#I was also in Bronte House at school

[sunshineandlyrics]

Harry at Bronte Beach in Sydney

Harry out in Sydney. (6 March 2023)

[rose-maidenn]

Astro observations 1

Tropical + Sidereal

Tropical

If you have mercury sextile venus as a women your voice gives you an upper hand in your career , example Sofia Vergara being famous for her acting as well as her unique voice , lana del rey for her vocal range , Rihanna , Kim Kardashian memes lol .

If as a man you have mercury sextile venus it shows up as an upper hand in your thoughts and creativity , often times men with this placement are very soft spoken and understanding , in a dark way they could be manipulative as well . They mostly create a world of wonders for themselves and have distinct contributions towards art or way of life . Eg : Walt Disney , Ewan Mcgregor in big fish

Scorpio men give high school bad boy vibes , their upper body might be larger then their lower body , fellas don't skip leg day

Wanna start content creation or wanna be a singer , check your moon sign , a popstar might become popular based on the emphasis on either vocal range, lyricism, performance (credits to the instagram reel i watched lol i lost the link ) eg : scorpio women embody the performer persona most strongly , for example: Beyonce , Miley Cyrus , Lady gaga etc (vedic - Vishakha)

Cancer sun women mostly embody the trashy girl aesthetic.

Though widely considered meek , the cancer sun embodies a badass feministic yet kind vibe to them eg : Princess Diana , Selena Gomez , MIA, Frida Kahlo , often turn out to be revolutionaries and make changes in their own fields .

Pluto in the 5th is an amazing placement for fashion designers or in the field of marketing in the field , eg: Coco chanel , Miuccia Prada , Donatella Versace etc . 5th is the house of creativity and pluto being in it bring something out of the ordinary to make the person famous.

Pluto in 5th might also suffer from a turbulent childhood often with home relocation or absent parents

Mercury in 9th might be forced to grow up earlier , these people embody wisdom beyond years, often time resulting in void eg : Drew Barrymore, Mila Kunis lying about her age to get roles , Brooke shields .

Mercury in 9th is also a good placement for writers, eg : Sylvia plath , Agatha Christie, Emily Bronte .

Sidereal

Purva Bhadrapada women are very activist and stand for what they believe in , they make really good points in an debate👏

Punarvasu sun will give you fuller lips . Mostly downturned

Gemini men often have a wild chemistry with Sagittarius men 😭😂 the gemini man either admires the Sagittarius or hates them , like a frenemy vibe .

Libra men have the rake energy they flirt with everyone but they also make you feel like you're the only girl 😭 tf

Moon conjunct Saturn is said to give a bad relationship with mother but I have observed that if it is in the 12 th house it actually gives a good relationship, as there's more understanding .

As a jupiterian myself I won't advise to dye your hair blonde if you have prominent jupiter ,it makes me even more delusional. I would recommend brown for grounding and inviting creativity in your life .

Idk mars dom men are too good to me I like them so much, I've seen that in other cases as well so I will say jup dom 🤝 mars dom.

Rahu doms are underdogs yall , mostly people underestimate them until one day they put all their energy into something and prove themselves .

Uttara Ashadha girls act as they're stupid but they're observing so much , they might have really captivating eyes , puppy eyes if I say .

If two people have asc-moon synastry , they love each other and loathe each other because of their similarities , their is also a tendency of copying the others gestures or fashion .

Ketu doms push people away and then say they're lonely , it takes a lot to understand the inner rich world of ketu doms , which I think venus doms get to a degree.

Rohini people have a certain liking towards the metal of gold , and it will bring you auspiciousness if you buy them gold.

That's all for today hope yall enjoyed , I think you can read both observations interchangeably hehe I tried a new format hope yall like it . Dm me if you want to book a chart reading or an astrology reading 🫶

Thank you for reading

[blues824]

My request for the prompt list is what ever you want and who ever you want I'm happy with everything you write and what to see what you want.

I found this cute picture of sebek for you I don't know who drew it but it's beautiful.

If this man does not become our husband in the next 5 seconds @theunknowntravel3r

I requested: Dancing to Christmas Music, New Year’s Countdown, NYE Party

Sebek Zigvolt

Let’s be honest, if you are with him, he probably has told his parents about you. It was his first time being in a relationship with a human, so who better than to ask his parents? That being said, when Winter Break rolled around, they had sent you an invitation to stay at their house for the duration of your time off from school.

The half-fae had warned you to pack heavily and with cold weather in mind, and he even lent you one of his hoodies… totally because you needed it and not because you looked absolutely adorable in it. You also noticed that it seemed that he sprayed some of his cologne on it so that it smelled freshly of him, and your heart melted.

Going through the mirror, the weather was definitely much colder, and you were glad that you were already wearing some extra layers. It was freezing cold. You went to pick up your suitcase only to see that Sebek picked it up for you. His face was flushed red, as he caught you looking at him, but in his mind he blamed it on the cold.

“Sebek, I can get my own stuff.”

“Nonsense! It is a knight’s duty to help a citizen, especially if you are their significant other!” He shouted, not as loud as when he shouts at Ace or Deuce, but definitely louder than necessary. 

So you said bye to everyone as you both headed to the dentist clinic, where you would meet his parents. You were nervous, and he could sense it. To be honest, he was more nervous about you meeting his older siblings, as they were very protective over their younger brother. 

Walking in, you noticed that it was very clean and quiet, probably because they were just locking up the office for the holidays. Upon seeing her son, Mrs. Zigvolt ran and pulled you both into a hug, exclaiming about how it was so good to see you and her son had told her so much about you. Sebek was embarrassed, but it had been a while since you'd felt the warm hug of a mother, so you embraced it.

His father walked into the lobby soon, and waited until his wife was finished with greeting you both so that he could hug his son and introduce himself to you properly. You could definitely see that your boyfriend was a perfect mix of his parents, in both appearance and personality, and it was quite funny to you.

~~~~~~~~

The Zigvolt residence wasn’t anything too grand. It was actually quite comfortable, and you loved everything about it. You got to see Sebek’s room, and you were surprised at how plain it looked. You would have thought that he would have had crocodile-print blankets and pillow cases but no. 

He actually had a bookcase filled to the brim with books, and they were organized by title. A few of them were romance novels that you were grateful to see, as you recognized them from your own world. Shakespeare, the Brothers Grimm, and the Bronte Sisters. 

“Huma- I mean, Y/N, you will be sleeping in here, and I will sleep on the couch!” He announced, setting your suitcase on the bed.

“Why don’t we just share the bed? It’s a king-sized bed, we can both fit.”

“THAT IS IMPROPER, ESPECIALLY BEFORE MARRIAGE!!!” He shouted, face painted a bright, glowing red at the mere thought of doing something so intimate.

“Is it that? Or is it because we’re in your parents’ house? You do realize that we’ve slept in the same bed before back at Ramshackle, right?”

“I-I do realize that!” He said all too quickly, making you laugh.

“Alright, what’s got you so worked up, Mr. Knight-in-Shining-Armor?” You stepped right in front of him, throwing your arms around his neck and playing with the ends of his hair. His hands instinctively fell to your waist.

You always knew when something was bothering him… and it was something that he both hated and appreciated about you. 

“I have never brought a significant other home before, and I am nervous about how my siblings and my grandfather will take it… especially since you are human,” He admitted, and you could feel his shoulders sag a bit when he mentioned his grandfather.

“Your grandfather was forced to accept your father, wasn’t he? I will force him to accept me. I forced you to, so it shouldn’t be much more difficult than that, right?” You offered him a reassuring smile, and he knew that you could win anybody over. However, his grandfather still did not like his father. “And if he doesn’t, then he’ll love our children.” 

It was lucky that he was half-fae and did not get whiplash as easily as humans do, otherwise his neck would have absolutely snapped with the velocity at which he turned his head to look at you, wide eyes and flushed face apparent.

~~~~~~~~

Over the course of the next few days, you basically stayed in the house. You did stop by the market to meet some of the townsfolk, but it was freezing cold out there. Besides, you definitely preferred seeing baby pictures of your boyfriend over the snow any day of the week. Mrs. Zigvolt was very happy to show you the most embarrassing ones, much to her son’s dismay.

You also helped prepare the house for the upcoming New Year’s Eve party that the Zigvolt’s hosted annually. You were excited to see Silver and Lilia again, but you were sad that Tsunotarou was not going to be able to make it. It would be alright, because you needed to meet Baul Zigvolt as well as Sebek’s siblings.

On the day of the party, his sister was the first of them to arrive. She didn’t live too far away, but the snow made it difficult to get there. She squealed upon seeing you, though, and you made a guess that this generation of Zigvolt’s inherited their mother’s strength when she hugged you.

“YOU MUST BE SEBEK’S SIGNIFICANT OTHER!!!!” She exclaimed in excitement.

“WHO’S SEBEK’S SIGNIFICANT OTHER?!” You heard a man exclaim from the front door. Looks like the eldest son of the family is now present.

“I am! My name is Y/N L/N!” You were not surprised to be swept into yet another bone-crushing hug, but this time you were rescued by another woman who didn’t look like she was related.

“Honey, let them go! They can barely breathe, poor thing…” You shook her hand after being let down, and you noticed the ring on her and Sebek’s older brother’s fingers, making a note that she married into the family.

Lilia and Silver weren’t too far behind, and so the only person you all were waiting for was the grandfather of the family. Lilia tried to reassure you that you would be fine and that Baul would tolerate you, but it still wasn’t any less nerve-wracking. Sebek was in a similar state, not being able to sit still, and when he was sitting, his leg was bouncing.

What did manage to give you a bit of hope was that you were not the only human in the room. Sebek’s father, sister-in-law, and Silver were all there to stand beside you. Of course, the first person mentioned didn’t count, because Baul still didn’t like him. However, the other two were accepted with nearly open arms.

Then, the dreaded knock on the door sounded, making more and more terror sink into your and your boyfriend’s souls. You took his hand in yours, drawing absentminded circles on the back of it with your thumb.

“Where is the human who deems themself worthy to court my youngest grandson?” He said upon entering.

Whatever happened to ‘Hello’? ‘How are you?’ ‘My name is…’?

“I am right here, sir.” You stood up, walking up to him and extending your out to him. “My name is Y/N L/N.”

A moment of silence passed, and you could feel sweat trickling down the back of your neck, but he accepted your hand and shook it, telling you his name in return. The entire group behind you let out a sigh of relief, before the festivities truly began.

And by ‘festivities’, I mean sitting on the couch and talking. This is probably the most ‘unseasoned chicken’ family out there… just saying.

~~~~~~~~

It had been a few hours since Baul had arrived, and it seemed like he accepted you into the family. You were in it for the long haul, but you didn’t mind. Behind the scary facade, he was just a man who was concerned with the wellbeing of his family. You could appreciate that, and now you sat, sitting and listening to his and Lilia’s “glory days” from back in the military.

Sebek was listening with stars in his eyes, and you knew that he aspired to be like his grandfather. He was sitting on the couch, and you were sitting on the floor, leaning your head on his leg as you listened along. However, you zoned out a bit, feeling your social battery become low.

Mr. Zigvolt put on a Christmas record on an old gramophone that they kept in the family room, and walked up to his wife.

“Would you like to dance, darling?” He extended his hand out to her, and your heart melted at the sight.

“Why, yes I would.” And so they started to rock back and forth. In their home, they had wedding photos hung up, and they looked as in love as they were back then.

Sebek’s brother and sister-in-law joined them. It wasn’t anything too complicated, literally just rocking back and forth. You smiled, lip-syncing to the words and watching the two couples dance with each other.

“H-Human, would you like to dance with me?” Sebek stood up and held a hand out to you, offering to help you up. Poor baby’s face was flushed red, embarrassed or flustered, or maybe a mix of both. Plus, he was using a soft voice.

“I would like nothing more, my Knight in Shining Armor,” You said with a smile on your face, allowing yourself to be pulled up off the ground and into his chest. Placing your hand on his shoulder and holding his hand with your free one, you both also began swaying side-to-side. 

The song was soft, creating a rather romantic atmosphere in the living room of the Zigvolt residence. Staring into Sebek’s eyes, you could see the pride he felt at his choice of a significant other being accepted by the man he looked up to the most.

“1 MINUTE UNTIL MIDNIGHT!!!” The eldest Zigvolt daughter shouted out. All of a sudden, your beloved knight looked panicked, and you were about to ask what happened when he looked back into your eyes.

“Human, I am aware that I have not been very straightforward with my feelings for the past year that I have known you. I, however, want to take this last minute in the year to express them. I love you, Y/N L/N,” You could here the others start to count down, “And I understand if you do not wish to say it yet at this point in our relationship-”

“3, 2, 1!!!” The others shouted.

Quickly, you threw your arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss, closing your eyes. Your heart was pounding as you felt all the oxygen in your lungs quickly disappear, and when you broke apart from him, you smiled.

“I love you, too, Sebek Zigvolt.”

[isolde-illustrates]

Young Bronte

I wanted to draw Bronte as a child, so I drew him with his father. The clothing is based off medieval Europe since elves have accents close to British, and the father has a simplified version of the family crest of Bronte since his last name has not been revealed.

The actual pose and emotions are based off the idea that Bronte was the first inflictor. In this idea, tw: death, he manifested his ability when he accidentally sent out emotions against his mother, who was an empath. Not only did she feel the emotions Bronte sent out, but also her husband's, and then the fear coming from Bronte afterwards. This caused the woman's mind to fracture and split while she simultaneously began to go numb as her body's coping mechanism to the flood of emotions kicked in. Similar to how snakes cannot control how much venom they release when they are very young, inflictors cannot control how much of their emotions they give out, making doses unpredictable. In this instance, Bronte let out all of his inflicting, causing his mother's mind to splinter. She was seeming to recover for a couple of days, although her emotions were shut off, but after about a week or so, her mind completely lost its grasp, and Bronte's mother had a broken mind.

His father shut up himself and the boy in their house, trying to process the event while also taken care of his wife. He had acted as a knight in the war between the species (before the treaties but after Fallon's establishment of the elven claims to certain lands). More reinforcements were required, and the elves required more knights to return to the battle. They also wanted to train up the young children into skilled warriors, using some of the few with special abilities to be the top warriors.

After some debate, his father was able to keep Bronte from the track of kids trained at Exilium for the front lines, giving his son up and the knowledge of his ability in hopes that Foxfire, the school of special abilities, would bring his son to one of the leader roles instead of a knight one. At the time, the schools were boarding schools, so Bronte's father told him goodbye for the last time before going to the front of the war and dying. Less than a year later, the Council created the Peace Treaties with the humans, goblins, trolls, gnomes, and ogres.

I felt like giving Bronte a little tragic backstory while also drawing him as a little kid. This is why he could not inflict positive emotions, had known for a while that elves can die, and was so desperate to keep Sophie from being a weapon that could be used against the Lost Cities (cause he had been meant as one to protect them). He also would totally have the memories of that week stored in his cache.

Sophie, during her inflicting session: Can we look at your cache? Can we? Can we?

Bronte: What? No!

Sophie: If I get the next lesson first try, can we?

Sophie, after excelling the first time: You never said you would not, so I want to see that memory. *points to one that is red* Cause it's the color of this ability!

Sophie, after watching how Bronte discovered his ability: Yeahh, next time, I'm gonna let you pick. That movie was a total downer.

[chen-chen-chen-again-chen]

Things about AWTWB that I forgot about or just noticed for the first time, upon a recent re-listen:

Lady Ruth as an unreliable narrator: “I’m not one to hold grudges” but next page “I would dance on his grave and throw a fiesta and then resurrect him so I could kill him again�� (My poor paraphrase) 

Baz, about vampires: “They’re less like murderers - more like sexy bedbugs” 

Baz, about Petra and Sophie: “I thought twins were supposed to be best friends, but all they do is eat jam and butter sandwiches and throw things at each other" (Me, adding to my Jelly Babies notes folder: “Yup, that tracks”)  

Simon (about Baz): “I mean, have a look at him. He’s the most fuckable person alive. Or otherwise” (#facts)

Dev is a PITCH cousin, not a GRIMM fuck me why did I think he was a Grimm sljk;dskljdskjldsaljks

The door knocker for Salisbury House is shaped like a SMILING CYCLOPS (adding to my Rosethorn girl notes folder) 

Simon, to Baz: “I’m not letting you fuck with my face. Although I’m starting to get the feeling you really want to.” Oh-okay, horny boi 

Simon notes like three times in three pages that Smith Smith-Richards is fit like hmmmmmm-kay

Every time Smith Smith-Richards mentions Simon: "I'm not jealous okay I'm a little jealous how is he so hot" they're a li'l mutual admiration club

Simon, to Baz: “I can get one of those poles” (clothes racks) but because of Yuri on Ice!!, my brain went “pole-dancing Simon Snow??” 

Shepherd holds the secret key to being magic even when you don’t speak magic: “The world is magic, and I’m a part of the world.” 

THE GRIMM KIDS HAVE A DOG: “a Tibetan mastiff that they bought when they moved to Oxford.” (In my head canon this dog is named Amblewise, or another name from this list of medieval dog names, THANK YOU GOOD NIGHT)

I continue to have Complicated Feelings about Malcolm Grimm but he is So Soft for Daphne: “He treats her with as much polite tenderness as ever. He dotes on her, in his way. Caters to her every whim without making a show of it.” 

JAMIE knew about the Goats of Watford when none of the folks who actually went to Watford did, besides Niamh, like JKASDJKLDSAJKLSADKLJADSKLADSKLJADSKJL UNCLE JAMBY FOR THE WIN

Penelope Bunce is a Fucking Queen: “Being comforting isn’t one of my core competencies. Breaking people out of towers is.” 

Pippa Stainton is a Goddamn Empress: “I don’t forgive you. I never want to see you again. Tell Simon I say thank you.” 

Simon and Jamie get fucking KFC in a stolen van after the hullabaloo with Smith-Richards and if that’s not nephew-uncle bonding at its finest, I don’t what is 

Miss Christie, the school nurse, is the only person (I think) who basically says to Simon, “I’m sorry for your loss” instead of “The Mage was a flaming sack of shit” 

I’m not crazy… Penny really is a year younger than the rest of them (thought I was mixing this up with Hermione)

LUCY also started Watford a year early fsalkjsadsjlkfsdljkdfs (now I have to go back and fix my timelines for Rosethorn girl, FUCK) 

Just like Lady Ruth, Mitali hoped that Lucy would come out of hiding after the Mage died (just stab me harder in the heart, Rainbow)

I DO really want a fic of bisexual Martin Bunce making bread; I feel like our core competencies overlap in many ways

There are magical swans in Oxford. I bet they r gay

Simon cries when Baz plays the violin 

They're all good dogs, Bront. 16/10 will listen to this audiobook again for like..... the sixth time

[cosmicrhetoric]

tagged by the incomparable @briarhips to post nine book recs <3 sorry so many of these are classics im going thru smth

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen: This is MY Austen of choice. I'm doing a reread atm and it's very Emma in it's social commentary but this is THEE eldest daughter book of all time. Maybe I just like when characters are super repressed but if you want to see a woman (who has spent 200 pages being soooo hinged) have the most cathartic breakdown about it......

Identitti, Mithu Sanyal: For fans of Kuang's Yellowface who want a bit more of an academic lens! Our main character, a 2nd gen Indian-German woman, spends years of her life in the trenches of postcolonial study under a seemingly Indian woman who is then exposed as white. It doesn't give you any easy answers but it provides a lot of scholarly resources and leaves a lot of space to come to your own conclusions. Read it on a plane. Kinda fire.

Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson: We all know Carson. But I'm picking a nonfiction essay instead of Autobiography of Red or her translations mostly because this one takes you behind the curtain of a lot of her famous translations when it comes to the aspect of love. I'm not really nonfiction girl in general but this was worth it

Chain Gang All Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Speculative abolitionist fiction! Set in a near future where prisoners can compete in death matches to try and win their freedom. I've honestly read nothing like this...ever, like it's in a league of it's own but if you're a fan of the way footnotes were used in something like Babel you're gonna wanna check this out. Multiple povs (really interesting pov switching from a craft perspective actually) overlap to paint a stark and realistic depiction of American prisons.

The Devourers, Indrapramit Das: This was described to me as "IWTV but with werewolves and in Mughal India and actually really good" and while that's a pretty comprehensive plot summary it does not even begin to cover the shit this novel goes through. This is a book about transformation and stories and what letting a story live in you can do for you. The werewolves are kinda obviously a genderqueer allegory as well (as they often are in sff lmao) but when the interviewer himself starts talking about gender in his experiences you can see how that changes the story he's transcribing and it's just very cool. Heavy trigger warnings on this one though. Don't read if you can't handle a bit of piss (they are wolves). Writing style wise feels very similar to the magical realism of The Hungry Tide if that's ur bag

The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot: In the way that s&s is my Austen, this is MY Eliot. A classic story about women of this era who cannot fit into the boxes society lays out for them. A failed romance brands the main character an outcast in their town in a way that is. Hear me out. Fucking Utenaesque. Follow for some classic tragedy and themes of water....I would compare this more with like Dickens Bleak House than Austen though.

Villette, Charlotte Bronte: Once again. MY Bronte. Maybe it's just cause I read this before Jane Eyre but literally I do not understand why Miss Eyre gets so much more love than my girl Lucy. In broad strokes the story is about an English girl who ends up having to support herself by moving to France and becoming an English teacher at a girls boarding school. She's also plagued by a terrifying apparition of a nun, because this is Charlotte we're talking about and there's a bit of Catholic v Protestant thing going on. I read this during the very early pandemic and let me tell you some of the descriptions of isolation and loneliness are soooooo. yeah.

Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett: Listen. Like, listen. It's that good. I wouldn't put a discworld novel up against fucking chain gang all stars unless it was THAT good. This is a classic 'girl dresses up as a boy and goes to war to find her brother' story. It definitely started as a commentary on folk songs/stories but it is at it's heart a novel long criticism of imperialism, nationalism, and organized religion (there's jokes though it's funny). Also not to be that guy when it comes to LGBTQ book recs but the thing came out in 2002 and it's surprisingly thoughtful when it comes to both gender and sexuality. You do not have to be a fantasy fan or a discworld fan to read this. If you gave Pratchett a try and didn't like it i STILL insist you give MR a shot. It is in a league of it's own.

Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell: Do not be scared off by the sheer length of this one. It's fucking silly. This is one of my faaaaaaaave 1800s novels about class. We have juxtaposition between Molly's family (her father is a gentleman but a working doctor) and the landed gentry but also this divide between the uneducated Squire and his Cambridge bound sons and another one with the 'new money' gentry. There's also quite a lot of early science and anthropology documented in this (Gaskell and Darwin were besties) if that's interesting to you. WARNING: SHE DIED BEFORE SHE FINISHED THIS. ITS LIKE 99% DONE THOUGH

This was a hard list to narrow down but I have to include (at least as honorable mentions): Ling Ma's Severance/Bliss Orange, Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem and the SFF POC anthology New Suns

tagging: @weltonreject @bronskibeet @gaymersrights @orchidreign @brechtian + any and all mutuals i know ive forgotten <3

[zalrb]

so at the end of the pilot episode did stelena only talk about elenas life and interests

I never got that impression tbh because while in 1x05 Stefan was like I love Scorsese and Seinfeld etc. in 1x10 Elena tells Stefan she wanted to be a writer, so those were not the type of things they were talking about. I just think they had conversations more along the lines of "memories are too important" where it would be more philosophical/conceptual conversations about life and loss etc. and when they do talk about interests, it's about shared interests, like when he brings Wuthering Heights to school in 1x02, he already has it and he's like "I told you", which suggests that he was like "oh yeah, I have a first edition at my house" and her not believing him, which could get flirty or even her not believing that he would read Emily Bronte and he's like what do you mean, I have a copy at home, which could also get flirty etc.

[britneyshakespeare]

last night i started rereading david copperfield. i've read so much new literature this year, i wouldn't say im "burnt out" but i feel like im cycling through things so fast that i... i dont know. i dont feel like i get to have them melt into me as satisfyingly as they used to although that might also be a product of how i feel about my overall *life* right now, idk. deep stuff but anyway.

i havent read a novel in almost four years. i have been too ashamed to pick them back up and i left off in the middle of the professor by charlotte bronte, which i always felt ashamed for being unable to finish. someday ill reread the beginning and finish it, but yadda yadda yadda i hate that nagging feeling that i HAVE to do something. reading should not feel like a chore. which is also how ive felt about my reading plays at such a quick rate this year. not that its a CHORE, like im not enjoying it, but like it's a daily task im distracting myself with to get some temporary pleasure and im cycling from one to the next at an almost monotonous rate. i can't keep living in my imagination like this. hiding from the world and pouring myself into new ones.

i always figured id want to reread david copperfield someday, too. it's one of my three favorite novels ive ever read (not that ive read SO many novels, but still). i think of it often. and i dont think of it like it's a highly literary or intellectual novel. i think of it like an old sitcom or a newspaper strip. like a victorian peanuts or full house. i've never forgotten a bunch of the characters' catchphrases and i've continued to slip them into conversation with people who don't understand them just to overly-explain a joke that only i'm really going to find funny. because that IS the kind of person i am.

ive only read the first four chapters so far. i just cant wait to get to aunt betsey's place, to be honest. i didn't even think about this part... this is the first novel i'm reading since i became an aunt. i never had a character in the book i related to *too* much; i had certain things in common with dora and i loved her, but we weren't one and the same. but my niece is only two and a half months old and i already feel like oh yeah. oh yeah i'd take this little girl in after she ran away from her abusive boarding school. i'd provide for this girl. i'd raise her with my neurodivergent friend that i live with. i would do ANYTHING for her.

[jondalars]

movies, tv shows, and books of 2023

((* is a rewatch/reread; currently watching; can’t get through))

She and Her Perfect Husband (s1)

1899 (s1)

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (vol. 4) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

White Noise (2022)

New Life Begins (s1)

12 Angry Men (1957)

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

Popular Chinese Tales by H.F. Chiang

First Love (s1)

Spare by Prince Harry

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Heroes (s1)

A Romance of the Little Forest (s1)

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Heaven Official’s Blessing (vol. 5) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Twenty Five Twenty One (s1)

Physical: 100 (s1)

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

The Circle (s5)

Unchained Love (s1)

Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders

Extra-Ordinary You (s1)

Stay True by Hua Hsu

Three-Body (s1)

Something in the Rain (s1)

Falling into your Smile (s1)

My Roommate is a Gumiho (s1)

Survivor (s44, s45)

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

Romance is a Bonus Book (s1)

The Journey of Chong Zi (s1)

Mr. Queen (s1)

True Beauty (s1)

Nope (2022)

Outlast (s1)

Begin Again (s1)

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand *

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton *

Weightlifting Fairy, Kim Bok-Joo (s1)

W (s1)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen *

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen *

Murder Mystery 2 (2023)

To Have and the Hoax by Martha Waters

Sh**ting Stars (s1)

Scarlet Heart (s1)

About Fate (2022)

I Told Sunset About You (s1) *

Lady Chatterley's Lover (2022)

Weak Hero Class 1 (s1)

Swarm (s1)

Thirty-Nine (s1)

Flower of Evil (s1)

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Beef (s1)

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Jury Duty (s1)

Promising Young Woman (2020)

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Nothing but You (s1)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte *

Love in the Air (s1)

Till the End of the Moon (s1)

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell *

Semantic Error (s1)

School 2013 (s1)

The Eighth Sense (s1)

The Love You Give Me (s1)

Hana Yori Dango (s1)

School 2015: Who Are You (s1)

Happy Place by Emily Henry

What Six Survivors Told... (s1)

Heirs (s1)

I Think You Should Leave (s3)

XO, Kitty (s1)

Boys Over Flowers (s1)

Back from the Brink (s1)

How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang

Personal Taste (s1)

The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters

F4 Thailand: Boys Over Flowers (s1)

The Guest by Emma Cline

To Marry and to Meddle by Martha Waters

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

School 2017 (s1)

Dog Day Afternoon 1975)

Tár (2022)

See You in My 19th Life (s1)

Black Knight (s1)

Black Mirror (s6)

D.P. (s1, s2)

Jade City by Fonda Lee

Hidden Love (s1)

M3gan (2023)

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (vol. 5) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Bride of the Water God (s1)

Devil Venerable Also Wants To Know by Cyan Wings

Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating by Jiang Zi Bei

Heaven Official’s Blessing (vol. 6) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

2gether the Series (s1, s2)

Claim to Fame (s2)

Beyond Evil (s1)

The Legend of Anle (s1)

Knock at the Cabin (2023)

Doom at Your Service (s1)

Jade War by Fonda Lee

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center

Bloodhounds (s1)

Uncontrollably Fond (s1)

Bones and All (2022)

Red, White, and Royal Blue (2023)

When I Fly Towards You (s1)

The Starry Love (s1)

Only Friends (s1)

Between Us by Mhairi McFarlane

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

Cocaine Bear (2023)

Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane

You Are Desire (s1)

The Blonde Identity by Ally Carter

The Out-Laws (2023)

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2023)

Fake It Till You Make It (s1)

Love at First Sight (2023)

The Glory (s1)

My Lovely Liar (s1)

King the Land (s1)

The Devil's Plan (s1)

Flux by Jinwoo Chong

The Genius (s1*, s2*, s3*, s4*)

The Romance of Tiger and Rose (s1)

House of Villains (s1)

Coffee Prince (s1)

Society Game (s1, s2)

Barbie (2023)

No Hard Feelings (2023)

Secret Garden (s1)

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

My Love Mix-Up! (s1*)

Heaven Official's Blessing (vol. 7) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Comet (2014)

X (2022)

Zola (2021)

The Green Knight (2021)

Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Adams

Twinkling Watermelon (s1)

After Yang (2021)

Only For Love (s1)

Pearl (2022)

Dear Ex (2018)

Ma (2019)

The Worst Person in the World (2021)

Deathless by Catherynne M Valente *

Your Name Engraved Herein (2020)

Tune in for Love (2019)

Lost in Translation (2003)

My Roommate is a Vampire by Jenna Levine

Crimes of the Future (2022)

Only Just Married (s1)

In-House Marriage Honey (s1)

Love to Hate You (s1)

Supervisor Husband (s1)

Aftersun (2022)

[redfurrycat]

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen > FR/EN/ESP (One of my fav)

2 Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein > FR/EN (FAV!!)

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte > FR/EN (Also FAV!!)

4 Harry Potter series > FR/EN/ESP/IT (Chilhood books)

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee > EN

6 The Bible > FR (For school...)

7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte > FR/EN (FAV!!)

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell > FR/EN (Very interesting reading!)

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman > FR/EN (FAV!!)

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens > EN

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare > FR/EN (I probably didn't read ALL of the works though... but I'd like to and I wil!!)

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien > FR/EN (FAV)

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffeneger > (Title's extremely familiar, I must have read it)

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald > FR/EN

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy > FR (Unfinished)

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky > FR (Unfinished)

28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll > FR/EN

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy > FR (Unfinished)

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens > EN

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis > FR/EN (FAV!!)

34 Emma – Jane Austen > FR/EN

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen > FR/EN (FAV!!!!!!!!)

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis > FR/EN (FAV!!)

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden > EN (That's a GOOD ONE)

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne > FR

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown > FR

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez > ESP (Ugh.... Cien años de soledad)

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood > EN

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert > EN (Reading this one at the moment)

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen > EN/FR (FAV!!)

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens > EN

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon > EN

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez > ESP (Also ugh...El amor en los tiempos del cólera... wasn't a fan)

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas > FR

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding > FR/EN

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville > EN

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens > EN

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker W FR/EN

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce > EN

76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens > FR/EN

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert > FR

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle > FR

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery > FR

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas > FR

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare > EN

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl > FR/EN

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo > FR (Unfinished though)

----

Results: 47/100.... Not bad :D

How many have you read?

The BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below. Reblog this and bold the titles you’ve read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein 3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffeneger 20 Middlemarch – George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 34 Emma – Jane Austen 35 Persuasion – Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne 41 Animal Farm – George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving 45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding 50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel 52 Dune – Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens 58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 72 Dracula – Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses – James Joyce 76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal – Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession – AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel 83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 94 Watership Down – Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

[winterapocalypse]

Winter Apocalypse chapter 9

Aston Royce

The only girl in the group, strong and almost as tall as the two enormous guys at her side, called Brontes back with a whistle, and placed herself beside him on the floor as she was too big to fit on one arm. It reached at least to her waist, where a thick, heavy belt stood out with several bronze runes embedded in it.

The scarf of her house, Ravenclaw, was tied loosely around her arm, hugging her bare strong large arm. She was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt in different colors with a large multi-coloured neon eagle pattern drawn on it, and her school tunic was tied at her waist, the dirty and ruined edges dragging on the ground, destroyed by years of beatings and fights in which the girl always hunted, or created herself.

She also wore several necklaces and bracelets, all made of bronze with runes engraved on them. At her waist, hanging from a heavy chain, hung an enormous long sword, with a handle and sheath also made of bronze and red and black stones, resting on her torn and fashionable jeans. Also hanging from her hair, which was dark copper and tied in a long braid, were several bronze jewels.

None of the three - not her, nor the Slytherin nor the Ravenclaw at her side - seemed particularly interested in the fate of Jon, trembling and bleeding on the ground. His eye was covered in blood and his entire forehead was one cut - and his arm and hand were also cut by the deadly claws of the girl's giant eagle.

"Serves you right, loser. So you learn not to pay respect to a Royce." she growled, and the eagle, Brontes, let out another of her infernal screech.

Sam struggled to pick up Jon, who seemed to have completely collapsed, and tried to drag him away from them. The boy closest to them, the one with short ginger hair spiky on his pale head and a filthy undershirt under his long Slytherin coat, made a sudden leap to startle Sam, who almost fell. He laughed cruelly at that joke.

The laughter ended in silence as Aegon and Dennis rose to their feet. The youngest rushed into the arms of his older sister, who welcomed him albeit with some hesitations. But he was bruised and dirty and obviously shaking and scared, so she let him.

“What were you doing here in the corner?” asked the clean-shaven boy, taller and more serious and with the blue and bronze scarf and sunglasses pulled down over his nose, who up until now had not yet spoken.

"Denny used the runes to spy on the conversation the professors and Night Watch men are having in the Main Hall!" Aegon confessed, shaken himself. "Eddie and Renly said it was important…"

"And you also listen to those two idiots!" roared Sheamus, the red-haired Slytherin, crossing his arms over his chest. "This is why we don't let you two brats do anything! You let yourself be influenced too much! When we were in third year we weren't that stupid, right Cesaro?" he said, turning towards his friend, who was already no longer listening to him.

Cesaro had been distracted by something that had fallen to the ground and was shining with a faint iridescent light. He crouched down to pick it up, turning it over in his hands. "This fell from the arm of the loser hit by Brontes. A magical pendant? And it has a rune engraved on it… Aston, what could it be?"

A pendant, white with shades of blue and purple and green and white but mainly blue, on which something completely indecipherable seemed to be written.

Aston Royce grabbed the pendant, but her eyebrows remained furrowed beneath the dark aviator glasses she wore. "They're not runes. I have no idea what they are, but I know who might know."

"Come on, it's late." Sheamus muttered, starting to walk back the way they came. "We could go and have a coffee at the new coffee shop they opened on the east side of the castle!" Cesaro began, smiling happily because he loved coffee. Aegon joined them, but Aston remained where she was, facing the wall with the rune of listening still drawn in green dust, facing the blood of the Night's Watch boy.

"Hey! Aston!" called her the big red-haired Slytherin. "Aren't you coming too with us?"

"No, I have to take care of something first. You guys go. And tell Eddie and Renly to mind their own damn business."

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

[stonewallsposts]

August Reading  

Far from the Madding Crowd- Thomas Hardy  (1874) 

I know, you want to say "maddening" rather than "madding", but that's not the title. Madding means frenzied. The story's protagonist is Bathsheba Everdene (the inspiration, as I understand it, for the Hunger Games' Katniss Everdene's name). She starts the story as poor girl. She meets a shepherd/farmer who falls in love with her and proposes. She refuses him. Later she inherits her uncle's farm, fires a corrupt manager, and takes over managing the farm for herself. In the meantime, the shepherd farmer has lost his farm due to an unfortunate incident, and she hires him to watch her flocks.  

She is also courted by a neighboring farmer, who she refuses as well. But she does fall for a charming soldier. The soldier is untrustworthy though and after they are married, loses her money to gambling. He ends up faking his death, then leaving for a few years. In the meantime, she continues to interact with the shepherd, and is pursued relentlessly by the neighbor farmer. 

At some point, the soldier is found alive, and presents himself to claim Bathsheba. The farmer, angered at the return of the husband, and the loss of his own prospects, shoots the husband, then turns himself in to the police for murder. At the end, Bathsheba realizes the shepherd has been her constant companion and they are quietly married. 

Jane Eyre- Charlotte Brontë (1847) 

This is my third read through Jane Eyre, a novel well worth reading multiple times. My focus this time was on each of the places she lived as eras, and what her struggle was in those epochs. 

They are, in the most general sense: 

Gateshead Hall- learning to stand against injustice 

Lowood school- learning that standing against injustice doesn't mean returning evil for evil 

Thornfield- standing against the personal temptation to compromise 

Moor House- standing against manipulations, particularly of a good cause 

I also read letters from Charlotte Bronte and her sisters for context, and 5 of the essays written about the novel at the back of the Norton Critical edition. This constituted another 150 pages of reading alongside the novel 

La solitudine dei numeri primi- Paolo Giordano  (2008) 

Prime numbers are numbers only divisible by themselves and 1. there are also 'twin primes', numbers that are close, such as 17 and 19, but never touching. The story is about Mattia and Alice, two young people who lived through life-altering tragedies as children. Mattia had a twin sister who was retarded. One day, they were invited to a party, and Mattia, certain that his sister would ruin the experience, left her alone in a park. When he returned, she was gone, and never found again.  

Alice was given skiing lessons that she hated, and in one day, she got separated from the group and went over a cliff where she permanently damaged her leg. These two go to the same school, and end up crossing paths. They both sense that they are supposed to be together, but Mattia in particular can never seem to overcome his character and let himself free. Even as adults they reconnect and understand they should be together, but can't get over their personality quirks. Like the twin prime numbers, they are close... but never touching.  

The Early History of Rome- Livy (27-9 BC) 

This massive History of Rome, or in Latin, Ab Urbe Condita, From the Founding of the City, originally comprised 142 'books'. We have 35 left. This Penguin Classics version contains the first 5, which cover the founding of Rome to the conquest of the Gauls in 390 BC. 

Book 1 covers the monarchical period up to about the beginning of the Republic in 509 BC. 

Book 2 covers the early republic from 509 – 469 BC 

Book 3 is titled the Patricians at Bay, covering from 468 – 446 BC 

Book 4 is titled War and Politics and covers from 445 – 404 BC 

Book 5 is titled the Capture of Rome and covers from 403- 390 BC 

Rome and Italy- Livy (27-9 BC) 

This collection from Livy's books comprises books 6-10 and covers from 389 BC to 292 BC, as Rome moves from one of the city states of Italy to the premier power in the peninsula. 

Darkness at Noon- Arthur Koestler  (1940) 

The story follows Rubashov, a communist party apparatchik, who is arrested and then killed for treason against the revolution. As Rubashov is first arrested, then undergoes a series of interrogations, he wrestles with the consequences of the part he played in the revolution, and how the ideology developed from what they had initially hoped to bring about, to the current state of affairs. 

This is really a fascinating dive into the psychology of what happens when the lofty goals of socialism are put into action, and how the movement necessarily turns so brutal.  

Arthur Koestler was a Hungarian Jew, who joined the German communist party, but quit in 1938 after seeing the direction Stalin had taken the Soviet Union.  

Under Milk Wood- Dylan Thomas (1954)

This is actually written as a radio drama / play. It was adapted to film in the 1971 version starring Richard Burton, which helped to sort through some of the nonsense... but I have to admit I didn't really enjoy this. It covers a day in the life of a fictional Welsh town. 'Nuff said.

[sarah-aliterarylife]

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

One of my earliest memories is of finding a treasure trove. I was in my Aunt and Uncle’s house (a beautiful house in a small village outside Wolverhampton, that is still the model for the type of house I would like to live in one day), sitting in front of a gigantic wooden bookcase. Or at least it seemed gigantic, to my young eyes. It was filled with books of every size and colour. Some were very old, leather-bound books, and some were newer editions, with colourful jackets and pictures on the front cover. One title caught my eye instantly. It was bright red, small, and bound in leather. The cover and pages were worn, and it had clearly been read and enjoyed many times. It was called Jane Eyre.

I remember opening the book and reading the small text on the first page. It said, “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day”. Why? I was intrigued. I read onwards. But after a few lines, I was confused. Who was speaking? Was this Jane Eyre? Who were the other people the mysterious narrator mentioned – Mrs Reed, John, Eliza and Georgiana? They couldn’t be Jane’s family, surely? They didn’t share her name. Why was she lurking in the window seat, "cross legged like a Turk?" Why was she observing the family but not joining them around the fireplace? The language stuck in my throat (“The said John and Eliza”) and made no sense. After reading a couple of pages, I put the book down.

The next time I visited, I returned to the treasure trove of books and once again Jane Eyre caught my eye. This time, I asked to take it home with me and started again. I made it a bit further on this second go around, and solved the mystery of who the Reed family were in relation to Jane (Mrs Reed is her widowed Aunt, and the three children are her cousins). I recall being very saddened by the cruelty Jane experiences during her time with the Reed family, and wondering why no one seemed to love this lonely little girl. When Jane is shortly afterwards sent away to Lowood school, I felt a strong sense of injustice when, having finally been given a chance to make friends and spend time around other like-minded children, she is branded a liar and the other children are instructed not to befriend her. I think at this point my sensitive young mind found the novel simply too upsetting, and I decided I couldn’t read another word.

Years later, I attended a university lecture on the concept of the madwoman in the attic. I remembered my previous attempts at reading Jane Eyre, and that shamefully, as a child I had given up on it. I remembered how much I had enjoyed Wuthering Heights and wanted to read something similarly engrossing and dramatic. I suddenly developed an urge to give it another try. But I was in Newcastle upon Tyne, and that beautiful red leather copy was back at home in Walsall (a 3-and-a-half-hour train journey away). So, the next day, I walked to my local book shop, Blackwell’s, and purchased a copy.

That night, I sat down to begin again – this time, I didn’t stop until I had finished. Night after night, I would settle in with the autobiography of Jane Eyre, and I can say without doubt that each new instalment thrilled me. This wasn’t a sad story about intense cruelty, with a terrible denouement for its characters, like Wuthering Heights. It is instead the story of a survivor, of someone who rises above the cruelty and anxiety of her childhood to become a passionate woman with a distinct sense of self-worth. It is also about the internal struggle between Jane’s desire to be loved, and her desire for freedom. After I finished the book, I missed it terribly.

For those who have never read Jane Eyre, it tells the story of an orphaned girl who, when her parents die, is sent to live with her cruel aunt and cousins (the widowed Mrs Reed, John, Eliza and Georgiana), who treat her as less than a servant. After angering the difficult Mrs Reed one too many times, she is sent away to Lowood school, where she befriends the introverted Helen Burns and eventually stays on to work as a teacher. After teaching for two years, Jane longs for new experiences out in the wider world, and accepts a position at Thornfield Manor, where she befriends the housekeeper, Mrs Fairfax, and teaches a lively young girl named Adele. Adele is the ward of Mr Rochester, a mysterious man with whom Jane finds herself falling in love. Jane and Rochester begin a tentative romance which culminates in a marriage proposal. However, on their wedding day, Jane discovers that Mr Rochester is already married: to Bertha Mason, whom he married in Jamaica as a young man. The mentally disturbed Bertha now lives at Thornfield, isolated in the attic with her nurse. Appalled and horrified, Jane flees Thornfield and is forced to sleep outside, penniless and begging for food. She is rescued by the Rivers family, three kindly siblings who take her in and help her to find work at a local school. St John Rivers eventually proposes marriage and a new life overseas as a missionary. However, after hearing Rochester’s voice calling her name one night over the moors, Jane realises that she cannot abandon the man she loves. She returns to Thornfield to find that it has been burnt to the ground by Bertha Mason, and Rochester has been left blinded. At his new residence Ferndean, Jane and Rochester re-build their relationship and eventually marry.

For readers who have read both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, we can make a series of comparisons between the two works. Both contain elements of the gothic. An isolated house in a moody, windswept location. An anti-hero / love interest in the forms of Heathcliff and Mr Rochester. But while Cathy and Heathcliff’s story ends in tragedy, with the male protagonist made only more bitter by the events of the novel, Jane and Rochester’s story ends happily, with him redeemed and changed by her love. It is important to note at this point that, particularly for readers interested in the feminist aspects of Jane Eyre, that their relationship is reconciled on Jane’s terms. Throughout the novel, Jane largely enjoys economic autonomy, working independently and engaging in useful and worthwhile work as a governess and teacher. She desires a marriage based on love and companionship, not for financial gain or a loveless partnership. Her experiences with Reed family and at Lowood school bestow her with a strong self of her own self worth. When St John Rivers proposes marriage following her split with Rochester, it is based not on feelings on love but a partnership based around a common purpose. She refuses his proposal. Following the reveal of Rochester’s wife in the attic, she also refuses to stay at Thornfield, horrified at the thought of living as his mistress.

That copy of Jane Eyre bought from Blackwell’s bookshop still sits on my bookshelf. It is now missing a front page but is otherwise largely intact. I have returned to it several times over the years. What I love most about Jane Eyre is her ability to survive, no matter what life throws at her. Her influence on my life has been enormous. She showed me that it is possible to survive. No matter what terrible events come our way, we have the ability to survive. Life goes on, whether we like it or not, and we can either choose to move forwards with it or remain trapped within each situation or feeling.

In my life, I have been made redundant several times. I have had two breast cancer scares. My heart has been broken so badly I thought that it would never mend. I have reached out in friendship to people who took advantage of my kindness. I have struggled throughout my adult life with bouts of depression, the most recent of which was so serious that even considering writing about it terrifies me. But somehow, I survived. I chose to survive. A small part of me refused to be beaten. She kept going, chose to get out of bed each morning and hold her head high. She chose to move forwards and choose happiness.

Jane Eyre is a book that everyone should read at least once in their life. In addition to the theme of survival, it is a novel about the struggles between passion and conscience, wanting to belong versus being an outsider, wanting to be loved versus the desire for autonomy. The plot is evenly paced, and it is never boring (despite what my 7-year-old self would have told you!) It is not a difficult novel to read, with such well-developed descriptions of Jane’s emotions that it is hard not to feel moved. Many quotes from Jane Eyre have passed into common parlance. Try these on for size:

“Reader, I married him”.

“I would always rather be happy than dignified”.

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself”.

“I am no bird, and no net ensnares me.”

It says a lot about Jane Eyre and its influence on my life, that the last of these quotes now sits on the wall in my study, facing my desk.

At moments when I feel overwhelmed, when I feel anxious, trapped, or when I can feel myself slipping into the dark hole of depression, I take a moment to read that quote and remember that I am an independent human being. My self worth lies in my own hands, not in others. I can stay quiet, as I have done for so many years, or I can use my voice to say the things I want to say. I can wallow and lose myself in my current state, or I can choose to do as Jane does and pick myself up, move forwards and fly away from my troubles.

I choose the latter.

[jordanr770-blog]

Oooh! I like most of the ones above that are mentioned although to be fair I have yet to read A Little Price, A Raisin in the Sun, and To Kill a Mockingbird and yes, I know that last one is considered to be THE BEST book of all time.

Some of my favorites not mentioned;

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Basically everything by the three Bronte sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne) were great reads to me.

Everything Jane Austen wrote.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. I know a lot of people either love or dislike Hardy and that is completely valid. He has a lot of novels but this one has to be my favorite that I've read by him so far.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. I just read that last year and couldn't put it down. Really looking forward to reading Love in the Time of Cholera by him very soon.

Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo 

The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. A lot of Gaskell's books are good.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Probably not the best Dickens book to start out with (if you first start reading Dickens I'd say Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, or The Pickwick Papers are your best bet) but it is my favorite. Bleak House was also good.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Granted, I doubt many schools would ever assign this one because it's such a lengthy novel, but despite it's thousand or so pages it is well worth reading and truly isn't as intimidating as you would imagine it to be.

*The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. Not sure if it's considered a classic but it is spooky season so it has to be mentioned! If you are into spooky books then I recommend this, most of Edgar Allan Poe's works (The Pit and the Pendulum being my personal fave, but I think everyone has a favorite Poe story =P) The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, and Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu.

Honorable mention; Greek plays. A lot of them are absolutely insane. And when I was in high school I know a lot of the students really loved reading Beowulf.

Hey so like many of you, I saw that article about how people are going into college having read no classic books. And believe it or not, I've been pissed about this for years. Like the article revealed, a good chunk of American Schools don't require students to actually read books, rather they just give them an excerpt and tell them how to feel about it. Which is bullshit.

So like. As a positivity post, let's use this time to recommend actually good classic books that you've actually enjoyed reading! I know that Dracula Daily and Epic the Musical have wonderfully tricked y'all into reading Dracula and The Odyssey, and I've seen a resurgence of Picture of Dorian Gray readership out of spite for N-tflix, so let's keep the ball rolling!

My absolute favorite books of all time are The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Classic psychological horror books about unhinged women.

I adore The Bad Seed by William March. It's widely considered to be the first "creepy child" book in American literature, so reading it now you're like "wow that's kinda cliche- oh my god this is what started it. This was ground zero."

I remember the feelings of validation I got when people realized Dracula wasn't actually a love story. For further feelings of validation, please read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. There's a lot the more popular adaptations missed out on.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is an absolute gem of a book. It's a slow-build psychological study so it may not be for everyone, but damn do the plot twists hit. It's a really good book to go into blind, but I will say that its handling of abuse victims is actually insanely good for the time period it was written in.

Moving on from horror, you know people who say "I loved this book so much I couldn't put it down"? That was me as a kid reading A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Picked it up while bored at the library and was glued to it until I finished it.

Peter Pan and Wendy by JM Barrie was also a childhood favorite of mine. Next time someone bitches about Woke Casting, tell them that the original 1911 Peter Pan novel had canon nonbinary fairies.

Watership Down by Richard Adams is my sister Cori's favorite book period. If you were a Warrior Cats, Guardians of Ga'Hoole or Wings of Fire kid, you owe a metric fuckton to Watership Down and its "little animals on a big adventure" setup.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry was a play and not a book first, but damn if it isn't a good fucking read. It was also named after a Langston Hughes poem, who's also an absolutely incredible author.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a book I absolutely adore and will defend until the day I die. It's so friggin good, y'all, I love it more than anything. You like people breaking out of fascist brainwashing? You like reading and value knowledge? You wanna see a guy basically predict the future of television back in 1953? Read Fahrenheit.

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee are considered required reading for a reason: they're both really good books about young white children unlearning the racial biases of their time. Huck Finn specifically has the main character being told that he will go to hell if he frees a slave, and deciding eternal damnation would be worth it.

As a sidenote, another Mark Twain book I was obsessed with as a kid was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Exactly what it says on the tin, incredibly insane read.

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin is a heartbreaking but powerful book and a look at the racism of the time while still centering the love the two black protagonists feel for each other. Giovanni's Room by the same author is one that focuses on a MLM man struggling with his sexuality, and it's really important to see from the perspective of a queer man living in the 50s– as well as Baldwin's autobiographical novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain.

Agatha Christie mysteries are all still absolutely iconic, but Murder on the Orient Express is such a good read whether or not you know the end twist.

Maybe-controversial-maybe-not take: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is a good book if you have reading comprehension. No, you're not supposed to like the main character. He pretty much spells that out for you at the end ffs.

Animal Farm by George Orwell was another favorite of mine; it was written as an obvious metaphor for the rise of fascism in Russia at the time and boy does it hit even now.

And finally, please read Shakespeare plays. As soon as you get used to their way of talking, they're not as hard to understand as people will lead you to believe. My absolute favorite is Twelfth Night- crossdressing, bisexual love triangles, yellow stockings... it's all a joy.

and those are just the ones i thought of off the top of my head! What're your guys' favorite classic books? Let's make everyone a reading list!

[cosmicrhetoric]

packing up my books out of my parents house and it's like. i might have a problem. like my classics are non negotiable. im bringing my austen my gaskell my bronte(s). my pratchett is also non negotiable but it's compact. my beautiful collection of 80s-ish sci fi and fantasy paperbacks is where things get tricky cause no im not going to reread hyperion anytime soon but I liked having it there. and now it's just like are you really going to need persepolis (yes) are you REALLY going to need your middle school collection of the complete deltora quest series in hardcover (it's actually killing me that the answer is no)

[feraltuxedo]

Three Fics Tag

I was tagged by @copperplatebeech in this fun little game, in which I'm supposed to name my most popular fic as well as two "hidden gems." I love analytics and statistics, so I'm all over this.

Though I'm already struggling with the first prompt. Going strictly by hits, my most popular story is my recently completed historical AU All My Heart Is Yours. This fic is not quite a retelling of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, but it is decidedly inspired by it. Set in the Victorian period, it's the story of young tutor Aziraphale, who ends up working for the moody and mysterious Mr Crowley in his enormous country house in the middle of nowhere. It' all the gothic angsty romance you expect from a story such as this (with a happy ending, of course, and smoothing out many of the plot points in the original story that just don't sit right with modern readers such as myself)

But with other metrics taken into account, I would have to choose my kid fic AU Fledging, which has more bookmarks and kudos, but fewer views. Fledging was my first and only foray into kid fic, and it's the story of two young single parents trying to navigate the complexities of raising preteens while also dealing with schoolgate politics, financial issues, loss, and trauma. It's much darker than many of my other stories but, I hope, in a very realistic way. And of course there is, as always, a happy ending for everyone involved.

These two are also my longest stories, and obviously it's easier for works with 20+ chapters to accumulate hits simply by being at the top of tag and search results for longer. So for my two "hidden gem" prompts, I want to highlight two shorter works of mine that I really love, but that haven't quite had the same chance to shine.

The first one is Party Policy. This is a pub AU set in a small town during a general election. I truly indulge in the political aspect of it, both with regards to election campaigning and also the general undercurrent of social and class politics that has a habit of sneaking into my stories. In this one, all of that is right on the surface and in the plot. This fic is not at all popular in terms of numbers, and I think - apart from the sheer British-ness of it - that it's because it's a sequel to my earlier (and much more popular) pub/student AU Recommended Reading. So getting to Party Policy requires the reader to have gotten through that earlier work first, and that, I admit, is a bit of a commitment. Hopefully one people think worth making.

The second "hidden gem" I want to mention is First Thing In The Morning. It's the first and so far only AU in which I've experimented with dual POV and dual timeline writing, with part of the story set in the modern day, and part of it set in 1990. It's part high school AU and part exes reconnecting, and I really enjoyed writing Aziraphale and Crowley both as teenagers and as middle-aged men, and thinking about how their lives developed, and how their experiences shaped their personalities over the decades. Cocky troublemaker Crowley becomes a responsible but somewhat anxious adult, while nerdy, introverted Aziraphale turns into a confident and successful author with a pronounced bastard side. The aforementioned political undercurrent is strong in this one, too, since the 1990 chapters are set during a black spot in the history of British LGBT rights, the Section 28 era. And while this story is very much on the lighter side, with barely a sprinkle of angst, this context simply cannot be ignored and is perhaps another reason why this gem remains a little hidden.

I tag @tawnyontumblr, @moondawntreader, and @ladyspock7