be completely benign and throw me no red flags without it.

Like any of the points I make or, frankly, I've heard others make, it's less that he's saying untrue things and more that by using these citations in ways that remove them from context and add them to a different context, he is painting a picture but passing it off as fact. In addition, he often will use a quote from John's angry, Lennon Remembers period to interpret Paul's motives in the early 60s, rather than using, oh I dunno, a quote from.... Paul? Or a nicer quote from John when he's contradicted himself again? Again it's all legit sourcing and citing! But the contextualizing creates something he's selling as free of interpretation which is anything but.

The other one I've been thinking about is laid out quite well in I think episode 3 of the AKOM pod, and it's about Paul's creative development. While John's is described as original and a free spirit and rebellious in his artistic ambitions--which he was--Paul's artistic endeavors almost always come with a weasel word or caveat. What I mean is, John is always described as inventive; Paul is a gifted mimic. This despite a lot of attention paid to how John was basically copying his favorite cartoonists and artists--he even says at some point everything he does is Just William and Lewis Carroll. But somehow when he does it, it's extraordinary. He's got his own voice, while Paul is a talented parrot. Lewisohn gives props to all of Paul's many accomplishments but there's always either some kind of adjective like that to take away from it or this thing that creeps in where everything Paul does is for show. There are numerous places in Tune In where Paul is ostentatiously reading difficult books so he can be seen reading them. Anytime he's trying something new or going to explore a new art form or theater experience, Lewisohn has to point out that he wants to be seen to be doing something clever. When he writes songs, Lewisohn points out that he's not just writing songs, he's thinking about the image of being a writer or something like that. It's never because he's artistic, or likes the thing. He needs to be seen as someone liking the thing.

Now, we do have a quote from Paul about this. He does mention thinking about the image of a poet with the pipe and the leather patches, and he does at one point get a pipe and you know, famously pretend to be French to try to pull birds. (He does this again on that little week off he takes in France, years later, reminiscing about imagining he's a novelist in a cafe.) It's not that I'm saying Paul isn't capable of being pretentious! (I still have the beret I insisted on getting for my birthday when I was 16. I'm not immune. I still look great in it.) But Paul's, again, self-deprecating description of himself as a goofy teen appears to be the only 'proof' Lewisohn has that his reading, his art, his going to shows alone no one else cares about, is a pretense.

Again. It's not a huge deal and it's not like Paul didn't factually do all of this. It's that in a text that he's insisted in the front matter is free of speculation, Lewisohn's included numerous interpretations of Paul's (and others') motives without any direct proof/citation for those interpretations. That, I'm afraid, is speculative. And that's fine for an author to engage in--but he needs to be clear about it.

For the record he does this with John, too. He interprets numerous, sometimes almost contradictory actions of John's as "evidence" of his ability to lead. Sometimes he's like, in front and sometimes he's doing nothing and Lewisohn will conclude this was John also leading.

The point of all this isn't, like I said in my original post, that I think any one of these things is that bad. Paul's kinda pretentious? Maybe sometimes he did like to be seen reading War and Peace or whatever? Maybe John sitting back and watching what his mates are going to do is leadership? The problem, for me, is that it's not presented in a way that meets the premise of Lewisohn's introduction, which promises a work free of the prejudices and unsubstantiated speculation of his forebears. And I really do think that Lewisohn has convinced himself that he's done enough research and been a keen enough "Paul watcher" that it no longer counts as interpretation. I fear he may actually believe that he's done the math.

Again, I think you should read it. I loved the attention to detail and you'll get a lot out of it. But just be aware of this tendency, which I no longer think I'm imagining. And these are just the first two things I thought of and wanted to rant about.

#oh man thank you so much for enabling me #you don't know how great it feels to get to just babble about my thoughts lol #i'm really touched that whoever you are thinks my opinion is even worthy!!#kris reads tune in #kris talks a lot #tune in anon #anon asks

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protoslacker · 1 year ago

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Songs are funny things

I'm not very dumb, but not very smart either. And I'm old and I work. So there's whole bunches of stuff that's important that I'm pretty ignorant about. I am glad to be curious. As ignorant as I am, I often fall into rabbit holes.

I was thinking about songs. I want people to sing songs. There's a quote by Pete Seeger about songs which I like very much:

“Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.”

I was mulling over the trouble with people singing other people's songs. And thought of a lecture that Lawrence Lessig gave a long time ago. Searching for it the very first google result was a link to Leonard Lin's blog random($foo). Lin had put the lecture on the Internet and it's kind of cool to see how it was done back then. I headed over to YouTube to watch Lessig's talk at the O.Reilly Open Source Conference in July of 2002.

The talk is still worthwhile. At the time some of my creative friends thought Lessig was a sort of villain, so his talks got talked about.

At Tumblr someone I am very pleased to have encountered is Dr. Damien P. Williams. Something about meeting him at first on here is knowing what a kind and good person he is prior to discovering his deep erudition about the social implications of technology. These days I follow him on Mastodon where he pointed to an episode of NPR'S Code Switch with Safiya Noble dealing with "the complex questions that arise when algorithms and AI intersect with race."

It's a wonderful interview which really does touch on complexities, but the part that really made an impression was her background in advertising before returning to graduate school and earning her Ph.D. It put the economics of enclosure front and center in discussing AI.

I'm describing my fall down a rabbit hole and I think the next thing I engaged with was a post by Andy Baio at WAXY, Weird A.I. Yankovic, a cursed deep dive into the world of voice cloning. Songs are funny things.

After that I landed on a review of a new book by Yanis Varoufakis by Christopher Pollard at The Conversation, Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it. The book is entitled Techno-feudalism: What Killed Capitalism and will be available in print in the US in February. I listened to several interviews with Varoufakis and searched for literature on Neo-feudalism. It's certainly an idea I want to learn more about.

Back in the early oughts there was a book, Netocracy : the new power elite and life after capitalism by Alexander Bard & Jan Söderqvist. For a little while the ideas were discussed quite a lot online. Remembering those conversations I did not anticipate how incredibly concentrated the autocracy would become, i.e., how few feudal lords there would be. And I paid too little attention to Chinese technology. But Bard coined a term for a new underclass called the "consumtariat" which seems quite handy and has stuck with me over the years.

It's going to take me a long while to wrap my head around neo-feudalism. But I suspect it will be time well spent.

Wendy Grossman at net.wars has a recent post, The end of ownership. The provocation for the post is a garage door opener which among other evils forces an ad on you before you can open the garage door. Grossman points to Cory Doctorow, The enshittification of garage-door openers reveals a vast and deadly rot. I'd laugh, but it telling how fast technology and the tech-lords are enclosing us.

Who can sing songs and whose songs can we sing are urgent questions.

#neo-feudalism #netocracy #AI #ownership #rent #serfs #book #yanis varoufakis

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scribl1ta · 1 year ago

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thank you for answering! just letting you know that i spent at least half an hour rambling to a friend about how unique your style is and how much i like your art the other day! <3 i'm sure that with time and practice, you'll reach your goal. also, if it doesn't take too much of your time, i wanted to ask about your passion for classics in general...how did it start?

That makes me so happy to hear🥰🥰thank you for the encouragement!!! Here is my answer. It's SUPER personal, not comprehensive, and might change later, this is just what I can think of at the moment:

It started with Knights, I think, but the first text that really impacted me was Plato's Symposium. I was in a fandom where I had seen other people basing their OCs and worldbuilding off of antiquity, so that led me to researching the time period and eventually the literature. The Symposium was the book I needed at that point in my life and I didn't want to read or think about anything else, except maybe Xenophon's Symposium. I also read most of Aristophanes' work and loved it, which is especially demanding as far as linguistic/cultural context. This is EMBARASSING!! but there was a copy of Miles Gloriosus in a classroom I always stayed in after school that I read, and luckily I left that behind before I got online and started posting Plautus selca fanart. I started writing my current project, a tv series set in Roman Athens, so that I could just have an outlet for all my feelings about these texts (it was originally set during classical times, but I changed it once I learned about Hadrian, which is a separate issue I have also addressed on this blog). I think the Satyricon was the first book that captured my imagination so much to the point where it influenced my art, and the reason I eventually started learning Latin. The fact that book is so character-driven appealed to me at that time since most of my art was based on OCs. All of my favorite authors were so funny and full of life, so I wanted to know everything about their world.

There is some additional personal stuff below the cut to read at your own discretion. Thank you again for making me smile today💖

A lot of what I liked about the Symposium was what it meant for me as I was coming into my sexual identity. There was also a quote from William Arrowsmith's intro to Petronius that stuck with me, about sex being "a matter of taste and not morality." We talked about LGBT issues at school, and as soon as I heard the term "bisexual," I knew that's what I had been my entire life, but I never felt comfortable talking with other people about it and I didn't like how identity politics-focused the discourse I was seeing irl and on social media was at the time. It still feels wrong to type, maybe because of some internalized stuff, but also because I hate the idea that people actively think of me AS bisexual and not anything that better represents who I am. Learning about historical approaches to same-sex attraction helped me accept that these things are ultimately personal and I don't owe a declaration or explanation to anybody, which fit with my conception of my self much more than contemporary writing on the same topic. I know people have different experiences and different interpretations of these ideas-- this is just mine.

#asks

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magpie-moon · 1 year ago

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I was conceived without thought

In the last bitter moments of a fruitless marriage

some say it was at the airport

a flight to somewhere without the other

but only the perpetrators know for sure

I am ashes and fire and rain

Air and water

And red-brown leaves barely hanging onto skeletal trees

I was born to rage and wrath

a mother screaming

a baby crying

funny how I never fit the mold

I am warm nights and early sunsets

I won’t go outside

But the sentiment is always nice

I am hidden objects in odd places

I am a puzzle missing half its pieces

I am ink smeared across desperate fingertips

Impossible to scrub away

I was born to a mother

who sometimes forgot her child

alcohol is a thorough distraction

I am pages of unread books

An encyclopedia of useless quotes

A library of disconnected and mangled memories

Thoughts litter the ceiling like stringless balloons

I am a too vivid photograph

My contrast turned all the way up;

I am ear numbing static

I was born to stepdad number one

though he was more babysitter than parent

but back then I couldn’t tell the difference

I am nothing if not perfect

I am nothing if not wrong

I am nothing if not nothing at all

I was born for eggshell floors and soft footfalls

for clothes brushing skin in the darkness of a closet

for yelled accusations drifting across a terrified house

I am sunshine that tastes like sky

I am dust motes that feel like pixie dust

I am a fallen feather

Just along for the ride

I was born for summers spent in sticky heat

and long plane rides to anticipated destinations

for layovers in Phoenix

I am an underling to all that is just enough to make you wonder

But never enough to do anything more

I am the end of a dream

That feels all too real

That holds you hostage like blankets wrapped around your sweat-dampened legs at midnight on a Monday morning

I am the burnt toast that you still have to eat

The stuff your mother tells you will polish your teeth

I was born for fearful plane rides

I was told this was vacation

I never got to say goodbye

I never went back

I am a breath held in too long

a lamp that flickers more often than it shines

A door that shuts all on its own

Don’t worry: I am just a ghost

I was born to stepdad number two

he was neither babysitter nor parent

even then I knew that

he drank and fought

she met him blow for blow

and I didn’t exist

I am the pennies

Thrown into a decrepit wishing well

I won’t do what you expect me to

I was born an adult

a child who knew the ways of the world

I knew to cook

I knew not to clean (I never did it right)

I knew, by instinct, when leaving my room was alright

I knew what time to walk to school

I knew when to come home

I was eight years old

I am thousands of sticky notes stuck to a mirror

full of the impossible

I am a twinge of pain that you can’t quite feel

But I am always there

I was born for shut off water

for unpaid electric bills

for dogs who bit you if you weren’t careful

I am a song that you can’t remember

Lyrics that fill your parents with fear

‘are you okay. this music doesn’t sound like you’re okay’

I am fine. I promise

I was born for a road trip that wouldn’t end

for a backwater catholic school (it could have been worse)

for a different hotel every other night

I am the words that won’t come out

The thought you won’t speak

The stupid idea you’re glad you never voiced

I was born for forgetting the return

I assume it was a long arduous one

full of cats smuggled into pet-free hotels

I am wet, raw weather

I am unable to get warm

I am colder than you ever thought possible

I was born to a townhouse

we lied about the address

they found out eventually

I am that kid

Who won’t come out of their closet

I’d sleep in there if I could

I am a small, safe, dark place

The kind that feels like home

I was born to eviction

and if objects were memories

I’d have none

no one told me we weren’t coming back

‘just pack your bags; fill them with clothes’

I am an instrument that doesn’t sound right

Doesn’t matter how many times you take me to get fixed

I still don’t sound like you want me to

I was born again in a homeless shelter

a grandparent paid for private school

but no one knew how bad it was

not even me

I am thousands of blankets

Piled high on top of you on a cold night

I seem good in theory

But I will suffocate you

I am sorry

I was born to be picked up one day

in the middle of fourth grade

by my grandparents

I am an old car

That no one wants to drive

But everyone keeps around because I haven’t really broken down yet

When I get close

Someone comes and patches up my fatal wounds with band-aids

And tells not to be sad

And tells me not to worry

I was born for it not to occur to me that would not see my mother again

until much later

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a relief

I am obsessive

Easy distracted

Oblivious and headless

I can’t see five feet in front of me

But I jump anyway

I was born once more, a couple weeks later in Vienna

to a father who didn’t know me, or care to

a sister who knew better than me, in all things

a stepmother who liked the idea of mothering better than being a mother

I am not easily impressed

But somehow I am fascinated by everything

I start millions of projects

I never finish

Even when I want to

I was born for anxiety

it knots my stomach

makes me nauseous

and everyone thought I was bulimic

but no

just anxious (I feel better now, really, I do)

I am a Christmas tree kept up a little too long

With cracked paper ornaments held together by glitter and glue

I look great from a distance

And then you see me up close

And I am falling apart

A fire waiting to happen

I was born again to move back to Texas

back to my grandparents

It hit like a train I heard from miles away

but refused to acknowledge

I swear I saw it coming; the snide remarks made it apparent

It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did

I am metamorphosis

Caught between one world and another

Tug of war

And no one’s winning

I was born once more in sixth grade

And everyone thought me sweet

I had no backbone and I didn’t know anything

I am blood and bone

A snake in need of shedding

I am too tight for my skin

I can’t make myself fit

I was born for seventh grade

when I discovered sarcasm

and when I learned that people who were too nice

lost themselves to others

I was tired of being lost

I still am

I am falling asleep at a desk at two am

And forcing yourself awake to work on one more thing

I am exhaustion

The inability to keep your eyes open even though you sleep all day

I was born for eighth grade

I let myself fall without reserve

they had dimples and smiled like the sun

they blinded me and I couldn’t look away

I didn’t really want to

I am a vulture waiting for someone to push me off a cliff

Waiting for someone to make me fly

I am stagnant now

Powerless and reckless

What I do won’t matter

So why not do everything

I was born again for ninth grade

and nothing turned out well this year

I’ve forgotten the sky

and I’ve forgotten the people who live under it

I am overwhelmed

but I still feel nothing

funny how that works

I am grey and blue and black

The bruises that came from nowhere

That you only notice when a dull pain shoots through your limb

‘where did you come from’

But there’s no good answer

I am alive

And I suppose that’s all that matters

#writers #poetry #autobiographical #Queer #nonbinary

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theclumsydancerblog · 2 years ago

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Journal Ideas

Here are a few journaling ideas for your new notebook that you are promising to fill this time. I don’t know what time of journal any of you want to do (personal, bullet, just a writing me-time journal, etc), but here are a few ideas if you are ever stuck.

1. What does a dream day in your life look like?

2. What lessons are you currently learning?

3. Write a letter to your past self.

4. List 15 things you are grateful for.

5. What’s holding you back from living your dream life?

6. What do you wish others knew about you?

7. Yearly bucket list.

8. Cleaning routines (daily, monthly, yearly)

9. What emotions do you try to avoid? Why?

10. What makes you proud of yourself?

11. What drains your energy?

12. To Do List (life, personal, school, work, household)

13. What is your best/worst quality?

14. What are you jealous about?

15. When do you feel most alive?

16. Write a letter to your older self.

17. What do you love about each season?

18. What are the flowers in your favourite season?

19. What is your current obsession?

20. Write a letter to someone who has hurt you.

21. List 5 things that make you happy.

22. If your life had a playlist, what would be on it?

23. Describe your dream house.

24. If you could escape/go anywhere you want, where would you go?

25. If you lived in (insert fan universe), what would your life be like?

26. What’s the nicest thing someone has done for you/said to you?

27. What is an idea that has been stuck in your head lately?

28. What does your dream wedding look like?

29. What does a dream date look like?

29. What was your dream job when you were a kid?

30. Recent dreams.

31. What is your favourite colour and why?

32. What is a random fact you know?

33. Write about your favourite animal.

34. One word page. (this page is for one word only).

35. Write about your favourite person.

36. Lyrics to a song you’re obsessed with/you’re favourite song.

37. Who inspires you at the moment?

38. Describe your room (diagram/planout)

39. Write about your pet.

40. Upcoming events this year.

41. Who would you travel the world with, where would you go?

42. If you were a natural phenomenon, what would you be?

43. What’s your earliest memory?

44. What’s a funny story that happened that you always think about?

45. Book/Movie/Series Review.

46. It’s the end of the world, who are you spending it with?

47. What superpower would you have if you had a choice?

48. What mythical creature would you be?

49. What’s your comfort food?

50. To 5 places you would visit in the world?

51. What is your dream pet?

52. If you were an animal, what would you be?

53. What day of the week would you be?

54. Write yourself in the alphabet (A is for Anime, B id for Bookworm)

55. Movie/book/series Watchlist/TBR

56. Write your favourite poem.

57. Collage page.

58. If you could change anything about the world, what would you change?

59. Set a timer for 5 minutes and write, do not let your pen leave the page and continuously write ‘til the timer stops.

60. What skill(s) do you want to try?

61. A dedication shrine page to your idol/favourite charcter.

62. Ships page (characters you ship, you fangirl).

63. Character profile of your favourite fictional character.

64. Introduce your friend group.

65. Quotes page (fill the page with favourite quotes).

66. What was the perfect day when you were a kid?

67. Doodle page.

68. Diary.

69. Annotations from books.

70. Favourite things said today.

71. World Events happening at the moment.

72. Favourite film and why?

73. What do you pack in your bag every day?

74. What’s your comfort time?

75. Wishlist (about ANYTHING)

So, there you ahev it. 75 pages worth of stuff to write about. I understand the pain of blocks when it comes to notebooks and journals. I hope this helps you and if you have any more suggestions, repost and put them up. I’m always looking for ideas.

Now go forth young writers!

#studyblr #college #notebook #student #studentlife #university #journal #journalling #journalblr #blog #student blog #studygram #writers on tumblr #writersofinstagram #study

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thepiinkpages · 3 months ago

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Soooo this book is amazing. I did not think I was going to like it but the more I read it the more I liked it. I stayed up almost all night to finish the first book... yes, it's that good.

So, at first it was obviously a beauty and the beast (or beasts in this case) retelling. It was almost word or word, scene for scene and at first I didn't quite like it but the FL, Rosalina, reminds me so much of myself. Always stuck in a book, wishing I was whisked away to a foreign land.

There are four maybe five MLs in this book. Dayton, a playboy that looks like he came out of a surfing magazine; Prince of Summer. Ezryn, a brooding man that will protect Rosalina until his last breath; Prince of Spring. Farron, a research loving sweet young man; Prince of Autumn. Kelarion, a grumpy, secretive icy man that knows Rosalina is his mate since the beginning but his secrets (and curse) will not let him; Prince of Winter.

This book was thrilling, funny, not to smutty but just the right amount. There was a part in there were Rosalina accidently flashed Kelarion and the look he gave her was absolute horror. I burst out laughing because this would be something that would happen to me. Aso, Dayton cut off the hands of a man that was trying to hold Rosalina... and they don't ask themselves why exactly they're so protective of her? I wish I could go in there and teach a course on soul mate bonds *insert sigh*

My favorite so far is definitely Ezryn. I love a brooding troubled man bear. He's just something else y'all. If Rosalina don't want him, I WANT HIM. Plus he wears armor... hot.

I've already begun reading the second book, I couldn't resist myself. It's a itch I need to scratch.

Usually I don't care about the background character much, but I loved the background character's in this. Marigold was definitively my favorite. My personality is a mix of Rosalina's and Marigolds. A perfect mix of intellectual and pervy *Insert cackle here*

I can't put the full quote here but its the first sentence in this book that caught my attention. Book readers have lived thousands of lives because the reality that we live in will never live up to the life we live in books.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"...How the fuck and I supposed to answer you when you're choking me out, you overgrown tin can..."

"...Do you like it, Rosalina?...Yes...Then the fucking gods will have to tear me away from your sweet pussy..."

"...It's not a spark. It's an eternal fire that burns from deep within my heart and reaches out to you...And every moment I am not touching you, it eats my soul inside out, tearing me apart, until merely looking at you is an anguish I would only wish upon my worst enemy..."

Rating: 4.8/5 stars

Okay, here is a little fun fact about me. I have A LOT of tattoos that mean significant things to me. But the one that calls out to me the most out of the majority is a word that I got tattooed on when I was younger:

Hiraeth- A deep, inborn sense of yearning for a home, a feeling, a place or person that is beyond this plane of existence.

I have so many home's that I will never visit because they're not real. I yearn to be in a world that were I feel complete and that is why I will keep reading. A thousand worlds feels like zero when your not.

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tallemy · 6 months ago

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We will have to continue the dialogue here… I don't know if I'm repeating the questions with someone else, but I hope it won't be difficult for you to answer twice.

How did you come to write fan fiction? When you were little, for example, you walked and wrote poems, or, after reading books, decided to repeat the fate of some writer?

It is also curious how you came to Jokermike. How they hooked you or under what circumstances.

Where do you get your fanfiction ideas from? Are you inspired not only by books, but also by movies, or at any incomprehensible moment you suddenly get an idea?

Hmm…What else would you like to ask… Is there anything that fascinates you in life? If I were you, I'd probably sneak into the abandoned house of a former witch and steal a couple of grimoires, hehe!

Ohh, you did not repeat don't worry! 👀 1. I think back then I was a bit fascinated with writing fics because I thought the people doing this were amazing. Like you can just take the characters and play around with them, give their story a continuation or an AU. I think my first fics were mainly OC ones, but not in a way that I shipped my characters with the canon characters, but more in a way of "I wanted to add my story to the mix and make the canon interact with my idea like a spinoff" :'D (I think past me would be amazed that current me can write novel-length fics.) 2. Oh that's a funny story, but basically I was browsing AO3 and a Swallow of Deception/Cunning fic caught my attention. It was short, but sweet, and technically a royalty AU oneshot with slow undressing and a small bit of smut on the side. (it's part of the reason why I lie top Mike haha There was just something about the entire power-reversal with the king and his guard that stuck with me.) /w\ One day I'd really like to write a homage to it based on what I remember and what I'd add because I still miss the original dearly and I want more people to remember that it existed just got deleted :') 3. I'd vote for a sudden idea! Sometimes the base if a book, a quote a poem, sometimes I am just walking on the street and see/hear things that catch my attention. I really like researching history and culture too, so sometimes the ideas suddenly pop from there. (Like the Sparrow/FG one that deals with actors being lent to theatres) How would the characters react? How can I make this work in their environment? Those are always fun questions to ask! 4. Oh it's actually hmm... birds... birds do fascinate me. 🤔 I am not sure how to explain this tho.

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shadowstar1919 · 2 years ago

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Prompt# 3 letsss goooooooooooooooo. AO3

Jason was just trying to enjoy grabbing coffee with two of his best goons, Butch and Jake. Sure they didn't know he was the red hood but, he was pretending to be his own boyfriend. So... that was a thing. It was kind of funny asking the two to accompany Jason for coffee as Red Hood then going and just changing into his street clothes and meeting them outside of his building.

"How's it going, Jay?" Jake looked at him in a questioning manner. Was he finally catching on? Butch was just playing on his phone almost disinterested. Jay went to fix his jacket realizing he was wearing his leather jacket we wore as the hood. A blush ran across his face. "OH. Heh, pretty good. I just realized I grabbed the wrong jacket. But, I don't think he will mind." Jason played along with his goon squad's suspicions and his own little joke.

"I don't think so either anyways let's get that coffee and check on the volunteers at the soup kitchen." Butch laughs as he plays my singing monsters.

Jason starts walking down the street with the two following beside him. Turning the corner to nearly bump straight into a teen. "Uh. Hey, dude with the white stripe. Do you like books?" The kid looks him straight in the eyes. Blue eyes, black hair. Looks like a mini Bruce or maybe Dick?

Jason takes a step back because the kid was close enough that he could lean on him. "Wha?" is all he could get out in a moment of confusion.

"I said do you like reading or books? Oh, and do you ride a motorcycle?" The kid added the second question after repeating the first. Now the two goons looked ready to punch the kid if he tried anything.

"Yes. I do enjoy a good book and I do ride a motorcycle. Why are you asking?" Tilting his head letting his freshly washed hair flop over.

But before jason could get an answer the little shit just jogged away. So the trio continued walking but now keeping their eyes open for the weird kid. Later in the coffee shop, after they got their coffee. "So Jay? Do you think the narrow kids are going to attempt to trap Robin in slime again? I heard they are determined to capture him and force the little bird into being friends or to lead their gang." After an aggressive swig of coffee, Jake asks making air quotes around the gang and everything.

"Honestly, I have no idea. But I saw the photo posted in the Gotham Facebook group of Robin covered in what I could describe as Nickelodeon slime. It was beautiful." Jay snorts before responding.

"Dude you have to share those photos with me I need to put them in the Narrows discord," Butch says still not taking his eyes off his phone.

The rest of the day wasn't that eventful. The soup kitchen they helped at was busy as ever the regulars having idle conversations with Jason and his two goons. Some of the other gang members showed up and helped as well. After that, they went and checked on the girls that worked the narrows and crime alley. Everything was going as normally there as well.

For once it seems everything was chill no new murders no muggings or anything going on in his territory. It was nice. But, it was getting later in the day and he needed to take a nap before heading out as hood tonight. He left the two goons and went home. He actually likes hanging out with the two even if he is paying them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As soon as his night started it was off. It was cold and foggier than normal. So he stuck to the rooftops since Riding down a street with lower visibility was a great way to end up hurt. He perched with his favourite gargoyle looking over the city.

"Hey. Just wondering what is your favourite colour?" A voice from behind him startled him.

Nearly falling off the roof he responds. "How did you even get up here?!"

Jazz was just trying to enjoy her morning when Danny kept popping in on her. Sure she was enjoying her new apartment in Gotham City and all but it would be better if she could get some alone time for once.

"Danny I know your there. Can you leave me be for a minute? I need to work on this paper I am writing." She said before even turning to look.

"Actually I am not Danny. I was just stopping to check on a disturbance." A rough voice responded.

She turned to see the freaking Batman standing in the middle of her desolate kitchen. "Oh! Oh, ancients!"

"Sorry to disturb you miss. But, I needed to get into the apartment beside yours and it was locked. Sorry for intruding." And just like that he walked out her front door. She was so confused about how. Her neighbour was out all day. What could Batman want with him?! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jason shrieks as he tries to regain his balance. His coms pick up his girly scream. Danny grabs one of his arms and pulls him back. "Sorry about that. Didn't this I would spook you that bad." The black-haired kid from earlier says helping back off the edge.

"Kid! YOU CANNOT JUMPSCARE PEOPLE LIKE THAT ON A FREAKING ROOF!!!" Jason shouts before calming faster than he normally can.

The teen deflates a bit. "Honestly I didn't mean to.." The air cools a bit and it starts to rain lightly.

Hood goes to pinch his nose hitting his helm and sighing heavily. "So care to explain why you are on a roof?" Annoyance was heavy in his words.

Danny tilts his head. "Looking for you. Anyways, what is your favourite colour? Also, are you into redheads?"

"Kid! How are you finding me how did you know my secret identity earlier?!" Jason was wondering where the pit had gone. Normally with this level of irritation, it would be creeping into his vision.

"It was supposed to be secret? Oops." Danny just shrugs. With that Hood Turns throwing his arms into the air dramatically.

Hood huffs heavily as his comms spew out static interference. "I guess my favourite colour used to be green, not sure now. Also, redheads are pretty cool, I guess. Why do you keep asking me weird questions." He turns to find the kid gone. "Where the fuck did you go?! We are 6 stories up?!" Jason frantically looks for the kid and cannot find him.

Then his comms start to work once again. "Hood! Come in Hood!" Oracle sounded worried.

"Hey, sorry comms stopped working I guess."

"Thank Heavens, all I heard was your scream and then static." O sighed heavily. "Then, you dropped off my radar completely."

Jason decided to call it an early night. "Sorry, I have no idea what happened and I am fine just nearly fell off of a building. It's a bit slippery out. Think I am going to call it a night."

"That sounds like a good plan. Mind making a stop in though so I can check your tech?" Oracle asked nicely.

"Yeah. I can do that. See you soon."

@bathildaburp

Tiny ideas 2

----

1. Danny, in his new and very human black and white vigilante outfit runs past Penguin who had gotten soaked when a car full of hooligans wearing clown masks ran threw a puddle and splashed him.

Danny, not knowing who this was, tapped him on the shoulder as he ran past, running his intangibility through the man and letting the water fall off him, leaving him nice and dry again.

Penguin makes note to pay both back in very different ways.

----

2. Phantom, having been exorcisized from Amity Park and essentially banished and unable to return, roams around the multiverse looking for something to do.

Upon coming across the creepiest doll hes ever seen in a trash bin, he decides to mess with some local bat themed vigilantes and possesses the doll.

His first victim is Red Robin. Danny in all his creepy doll glory toddles out from behind a chimney as his target is running across the rooftop in his direction. Birdy stopped dead (heh) and stared at the doll.

Danny picked good. The doll was porcelain and cracked, missing one of its glass eyes and moss growing out of the empty socket and around various parts of its body. Its dress was once a lovely blue or green velvet but was now patchy and worn.

He turned the dolls head around at an unnatural angle to fix its gaze on the vigilante, its frozen polite smile adding to its eerieness, and in a moment of impulse said, "I'll see you soon." In the most creepiest little girl voice he could manage, using his ghost powers to make the words seem to drift upon the air towards the hero.

And just like that, doll Danny was gone.

RR almost frantically contacted oracle, "Did you see that?!"

"RR your signal cut out for a few minutes, backup should arrive soon. What happened?"

-----

3. Jason has been getting followed around by this wierd kid who is prime Brucie adoption bait. Kid kept jumping out of nowhere without anyone being able to sense him to ask him the weirdest questions (Damian was so startled that he nearly stabbed the kid on reflex. Not that he'd ever admit it).

The questions where things like, "Do you like books? What are your favorites? Can you cook? Do you like red heads? Do you like dogs? How opposed are you to having supervillian in-laws? What if they give you free experimental weaponry? ....how about some laser cannons and a jet?

Jason ends up getting kidnapped by this kid and dumped in from of this pretty girl as the kid tells her, "I went out and got you a boyfriend who won't try to murder you. Don't screw this up!" Before the kid ran out of the room.

Jazz was mortified.

Jason is still on the floor where he was deposited earlier, "So..." he begins, "I heard you like Jane Austin?"

-----

4. Phantom faked his death in front of the people of Amity Park, just to see how they would react to his passing and kind of in hopes of something changing. He couldn't keep sacrificing everything for these people, after all.

He did not like how the people reacted. Danny had to move away cause if he heard one more person say it was a good thing "that monster" died hes going to hurt someone.

Gotham seemed lovely this time of year and its one place that neither his parents or Vlad would visit. Vlad because if he tried anything at all the worlds greatest detective would ruin him and his parents because they once tried to hunt Batman and Robin only for Batman to terrify them to the point of never returning after they hurt his bird.

Danny got hired at Wayne Tech after submitting a wide range of devices but couldn't do much thanks to still being a minor. Thankfully Mr. Wayne was very generous and kept him housed and fed while he finished his online schooling and graduated early.

(Heavy angst for Danny.)

---

5. Danny hadn't seen Cujo in a while, which wasn't too unusual, but it have been a long time since hed seen his puppy and he was overdue a visit.

Danny pulled out his dog whistle, one normally used for emergencies and that Cujo would never ever ignore.

Only...Cujo didn't come. Now Danny goes on a journey to track down his missing dog. Following clues and trails across different realities, dimensions and universes to find his lost dog.

He did not expect to meet a bird themed vigilante along the way, not for them to insist he help him on his quest. Robin seemed very wary of the Infinite Realms the first time he entered them and had tons of questions. But bird boy was great company and Cujo would love him so Danny could deal.

#dcxdp #dc x dp prompt #dpxdc

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youritalianbookpal · 2 years ago

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Ten Questions Book Review - It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

What is it? 23 year old meets dashing surgeon on a rooftop on the night of her abusive father's death and proceeds with ignoring concerning red flags for like 300 pages.

Who should read it and why? Listen. I didn't like this book. I don't think anyone should read it, but if you really want to please please please read it critically.

Which genre(s) is it? Contemporary. I think technically it's a contemporary romance novel, but the idea that anyone can conceive this as romantic irks me.

What is the setting? The main setting is Boston, modern times, though we get diary readings/flashbacks related to the past.

How are the characters? I think Alyssa is probably the only person I haven't wanted to smack in the head with the book, but apart from that I don't know. Of course I am sympathetic to Lily and her mother, and they seem like well rounded and relatable characters that could actually be real, but not enough to save the book for me.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the novel? I think that the Atlas storyline is one of the strengths of the book, since it gives Lily some much needed depth, and it's engaging to see the two stories sort of parallel. I did not like the writing style, though, which makes me think I will not read any other book by Colleen Hoover, at least not soon.

Did I cry and/or laugh? I think that I cried once in one of the scenes between Lily and her mother, towards the end of the novel. I don't the book was particularly funny, not enough to make me laugh at least, because I was mostly mad at Hoover for writing this thing, even in the fun moments.

Who shouldn’t read the book? Let my experience with this book be a cautionary tale about popular booktok books and do not read stuff like this, if you are not knees deep in the booktok mud.

Any random comment? The only way to read this book for me was to read it to complain about it with my friend through texts. If anyone is interested I might even share some texts. I was angry like 90% of the time. It was very fun.

Which quote stuck with me?

Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet. My mother went through it. I went through it. I'll be damned if I allow my daughter to go through it. I kiss her on the forehead and make her a promise. "It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.

#ten questions book review #colleen hoover #it ends with us #book review

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innuendostudios · 2 years ago

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Nietzsche's Eternal Return (to Monkey Island)

[spoilers ahoy]

Theme The person who is returning to Monkey Island here is, most obviously, Ron Gilbert. He got him brand back. Go Ron! And, look, I was skeptical. I mean, I was, above all, cautiously optimistic! But I was keeping my skeptic hat on the coat rack next to my hoodie, you know? I said the philosophy of The Secret of Monkey Island is "cheerful nihilism," and I stand by that. But Ron Gilbert's nihilism is not always cheerful. Or, actually, I think he's usually having a good time, but it often feels at my expense. How badly did I want him to take me back to the first series I ever loved?

I am on record as having never liked the ending of Monkey Island 2, which is the last Monkey Island game Ron directed (though he apparently had some peripheral involvement in Tales of Monkey Island). I am also on record as having haaaaaaaaaated the ending of his last adventure game, Thimbleweed Park. Ron likes a cop-out ending. Frankly you should know that by now - don't play Return to Monkey Island if you aren't prepared for a cop-out ending. It's what Ron does. And sometimes... sometimes it's a deliberate rug-pull. Sometimes he's laughing at you for expecting the ending to be good.

The Secret of Monkey Island's ending was a bit of a piss-take. It was short, it was abrupt, it rendered the entire plot up to that point irrelevant. Its instant replays and Blimp-cams and snarky final lines made it a parody of a video game ending. But, parody or no, it was an ending! It was a climax. You returned to the starting point, blew up the villain, and reunited with the love interest. Even in air quotes, it was the way you expect stories to end.

Monkey Island 2 intentionally denied you that ending. Refused closure. Told you all the events you just witness, and the events of the previous game, may never have happened. I originally played the game on its "easier puzzles" mode, and, when I got to the end, thought there must be a proper ending if you play normally, but nope. Spent a solid year stuck on Part II, refusing to get a hint book, before finally getting back to the ending, and thbthbthbthbthb. Fuck me for caring I guess.

The joke of The Secret of Monkey Island is Monkey Island having a secret is brought up in Part I, so you expect it to be relevant, given the game's title and all, and then, once the plot kicks into gear, you get focused on Elaine's kidnapping and the rescue mission and confronting LeChuck, and it's not til sometime after you finish that you think, "Wait... they never told us the secret." I don't think it's even mentioned after Part I.

Monkey Island 2 never lets you forget its macguffin. You are searching for the treasure of Big Whoop. No one knows what it is, but it's what you're after. There is no distraction, no romantic subplot that takes over your attention. Hell, the game makes it clear that Guybrush's obsession with being the kind of famous pirate who would look for Big Whoop has ruined his relationship and annoys his friends. The game hinges on Big Whoop. But, once again, you never find out what it is, and it's not an "oh that's funny" moment that hits you an hour after you play; it is, as Cobain would say, a denial.

And then Gilbert left LucasArts, the series was continued by other developers, and whatever resolution he had in mind for the MI2's putative "cliffhanger" ending was left to our imaginations for thirty years. Until now.

So the question is not whether, in Return to Monkey Island, you will finally find the secret. You oughtta know you're not finding that secret. The question is: which kind of cop-out will Ron give you?

And what Ron has done is kind of amazing: he has found a cop-out ending that is, for the first time in the series, emotional. He has made the denial of closure resonant. He has gone meta that quiet, knowing way that most Neil Gaiman stories are meta: yes, this is a fun story about pirates, but it's also a story about stories about pirates. This is Guybrush, the guy who couldn't shut up about the greatness of his adventures in Monkey Island 2, telling his son a story. He's not telling it because the ending is exciting, because the Secret of Monkey Island is so mind-blowing once revealed. He's telling it to relate to his son.

The ending is a big nothing. It's a joke. Elaine walks up when it's over and says "you tell that story differently every time." When your son presses you to tell him what the secret is, the game gives you six dialogue options with different answers. It doesn't matter what the secret is. And, unlike when a young Guybrush found the empty chest of Big Whoop, this time he knows it. He has a family and a storied life. That's the treasure a lifetime on the seas brought him.

Some people hate this ending. But, maybe for the first time, I'm on Ron's side of a polarizing ending. Monkey Island has always made me laugh; even the mixed bags that are Escape and Tales find chuckles somewhere. And the developers who are not Ron Gilbert have attempted pathos before; Tales went so far as to let Guybrush die - like, not fake his death like in Curse but legit die - but the results were mixed. This is the first time Monkey Island has given me feelings. Ron Gilbert, the man who told stories deep-fried in irony, who gave me the finger for expecting them to resolve, finally, all these years later, gave me feelings. Maybe he could only do it after thirty years, once a sarcastic parody of a pirate game starts to feel nostalgic simply because it's been in your life so long. But he did it.

Go Ron.

Design The clever thing about Return's structure is how it apes, subverts, and expands upon those of Ron's other two entries. You spend a decent chunk of this game tracing the footsteps of Secret: Part I is on Mêlée Island, with the Scumm Bar and Otis locked in jail and its twisty forest surveyed with weird maps; Part II is on a ship to Monkey Island where you have to recreate the potion that took you there in the first game; Part III is on Monkey Island itself, with its banana tree on the beach and its giant monkey head and its incredible view from the mountaintop; and Part IV seems to be wrapping things up, as you hurry back to Mêlée because the place you needed to be all along is back where you started.

And just when you think the game is wrapping up... it turns into Monkey Island 2.

Suddenly you have a ship and a map of the surrounding seas and a whole bunch of new islands to check out. It's that enormous sprawl from Part II of LeChuck's Revenge.

It's a bit cheeky to get to what feels like the end and think, "huh, I guess this game is a tight 7 hours," and then run aground on the game's surprise second half.

The player's (presumed) familiarity with the series becomes a playground for the designers. You expect insult swordfighting, so you laugh when LeChuck gives you two comebacks in a row and then just punches you. (It's also cute that Guybrush and Carla the Swordmaster can only converse while swordfighting.) You already know the potion that takes you to Monkey Island requires a pressed human skull, so of course this time it's Murray; "pressed" is his default emotion! You expect Guybrush to fall off the side of the plateau and get bounced back up by a rubber tree, so you laugh when Guybrush keeps jumping up and down on the bit that broke before only to have it stay solid, and then later when he gets kicked off you think "ahahahaaa, he's going to land on the rubber tree!" only to find him twisted and mangled having landed on... a rubber tree stump.

LeChuck's Revenge was such a departure from the first game that you can see, in Curse, how the new developers wanted to course correct. This is a trend, I've found: an IP comes out that is widely beloved; the first sequel is the same team doing something weirder and more ambitious, and is met with divided response; then the series it taken over by fans of the original who, instead of being weird and ambitious, ignore the first sequel's innovations and turn the original entry into a formula. I guess what I'm saying is, much as I enjoy it, Curse of Monkey Island is the Jurassic Park III of the series. (See also: Myst.)

First island: map, ship, crew. Then a stretch on a boat. Then a new Island. Then a (usually short and lackluster) confrontation with LeChuck. There will be some variant of insult swordfighting. You will have to decipher an obtuse map. Everything that made the first game unique will be repeated. This is true of Curse, and much of it holds for Escape and Tales.

Return knows this formula has been established, knows you have expectations. And anywhere the player has expectations, they can be confounded.

Character The Guybrush of Return to Monkey Island feels like a magic trick. He manages to feel continuous with every previous iteration of the character, none of whom felt continuous with each other. He blends the naïveté of Secret's Guybrush with the amorality of LeChuck's Revenge Guybrush, the wiseassery of Curse's Guybrush with the dipshittery of Escape's Guybrush. (I don't really remember what Tales' Guybrush was like.) You can see how this guy(brush) grew from the straight man of the first game, chilled out from the asshole of the second game, wised up from the fool of the fourth game. The series' inconsistencies now seem like one person in different phases of his life.

Who Guybrush is is more relational than in games past. His marriage to Elaine (properly written as the most competent person in the room, finally) seems like it could be in danger, as she becomes steadily more aware of how amorally Guybrush is acting in pursuit of The Secret. LeChuck is framed for the first time as a foil for Guybrush, as the two start to resemble each other the more obsessed each becomes with beating the other to the prize. (One character says of their enmity, "you deserve each other.")

These are, of course, both handwaved in the end. Elaine confronts Guybrush with his misdeeds, but just asks whether The Secret can possibly be worth all the questionable things he's done. (She's not fussed that her husband is amoral, she married a friggin' pirate.) The LeChuck confrontation is a big nothing because, right when you're about to confront him, the cop-out rug-pull happens. Guybrush not telling his son what The Secret is shows that he clearly learned the right lesson and did not turn into LeChuck. The game simply elides the inevitable confrontation-and-epiphany moment; why does the game need to show it to you if you already know it's coming?

And it's just nice to see Elaine and Guybrush... be together. They get together at the end of the first game and are broken up in the second, and she spends the next three getting damseled over and over. Serialized stories are always bringing romantic pairings together and splitting them up, because reuniting is easier than the drama of maintaining a relationship. (I mean, how many times have Nathan Drake and Elena broken up between games?) The moments where you get a sense of Guybrush and Elaine's relationship, how little time they get to spend together because he's a pirate and she's a professional do-gooder, how he adores her like a goddess and she adores him like a puppy.

Beats the hell out of Tales' ill-advised love triangle with a "human-again" LeChuck.

On another note, it is interesting that, for all the effort the game makes to not contradict the canon of the non-Gilbert games, it doesn't mine them for content, either. Murray is the only character from Curse onward to make an appearance. Morgan LeFlay got a passing mention in mine. But there's no Cap'n Blondebeard, no Edward Van Helgen or Cutthroat Bill, no Ozzie Mandrill, no Pegnose Pete. Meanwhile, seemingly everyone from Monkey Island 1 & 2 show up. There are the obvious ones - The Voodoo Lady (finally given a name), Wally, Stan. But there's also Otis and Carla, and the Scumm Bar cook, and Herman Toothrot is in a cave, Kate Capsize gets a mention, I'm pretty sure "Apple Bob" is the skeleton who pops his head off in the first game (now voice by Rob Paulsen, great choice), Cobb is still in the bar with his Ask Me About LOOM button ("I'm more button than man")... come to think of it, I think even the LOOM seagull who stole your map piece in MI2 gets a cameo. Narrative economy, I guess - if you find skeletons on Terror Island, they might as well be the Men of Low Moral Fiber, right?

While it would be interesting to see Ron and Dave Grossman's take on some of those characters, many of whom have, I would say, unrealized potential - they do a bang-up job with Murray - it's clear this is about wrapping up the story they started back in 1990. It may be improbable that half the people you meet are people you already know, but... it's good to see them all the same.

Conclusion No I'm not making a video about this.

#capsule review #adventure games #return to monkey island

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cloudninetonine · 2 years ago

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Something funny I thought about in relation to the Player Au is some of the crazy shenanigans the games let you pull and what that would be like for the characters actually experiencing them. Especially when you stop to consider that the games don’t really show Link’s and/or assorted NPCs reactions to various things. Let’s count them off by game, yes?

* The Original (which I have actually played! Retro-gaming ftw!); you can bomb walls and floors to find secret places that hold everything from shops to fairies to a random moblin who gives you rupees for no apparent reason (I, the player, was confused by that last one. I can only imagine what Hyrule’s reaction must’ve been). You can also accidentally bomb your way into the wrong cave and be charged for “door repairs” by the old man inside it

* ALTTP; you can buy a bee of all things from a red shield shop in the dark world. Not even the shopkeeper knows why that’s there. And then of course there’s one quest in the game where you have to drag a damned chest across the country only to be given an empty bottle as payment.

* The Oracle games; bump into Maple enough time in either game and she eventually switches out her broom for a vacuum and in a linked game that gets traded in for a flying saucer! (What the hell Maple?! Where’d you even get those from?!).

In Seasons if you set the weather to winter and go into a normally inaccessible house, there’s a green-haired girl named Holly who says, and I quote, “Hey, you're not Santa!”.

There’s a chest with a single rupee! (Link and Player both would prob be deadpanning and going “are you kidding me...”).

There’s this funny little end-game credits skit in a non-Linked run of Ages where Link tries to teach Ralph how to perform a Spin Attack, and Ralph ends up accidentally doing the Hurricane Spin instead before collapsing from dizziness.

* Four Swords; you can pick up the pots and throw them, and not just at monsters or to break them but also at the other Links! Which then causes the pot to get stuck on their head for a while as everything goes completely black save the character sprite. Which made this hilarious image pop into my head of one of the colors picking up a pot to throw it at some monster only to completely miss and hit one of the other colors instead. (I’m still not sure which combo is funnier, Blue hitting either Green or Vio, or Vio misjudging his aim and hitting Blue!)

* Pretty much everything you can do in BoTW. Full stop.

* Wind Waker; attacking a moblin from behind or using the grappling hook on them nets you some pretty funny animations. The grappling hook is especially so because you actually steal the moblin’s necklace and it’ll actually stare at you for a moment at the audacity.

You can steal a Stalfos’s mace while it’s in pieces and when it reforms it’ll realize what’s missing and try to use one of its own arms as nunchucks.

Drop a bomb into an area with a bunch of moblins and the idiots will attack it, with predictable results.

Drop another and they'll run away panicking!

* In both BoTW and Wind Waker you can make certain monsters to engage in friendly fire against each other and eventually they’ll start attacking their allies instead of Link in revenge.

* OoT and Majora’s Mask let you have a bit of fun with the masks. Using the Captain's Hat and the Bremen mask during King of Ikana boss fight is a hoot. (On a slightly unrelated note, the verses books strategy guide for Majora’s Mask is just a riot!)

The fact that in both games you can find cows where they have no business being with no explanation.

* In nearly every game you can beat nearly every boss (including the big bad!) with either the fishing pole or the bug net!

* Minish Cap; you can use the Cane of Pacci on nearly everything, including Vaati! Just imagine for a moment what that must look like from an in-game perspective. Throughout the entire final fight, Vaati keeps getting flipped upside-down by this kid who’s probably trying not to break down laughing in the middle of fighting. Player is laughing themselves to tears and is likely the reason Link is having a hard time keeping it together.

Every time you activate a warp marker it explodes for absolutely no reason!

Using the gust jar on a Stalfos will yank its skull off, leaving it to wander around blindly. Even funnier is if there are any pots nearby it’ll try to use that as a replacement, which naturally goes about as well as you’d expect.

* Hitting the Sheikah Stones in Skyward Sword, Majora’s Mask, and Ocarina of Time all have some comical effects, most commonly being rocketing up and then crashing back down like a badly piloted toy helicopter!

* Tri Force Heroes; the utter chaos that frequently occurs during co-op. I need not say more.

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I won't lie to you, pixie, this post was one hell of a rollacoaster to read but being the daredevil I am I enjoyed every second of it.

I can only begin to imagine half the stuff Guide! Player had probably coaxed the boys into. Some instances leading in happiness, some in confusion and others with said hero with a few or more scraps or possibly being chased. They're a menace, they know it, and they have to use that opportunity to bully those boys (and try and bring smiles to their faces during their darkest hour.)

#cloud answers

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crowning-art · 2 years ago

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TGCF SPOILERS HAHAHAHA :(

So.

Yesterday was a day.

What happened post reading;

Shut my laptop, and started scrolling through tumblr. Its been 30 mins but I haven't liked or reblogged anything. I'm just scrolling and scrolling and my mind is absolutely blank. Nothing is registering. (Denial)

After I while I turn off my phone too and just sat.

My sister asks me if I'm ok. I respond, "Ya, of course, why wouldn't I be?" She gives me a look, "You're crying."

I'm obviously shocked cuz I didn't even register I was crying and I'm like NO lol I'm not crying What are you talking about?? (Anger) Except now I'm full on crying (depression) but it was so weird cuz my eyes were crying but I was laughing SO HARD, like I couldn't stop laughing, and I'm like wtff??? THERE IS LITERALLY NOTHING FUNNY???? and so to distract myself, I searched up why in the absolute hell was I laughing so hard when my heart was literally squeezing in pain cuz like THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE?? (Bargaining)

Anyways, I found smt interesting; an article that discussed a study done on opposing emotions, why people say "Aww it's so cute, I want to squeeze it sooo hard', or start laughing when they are nervous, or laugh while crying, and it was really cool what they said;

"If you get into a very high or very low emotion that you're almost to the point of being overwhelmed, you become incapacitated so you can't function well,” Aragón tells me. “Emotional homeostasis is important for people so they can be in control of their cognitive, social, and psychological functions."

In other words, people may laugh when they’re nervous in order to moderate their nervous feelings; likewise, people may cry when they’re happy to recover from distracting giddiness."

Def an eye opener for me cuz I'm just not a crying type of person and I was literally so confused lol But I didn't know this was thing til yesterday so I was likke ohh I should share this!

Anyways, I'm going to be make this post reflect EXACTLY how I felt yesterday lmaooo (acceptance)

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You know that feeling of dread? That looming, heavy weight that you feel on your shoulders as you watch and you watch and you know what's going to happen and as each scene unfolds, it starts making sense and that dread turns into down right horror and all you can do is helplessly watch....

Am I talking about me or Hua Cheng???? Perhaps both :(

I think that anxiousness had started building up when Mu Qing left and I felt so angry but it's like how can you blame him? But the absolute respect I got for this funky lil dude when he comes back with bags of rice and money and I'm I LOVE YOUUU SO MUCHHH YOU DON'T DESERVE THIS AHHH I LOVE YOUUUU

(You too, Feng Xin efbfjefjn I literally want to shrink them and put them in my pocket and protect them from the evil, mean, scary world)

ok...now for the actual stuff......

What absolutely fascinates me is that I have come across so many villains from innumerable books, shows, and movies and I have seen stupid villains, pitiable villains, and down-right psycho ones too, but something about White No-Face hits different.

This is a villain that is truly terrifying. A villian that truly understands what it means to destroy someone. And no, it's not about killing their loved ones, it's not about physical torture, it's about breaking the person inside out. It's about ripping their soul out and gently putting it back, only for them to rip it out with even more viciousness. It's about taking away the one thing that keeps anyone alive...hope. I'm reminded of an arabic proverb that I heard once and really stuck with me;

What is worse than death is that which makes you wish for death.

I think every painful moment in TGCF just embodies this quote so well; when Xianle falls, when Windmaster is confronted with the truth, and now the temple scene and it literally hurts so much to read it and it's so lovely and beautiful how MXTX writes scenes that make you FEEL exactly what the people you are reading about feel.

Like yes Xie Lian was screaming 'It hurts' but I can guarantee that EVERY reader also felt the same as they read that part.

And what makes White No Face terrifying is that he KNOWS his subject, knows him so well, that he first takes away what's beloved to him, which is his kingdom, then his godhood, then his friends, and the final straw? His parents. He breaks him and breaks til there is nothing left to break and then rebuolds it just enough to break it again. He takes away his sanity so agonizingly slowly and you just want to scream as you just watch the descent into hell occur...

Could it be that Feng Xin couldn’t see the mask on his face in the mirror at all?!

Xie Lian blurted, “You don’t see it? There’s something on my face!”

Feng Xin was puzzled. “What thing? What exactly do you mean? I don’t see anything?” Xie Lian looked at the mirror again. “That’s impossible! I…”

However, when he looked again this time, the mask on his face in the mirror had disappeared, and what reflected was that panicking face of his.

And what's crazy is that yes, White NO Face wears the mask of half laughing, half crying, but Xie Lian EMBODIES that. He is always in a state of laughing and crying simultaneously. And it just shows how broken he is.

But you know what's insane???? Xie Lian has never ONCE felt like this with Hua Cheng! It's like somehow, he is suddenly in control of his emotions and feels true sadness, true happiness and not this broken confused mixture of laughing and crying, yknow?

And the comfort he gives him? Xie Lian actually felt comforted by this monster, completely. He actually felt calm and I'm like how incredibly sick and terrifying of a person to destroy someone and then provide them with such a comfort that feels real only to shatter it the next second.

And God, oh God! My heart was dying watching a small, inanimate ball of fire express SO much fear and sadness and agony.

From deep in Xie Lian’s throat there came waves of suppressed sobs, shaking harder and harder. That ball of ghost fire flew to his heart, looking as if it wanted to warm him, but it wasn’t confident that it could help chase away the cold, so it didn’t press close

and this part

A ball of ghost fire flew to his side and moved up and down, like it was nodding in agreement. However, wicked wisps like it were all around, so Xie Lian didn’t notice this particular one.

And my god, the absolute twisted mind of White No Face, like 'YEs Your Highness, YOU said it yourself "I want to save the common people!" So here! Save them!" And it's so goddamn twisted and sick and ridiculous but like how do you argue with that when you YOURSELF proclaimed that proudly?

Watching the struggle unfold, White No-Face mocked, “The common people are here, waiting for you to save them. Please, go ahead.”

And what's worse? Xie Lian is watching people destory his temples, spit on his statues, and here, in one of the last remaining temples of the crown prince, he is on top of an alter, and he is being looked up to and you can HEAR the mocking tone of White No Face like you want to be worshipped? Here, have all these people bow to you! And he is getting that, and it's so sick and horrific;

As they tried to atone for their actions wearing ashen expressions, they bowed many times in front of Xie Lian before returning to the crowd with their child. With thick layers of blood clogging up his throat, Xie Lian was about to throw up until he heard White No-Face snicker beside him.

And just when you think that it couldn't get worse, I could feel the ear-piercing scream that Hua Cheng lets out and I think that was truly the moment when my heart completely shattered.

He couldn’t hear his own heartbreaking scream, but instead, he heard the sound of another heart-wrenching wail, and it seemed as if it came from that ring of flames. Although it didn’t come from him, the pain that he could hear was the same as his, as if he was the one that had made that sound.

This was the birth of a malicious creature, the signs of a Savage ghost taking form!

and I think this scene just shook me most to the core because it put EVERYTHING into perspective, the fear of rejection that Hua Cheng has, the overprotective nature, the way he doesn't spare a glance towards Fengqing, it all makes sense because he has been through HELL and watched beloved go through worse than hell.

He died that day with Xie Lian despite going through a rebirth.

And the literal shivers of rewatching the donghua scene, when he first meets Xie Lian where he is dressed as a bride and his hand reaches out confidently, hesitantly and it's the first time in a long time he is able to be face to face with him and he's looking at him and he's just thinking that from now on, you will never know what pain is. I will never let that happen. and you BELIEVE him and Xie Lian BELIEVED him even though he doesn't believe in anyone anymore...not even himself.

Like all the cute scenes? the gambler's den, the confession, the way Hua Cheng lay beside Xie Lian he reaches out to him but sees the shackles and hesitates, the way they both set up Puqi shrine,

just everything

everything

it's so much.

You just can't see them in the same way anymore. Like I really looked at it from surface level, but there was so much behind every action; every atomic shift in their movements towards one another is accompanied by colossal weight and suffering of the past.

Oh boi, this scene too, like no words. It felt like the world stood still in this moment...

Some kind of power forced him to his feet and he stumbled out to look. He walked for a long time before he finally realized those were the sounds of celebrating the newly-built Imperial Palace, after Yong'an was established as a new kingdom and the royal capital was moved. Even the heavens were celebrating! All the once-citizens of Xianle were now cheering for Yong'an. On the main street, everyone’s faces bore such bright smiles; so familiar. Xie Lian remembered. This was also how the people at the Xianle imperial capital cheered during the Shangyuan Heavenly Ceremonial Procession.

and right by his feet lay the corpses of the King and Queen of Xianle...his parents....his dearest.

Boi deserves to go a little ape-shit but also, isn't that giving in to what White No Face wanted?

The expression on his face was like crying but laughing, like joy and sadness mixed together, and he slowly rose to his feet alongside the wall.

And he KNOWS what he's doing? He wanted Xie Lian on his side? He got him! He goddamn this absolute MONSTER UGHHHHH HE GOT HIM!! WHAT MORE DOES HE FREAKING WNT AAAAHHHHH

But I must say, I can't hate White No Face, because from a literary standpoint, he is such a wonderfully written villain. One of my all time faves just because of how well he was written. Again, just the whole book is so perfect and well-executed beyond a shadow of a doubt.

So ya!

It was ALOT to take in and I just had to let it all out.

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