#boogleboot

[puddle-books]

"how strange, but how lovely, to have a favourite book that is so full of unread stories."

fateheart: a starless seaquel - boogleboot

[nablah]

wait do you hate Puccini???

ok I'll be honest. I don't hate puccini. I'm not against his works being staged or performed, even Butterfly and Turandot which are rife with imperialistic and orientalist tendencies, because they are important pieces of work.

But, having said all that, I dislike him to a degree where I would rather not listen to his music at all. It boils down to the fact that if it composes music like a racist and writes libretto like a racist... you can fill in the rest.

I'm not a music major or particularly involved in music in my studies/career, so I see no personal loss to just not experiencing his works (though he has written some nice operas, I won't deny that). It's that I'm already living the reality of postcolonialism where Puccini's more racist operas are Real Life Experiences. They're not interestingly packaged stories, they're painful and they still affect whole societies, not to mention individual women, to this day. I hear Madama Butterfly with half the old women I encounter. Turandot happens anytime some white guy orders a Filipino mail order bride. These operas are real to me.

His music is free for other people to experience and his stories are free for others to inspect but why would I want to inspect some story when I have studied, when I have known, when I continue experiencing the effects of his views?

also i keep saying this but using 茉莉花 as Turandot's theme is shoddy research at best and intentional in its message of "welcoming the foreigner" at worst which 🤨

TL;DR I don't hate Puccini, but I avoid his music because it serves as a reminder of postcolonial reality I already live in.

[phantomwisestory]

Blog Introduction: the Phantomwise tarot as story prompt

I have recently finished a huge creative writing project (Fateheart, my fan-sequel to Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea) and have found myself in need of some real recuperation and recovery in the wake of it. But I've also found my imagination to be ready and rich in a way I don't want to miss just because I don't have one big project to be throwing myself at anymore.

I also recently came in possession of my first deck of tarot cards. It is a deck called Phantomwise, designed by Erin Morgenstern, whom you may know as the author of The Night Circus, or The Starless Sea. In the latter book, a character (Mirabel) says of tarot cards, "they're basically stories in pieces that can be re-arranged." So seemed to make sense to start with a deck designed by the author of the book from which she was speaking.

The Phantomwise deck is beautiful: all greyscale illustrations, whimsical and evocative of a certain blend of innocence and darkness - mystical but with an edge of the folkloric. Figures themed around circus performers and fairytales, with a distinct flavour of Alice and Wonderland. The people in the images are costumed like performers, even when not holding props or caught mid-act. The settings are often murky with darkness and shades of grey from which trees and castles and animals emerge as strikingly as the swords and wands and teacups and pentacles.

The deck is based on the classic Rider-Waite tarot, but I know absolutely nothing about that, frankly. And, I'll confess I'm not much interested in learning.

I'm interested in the cards as Mirabel described them: as moveable pieces to a story. I'm interested in tarot spreads as ways of arranging those pieces in order to lay space for kismet to tell a story. To use them as intricate, moving parts of a story - like the dangling pendulums of a mobile, or the myriad lights of a chandelier. I want to put them in front of me and read them like they're a fairytale.

I've been thinking a lot about stories not as things we think up and build from scratch, but as organic, writhing entities we record for posterity as writers - existing beyond our imaginations, but illuminated by the words we are equipped with as they approach.

I'm also pretty burnt out from allowing one of the biggest stories I've ever encountered in raw form to slam through me and precipitate into its fully realised glory in a very short space of time. But I don't wanna stop writing.

So I've started sitting with these cards. Pulling them out in whatever order feels right. Staring at the pictures not thinking too hard about whether they are symbols or illustrations or just shapes and lines and shades. Letting the story shoot from card to card and link each suggestion into a web that may or may not result in narrative. Maybe it will just be a feeling. Maybe the associations will be arbitrary, maybe I will get no more sense than that, and the senselessness will be the story.

Then the first spread I did last week was so intriguing that it seemed to be politely demanding that I write it. I stared at the cards I'd drawn for a good few minutes, hearing the story in my head, seeing the way each figure connected with each other - feeling the different spaces of one vast, dynamic land in front of me, glimpsing it through these little windows of card on my bedroom floor. It seemed so connected - each card belonging to a distinct and unified world - that I pulled up my notes app and started writing.

I tried to limit it to three sentences for each card, as I had done a pretty ridiculously big spread - just to start to immerse myself in the feel of the deck, to get to know the world they suggested and get up close to the people in that world.

And the language of the world seemed to come readily. The images were vivid, the tableaux potent, the characters mysterious and intriguing and seeming, as they always do when I'm writing, to be pulling me along in their wake.

The chapter's worth of story I wrote up from that reading felt distinctly and truly like a beginning. Unmistakeably. So I titled the notes 'Phantomwise: chapter one', and went to bed. Then this evening I did another reading - a much smaller one - and tried to make space for it to feel like a completely different story if it wanted to. But the strength and unity of the aesthetic sense across the deck rendered that pointless - and I ended up writing chapter two from the cards in front of me. And now I like this project so much I'm making a little tumblr space for it to live beyond myself.

So this is the blog where I'm going to chronicle this creative process, and post the chapters. 'Chapters' should be interpreted as 'readings', by the way. These are tarot readings. But I'm not looking to divine the future, or anything directly personal. I'm trying to see if the cards will tell a story. If there's a way to lean into this position I've adopted in my creative writing of being a scribe, or a conduit, to an entity beyond myself, capturing it and recording is as faithfully as I can as I witness it. And these cards do indeed seem to be absolutely bursting with story. Thanks, Mirabel (or Erin Morgenstern, I suppose. Though I've never met her - I have, however, spent a fair amount of time with Mirabel).

I'm not claiming this is a supernatural art (I'm also not asserting that it's not): I'm actively exploring my own creative writing process using a physical tool beyond myself, dragging the process out of the arena of my own head and somewhere into the space between me and my real world, so that hopefully I can get to know myself better. Which seems to be at least part of what tarot is all about anyway, so that works.

And part of that is going to be chronicling the process here. And posting the stories. I can't guarantee that the story from reading to reading will be the same story - or that it will be coherent, or decent, or good. I'm just gonna post each reading as I write it - with no editing past a quick scan for blaring typos - and no mind as to the coherency or continuity of plot or anything else. I'm just following the rabbit down the rabbit hole and writing up wonderland.

I'll make a master post of Phantomwise chapters and link it here, and I'll probably post short notes separate to those chapters about each draw - if you're a seasoned tarot user, I apologise: I know nothing about traditional spreads or card positions, but from what I can tell of the ethos of tarot, it's as much about your personal relationship with the deck as how you choose to read it - and this is certainly a very fun (and very particular) way to get to know a deck.

Anyway. That's what this is. I'm not gonna box myself into an upload schedule for this either: if I post fourteen in one day, so be it. If I post exactly twice and never touch it again that's fine too. This undertaking is designed to nurture the weary parts of my creative brain and also to aid the discipline and structure of my writing process.

You just get to read it.

Here's a link to the Phantomwise tarot set on Erin Morgnestern's website (check out the art it's gorgeous)

Here's the master post of chapters I've posted so far

Here's my main blog (my name is Boogle)

Any questions, feel free to shoot them my way. No, I'm not planning anything or even really thinking about the story between chapters. They're just kind of happening.

By BoogleBoot

[thatwasntlikeridingabikeuasshole]

im having a terrible day so i am going to spend the next hour solving it with fanfiction

[beenovel]

Starting a new tag game, which cryptid are you? Blank images under the cut!

@tolkien-fantasy @dandan-theberserker @ospreyonthemoon @oldrags @oldfashionedmorphine @ohmeowmy @thoughtsoflastnight @void-of-unparalled-chaos @runawaymarbles @raven-romanoff @errruvande @erosofthepen @kermits-cup-of-tea @jtownraindancer @howlonghaveyoubeenseventeen @hissterical-nyaan @fashionstatement-deathwish @frootchinator @sabertoothwalrus @sundustingdryads @splintered-emotions @schmoolius @scyllas-revenge @aechlys @messypeaches @my-darling-haldir @messiambrandybuck @merriadoc-brandyfuck @nondescripthumanperson @blueberryrock @bananzer @boogleboot @thatwasntlikeridingabikeuasshole @bugsoda @celestine-stan

[the-harbour-official]

Harbour Drabble Event 2024 coming soon!!!!!!!!!!

Hey everyone! So brilliant news...July is coming up and I've been thinking about the drabble event we hosted in our server last summer, and how much fun it was and how batshit insane i went on it lol, and I've decided it's a good idea to host it again this year! so this is the post with all the important info for the Harbour Drabble Event 2024 <3333333

"what is this even anyway roo???"

you may ask! if you were not here a year ago! it's a very lowkey event, low commitment for anyone who wants to participate- basically the idea is that you write drabbles about The Starless Sea during or before the month of July and submit them, and I'll post them on this blog!

if you don't know what a drabble is!! it's a very short piece of fanfiction- we're going for this event with the traditional definition meaning its exactly 100 words of fic, usually capturing just one small moment! i highly recommend going for it if you've never written drabbles before, it's a really fun creative exercise and way to write fic without spending a huge amount of time! i had never written a drabble before we did this event last year and i became. quite prolific lol

"ok but what do i do with the drabbles tho????"

some options! you can:

post them to your own tumblr blog and tag us so i can reblog them!

submit them to this blog so i can post them!

if youre in the server and more comfortable with discord you can dm them to me and i will post them here!

"ok fine so what do i write drabbles about then"

the starless sea! lol

last year i gave myself a theme for every weekday (because i was posting AT LEAST once daily god that was unhinged id be like posting two drabbles from an airplane or some shit) but anyway i thought id use these as optional prompts for the event this year! these are not mandatory just some ideas of what to write!

More Drabbles Monday - anything lol

Time and Fate Tuesday - drabbles about Mirabel and the Keeper or their previous incarnations!

Cheese Wednesday - not actually one of my themes last year but kristin @boogleboot wanted a cheese day so a cheese day you will have my dear <333

Monday Part Two Thursday - anything again

Fateheart Friday - drabbles focusing on characters, events, and/or the new Harbour from Fateheart! (the greatest known work of tss fanfic if you havent read it you should)

Sad Times Saturday - angst <3333

Son of the Fortune Teller Sunday - drabbles about Madame Love Rawlins and her children <3333 (yes dorian and kat are her children be so fr)

more prompts may be to come! but yes submit drabbles any time from now until the end of July <33333 love you all peace out

[purple-cray0ns]

Finally done!! This is a scene from a fan made sequel and i can’t get enough rggh characters left to right are Zachary Dorian Lenore and Simon

The fanfic is Fateheart by BoogleBoot :D

@thatwasntlikeridingabikeuasshole @boogleboot @fateheartblog

[fateheartblog]

Another little Starless Sea ficlet!

This is a scene exploring Dorian in the early days of his relationship with Zachary. A little bit hurt/comfort, a little bit reflective, a little bit heavy on the boat imagery.

But I love me a gimmick.

Set, as ever, during the events of Fateheart

[thehauntedair]

Ouroboros

The keeper has been looking for her room for a year. Other keepers have assured her it often takes this long. Sometimes longer. She is deep within the Harbour now. If it weren't for her compass she would have no hope of returning - fated to become a ghost - a lost wanderer amongst the books and cobwebs and shadows. The final door along this passage is low and arched with a heavy knocker like a snake consuming itself. A second before the key turns she knows she has found it. Her breath stops. So does time. She is never seen again.

——————————————————

Via @boogleboot

[thatwasntlikeridingabikeuasshole]

@boogleboot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S YOUR NICKNAMES IN HIGH SCHOOL LOL

[thatwasntlikeridingabikeuasshole]

AHEM! STARLESS SEA FANS!

I HAVE AN INVITATION FOR YOU!!!!! please keep reading, god, if you love the starless sea enough that you're even seeing this we want YOU!!!! are you a long time starless sea fan who has never found anyone else who wants to talk about this book as much as you do? have you always wanted to write/see starless sea fanfic or fanart but didnt think there was a fandom? or have you just finished the starless sea like twenty minutes ago and have been scouring tumblr for anything you can find? WELL I'VE GOT THE PLACE FOR YOU!

WE HAVE A STARLESS SEA DISCORD SERVER!

LINK

reasons why you should join and why this server is the best:

we are all literally just obsessed with the starless sea

and the characters

we draw fanart and write fanfic and even have events with prompts to inspire you to do the same

we have a super cool minecraft server with the inn at the edge of the world and a cherry blossom forest around it with honey and candles and shit

we do storytime where we read to each other in vc from tss, fanfic, or other books and it happens all the time and its really lovely and soothing and fun

we have movie nights and movie afternoons and random impromptu movies but theres a movie every weekend

we have endless headcanons

and a whole channel dedicated to dorian hurt/comfort

i co-run it with @boogleboot who is just the coolest and if you havent met her youre missing out

and theres a bunch of other cool people there too who i love so much

we have a limericks only chat (for which i blame mod boogle its so fun you have to talk only in limericks there)

YOU LIKE THE STARLESS SEA. WE LIKE THE STARLESS SEA. COME JOIN

go click that link girl (gendy neuch). we're so excited to have you. see you in the harbour!!!!!

[fateheartblog]

NEW FIC

This one's a real honk-fest I swear.

Love Dorian. Love putting him in the wok and stir-frying him for all he's worth, god bless.

[zacharydorianaesthetic]

Many a Harbour has fallen. With them the old myths sink like great statues into the wretched storm-torn deserts of time. And the new myths rise, to step from the returning ship into the new dream, with the story branded into their skin, carrying the legacy of what has been into the hope of what could be next.

Fateheart: A Starless Sequel, by Ao3 user BoogleBoot

[thatwasntlikeridingabikeuasshole]

earring

a bonus drabble for the @thehauntedair Starless Sea drabble event <3333

inspired by the fact that @boogleboot keeps putting fuckin, a little gay lookin earring in one of dorians ears in her many excellent picrews of tss characters (join the discord server we have picrews made by kristin lol) and im obsessed with it so here we are

---

Zachary glances over at Dorian and beams. He’s noticed it again. 

Don’t do it, he warns himself, but he’s already leaning over, tugging on Dorian’s hand to stop him. He kisses his ear over and over and can’t stop, except for to put his arms around his neck and grin at the little silver hoop earring that Dorian is wearing. 

“Zachary-” 

“It’s so cute.” 

Dorian grins bashfully. “You really think so.” 

Zachary smiles. “Just look at yourself. You’re adorable.” 

Dorian laughs, his earring flashes in the sun, and Zachary is dizzy with the feeling of being in love with him. 

---

🐝 🗝🗡

[the-harbour-official]

ON BEHALF OF THE HARBOUR I WOULD LIKE TO SAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEANDER!!!!!!!!!!

Leander may not appear in the starless sea even once but through all of the love he has gotten in our fandom I think its fair to say he is definitely canon in our hearts!!!!!! from @boogleboot's fan sequel Fateheart (and its sequel coming At Some Point to ao3s near you) to AUs like my Rollins au and kristins pern au, Leander has become one of the core cast of characters that our fandom holds dear and I could not be more proud of him and of Kristin for it. Hes my favorite little guy and honestly I just want you all to know how much I love him and to read Fateheart if you haven't so you too can experience the joy of Leander 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

[fateheartblog]

Welcome to Fateheart: a Starless Seaquel blog

'Fateheart: A Starless Seaquel' is my fan-sequel to Erin Morgenstern's 'The Starless Sea'. You can read it here on Ao3. This blog is building upon both books as part of a unified canon - and I will post about them here as if they are a continuum of the same world.

I already have a blog devoted to Zachary and Dorian (link below), but I wanted a place to collect things which resonate with the imagery and world of Fateheart more widely. So here you will find posts which remind me of the new Harbour, poetry which contains flashes of the world beneath the world, excerpts of Fateheart itself, many, many references to both books, and occasionally headcannons which build upon the story told in Fateheart. I will attempt to avoid spoilers, but can't promise anything.

If you have not read Fateheart but you have read The Starless Sea, some of the leaps might seem strange - but I implore you to give Fateheart a chance if you're curious. If you have not read The Starless Sea either, then really what are you doing here - go treat yourself to the most magnificent novel you'll read this Tuesday.

Here's to seeking, and to finding, and to stories which yield new life in the hands of the people who love them.

We rise, we fall

-BoogleBoot

(My main blog is here, my Zachary/Dorian blog is here. Fateheart itself, once more for the people in the gallery, is here)