#and if you read all that

[rocket-220]

So. The first chapter of TNC just dropped. Which I wasn't expecting. And there was so much stuff that is making my brain explode with so much joy I can't type properly. If you haven't read the first chapter (or just want to wait for the book to release to read it) and don't want spoilers, because, it really is just one chapter, then I do not advise reading more.

If you want to read the first chapter, it's up on Amanda Foody's website, but this will take you to it directly.

Also everything below this is a mess of my obsession with this, so um. Read at your own risk.

First off, I really love the grimy little tavern in the Elsewheres- or more specifically, the Sasardin Empire??? I love how Amanda is fleshing out the Elsewheres along with the Wilderlands, even if its just background information.

But back to the tavern. RIP Nell. She loved her marathons. Good for her. OK thats it for the tavern actually nvm.

But I love the character interactions already in this. Runa being all, "I'm not signing my name on the autograph wall, I've already signed it four times!" and then two pages later like, "I'm not weird! I've got five signatures on the signature wall! People travel from all over the world to see this!" is just... Runa being Runa, I guess. I love her.

Also:

Tadg got tall

Amanda confirmed him to be an "avid coffee drinker" in her newsletter

Mitzi nearly tearing a guy's fake tooth out because it was shiny (i don't have much confidence for whatever gala they're going to go to)

Runa has a winter birthday :D

The election for Grand Keeper is in the spring, so I have a feeling this book will roll right into the next one, given how the timeline will probably go.

We also got a recap of how much of an a-hole Leopold is!

Barclay's lore aint workin and I HIGHLY doubt that problem will be solved once they're back in the Wilderlands

WE GOT DISTANCES??? CANON DISTANCES??? BETWEEN THE WILDERLANDS?? (at least from near the mountains)

AND THE MOUNTAINS HAVE CABLE CARS? HOW. HOW DID THEY DO THAT. DID THEY USE LORE? ARE THEY MECHANICAL?

well i mean of course they're mechanical, but are they powered with like... rocks, or water, or something...?

well seeing as this book immediately begins with them all going to the tundra, i guess we'll have to wait!

Tadg's art is better than his handwriting, it seems.

Viola called her pins silly :( i thought they looked cool

I think Tadg and Viola are going to be bickering a lot this book

And now, for a line of Amanda's from her newsletter that I found comedic:

"We've had carnivorous algae blooms and unending sandstorms, but MURDER!!!! It felt like the ultimate, "This isn't just mushroom farming and cottagecore vibes anymore.""

Oh and also Amanda said that Runa was the second most important character in TNC-

[bookwyrminspiration]

I can behave normally around books

[holographings]

someone on twitter said Imagine what s2 jayce would give to talk to s1 viktor just one more time. and someone had a time travel alternate dimension fic ready to go. and i read it. and now my face is being eaten by 3750 feral dogs i think

[beaft]

my mum forbade me to say anything to my dad about the top surgery thing, and it's just hit me how funny it would be if i got it done and didn't tell him and just waited for him to notice. i mean, what's he gonna say? "didn't you used to have tits?"

[kilgarraara]

"I guess I never really faced my fears before"

[ered]

Here’s my take on the whole audio books vs. reading:

Oral tradition of storytelling predates written ones by millennias, and honestly, which one you like is just a personal preference.

The actual difference is

when listening, you have no idea how to write characters’ names

when reading, you have no idea how to pronounce characters’ names

hope this helps!

[yeah-yeah-beebiss-1]

in case you were wondering how things went down at the pokemon world championships this weekend:

-during the top 8 of the TCG masters division, chilean player fernando cifuentes was running a gimmick deck that consisted exclusively of four iron thorns ex and a whole ton of control-focused trainer cards in a strategy that either completely shuts down opponents or shits the bed entirely

-through skillful play and some good luck, fernando made it through 2 days in a tournament with over 1100 players to get to the quarterfinals

-fernando lost 2-0 to ian robb, who was running regidrago vstar (widely considered one of the best decks in the current format)

-in an overexuberant victory celebration, ian did what can only be described as a jacking-off gesture, on a stream with tens of thousands of viewers run by a company with very firm player conduct expectations

-the judges determined that this warranted a penalty of game loss, but for some reason, rather than applying it to ian’s next game in the semifinals, they applied it to the one he had just won in the top 8

-(it should be noted that the prize money for making top 8 is $15k while top 4 is $20k, so this jerking gesture cost ian robb $5,000)

-nearly an hour after fernando came to terms with his loss and the end of an impressive run, he was told that he was to get back on stream because he’s now playing in the semifinals due to winning by default

-the player he was up against in the semifinals was playing a deck (miraidon) that happens to get shut down hard by iron thorns’s gimmick, so fernando wins the semifinals

-said player, jesse parker, had notably had an undefeated run throughout the whole tournament up to this point, and likely would have continued that streak had his intended semifinal opponent not gotten a game loss penalty for miming a lewd act on stream

-meanwhile, the other semifinal winner is japan’s seinosuke shiokawa, running a deck (roaring moon) that players had largely written off as underwhelming months ago

-the grand finals are on the following day, so saturday evening was abuzz with a lot of people baffled by the absurdity of the situation

-come sunday afternoon, the grand finals are set to begin, with fernando cifuentes running iron thorns and seinosuke shiokawa running roaring moon

-it should be noted here that the roaring moon deck doesn’t rely very much on abilities, so iron thorns’s gimmick has very little effect - this is basically an even matchup

-fernando wins the first game of the set, and seinosuke wins the second

-the third and final game of the set is a bonafide cheek-clencher, with both players reaching a state where a single KO will win the game, but fernando manages to clinch it at the last minute

-and that’s the story of how a guy pretending to jork it led to the first instance of a pokemon world champion who also lost the quarterfinals

[yourfavecharacterisqueer]

hypothetical scenario for you all: the real king arthur returns. you meet him and you welcome him into your home. what is the first thing you do with him? keep in mind, this is a man from the 500s (he died in 542), and you are from the 21st century (2024).

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[problemnyatic]

It's too late, I've already depicted you as the ugly pathetic "soy"jack (the soy is because soy has estrogen in it, this is bad because it makes you less masculine and more like the inferior female sex, because men should only be manly otherwise they're "failed" and thus lesser and deserving of ridicule) And me as the White Handsome Blue-Eyed Blond Man With Impressive Facial Hair Who's Memetic Association Is With Being Objectively Correct (This makes sense because he is the ideal Aryan specimen, all of these features obviously make him objectively superior to other people). This means I win and definitely look good here, you should really just pack it up. I'm a leftist btw

[circumpolarvampire]

People online (white) will create so many conspiracy theories that just boil down to "Asians aren't complete human beings with their own thoughts and autonomy" like maybe Chinese people are just going about their day to day life. Maybe a video of a North Korean person like chilling is just a person chilling, who isn't going to power down like a robot once the video is over. Stop being a fucking creep.

[junglejim4322]

Pdf of The Question of Palestine by Edward Said

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Penelope's final gambit, you will always be famous, no matter the subtext.

[cardo-de-comer]

10/10 - "all is gone, none is won"

[aesethewitch]

When I was a kid, we moved into a house that had a huge lilac tree out front. It was mostly rotten, and it needed to be taken down before it fell. It took a while, but eventually, it was gone.

Mostly. A couple years later, little lilac babies popped out of the ground in its place. My mom was determined to get rid of them, because she'd planted a beautiful flower garden there, and the lilac trees would overshadow and kill the whole garden. I insisted on saving at least a few saplings. She said fine, but I had to dig them out and put them in pots myself.

So, I did. I spent days digging little lilac bushes out of the ground and putting them into pots. Some couldn't be saved, but some could. When all was said and done, I had five brand-new lilac saplings. Seven or eight years old, and it was my absolute pride and joy.

Three died due to sun scorching, severe drought that no amount of watering could save, and perhaps just being moved from their place in the ground. But two survived, and I was awfully proud of them! I'd go out and talk to them every single day. I watered them by hand and made sure they were fertilized properly. I learned all about their favored environments, and I was determined to make sure they lived.

One of my mom's friends saw what I was doing with the lilacs. She asked if she could have one to put in her backyard, and I agreed on the condition that she take very, very good care of it.

It's now fucking enormous. I'm talking ten feet tall and bursting with beautiful purple flowers every spring. My mom still gets updates each year as they start to bloom, which she forwards to me. And all I can think is, "That's my friend! Thriving some twenty years on, there it is."

The other tree nearly died, too. It lived in a pot for far, far too long. I wanted to plant it somewhere in my parents' yard, but my mom was reluctant. Eventually, we agreed to put it in the far back garden. It grew okay for many years, despite the shade, but in all these years, it's never bloomed.

Last year, the massive tree casting massive shadows over the lilac and the garden cracked in half and fell. It tumbled into the garden, crushing part of the nearby shed and destroying a few plants beneath it.

It missed my lilac by inches.

The clean-up is long done. The rest of the tree has been cut down, and my lilac has full sunlight for the first time in fifteen years. It won't bloom this year, I know. But it's got new shoots up. It's taller than ever. I spent half an hour a few weeks ago praising it for surviving all this time, dreaming about its future and telling it how I believe it'll become the tall beauty it's always been meant to be.

I think next year, I'll see flowers.