#THIS FUCKING BOOK

[boywithskull]

Francis Abernathy is such a fantastic character to me, because he’s not outwardly violent like Charles, nor increasingly cold and self-serving like Henry, yet he is just as shallow. I often see the sentiment that his ending is so tragic and how he was forced into that unhappy, het marriage. As he expresses in his suicide letter, Francis ultimately succumbs to his own lack of moral strength and failure to act (“Forgive me for the things I did but mostly the ones I did not.”) Obviously I will acknowledge that the marriage situation was unfair — no one deserves to be ousted from their family for their sexuality. However, it really was not his only choice. Just as Richard comes to realise (and is quite disgusted by), Francis would rather remain trapped than have to get a job, provide for himself, and make his own life. It reminds me a lot of Julian’s ending, and how Richard says he could at least respect it if Julian had turned them in, since it would show some strength of character, but his running away only exposed how weak-willed he was all along. Perhaps Francis has a better moral compass than Henry, but his failure to use it renders him just as at fault for everything that happened. As always, Francis values his comfort over his happiness. That’s his fatal flaw.

[brokendoor16]

Hey so I’m rereading the raven cycle and the parallels in the ways Adam and Ronan look out for each other?? Fucking INSANE. Like the ACUTE similarities between how Ronan responds to Adam’s grief over Persephone (sitting down next to him on the porch; ‘I don’t want to talk’ ‘the fuck would I talk about?’) and how Adam responds to Ronan’s grief over Aurora’s death (getting into the car with him; ‘are you coming in?’ ‘no’ ‘wake me if you need to’)?? The way they comfort each other just through their presence and comfortable silence?? I am UNWELL about these books.

(I’m sure there’s more examples but this is what we’re getting today)

[chickren]

i’m still in that was what men wanted wasn’t it purgatory and will forever be slow roasting over a spit of soft helpless women they needed to protect

the nerve of this old man

why give me another part that wondered if jaime would comfort her should she weep upon his shoulder when you could just cut my heart out with a spoon which would hurt less

[charliethinks]

the grip this book has on me is unexplainable

[adri-atics]

Was anybody going to tell me last 200 pages of The Great Hunt were absolutely life-changing incredible or was I supposed to find that out by losing my shit on a plane myself?

[themoonyandthestars]

The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself

[quill-beetlewing]

Soooooo, guys. Odysseus and Diomedes finally reached Limbo, and...

Ok so uh.

On one hand, I get it. We can't have these two stay in Limbo for half of the book.

Now, on the other WHY I WAS LITERALLY HOPING TO SEE THIS SO BAD WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME-

Are you seriously telling me that out of all the Trojans in Limbo (aka: literally every Trojan ever minus Paris, if we follow Dante's Inferno) absolutely not a single one of them wanted to beat Diomedes and ESPECIALLY Odysseus' ass??

Deiphobus? Sarpedon? Andromache??? Fuck, I would literally PAY to have a scene where Andromache just throws a chair at them or something.

But alas, the narrative had to move on.

Honestly I am this close to writing something about that myself because what the hell it's such a fun premise and you do not get to foreshadow it TWICE (earlier in the book Diomedes mentions how Hector hit him with a rock once with Aeneas, yes I do consider it foreshadowing even though it isn't) AND THEN NOT USE IT.

But also the reunion between Penelope and Odysseus was absolutely top tier so I'll let this slide. Don't worry Eighth Arrow, you're still my favorite book.

[womaninwinter]

Okay okay but the skull is working so hard to keep Lucy safe on this case because he’s in love with her. And unlike Lockwood he actually gets that the best way to ensure her safety is to tell her to do the dangerous thing, because she’s too damn stubborn to take orders. But tbf to Lockwood, of course the skull actually gets Lucy – because she’s honest with him in a way that she’s never honest with Lockwood.

Does this series ever just make you want to go

[myriad--starlings]

Someone like me, more imagination than can fit into one body, you can die inside a fantasy of yourself.

— Model Home, Rivers Solomon

[lanterne]

"With their contemptible lie, the Thermidorians annihilated, if possible, the conscience and the revolutionary will, but they also curtailed part of their legacy. First falsifying it, then hiding it and, finally, trying to bury it. History, like a dirty and lost child, continued to wander complacently along the path of injustice and falsehood. It was for this reason that that same History, much later, like a decrepit and insane old woman, would refuse with sick obstinacy to discern the truth of those events of 1793 and 1794, Years I and II of the Revolution, and, above all, to face the figures of those who managed to transform the world. The day that happened, Sebastien hoped, if it really happened, History would be so ashamed of itself that perhaps then, only then, would it be possible to think that the foundations of a New Era, the one that those men forged with the price of their lives, were beginning to be consistent"

Robespierre, Javier García Sanchez

[hercorrupterofwords]

"the twisted sequence of words seems to reproduce the snakes' tangling around the children"

[ask-the-crimson-king]

Guilliman is finally here. And the Scouring begins.

Wow.

Not quite the scene and note I'd expected to be left off on, but. Wow.

It's over.

That's it. The Horus Heresy is finished. I've completed it.

Thank you to those who have been in my notes occasionally liking my excerpt posts, I see you and thank you for joining me on this journey.

What a fucking novel. Wow.

Saw someone posting about staring at a wall for a few hours. That sounds very nice. I am going to do this too.

Wow. Just. Wow.

I'm kinda left speechless. There's so much I want to discuss and yet so little that's coming to mind.

Maybe I'll make a post for it. We'll see.

[imu-chan]

by far the three weirdest things that happened in Dream of The Red Chamber were, in order:

3. the ending

2. Zhen Lian's insane ch2 backstory leading nowhere because she doesn't show up in the rest of the book

3. Jiao Da’s claims that someone in the house was sleeping with their daughter-in-law, with Qin Keqing avoiding this topic, followed by Qin Keqing discreetly hinting to someone that she had a bad feeling that something bad would happen to her, followed by the early-on deaths of Qin Keqing and her brother, followed by HER FATHER-IN-LAW proceeding to loudly and dramatically mourn her and claim he loved her more than his son — which to me implied a scandal/assault covered up by a series of murders — but actually meant nothing at all so don’t worry about it

[wordto-thewise]

WEEPING for Twelve Azalea now and always and forever

[redrisingsun]

find you a person who treats you so much like you deserve to choose a life for yourself that you start to believe that maybe you do deserve to choose

[littlesk8board]

from bunny by mona awad