#Nastasya Crowe

[20smthnreviews]

Immortal Be-loved this series

Ok so after like 8 years I finally got my hands on the last book in the Immortal Beloved series by Cate Tiernan. I read the first two as a teenager, over and over again, so this book series is kinda special to me and it makes me insane that twighlight got the reception it did & noone's ever even heard of Immortal Beloved.

Anyway.

As a normal person does when having just finished the last book in a series that is now a decade old, I went looking for fanfic. AND THERE IS NONE. screaming, crying, throwing up, etc. So I went onto goodreads, bc I had to make sure I wasn't the only person who read and loved this series - thankfully I am not. There's a lot of praise for this series (and well deserved praise at that!) but the ones that caught me off guard were the bad reviews. Most of them were complaining about how they didn't like the main character, or the books are too slow, or the fact that for a grounded fantasy book it has shockingly little in terms of big fight scenes or crazy magic shenanigans... Which just tells me that they missed the point.

This book series isn't really about magic or fights or anything like that. It's about reconciling who you used to be with who you are now, learning to make better choices for yourself and the people around you, learning to forgive yourself and be better, just in and of yourself, among other things. It's about learning who you are, and that there's no expiry date on anything, there's always time to do better.

Does it have magic? Yes. Does it have fights? Yes. A compelling story and frankly a super-hot love interest? Yes. Are these what makes the books good? Well they help, sure, but the heart of the books doesn't come from them.

Quite a few of the positive reviews talk about having a warm & fuzzy feeling after finishing these books and I so relate to that. These are the people who got the points the books make, the importance of slowing down and stopping yourself from just diving head-long into yet another distraction. The books are slow, yes, but they're intentionally that way, and if that's not your cup of tea then so be it - I don't know why you'd critise a book for that though.

My only gripes are that the last book 1) has an entirely different cover art style to the first two? and 2) the ending does feel a little rushed. It would have been lovely to have a couple more chapters to resolve the romance plot line (we get so little of it in the first place T-T) and a few loose ends - as is it does feel a little "and-they-all-got-happy-endings-and-everything's-great-The-End". That being said, no book is perfect and the reasons I love this series WAY outweigh the couple pernickity bits I have... If Tiernan were to write a flash-forward novella though, I'd be a very very happy gal. (We're going to avoid the fact that that is HIGHLY unlikely to happen. The last book came out in 2013.)

TLDR? Read these books, please. I need someone to talk to about them! If not for that, then come for the dry humour, spikey but loveable main character and the sneaking suspicion that the books might be teaching you something...

[qaidoneus]

INEFFABLE WIVES!!!

Alright so personally I love 60s wives, but I’ve been asked for 50s wives and I’ve never really considered, so I shall provide! This is for @nastasya--filippovna !!!!

- Everyone thinks they’re really good friends. I mean obv cause it’s the 50s but like they lived together back then!!!

- Fem presenting babes and they’re so cute for it.

- Zira looks like a soft, pastel stay at home wife who bakes and hosts lil cookout functions all the time, and Crowley is like the personification of a Doberman.

- She looks spooky and dresses kinda goth, but she’s the sweetest once you get to know her.

- Think kinda like nanny Ashtoreth, how she’s all soft and sweet but can be a bit spooky.

- And everyone expects Zira to be the gardener because they have a great big BEAUTIFUL strawberry patch in their yard, but that’s all Crowley!!

- All the flowers on their arbor, the bushes around the patio, all the fruits and veggies and everything, is courtesy of Crowley.

- Even tho Zira is an angel, I like to think that she absolutely does not have a green thumb. Like once something is started, she can keep it happy (albeit with a few minor miracles) but she absolutely cannot start things from seed. They just…don’t grow for her.

- She does make sure to spoil the plants though because we all know how her wife can be..

- Even though Crowley is to thank for all their lovely plants, Zira makes amazing desserts and dishes with them!! She’s absolutely gifted.

- They had a bake sale at the local elementary school (they don’t even have a kid, they just showed up💀) and she sold the most deserts!! They gave her a lil medal for it and everything, it hangs on their fridge.

- She even had people coming up after and asking if she sold outside of that, and she made some extra cash!!

- But this is how she gets everyone to her functions, guys. She has all the wives come over and sit outside with some tea and of course some delectable pastries and baked goods.

- She always has a pie in the oven, often raspberry.

- I also think that during their time as wives, Crowley went as Antoinette because why wouldn’t she?

- But those who were over often would always just call her Crowley, or even “Crow” for short.

- Secretly everyone thinks of them as little birds who came to roost, Zira as a dove and Crowley as a crow (hence the nickname)

- They just like…randomly popped up to. People were confused for a hot minute but then they got to know the wives and they couldn’t care less as long as they get to eat those sweet, sweet pies of Zira’s.

- If they had jobs, Crowley would have a flower shop, but I still think Zira would stay home.

- But I think she would run a little cake business out of the house. On the down low tho…

I hope this was alright!! Lmk if I should do a pt. 2 or something, cause this was so fun!!

[robotslenderman]

WIP Wednesday Saturday.

Felt like writing some Nastasya.

CW for a brief and tasteless CSA joke (not from Stasya), and also an old vampire never getting Sascha's pronouns consistent.

The answer to the question of their trauma seemed obvious: Sascha Vykos. At first, I was content.

Then one day I approached them both. I lacked the tact to pussy foot around the subject of Sascha Vykos around my grandsire back then, something which later turned out to be a good thing because it helped him start to talk about it. But on this occasion I approached them both, reading in Norm's library and ignoring each other pointedly after some minor squabble neither of them can remember the cause of now, and asked, "So, like. If Grigori fucked Norm up -" my grandsire glared at me, Norm just shrugged with a smirk, "and Vykos fucked Grigori up, who fucked Vykos up?"

Silence.

"Maybe they got buggered by a priest as a child," Norm suggested. This earned him a book to the head from Grigori, and some 17th century Russian scolding. Once Norm told him off for damaging his books ("it not my fault your head so thick!" said Grigori), Norm said, "Seriously. Grigori, did your sire ever use you as a therapist, or was that a tradition you started?"

Grigori ignored the jab. "Sascha told me nothing of her past," he said, in his thick accent. (Sascha's pronouns changed occasionally over the centuries, and Grigori was just as consistent in using them.) "I know nothing of it. Except that their sire was so bad Sascha ate him."

"Who was that?" I asked.

"Symeon Gesuschilde," said Grigori. "All I know is that he fucked up somewhere and Sascha was drunk about it."

"Pissed," said Norm, without thinking. "Pissed means angry, drunk means grog."

"I thought you said they mean the same thing?"

"Sometimes? Like in England, being pissed means you're drunk, but over here being pissed means that you're angry. So if an American tells you that they're pissed, they're angry, but if a Brit tells you they're pissed, it means they're drunk."

"I hate your stupid language," said Grigori.

Norm flipped him off with his first two fingers. He didn't even look up from his book to do it.

"Huh," I said. "I'm gonna look into the Symeon thing."

"Good luck not getting turned inside out by Sascha when she finds out," crowed Grigori. "I spent many years escaping them, do not fuck it up for me!"

"I do have some self preservation, thanks."

Famous last words.

[a-wolf-in-a-dress]

“I’m not going to leave you alone.” Promise? Threat? You decide! Nastasya Crowe Darkness Falls, Cate Tiernan

http://www.murphyslibrary.com/2012/12/review-darkness-falls-cate-tiernan/#ixzz3YSUftjOI

[lucky13-452]

She reminds me of Nastasya Crowe from the Immortal Beloved series by Cate Tiernan.

[mystic-mae]

@lexyychinchillaa @robinprinceofchaos @nastasya--filippovna @the-cat-demon @lxvenderjewel

Challenge: make a poll with five of your all time favourite characters, and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favourite. (five OF, not top-5-of-all-time)

tagged by: @raceispunk (thanks for the tag!)

no pressure tags: @mossy-stormcloud, @rustyelias, @ambiently-80s-gay, @vvanillavveins, @atrashmammall

[capinejghafa]

Top Doomed OTPs:

(20) Innocencio & Nastasya (Immoral Beloved series by Cate Tiernan)

"I had come back to be with Incy, my best friend." 

[a-wolf-in-a-dress]

I had just gotten my coat off when Anne hurried in, holding a basin, some rags, and a first-aid kit. And, of course, a mug of steaming tea, because you couldn’t sneeze around here without someone rushing over with a mug of tea. Arm get cut off? Have some tea. Legacy of darkness slowly destroying every facet of your life? Tea. Nastasya Crowe Darkness Falls, Cate Tiernan

http://www.murphyslibrary.com/2012/12/review-darkness-falls-cate-tiernan/#ixzz3YSRQUhI5

[a-wolf-in-a-dress]

Most of the January firsts in recent memory have involved splitting headaches and roiling stomachs and often being surprised about where I was waking up. (“No, Officer, I have no idea why I’m wearing this possum costume. I called you what? Oh. My bad.”) Nastasya Crowe Darkness Falls, Cate Tiernan

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/12307536-darkness-falls