#dear sarah

[neonscandal]

Do falling leaves remember their roots? 

I grew up close enough to a city to have an edge but far enough where you’re as famous as your oldest sibling and not everyone is cut out for that kind of silo. Most people try to serve their time, as it were, in whatever role twelve years of forced proximity has carved for them. There aren’t a lot of people brave enough to go against the grain when they’re still a kid.

So it’s no wonder why some kids are on the first thing smoking when they’re college bound. It’s the first step in a path that’s all your own. From there, the people you’ve known all your life take to the wind and scatter. Some, never to be heard from again as they leave everything in the rearview. 

But the older you get, the more “You” you become whether you like it or not. Still, there’s a dissonance between the person people see you as and the person you think yourself to be. Somewhere nestled in the difference is probably who you truly are but a kid can’t digest that dissonance. That inner turmoil justifies long days in bed and whatever other acting out teens tend to do.

Sometimes, I think I was one of those. Just rebelling against the saccharine taste I left in people’s mouths when I was a doormat. So I didn’t just grow up, I grew away. With a desperation that cut a lot of my relationships off at the knee.

Today, was a bittersweet reminder of how silly that is. I found out that someone I looked up to in high school passed away. Still a child in her mothers’ eyes but today she is gone. I don’t know when it happened or how but the grief doesn’t care.

“She lit up every room she walked into,” is so trite and you know, for a great deal of people, that rings false. To say that of this person would also be an injustice of the true weight of who she was.

She was my first sip of alcohol with a warm and gentle voice that offered assurance against the crackle of a bonfire. She didn’t brighten a room, she slunk in like a coy black cat with a dark and acerbic wit to match. She had the knowing smile of the smartest person in the room without the condescension. Her half upturned lips always betrayed that she knew a joke no one else was in on but it made you want to be. She was cool. And she had the air of someone who had been here before. Wherever “here” was.

She wasn’t fighting against the confines of our roles like I was, she was just biding her time. She was my upperclassmen and, before she graduated, she told me not to let someone do as they pleased but to inherit the position she was vacating. It was mine for the taking. She knew it, I knew it. But she also knew I wouldn’t, even with her prompting. Though silly in the scheme of my life as it is now, I think I’ll regret not taking her advice.

Some people simply grow up, but some people grow like fire: wild and unexpected. Looking back on the life she left behind, it’s clear she was the latter. She carved a winding path for herself where she embraced art and became more passionately attuned with nature. Maybe today it clicked that she just always had the wisdom of the trees with her. Even then. 

I found myself pulling at the frayed edges of what remained in my memory of her and folding them into what I could find scattered across the internet. I felt sadness and sheepish for a grief I did not feel entitled to because how long had it been since we’d spoken? She was indelibly a part of so many peoples’ lives and, in the span of her life, I was just a moment.

I was just a moment. I could never have hoped to experience the whole of who she was or would be in that time. This selfish guilt was abated when I saw her last post. In it, she was speaking. In it, she was smiling. “You have everything you need. Now go. Take that and run.”

Answer: faintly, fondly, but with the same love they have for the winds of spring that carried them forward. 

[happybirthdayxalbum]

happy 4th birthday to...

Dear Sarah by awfultune!!

tracklist: i met sarah in the bathroom - 00:49 - dear sarah - error 30004 - i met sarah in the bathroom {slow//reverb}

[julykings]

from In the House With No Doors by Sarah Kay

[justdecadentcollectiondestiny]

I got the wonderful opportunity to see Labyrinth on the big screen last week (thank you Fathom Events) and I think this time around really helped me nail down one of the things that makes this movie so special to me: the ending message.

A story with a somewhat childish sixteen-year-old girl who immerses herself in magic and fantasy worlds who goes through a journey and a transformation and comes out the other side more mature could very easily have ended with the message of "Now that the adventure in the fantasy world is over, our heroine has grown and matured enough to leave magic and fantasy behind and become an Adult."

But Labyrinth doesn't do that.

Labyrinth says: "You might grow up a little. You might put away your costumes and your music box and your crown. You might give your teddy bear to your little brother. But that doesn't mean you have to leave it all behind. Every so often in your life, for no reason at all, you might need a little magic back in your life. And your friends in the fantasy world will always be there for you."

"Should you need them."

[stardreamt]

I’m bout sick of these people

[vanesawye]

well yes

[bonesmarinated]

I'm fulfilling what Bethesda could not 😑😤 And the cat name is Oslo! I hc Mateo and Noel both took care of this cat and it's a permanently resident at The Lodge, Oslo is a shy cat but he likes to be around Kristian. Oslo remind Kristian of a stray cat that he and his brother used to raised when they were kids.

[latenighttalkinqwp]

BYE IM IN ACTUAL TEARS

i CANNOT 😭😭

[nitanael]

I need to stay on Twitter to keep up to date with all the news, but how much I sometimes hate this platform and the people who’s there... this hate towards Freya and Owen because of their "team ape/team people" comments is simply disgusting. People are such narcissists. Can't they have their own opinions? They didn’t say anything problematic, but everyone laughed at them, saying “that’s what happens when actors talk about something other than their work” GO AWAY FROM THEM, GET A JOB!!!

Don’t you hate people? I do. As Freya said: sometimes we get together that’s cool and seems optimistic, but in the end we ruin everything. The worsts living creatures on Earth I’m not kidding, LOOK AT THE OCEANS, WARS, FORESTS, ANIMAL TESTS, POACHERS, etc.

I stand with my children!!!

[grilledcheeseandguavajelly]

LADY PAULSON for ALEXA | NEW YORK POST (2024)

[whytheylosttheirminds]

How do you feel about Rafe and Sarah’s dynamic this season. I feel like it was a bit rushed . I mean, they have such a complex and conflicted relationship. The writers could’ve really made an interesting story here, but I just didn’t believe them at the end. . Drew and Maddy are excellent actors, but I just don’t think the script sometimes does them justice. Their final scene with they’re talking just doesn’t feel earned. What do you think?

I 100% agree. I loooove the hug scene don’t get me wrong, but I think it could’ve been even better with just 3 or 4 more lead up moments/scenes to get us there. I think the scene where she goes to his house (grey polo with the too small sleeves you icon) and flinches when he gets mad and runs away when he leans in is written, directed and acted beautifully. one of the best scenes in the show for real.

Here are the places I would have put more interactions between that scene and the hug scene to bring it home:

• when JJ is floating in the water after falling off Chandler’s boat, Rafe is the one that finds him and pulls him from the water, returns him to the pogues. There’s no big conversation about it, he just drops him off at their camp and gives Sarah a nod before driving away. It’s not heroic, it just opens the door that she closed when she ran from his condo.

• they have a longer conversation when she brings him food and water while he’s tied up. Maybe the door closes behind her and she accidentally gets locked in there with him (that’s cliche but some kind of forced proximity that results in them having to speak) in this scene I would add in him telling her about Sofia. maybe he sees the wedding ring John B gave her and it prompts him to tell her he gave Sofia their mom’s ring and he thinks she’ll be mad but she surprises him by saying “I think that’s great, Rafe.” The purpose of this would be her seeing he’s made real progress and an acknowledgement of family history.

• when she’s hungry and they all go to steal apples and cause all that chaos he disappears for a second and comes back with a whole ass meal for her, refusing to explain how he got it. I both think this would be hilarious and would provide the chance for him to acknowledge her pregnancy. Then they could still come back with the apple, and almost get arrested and rafe could pull out his change purse and go on his shopping spree just the same.

I think with those 3 things (or even just similar things), that moment would’ve been even more glorious but das just me!

[hopecomesbacktolife]

Star Trek: 765874 Unification (2024) / The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) / The Good Place (2016-2020) / Into The West by Annie Lennox, Howard Shore (2003) / The Lord of the Rings appendices by J. R. R. Tolkien (1955) / Starling by Sarah Kinsley (2024) / The Wild Swans On The Lake by Foy Vance (2016) / The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis (1952) / Like A Prayer by Madonna - Choir version (2024)

[socialistexan]

I have now watched* every. single. episode. of Doctor Who ever made over the course of two and a half months.

Do I regret doing this? No. Did I have a good time and rekindle my enjoyment of the series? Yes. Did I watch some amazing stories that I would not have watched? Yes. Did I gain a new appreciation for every single Doctor, especially the ones who I hadn't watched or had written off before? Oh, yeah, definitely, 7 is now one of my favorite Doctors.

Would I recommend anyone else do this? Absolutely the fuck not, even for people who love the show.

I also now have reviews of every story and I have ratings sorted by: Doctor, season, writer, director, companion, and enemy. My next project is to get this data but into a database so I can sharpen my skills since I am a data analyst for a living.

*or listened to in the case where only audio of the episodes survived

[queen-scribbles]

Indira Vosse.

That was the name in her file. The name she'd been recruited under, trained under, deployed on her first mission under. The name she gave up to become Cipher Nine. And she'd done it with barely a pause.

Indira Vosse was no more or less a mask, a role, than Cipher Nine. And she would play her parts well.

---

(forgot to post my art of the new Agent Blueberry from @commander-sarahs-art, let's fix that shall we?)

[81gb]

DEAR LOVE by SARAH BAHBAH starring NAILEA DEVORA

[ofliterarynature]

DECEMBER 2024 WRAP UP

[ loved liked okay nope dnf (reread) ]

(The Warrior of the Third Veil) • Labyrinth's Heart • Graveyard Shift • Haunt Sweet Home • Dear Bartleby • The Weaver of the Middle Desert • (Jackaby) • Jamaica Inn • The Hallowed Hunt • The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All, Vol 1 • (Beastly Bones) • These Old Shades • (Ghostly Echoes) • Balancing Stone • (The Dire King) • Bestiary • The Agony House • The Bone Maker • Siddartha • The Morningside • Why We Sleep

* * * * *

It's the final month with this picture format because Goodreads has decided to f*ck their page format entirely! Only managed to do this month through some miracle and a bookmarked page on my phone.

The Warrior of the Third Veil & The Weaver of the Middle Desert - wonderful! I'm so glad that Victoria was finally able to finish Weaver, what with it being almost 6 years since it's original mentioned release date. It was really nice getting to see more of Arzu, since she's not one of the Red Company and we don't know much about her. Jack and the beanstalk is not the fairy tale I'd have expected to be incorporated here, but it was neat! I feel like I should have thoughts about how this series is the 'Sisters' Avramapul but still always end up being about Sardeet at the heart of the story, but I still kind of wish we could fit in a fourth book about her third husband? She has such terrible taste in husbands, I want to see how the last one screws up.

Labyrinth's Heart - mixed feelings! In reality I read this series in quick enough succession that I didn't have much time to build up expectations, and I did like and enjoy this and think it was a good ending to the series. I was a little meh on the beginning, mostly - the whole favor/marriage tournament felt a little weird, and it was over so quickly (comparatively - it's a long book!) and went out with a whimper. This was the book where Ren's house of cards was going to start falling, and bringing back mother dearest (whose name I've forgotten again) was a genius move that was well supported - she just ended up feeling very underutilized because Ren was being pulled in ten directions and she played her trump card so early in the story, which left her feeling more of a petty villain rather than anything more significant. It also felt like after the authors killed off a major character at the end of book one, they weren't willing to take such a swing again? Which really dropped the tension for me, unfortunately. I think book 2 will live on as my favorite in the series, but I still had a great time with this one. Would highly recommend the series!

Graveyard Shift - the author may have abandoned tumblr years ago, but some part of me still feels compelled to support her books lol. This was interesting! Another one for the mycological horror section. I don't really have much more to say - I saw people saying it should have been longer, but I don't know that I would have stayed interested for much longer, and thought the structure of telling the story of this one 8 hr period was clever. I wonder if a series of single-shift novellas would be something feasible?

Haunt Sweet Home - meh. I think I was hoping for something a little funnier? But this really didn't leave me feeling much. A pass from me. Maybe try the Haunted Home Renovation series by Juliet Blackwell.

Dear Bartleby - 4th book in the series, and in this one we are back to epistolary, romance, and a full novel length! My speculations were correct that I'd find epistolary + romance more enjoyable, and contrary to my usual tastes I do think the author writes better in 1st person. It unfortunately doesn't hide the fact that the author can't create any kind of personality for the secondary characters. Everyone can be boiled down to "X personality trait and interested in Y thing." As the novel got further into romance territory it definitely started to annoy me more - the romantic interest was nice, but I couldn't really tell you why they were in love. idk! Hoopla doesn't have the next book on audiobook so I've been forced to stop with the series, which is probably for the best.

Jackaby - look, I didn't *mean* to reread this entire series, but here we are. I picked up the first one because my print copies were on the potential chopping block, and I had positive memories of reading them (and the covers are so lovely). They were okay! I had a pleasant enough time, but I think that was in part because I'd read them before, and I kept picking them up because I was struggling to find other books to read (see: my dnf list for the month). I don't know if I'd have liked them if this was my first time through, but they're also in an odd spot where they were published as YA, but Abigail is treated as an (young) adult, and there are no other teenage characters. Who knows! The fourth book was a bit meh, not on its own necessarily, but as part of the series a lot of it came out of nowhere - I think this really could have used a book 3.5 to help in the transition to the endgame. Interesting, but leave this one to the teens, I think.

Jamaica Inn - I had mixed results reading du Maurier's Rebecca a few years ago, but found this at the library sale and decided to give her another shot. "Liked" is perhaps too strong of a word, but it kept my interest and I didn't speed the audiobook up to 2x, so I'd call it a success!

The Hallowed Hunt - so sad to be done with the Chalion novels! I still have the Penric & Desdemona novellas to work through at least, which I hope to do in 2025. I feel like I saw reviews saying this wasn't as good as the other two, and while I do think Paladin reigns supreme, this one didn't quite yuck me in some of the ways Curse did (and also was less confusing for not being the first book, lol), so I think I enjoyed the reading experience more. Did the weird, forbidden animal magic remind me fondly of the Farseer trilogy? Maybe. My only real wish is that Bujould would have let Lady Ijada say her own part.

The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All, Vol 1 - this was so cute!!! I've never read a manga before, so I can't compare it to other books. I struggled a bit to follow the text because there were multiple speech bubbles following different conversation threads, but! The characters were SO expressive, it was pretty easy to muddle along. The art is so great, and I loved the side characters of the overly-invested uncle and the classmate who totally ships it. Also maybe very obsessed with the gender of it all :D So glad my library had at least one copy of this for me to try, I think I'll probably end up buying my own copy and Vol 2 when it comes out in 2025.

These Old Shades - I've been wanting to try Georgette Heyer's work ever since I saw KJ Charles describe some of her own books as being "Heyer but gayer." This one I found at the thrift store and just happened to be one of the half-dozen my library has as an unabridged audiobook (library, why are so many abridged???), so here we are. I wish I'd liked it. It's no fault of the writing, and I certainly enjoyed the dramatic twists and reveals. My dislike largely lies with the main pairing of Leonie and the Duke, which starts out as servant & master, then guardian & ward and seems somewhat paternal, but inexplicably shifts to romantic, with much support from the other characters. I suppose it may have been considered within norms for the time period? But it really hit some of my squick points and yucked me out. I don't think you'll find me recommending this one, but I'm still willing to give Heyer another chance or two.

Balancing Stone - a brand new short story in the Greenwing & Dart series, starring Hope! Victoria still doesn't have many stories with female protagonists, so it's always nice to get a new one, and Hope is such a lovely person. Not much in the way of plot, but definitely provoking some thoughts about the old Alinorel religions (an ongoing theme) as well as a new outsider perspective on Jemis, which is always entertaining.

DNF

Bestiary (4%) - Picked this up entirely on a whim at the library book sale. I was intrigued by the magical realism of the description and the lgbtq tag, but the opening was very odd and I wasn't into it.

The Agony House (15%) - one of my four unread Cherie Priest books! This one was YA, which was already a point against it; the mc was a senior in high school but the tone of the writing was almost more middle-grade, which is not bad in itself; and the way the family was going about renovating their house annoyed me lol. I decided it probably wasn't going to be one I really liked and wasn't invested enough to keep going.

The Bone Maker (55%) - Very sad about this one! I read a number of Sarah Beth Durst's YA titles as a teen and was excited to see her put out her first adult title. It took me a while to get to this because I was waiting for my library to get the audiobook, and unfortunately I think I got around to it too late. I wanted to like this but the characters and story just never quite gripped me, and by the halfway point it was starting to feel like a slog. Since I also dnf'd Durst's more recent adult title The Spellshop the other month, I think it might be time for me to say goodbye to her work.

Siddartha (4%) - a paperback copy of this was gifted to me by a friend in college, and while unfortunately her track record has not been good so far, this is the first one I had to dnf! The audiobook version I picked had a nice introduction about the author, which I did like, but unfortunately the actual book just went in one ear and out the other and wasn't working. Me being tired, the language being poetic, and my unfamiliarity with the place and culture were a bad combination. Maybe I'll keep the print version on my shelf for another attempt.

The Morningside (35%) - I started this at work on a Friday and got along well enough, but come Monday I'd forgotten what I'd been reading and felt kind of meh about starting it back up. Story-wise it reminded me somewhat of 2 AM at the Cat's Pajamas (which I didn't like) and some worldbuilding/vibes of The Saint of Bright Doors (which I did). Not something I'd be opposed to trying again someday, but maybe I'll start with one of the author's other books first.

Why We Sleep (31%) - I wanted to read this, really! I think the subject is interesting and I also know that my sleep schedule is very, very bad, so personally it felt very relevant. Unfortunately listening to this on audio was putting me to sleep - the author actually took time to note, if this puts you to sleep, let it, he'd be pleased! Unfortunately I was listening at work, and that's a no-go lol. Maybe one I'll purchase in print and keep on my shelf to try again "someday".