#galaxy stern

[james-farrow-did-nothing-wrong]

Leigh Bardugo said today at an event that all the diverse characters she portrays come naturally at her because the world is diverse. She's not looking for a black character, a disabled one nor a queer one, they are just part of the world so they are part of the worlds she creates. She also said that what is not normal is having a story full of white hetero and abled people, reality is diverse and so are her stories.

When she was explaining this she had to stop a few times because the auditorium kept cheering at her. Hope she felt all the love the audience was trying to show.

[purplebass]

2024 books - hell bent by leigh bardugo (alex stern #2)

Welcome home. Welcome back. We missed you. I missed you more than I should have, more than I wanted to. I went to hell for you. I’d do it again.

[rosiethorns88]

Dropping the latest Sketch-a-Wish, voted on by my lovely Patreon members for January! Featuring a tense scene from Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo!

Spoilers for Hell Bent below!

This is one of the few examples of me putting in the WORK for the background, only because it's such a character itself. Il Bastone is a real world setting from Ninth House / Hell Bent, and even though they are scant, there were luckily a few interior photos available for me to reference to create the Virgil bedroom, where Alex and Darlington are having a tense conversation in this scene. I took some liberties on the design but a lot of the structures, accents and patterns were either pulled from the interiors or exterior facade of the Anderson Mansion. (especially the stained glass windows and painted tile fireplace!).

I spent a ridiculous amount of time on the painting over the fireplace to capture a small world-building segment from Hell Bent that I think has a modest symbolism of Alex's and Darlington's new relationship here. A fun little puzzle for those who want to try to research it!

[twobitzz]

i love when authors write women who engage in self destructive behavior to claw their way to esteem in an elitist environment when they already have twice the character and skill than those around them

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

“How was Spain?” “Hotter than expected”

Oh this man, I love this man

[i-read-and-then-i-draw]

“He’d told himself he was giving her a chance, being fair to this girl who had washed up on his shore. But he’d let himself think of her as someone who had made all of the wrong choices and stumbled down the wrong path.

It hadn’t occurred to him that she was being chased.”

another year, another reread of Ninth House

[academtits]

Darlingstern moments that play in a ceaseless loop in my head, Vol. I

The fact that Alex was sweaty as fuck the first time they met and made Darlington roll up her sleeve to check for track marks

Darlingtons prudish shock when Alex takes her shirt off in front of him

The fact that they got shitfaced and broke a bunch of Lethe glassware??? Like she got Mr. Lethe to be like “fuck the rules”? And they passed out in the parlor???

Alex’s foot/hand/arm fetish

When Darlington complimented her Queen Mab costume, then said “didn’t someone say love is a shared delusion?” And “two people reciting the same spell”

Darlington getting annoyed when some guy hits on her

The “incident”

His heart hurting for the wanting of someone

The fact that Alex literally has constant imaginary conversations with him and everything reminds her of him and she always assesses how he would feel about her actions

[lilithh6]

okay but why are Ninth House and Hell Bent literally so underrated????????? i need to find my people to lose our mind together over darlingstern

[butchcaseyjones]

i love the ninth house fanart where dawes looks beautiful and put together but cmon. look me in the eyes. she's got debilitating anxiety, can't talk to people, and has been writing the same dissertation for six years. this is how i pictured her for the entire book (affectionate)

[wingedshadowfan]

i have a serious question (pls i need this for a post-hell bent fanfic i'm writing but i read both books a really long time ago)

okay, so you know how darlington was going through dante applications before sandow called him to basically tell him, "sorry man, we actually went ahead and chose your dante for you" bcuz sandow recruited alex at her hospital bed after the events at ground zero (lethe had been watching her to confirm she could see the greys)

we also learn there's an extensive list of dante criteria (which alex fits literally none of, and it's not like she applied for the position anyway), and that alex is the second exception made in lethe history = the second case where the criteria has been ignored/loosened in selecting dante, and the first case was some dude in the 1950s or something, i don't remember??

correct me if i'm wrong but here's the fucking thing. in darlington's memories, we learn the same exact thing happens to him. he grew up in new haven but he wasn't part of the societies: he didn't apply for the position of dante bcuz he didn't know it existed. he had an obsession interest in the arcane, which i believe broke one of the criteria (i don't remember all of them). sandow appeared at his fucking hospital bed after the elixir he'd made to see the grays almost killed him.

so my question is: why wasn't he considered an exception and recorded as such, like alex was?

are there other reasons i'm missing here, according to which he fits the criteria, or did they still make him apply somehow and he got selected by michelle (i seriously doubt it)? or did they not record him on purpose, to burry the fact that they're not following their own protocol or that they're taking advantage of young people who've been through incredibly traumatic shit by promising them a new life? or was it just sandow going rogue and doing that secretly? or does lethe do this everytime they select a dante, since it's likely it also happened to michelle, who was implied to have been suicidal before?? or maybe it was simply that michelle didn't care enough for protocol to write darlington down but he cared enough to write alex down?

[slightlysadfilter]

There is something so comforting about Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, despite the abundance of trauma, gore and eerie stuff.

Take Il Bastone; the existence itself of a sentient house that worries about you, in a world where magic is grotesque and raw.

Dawes's warming meals.

The architecture! The beauty of New Haven, the art.

For how fucked it is, you never see Alex complaining because she has met worse. Because even among demons, and bloody rituals, and uptight professors, she's at least surrounded by beauty and comfort. That same feeling passes unto the readers, it truly is magical to read Ninth House.

[breathofstorm]

This is where you belong. This is where you were meant to bloom. Don't roll your eyes, Galaxy. Not every flower belongs in every garden.

— Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House.

[fancymuffins-and-wannabecakes]

The " Went to Hell and all I got was this lousy demon" gang and this absolute gem of a meme

[flashbastardsramblings]

Hell Bent posed a very important question which is “Is Darlington still fuckable now that he's part demon?” To which the answer is, of course, yes.

[zarasaurus-studios]

“You killed them,” he said. “All of them. Leonard Beacon. Mitchell Betts. Helen Watson. Hellie.”

The silence stretched. But all she said was, “Not Hellie.”

[toads-treasures]

Hi hello I devoured Ninth House and Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo in approximately 72 hours and I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking about Them.