#Neverworld's End

[majestativa]

Away away my love to where all darkness will be gone.

[a-deadly-serenade]

this is still such a serve. i hope lisa middelhauve is having a good day

[evilvillainapologist]

I still think Lord Yunzhong should have been the end boss, btw.

Tai Sui, Shmai Sui, who cares, but that guy needed to be taken down a peg.

You don't go, "Yeah, just let my little brother die forever, that's a risk I'm willing to take" and get to be one of the good guys.

Team Orchid Should Have Slapped Yunzhong Into The Neverworld

[brightbeautifulthings]

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

"'It's infected,' the man mumbled. 'The story. Some are, you know.'"

Year Read: 2024

Rating: 3/5

Thoughts: After reading all the reviews about what a mindfuck this book is, I'll admit I expected more. I actually found it way less twisty than Pessl's young adult novel, Neverworld Wake, which I adored and recommend far above Night Film. There's not really anything wrong with this book except that it's kind of slow and boring. The characters are essentially running an investigation throughout the entire book. By design, this makes it so that we're barely present for any of the supposed horror, but simply being told about it from another character. It's a punctured balloon, all the air escaping, never able to get off the ground. The one part of the book that is quite confusing is explained well enough later on. [Spoiler.] Of course you don't know how you got from one room to the next if you're high as fuck.

I think the biggest problem for me is that I never believed anything supernatural was happening. The novel quite intentionally walks the edge between paranormal and not, but by making the main character a skeptic, it's almost impossible for the reader to feel any way but skeptical toward it. Even by the time he started to wonder and believe, I still wasn't feeling it. There's nothing that happens that couldn't have a perfectly ordinary explanation, if we choose to lean that way. I like my supernatural to be a little more concrete.

Though Scott isn't particularly likeable for a lot of the novel--he's kind of a self-centered, egocentric jerk, and he fumbles a lot of things that a seasoned journalist should know--I did warm to him a bit, primarily through his father/daughter relationship with Nora. It's Ashley who's the real pull of the book though. While rarely actually on the page, the investigation builds a portrait of a compelling, ethereal figure lurking always and ever in the shadows and on the edges, never quite in focus or close enough to touch. I think I would have enjoyed a book more from her perspective.

There's a kind of meta aspect to Night Film that I suspect adds to that feeling of mindfuckery, but that's been done to better effect in other books. It sort of halfway works here. The deeper Scott gets into the conspiracy, the more layers the book has, with mysteries uncovering mysteries. Much like Scott, the reader has a choice: we can keep chasing this mystery, keep trying to get to the ever-elusive truth, keep trying to make all those connections, and continue down that spiral, or-- we can accept that, even if we were able to make all those connections, we still wouldn't have the answers. There were several times I thought the book could have ended to better effect, but its true ending supports this spiral into darkness. It's not clear, at this point, whether Scott can ever pull himself out of it. It's fun to think about and, while I didn't love it, I'm still glad I read it.

[firstagent]

Adapting Neverworld- Part One (Characters)

Earlier I’d mentioned that I’m currently adapting Neverworld to be an original story. This was a story where everyone from every season was locked in the Digital World together, focused more on their interactions than their struggle for survival. So the challenge is taking a story so reliant on familiar characters and so entrenched in Digital World logic (and its creatures) and making it work on its own.

Neverworld had 36 kids by the end of the first book, and one of its best features is the way it bounced between all of them at some point, with a dozen-ish subplots that wove their way around everybody. So yeah… that’s buttload of OCs. Not 36, that would be insane, plus I suppose I have to keep an eye on word count. But 24, plus the two beloved missing dudes, is plenty when we get all of their perspectives, and required some creativity to diversity a little beyond all Japanese and 69% male. We’re looking at a proportional cross-section of the English speaking world, and even if many of the storylines hit familiar notes, the new characters bring a whole new life to them. So the new story might turn Tai into a woman, Takato into a Canadian, and Zoe into a goth, but I swear you’ll barely notice. The idea of a timeless world where the characters neither age nor have anything particular to strive for still offers so much story potential, with the goal to narrow in the focus to dwell on its impact to the drama everyone gets themselves into.

I’ll chime in from time to time with updates on how things are going, what’s going on with the world, and eventually samples!

[pixiedust-poppers]

@enanit-star

Once the beloved first mate of captain Jake’s crew, she was drowned with the rope tightly wrapped around her neck and a rope attached to said anchor. It was the dark of night when she was taken by the notorious Captain Hook and the seas were too rough for her to fight. But even when the seas were calm, she was nowhere to be found, not even the anchor.

But she’s very much here. Stories have been passed around by those who have encountered her. Many have had the bottom of their ships suddenly have massive holes in them, sometimes on the deck as well and mostly during rough seas. Captain and crew members claimed that at night there’s a silhouette of a young girl that appears in various places around the ship. Whenever she speaks, it comes out in a gurgled horrific mess you cannot comprehend what she’s saying. But she is harmless to ye.

Unless you attack first, those who do often did met gruesome fates and a sunken ship that was beyond repair, those who survive do not leave unscathed. However, those that have been given and wore her old pixie dust pouch have met very gruesome end to the point of being unrecognizable.

It is unknown on how to make peace with her.

--

My thoughts went into three categories when thinking about villain izzy:

Alive (redeemable; she fell down a shit path but learned to grow into a better person)

Alive (irredeemable; fell down that same shit path and decided to remain bitter and let negative feelings fester within her till her last breath),

dead (haunts the entirety of neverland and the neversea..)

I went with the very much latter as you see, cause I like to think Izzy is that important to neverland in some way, that she has that much influence over the neverworld :>. She becomes a legend and urban legends of sorts and figured to atleast get an idea of sorts down.

[ninthwav]

i’m doing 6 hours in the library today (i would do more but they close at 5 for some unknowable reason) so i think today is my day where i listen to everything xandria put out since neverwprld’s end and see what the deal is

for the record neverworld’s end is one of, to me, the top tier hypergeneric symphonic female-fronted metal albums— like once, neverworld’s end, and symphonies of the night are it for me (sadly lacking in the m/f vocal arrangements which the genre is known for, esp considering that one of these has literal liv kristine on it, but i honestly have heard very few beauty-and-the-beast styled albums which i think hit a good balance. i don’t think it would be fair to put epica in that camp because i don’t think they actually think of their vocal lines like that— rarely do simone and mark seem to be functionally duetting. like i think epica does have this really quite striking problem with musical storytelling! which rarely is noticeable because, again, simone and mark are usually doing musically but not conceptually distinct parts…?). their sound has been pretty generic since they ¿booted? lisa and went for the much-maligned nightwish clone sound, but they really rocked it the first time and then swung dark carnivale so immediately that i couldn’t stick around for more. i think diane is an able vocalist and i am sure the music is fine. but like the most interesting thing, musically, on the latest album is the lifted melody from india on illusion is their name.

[libertyreads]

May Wrap Up--

May has been the most unhinged month so far this year despite what the photo may show. I had such an amazing time rediscovering my local library after getting my new library card at the end of April. I ended up reading a total of 5,308 pages across 19 works--13 of which I borrowed from the library. All of this goes completely against my goal to read fewer books in 2023. At this moment, I’m on pace to read 7 more books than I read last year. Whoops.

Comics/Graphic Novels-- 1. Demon in the Wood by Leigh Bardugo (Library)-- 3 stars.

2. Heart and Brain Vol. 1 by Nick Seluk (Library)-- 4 stars.

Novellas/Short Stories-- 1. All Systems Red by Martha Wells-- 4.25 stars (original rating).

2. Say Yes by Elle Kennedy (Library)-- 3 stars.

3. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe (Library)-- 3 stars.

4. What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (Library)-- 4 stars.

Novels-- 1. Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney (Library)-- 2.75 stars.

2. Rookie Move by Sarina Bowen (Library)-- 3 stars.

3. Greenglass House by Kate Milford (Library)-- 3.75 stars.

4. Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica (Library)-- 2.5 stars.

5. The Beauty and the Beast by Gabrielle-Suzanna Barbot de Villeneuve-- 2 stars.

6. The Marriage Act by John Marrs-- 3.75 stars.

7. Rent a Boyfriend by Gloria Chao (Library)-- 2 stars.

8. Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson (Library)-- 4 stars.

9. If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane (Library)-- 4 stars.

10. A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid (NetGalley)-- 3.75 stars.

11. Roomies by Christina Lauren (Library)-- 3.75 stars.

12. Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl (Kindle)-- 2 stars.

13. The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas-- 2.75 stars.

The Average Rating for the month ended up coming out to 3.22 stars. Which isn’t unexpected given how much I picked up from the library. I’ve really been using the library as a means to pick up books that I’m unsure about. It’s great for not buying books I’m not sure I’ll enjoy. So, despite the lower than average monthly rating I’m happy with what I’ve read and how I’ve read it in May.

[gothprentiss]

somehow STILL behind on lesson planning AND i got CYBERBULLIED (old best friend texted me out of nowhere like hey have you done and shared any creative writing recently? and i was like no. what’s language) BUT

BUT!!!!!!! when i was in high school i was very into the xandria album neverworld’s end which is kind of like. if you were trying to average out female-fronted symphonic metal into a single album, it might very well be that. and it was the sole album they made with the vocalist manuela kraller. i liked the album! it was fun! i still like it probably even if it is a bit devoid of personality! and then she stopped making music (not fully but mostly)! i was a HUGE fan of hers. i think they hired her because she does sound a LOT like tarja turunen and if you’re trying to symphonic metal up your symphonic metal, that’s an easy way to do it babey. and an equally easy way to worm your way right into my heart. and then i was on youtube a few minutes ago and she’s back with her youtube and claims to be very DEFINITELY making music. what a time to be alive

[hauntedwhispers]

❅ 10 Songs, 10 Years Old ❅ 2012 - 2022 ❅

Band: Xandria Song: Valentine Album: Neverwold’s End

[selegonzalez]

¡NUEVO VÍDEO! 30 Curiosidades que posiblemente no sabías de Xandria Espero que les guste :D 

LINK: https://youtu.be/LR7q34IRhg8

[a-deadly-serenade]

im having such mixed feelings rn. kamelot just dropped their us tour dates with the announcement that they’re being backed up by battle beast and... XANDRIA, who are all ive been listening to these past 3 days, reminiscing. but, the issue is, i love xandria the most like, how they sounded 20 years ago 😭 and god just even saying that is insane. kill the sun and ravenheart are 20 years old.....

anyways. im excited but its also not the xandria i grew up listening to, and i havent listened to anything new by them since neverworld’s end... & that came out over 10 years ago 💀 like, theyre new stuff sounds fine but its just not Xandria. so, im just not as excited as i’d like to be and that makes me sad

[chaosmistresses]

Manuela Kraller began her musical life in 2005 at the age of 23 while singing in a Finnish choir group, and discovered her new passion was singing. She began to take classical singing lessons and sang in more church and gospel choirs, and was soon asked to become a solo singer. She grew up with rock and metal music, and wanted to combine it with her classical background, and so began singing rock and metal music songs. On December 19, 2010, she became the new singer of Xandria after Lisa Middelhauve finished performing the rest of the live tour dates after Kerstin Bischof's departure. On November 28, 2011, Xandria announced they would release their first album with Kraller titled "Neverworld's End" and released the album's first and only single "Valentine" on February 14, 2012, followed by their music video with Manuela. But as of the 25th of October 2013, the band announced on their website that Manuela Kraller had left the band to pursue a different career and was replaced by Dutch singer and Ex Libris frontwoman Dianne van Giersbergen. (Source: Wikipedia)

[brightbeautifulthings]

Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl

"We swear we see each other, but all we are ever able to make out is a tiny porthole view of an ocean. We think we remember the past as it was, but our memories are as fantastic and flimsy as dreams. It's so easy to hate the pretty one, worship the genius, love the rock star, trust the good girl. That's never their only story."

Year Read: 2023

Rating: 4/5

About: Beatrice has barely spoken to her friends since her high school boyfriend, Jim, committed suicide. Her first year of college passed without incident, and she receives an invitation to Wincroft, the seaside mansion where they always gathered as a group. Determined to find out what really happened that night, she decides to go. When a tragic accident leaves them snagged on a splinter of time, repeating the same day over and over again until they make an impossible decision, it gives her the opportunity to investigate his death for real and find out, once and for all, whether Jim really killed himself. Trigger warnings: character/child death, suicide, car/boating accidents, guns, severe injury, violence, alcohol/drug use, hospitals, threats, guilt.

Thoughts: It was a funny coincidence that I was reading this book on Groundhog Day and the characters are stuck in a time loop. In short, Neverworld Wake is my kind of weird. I'm having trouble even classifying the genre. It's young adult but philosophical enough to appeal to adult readers. Science fiction/fantasy but without a lot of overwhelming explanations of the world-building or time travel. Dark academia adjacent since all the characters became friends at an elite boarding school and are investigating the murder/suicide of one of their group. It's a bit of all of them done well, plus Pessl's own unique concept of the Neverworld, and as these are mostly my genres, I enjoyed it a lot.

While the book as a whole is a very different vibe, the characters as a group remind me of the ones in We Were Liars. Talented, privileged, entitled, and somehow captivating in their utter lack of regard for other humans. I think the ending would have hit harder if we'd gotten to know them a little better before they were all, you know, dead, but for the most part, Pessl does a nice job on filling in the past. I was prepared to be disappointed by the mystery of Jim's death, but there are appropriate layers to it, and the ending is quite moving overall. I hovered between three and four stars, but the end ultimately pushed it higher for me. I'm guessing it's the kind of book that rewards rereading, and I'll look forward to seeing what clues I can pick up on a second round. (Also, I lowkey want Martha's favorite book, The Dark House at Elsewhere Bend, to be a real book. Anyone on that?)

[annhathaway]

neverworld wake // marisha pessl

[sabinasanfanfic]

Saturday morning listening.