#I'm very excited to finish the book

[conostra]

Death in Blood Meridian, or- The Evening Redness Of The West

In the old West, the old South, death was plentiful as dust in the Mojave. But in Blood Meridian, it is the Chihuahua that takes precedent, and the Chihuahua desert alone whose arid soil bears the blood of everyone lost to the party that our nameless protagonist, “The Kid”, travels with in his journey to find something to make out of this miserable little thing we call a life. And the world views these lives as just as miserable. Blood Meridian is incredible at conveying the truths of the old world: this is a place filled with bloodshed, loss, and pain insurmountable, a concrete and unbreakable vow of promised misery placed on each and every occupant, and fulfilled like prophecy by not only the insanely inhospitable climates, but the even more deranged occupants who have nothing better to do than act as extended arms of the chaos and turmoil that the wilderness on its own is quite capable of supplying. But as frequently as Death occurs during The Evening Redness In The West, it is vapid and empty- every lost life is as meaningless as the things that life managed to perform in its short and destructive duties scalping or being scalped. Lives are viewed like livestock, merely performance numbers meant to measure how well or poorly the brigade is doing at any given moment. 

Death here comes and goes like the wind. It is never hung on, nor escalated in proportion. I would go so far as to say that death in the West is a statistic and nothing more, a life is a resource- every count after every skirmish the party is involved in lists off dead, then lists off injured, then lists off those injured enough to be left for dead, and then moves on. At most, we will get another paragraph detailing how their things were distributed and their horses used, and then the caravan continues on in their journey. And even those embellishments begin to fade off as we continue further into the story, into the journey. We spend two chapters with a young man who rides with The Kid, only for him to be shot and killed at the doors of a saloon and bleed out in a few sentences. The beginning of the next chapter has completely moved on from the morbidity, and instead shifts focus to the handling of his equipment. 

This is how life is treated by everyone, by the world, by the author. At least, with the exception of two people in private- The Kid, and Judge Holden. Now, keep in mind, I have not finished the book, but I am in the process of doing so day by day. That being said, I just came off of reading a series of passages that portray death so markedly different from what came before them that I felt the need to say… something, at least, about it.

Holden is very clearly a man far removed from whatever things go on in the world, so distinctly human that he seems insidiously inhuman, a living thing surely, but more closely aligned to a creature, some sort of beast from the depths of the world’s underbelly that wears the skin of a man and nothing more. His goals are distinct and independent from the rabble around him, attempting to understand everything about everything he can see, hear, learn of, or even merely acknowledge. He would so much as pluck the very moon out the sky if it meant he could learn what the dark side looked like and mark it in his journal. He is prolific in his notation and profound in even his most casual speech, wise beyond mortality and willing to gamble with his life as much as any other’s like another casual chip to throw in the pot. But he is vindictive, vile as he is educated, his talking points and sagacious musings a veneer for his sadistic tendencies. 

In the heart of Jesus Maria, the Mexican town they reside in after another successful bout of scalping and selling, a young boy approaches Holden and attempts to sell him goods- again, the lives of two young and eager dogs would be more than just goods in any context excepting the depravity of the exact context in which they reside- and Holden is nothing more than amused. He offers the boy far more than the worth of “a bushel of suchpriced dogs” as the boy takes it and offers them to him. The glistening of the gold is infatuating, and deflects any attention away from the Judge walking to the river nearby and pitching them into the frothy mess below until the splash, followed by their cries, stirs the boy from his blood-soaked riches. Holden’s demeanor remained unchanged by the thrashing desperation of the dogs, pleading in the waters as they were dragged along by the current. Eventually, after a signal from the Judge, Vandiemanlander puts one in each of their skulls, the water now running a soft, diluted pink as their carcasses aimlessly drift along its pull. The Judge continues to walk on, and Vandiemanlander finishes pissing in the river as he was doing before.

What is different about this to me is not its brevity- it is its tone. This section lasts only a few short paragraphs, no more than most of the other segments of discussion leading to death- after all, the Jacksons were consistently at each other’s throats, and even then, their actual arguing lasted only a page or so until Black Jackson put it straight through White Jackson. What’s different here is that this is even more callous and sadistic than the activity they have engaged in before. Even in the dragging of old women out of their homes, the scalping of young boys, of anything, there has never been activity like this by anyone but Holden himself. To all the others, this murdering and pillaging is still just… work. Even if they are “superior” to the "disgusting Injuns" they hunt and slaughter and are hunted by and slaughtered by like warring herds of cattle, they still treat it at best like a job worth the gold. 

But for Holden? This is tantamount to some type of holy war. But not as though the Indians are depraved. It is a war against sense, against the most modest of even utilitarian good or generosity. Against humanity, almost. Doing this to the dogs is a swansong to the magnum opus of his wanton cruelty, the murder of the innocent young Apache boy. The Judge, after leading the men in the slaughtering of entire villages, warriors and civilians alike, takes to a young boy they find in the wreckage. The gang feeds him, plays with him, grants him -and themselves by association- a small reprieve from the brutality of their perverted crusade. Holden takes note of this and, when the men take a pause in their relaxation, takes the boy to play with him himself. He bounces the boy on his knee, plays with him, and after a moment, scalps the boy and kills him, leaving his body on the wayside while he sits. Everyone is perturbed to some degree, most of all Toadvine, who pulls out his gun, pointing it directly at Holden’s head. Holden looks at Toadvine, unflinching, and tells him: Shoot me dead now, or put that gun away. Toadvine holds for a moment, before the realization of their predicament hits him, and he re-holsters and bites his tongue.

The Judge revels in the vileness that the warfare and chaos he perpetuates provides. He thrives off of it, feeds off of it. It fuels him, and in turn he fuels it through his ridiculously sadistic behavior. He flips the narrative’s lack of hanging on a moment on its head. When every scene rushes by, every moment Holden acts hangs a moment too long- for every decision they make, cut-and-dry, the action taken one moment and the reaction occurring the next, Holden violates the theme and moves just as swiftly, but things hang not on his actions, but on the reactions. Holden’s behavior has more gravitas behind it than any else in the world, and despite his larger-than-life persona AND literal personhood, there is a magnifying glass that highlights his behavior more than anyone else’s.

Anyone else’s, of course, except for The Kid.

If Holden is a magnification of the violence of the world that they reside in, The Kid in isolation is a blow-up of the context of the world around it, and the gaps between that violence, even more so than The Judge. Whenever The Kid is part of the gang, operates in the crowd, he is effectively nothing more than a passive observer and participant in the senseless violence and barbarism they all engage in. But in those moments where The Kid is alone, or even in a group smaller than the whole, he almost regains his personhood, and independent will. He does not engage in the same savagery as his peers unless goaded into it. 

There are two particular events that cement this point for me. The first is when The Kid helped David Brown by removing an arrow from his leg. In the very same Chapter where the Judge commits his (so far) ultimate act of malice in the scalping of the baby, it starts with The Kid committing an act of selflessness beyond any the rest of the gang was willing to commit, independent of all of them, since they all actively refused to do the same before him. He alone took the supposed risk of assisting his fellow man, having the arrow pierce all the way through his leg, cutting the barbed head off. He gets back into his bed and is immediately lambasted by the expriest in the gang, told that God will not love him forever, that he would sooner have lost his life than successfully remove the arrow and that his luck will, inevitably, run thin. This frowned-upon act of independent good is hammered in with emphasis, both within the narrative through its highlighting and the controversy around it, and even meta-textually. There is a mid-chapter partition immediately after the boy has the priest hissing like the serpent down his ear, raving about how he would be hung out to dry for trying to do good.

The second is the passage that I just read, the one that inspired me to write this. In the very second paragraph of Chapter XV, the chapter that contains the passage I’m referring to, there is a sentence detailing how, while fighting a cavalry, three of Glanton’s men die, seven are injured, and of those seven, four were no longer fit to ride. Immediately, after all this death, things move on. And yet, just a bit later, here we are with The Kid accompanying several of the injured. The injured who is still the most capable, Shelby, a young man who had even been going to college before coming out here through the allure of a future for himself and a woman, had his hip shattered by a round. He could scarcely move, couldn’t even crawl on his own. The Kid offers to help him. Shelby’s response is swift and coarse. “If I had a gun I’d shoot you.”

And yet, they still go back and forth, and after a time, Shelby concedes to assistance, only to attempt to take the gun out The Kid’s waistband. He returns to his horse, puts the weapon away, and still decides to return and continue to talk with Shelby. Only after Shelby finally consigns himself to his fate, staring straight up at the sky after being warned of the approach of hostiles, does The Kid finally take his leave.

The Kid is practical, but generous all the same. There is no excessiveness to his actions- at least, not anymore. He does not overstep his welcome, but tries to help to the extent that he is allotted all the same. He is, in this way, the complete opposite of Holden, a man who gives nothing but strife, who takes all that he can force to take, and allots only that which he can abide to lose. They share only in their inversion, and act only in synchronized opposition- Holden and The Kid both are truly themselves when left completely to their own devices, and oppose each other completely in both action and inaction. I know there is so much more for me to discover as I continue to read, but I just wanted to share a quick observation I had made that I thought was interesting.

READ THIS BOOK PLEASE LOLLLL

[somewhereincairparavel]

TFOTA update (major spoilers for book 1): chapter 20

this book just keeps throwing plot twist after plot twist after plot twist on me and I'm falling for every.single.one. gosh. first jude kidnaps the human girl to free her into the mortal world, and she drowns herself? Then Dain yells at Jude for the thing I WASN'T expecting (stabbing Valerian) and then Jude fucking KILLS Valerian not even a few minutes later, then buried the body in HER house, then Balekin gatecrashes and slaughters almost everyone in his fucking blood line in the matter of MINUTES. Madoc kills Dain?? And ghost kills Caelia?? Rhyia kills herself?? Taryn and Locke might secretly have an affair??

Jude feels pleasure in seeing Cardan miss out on the coronation bc he got drunk which is ironically the best thing he did bc he dodged a bullet?? Now Cardan is the only hope elfhame has, which is also super ironic since Jude was marvelling over how glad she was that cardan wasn't ever going to be king in the first few chapters.

I NEED A MOMENT TO TAKE ALL THIS IN

[gudgurkan]

Here's my 'Fantasy Items For The Adventurer' digital book! It's finished!!

Buy the book + items as individual files at either ko-fi or gumroad 

I'm glad I thought of bundling all the items as individual files with the book, perfect for roleplaying sessions. I'll probably put the items for sale at DriveThruRPG at high resolution with a suitable license for the adventure creators out there.

I'll make a couple of physical copies too! If there's enough interest I'll put them up for sale.

[majouartings]

PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA *inhale* PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE Z

[justalittlebluetiefling]

Not going to lie, I've been unsure how to feel about a lot of things writing, but I just made myself cry writing a character death that I've had planned since I plotted this novel out and that is reassuring to me for some reason.

[italictext]

Drew Alex as an apology to the poor people who followed me for tlos but got dn instead. I promise I'll draw more!!

[lunabug2004]

The whole Power of Three to Omen of the Stars arcs will forever be the best Warriors books and I will die on this hill.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2023. NETTLE & BONE by T. Kingfisher.

I have been Successfully Peer-Pressured into reading a book I’m sure I will love! I really enjoyed THE HOLLOW PLACES, so I’m looking forward to this one.

[these-detestable-hands]

Aros and aces are so cool.. Who said you could have so much swag... That's not fair....wait I'm ace I have swag too.. Besties we have so much swag it's wild

[copper-skulls]

fountain pen doodles i might color in on a rainy day someday. or not. we'll see.

[leejeann]

I used to think about how funny it was that I took a whole two (2) semesters of Japanese at uni and suddenly became permanently fascinated with how languages work, but then I remembered one of my core memories was from the first time I ever read a book by myself because I was just SO EXCITED that I understood all the words in the book without needing help.

Then I realized I'm basically going through that exact same thing now every time I stumble across something in Japanese that I can actually understand. So like actually nevermind I think I was always like this and the only thing that really changed is that I finally realized I don't have to be in a formal class to learn about languages lmao

(bonus: this was the book. I was like 4 or 5? Idk but to this day the phrase "quick Quack, quick!" is a regular part of my lexicon lol)

[id: image of a Step Into Reading children's book titled Quick Quack, Quick!. The cover is a watercolor illustration of a happy, prancing duckling surrounded by berry bushes with a cat hiding in the grass behind him and a mother duck calling for him in the distance end id]

[kabira]

.

[isfjmel-phleg]

(

[notjanine]

spent the summer prepping for and taking the worst exam of my life, riding out the lease at the worst place i've ever lived,* then being temporarily kinda homeless,** and getting dozens and dozens of job applications rejected. i had some fun in there, but my anxiety has been through the fucking roof on top of my regular summer depression.

then the last two weeks of august happened 😳

everything happens so much. somehow, i managed to find the perfect apartment for a reasonable rent, and now me and Books are living (together!) in a fantastic and charming new home- lots of space, big kitchen table, a balcony facing undeveloped woods, just off one of the major roads in the city that has my favorite grocery store and our favorite sandwich shop (where we were already regulars). plus, i've gotten not one, not two, but three (three!) job offers- and i can take them all!!! one is with a hospital where i did my favorite internship rotation, and i'm so excited that i get to go back there and get paid to do that job, it was a blast. another is right by my new place and it's similar to the other hospital, but it's slightly bigger and sees more complex cases, so i'll be comfortable and confident, but i'll still get some new, specific clinical experience in areas that i'm interested in.

and the third position is... literally my dream job. it's the job that's been the end goal since the moment i chose my field of study. grad school and the internship made me rethink all of my professional goals and push them back, thinking i wouldn't be able to get to them for so long because i'd need ~more experience~. but now i'm. uh. i did it. i did it??!

the two hospital jobs are just part time, but they both pay well. the other won't start for a few months bc my boss*** has to get insurance approval to add me to her private practice,**** but that's okay, because i have a lot of reading and learning i want to do in the meantime to prepare! and then it will start as part time working up to full time as i build up my case load, but i'll also get to decide my own hours and do some work from home. i'll get to work with my favorite kinds of patients! and i'll get fantastic professional development opportunities for specialization, if i want to. the other dietitians in the practice seem lovely, so i'm excited to work with them. and the pay is realllly good, gosh, for being fresh out of the internship, it's nuts.

so things will pick up as i go through orientation and onboarding for the two hospital jobs next month. but it'll get calmer again after that, so i'll have the time and energy to prepare for the more challenging work that starts later, which is really nice.

and in the meantime, i'll be tending the wee garden on my balcony and playing board games with the love of my life 💗

[keeps-ache]

ooo only so long now!!

[lit-in-thy-heart]

what's your favourite fic that you've written? (Or, I suppose a scene from a fic that you're particularly proud of?) (although saying that so much of your fic is top tier 🩵🩵🩵)

hello anon!! this ask made me 🥺🥺, thank you so much for dropping it in my inbox <3

my favourite fic that i've written... this is actually more difficult than i thought, as there are some that were hell to write but i'm really pleased with how it turned out, and some that are not absolute masterpieces but i had so much fun writing them. and the one that's a mix of all of the above (as contradictory as it may seem) hasn't even been finished and posted yet lmao. i think, overall, my favourite that i've posted is we left the book of love signed in blood on every page, which looks at the breakdown of gwaine and merlin following lancelot's death. i enjoy writing angst like that and i also had fun with the sustained imagery

but in terms of a scene that i'm particularly proud of, the moment in bitter is the antidote where gwaine begins to relax around lancelot and both of them are pressed close to each other and reaching out to merlin is one that i'm quite proud of. the full scene is below the cut and i enjoyed trying to depict the hesitancy on both gwaine's and lancelot's parts. also i really like the line 'so he let his tea go cold and his shoulder grow numb' but i couldn't tell you exactly why

thanks for the ask anon, hope you have a wonderful day! 💜

Lancelot had one hand buried in Merlin’s hair again, twisting the short strands between his fingers, knees pressed against the bed. Hesitantly, Gwaine hovered on Lancelot’s left side before sinking down to the floor, one leg strewn out beneath the bed. His hand reached for the one Merlin had draped over the edge of the bed, taking it between his fingers and, upon receiving murmured permission, gingerly leaned against Lancelot’s leg. He was aware of the bone pressing into his shoulder, just as he was aware of Merlin’s grip tightening around him, but it didn’t scare him half as much as it should have done.

Never, never had Gwaine thought that he would be so close to two others when all three of them were conscious. Never had he thought he would be confronted with the knowledge of his best friend having magic, either, and Gwaine couldn’t help but wonder what other unexpected things fate had in store for him. He didn’t dare move, in case it all proved to be an illusion and the slightest twitch dispelled it. So he let his tea go cold and his shoulder grow numb, let his abdominal muscles ache with the effort of not allowing all of his weight to fall on Lancelot’s leg and his hand be manipulated by Merlin’s touch.

Merlin, assured by their physical presence, had closed his eyes and Gwaine took the opportunity to use his gaze to sketch out the angles of Merlin’s body in his mind, safe in the knowledge that Lancelot couldn’t see his face. Before, he’d been convinced that he’d successfully memorised each dip in Merlin’s form in the same way that he’d memorised the placement of his own gaping traps in woods over the years. He’d thought that he’d be able to sculpt Merlin flawlessly from ribbons of clouds and wind. But, as Merlin shifted and the tip of what looked like an old scar peered over the neck of his shirt, Gwaine realised just how wrong he’d been. It was a blessing that the hand not holding Merlin’s was engaged with a cold cup of tea because Gwaine could feel temptation running its fingers along his arm, leaving a trail that ended at Merlin’s chest.

The skin looked leathery, much like Merlin’s burned leg, and, if it had been fire… Just how many times had Merlin narrowly escaped the flames? How much of himself had he kept protected from Gwaine with a clumsy cut of material tied around his throat? Dropping his gaze to his right hand, Gwaine pushed one side of it into the bed, careful not to squash Merlin’s hand. He was one to talk.

Faintly aware of a subtle movement behind him, Gwaine rotated his head by several degrees, glancing over his shoulder and through his hair. Lancelot was no longer holding the cup in one hand – if Gwaine shifted his hip, he’d knock against it on the ground – and the hand was now hovering above Gwaine’s shoulder. Gwaine began to phrase a silent question but cut himself off as he reached an answer; it seemed that Lancelot was reluctant to place his hand in his own lap for fear of elbowing Gwaine in the head.

Returning to look straight ahead, Gwaine raised his left hand and took his little finger away from the cup, hooking it around the tip of Lancelot’s middle finger. Careful not to spill his drink, Gwaine slowly lowered his hand, taking Lancelot’s with him, until Lancelot’s palm met his shoulder. As Gwaine rested his own hand on his thigh, Lancelot made port with his thumb at the muscle between Gwaine’s shoulder and neck. It was then that Gwaine registered that, in leaning against Lancelot, his jacket had slipped a little off his shoulders and had dragged the neck of his shirt down with it.

Most of Lancelot’s hand was planted firmly over Gwaine’s shirt, his wrist grazing the collar of the jacket, but his thumb was on that muscle – a muscle bearing layers of tension that Gwaine hadn’t even been aware of – and his index finger was dangling over Gwaine’s collarbone. And then Lancelot began to sweep his thumb back and forth along that single muscle, collecting the tension in Gwaine’s shoulder like a bee picking up pollen, and Gwaine couldn’t hold himself up any longer.