#i have forgotten what a page turner this is

[wild-lavender-rose]

Can I have Legolas and Will Turner separately kissing the reader's scars after seeing them (From battle,abuse, or near death experience not self harm) 🥺

For Legolas-

"What's this from?" Legolas touched your arm.

You looked up from your book to find Legolas looming over your place in a chair by the fireplace, firelight catching on the silvers and greens of his uniform. You lingered in him for a moment, taking in his beauty. Then looked to where he touched you, to the scar his fingers traced over. "Orcs." You returned to your book.

"It must have been painful."

"You should have seen the orcs." You smirked and turned a page. "Sadly, they did not live long enough for their wounds to heal."

You could hear the smile in Legolas's voice. "I'm sure not." He leaned down and kissed the scar.

There was a thunk of his satchel hitting the ground, then your beloved came to sit in front of your chair. This was not an unusual occurrence. Legolas often sought your presence at the end of his day. What you hadn't expected was for him to slip his shirt over his head and hold out a pale, muscular arm for you to inspect. "Matches yours."

Book forgotten, it slipped from your lap as you leaned forward and ran your hand along the long scar. "Orcs?"

"Goblins." Legolas smiled softly as you kissed the scar, slow and sweet, savoring his warmth.

"Must have been painful." You looked up at him, entranced by his eyes in the flickering light.

"No longer." His fingers found the back of your neck, gentle, steady, bringing you close for a kiss you readily returned.

For Will-

You closed your eyes and tried to breathe, fingers stilling on the buttons of your shirt. You were exhausted and wished for nothing more than sleep, however you were so tired your fingers kept fumbling with the buttons of your shirt. Having already removed your gun, hat, and shoes, the shirt was the last thing to go before you could sleep in some sense of comfort in your undershirt.

You had just resolved to give up when familiar footsteps sounded outside your door. A pause, soft knock, and Will stepped inside. "The crew is still celebrating," he closed the door behind him, locking it with a soft click. "They'll probably be up all night."

"Good for them." You rubbed your eyes, swaying unsteadily as he approached. "Do you need something?"

"Uh," Will nodded to your bed. "Are you about to sleep?"

"I was attempting to," you fumbled irritably with your shirt and yawned. "Can't, can't get my shirt off."

Will's smile was gentle. "Here," he crossed to you, the closeness making your heart skip. "Allow me."

"It's fine," you took a step back and tripped, sure to have fallen had not Will caught you by the arm.

"Steady," Will smiled as you laughed at yourself. "You're exhausted."

"Unbelievably." You smiled up at him, the expression fading as his fingers found your buttons. "Will,"

His fingers paused. "Allow me to help."

"I don't...I'm not," your face grew hot, gaze falling down to his chest. "I have...I'm not pretty."

"Love,"

"A life...A life of a pirate is not always kind." You closed your eyes against the shame, only you were so tired it made you want to doze off standing up so you opened them once more.

"Listen," Will touched the side of your face and brought your gaze up to his once more. "Do you trust me?"

"With my life. But, you will think me ugly."

"Never." Will pressed a kiss to your forehead. "Never, my love."

You hesitated but did not refuse when he began to unbutton your shirt. His movements were slow and careful. Will kissed your nose, your cheeks, your lips as he worked, the sensation intoxicating. When your undershirt and arms were revealed you expected disgust to cross his face. Instead, you saw nothing but sadness and love.

"Darling," he breathed, fingers brushing along the scar on your collarbone, then over to the scar on your shoulder. The scars were everywhere, marring your tanned skin.

"Ugly?" You asked.

"Beautiful." He responded, leaning down to kiss along the length of each scar.

Fanfic Masterlist

[deadpanwalking]

ooh! i am Not Like Those Other Anons, but if you're still feeling generous-- ldo you have anything about, say, the technological and social advancements in 19th century london-- i'm thinking bazalgette and john snow and building the london underground, henry mahew and london labor and the london poor, shit like that, maybe as a gestalt or the zeitgeist or what have you?

I love the specificity! I hope it's not a cop out, but if it's zeitgeist and/or gestalt ye be wanting, I want to recommend an author instead of a book: Peter Ackroyd.

My first introduction to Ackroyd was through a literary biography of T.S. Eliot, which he wrote during a time when Eliot's widow, Valerie Eliot (in accordance to his wishes not to be the subject of a biography) refused almost all applications to quote from Eliot's published work outside of a literary context, or to quote at all from unpublished work and correspondence. Ackroyd, who had managed to track down an enormous amount of unpublished material during the course of his research, tried to argue his case with Mrs. Eliot, but she didn't budge—however Ackroyd was confident that the material could still be useful, and went ahead, opting to paraphrase.

T.S. Eliot: A Life was considered the definitive biography of Eliot for decades despite the unavoidable awkwardness of the paraphrasing. “The lines of Eliot’s life are well-known, and Ackroyd does not effect, or seek to effect, any radical re-limning of them. [Ackroyd's] strength,” Eliot scholar and absolute lad Christopher Ricks writes, “is local detail, patience, circumstantiality, respect. [...] He eschews psychobiographical plunges, and this makes the book at once more satisfactory to the hungry and less satisfying to the greedy.”

The reason for this tangent (aside from Eliot monomania and the fact that Pyotr's vet seems to have forgotten us in the exam room) is because I wanted to give you a sense of how resourceful Ackroyd can be when he approaches his subjects from a distance, without scaling down his ambition or using sensationalism to force the impression of intimacy.

In addition to literary biographies, Ackroyd has written (and is still writing 🥳) a lot of books about London and Londoners—I've only read two: London: A Biography and London: Under. I know historical sociology isn't always the best approach and constantly undermines its own credibility by oversimplifying some aspects of a complicated subject at the expense of others—but when it comes to writing about an era, you can't get more zeitgeistian than psychogeographical writing that focuses on everyday life. You cannot. You'd die trying.

The title of London: A Biography is straightforward: London lives, so it makes sense to approach it the way a biographer would. It doesn't quite fit the limitations you set (19th century) because it begins in the Late Jurassic period. Nevertheless, you might appreciate it because—despite its insane scope and breadth—it does something really great, which I can't describe better than Patrick McGrath did in the NYT blurb:

This, then, is an unorthodox history of London that is fascinating not only for what Ackroyd selects but also for what he ignores. There is barely an aristocrat to be seen in these pages. The Earl of Sandwich appears when, unable to tear himself away from the gaming table for 24 hours straight, he puts a piece of beef between two slices of bread and invents one of England's few enduring contributions to world cuisine. The House of Commons is mentioned only because it burned in 1834, ''which provoked some of the most picturesque London paintings,'' including works by Constable and Turner. ''These artists recognized,'' Ackroyd writes, ''that in the heart of the flame they might also evoke the spirit and presence of the city itself.'' The great statesman Pitt the Younger appears only once, in connection with the ''Bog House Miscellany.''

The other book, London: Under, is going to fit you like a glove, but it's more of a companion piece than a stand-alone book, despite being well-written—Ackroyd doesn't start in the Late Jurassic period, but definitely takes the scenic route from Roman Britain to get to Bazalgette's sewers, and Pearson's Metropolitan Railway. One of the reasons I'm recommending it now is because I always pore through bibliographies and references to poach for more books to read, and I distinctly remember that Ackroyd's bibliography contained some fascinating titles that I will, realistically-speaking, never get to because my own interests and priorities tend toward the literary. RIP to me, but you're different!

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

For those of you who don’t know, I decided to run the gauntlet of @bengiyo’s queer cinema syllabus, which is comprised of 9 units. I have completed four of the units (here is my queer cinema syllabus round up post with all the films I’ve watched and written about so far). It is time for me to make my way through Unit 5- Lesbians, which includes the following films: The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995), Bound (1996), Water Lilies (2007) [Skipping for now until I can get access to it], Saving Face (2004), D.E.B.S. (2004), The Watermelon Woman (1996), Set It Off (1996), The Handmaiden (2016), Carol (2015), Imagine Me and You (2005), Two of Us (2019), Rafiki (2018), and The Color Purple (1985).

Today I will be talking about

The Watermelon Woman (1996) dir. Cheryl Dunye

[Run Time: 1:25, Available on: HBO Max, Hulu, Google, etc; Language: English]

Summary: A young black lesbian filmmaker probes into the life of The Watermelon Woman, a 1930s black actress who played 'mammy' archetypes.

Cast:

Cheryl Dunye as Herself

Valarie Walker as Tamara

Guinevere Turner as Diana

__

This film was a really interesting watch for me because I did no research about this film beforehand and went in to it really thinking it was a documentary, but as the film progressed I started questioning which pieces of the film were real and which pieces were not, and to learn at the end that the entire biography of Fae Richards aka “The Watermelon Woman” was fake was a really great moment of realization that I both started to question what was real but also that I have approximately zero background knowledge of Black Hollywood and therefore went in to this without any knowledge necessary to know that this biography was fiction. Which, I think, is part of the point of the film, right? How little of history has been regarded as important and recorded, knowing that there are people like you out there that did the things you want to do, that made an impact on the world, but not having the tangible evidence. 

I have a love-hate relationship with the knowledge that Cheryl had to invent a piece of history to resonate with her, but love at the same time that her feature film debut, (which made her the first out Black lesbian director of a feature film) was dedicated to building up that history, and recording her own history as a Black lesbian in the film industry, so she cannot or will not be erased or forgotten. 

That all said, I want to write about a couple of things that I really enjoyed from this film and think are important, even though I know they are scripted. 

First things first, I loved that she went about obtaining information about The Watermelon Woman directly from her own community. That we get clips of her asking people on the street, that she seeks her mother’s knowledge, Tamara’s uncle’s knowledge, the knowledge of her mother’s friend who is herself a Black lesbian and only then starts turning to additional sources: to the library, to the experts. Not only that but I loved that in the interview with Martha’s sister, that Cheryl holds the knowledge of her own community as the truth and is not swayed by Mrs. Page-Fletcher’s adamant statements denying her sister’s queerness.

Secondly, some notable visual touches:

I do not know why but my eye was super drawn to this one guy behind Cheryl and Tamara in the library who was wearing red lipstick, mostly because it brought a lot of minstrel show imagery to mind. It’s totally possible that is not what she was going for, but because so much of the “documentary” was based around mammy archetypes in film, which is itself a caricature, that is the first place I went to.

Mrs. Page-Fletcher, who is established as racist, homophobic, and the sibling of someone who created films with mammy characters, having a Black maid come in and check on her as Cheryl and Diana are getting ready to leave the interview.

The AIDS poster in Cheryl’s apartment

The banana skirt in the Ken Burns style Fae photos in the last scene.

Third, something I do not think I have the time to unpack my feelings about but sure as hit me with the layers of commentary: 

The interview with Dr. Camille Paglia, who is playing herself, talking about how much she loves mammy archetypes and that fat bodies are sexy, and how women in the kitchen is not a sexist thing, and that watermelon is an important symbol and how she ties all of that to her own Italian heritage and experience as an Italian. 

That interview with the Dr. Paglia is especially interesting to me in conjunction with the conversation occurring between multiple characters and Cheryl around the inclusion of white people in the “documentary” and inclusion of white people in her life. Tamara, for example, gets increasingly emotionally distant from Cheryl the more she hangs around/longer she dates Diana and the more she is nice to Annie. Fae Richards’ lover Jane leaves a message criticizing Cheryl for her inclusion of Martha Page (a white woman) in the documentary about a Black lesbian at all. Cheryl appears to disagree with that because Martha Page was queer and in a relationship with Fae and therefore is relevant to the story. The C.L.I.T volunteer talks about donations of information from the Hysteria Project which wanted to focus solely on Black people in history so they have crossed out the white people.

There are pieces of this that are clear but not explicitly stated, especially around why Tamara is getting increasingly frustrated with Cheryl. And we end on the biography of Fae and statements about needing to create history, thereby ending entirely by focusing on the story of two Black lesbians (Fae Richards’ fictional life, and Cheryl Dunye’s actual one), which I think is the appropriate choice. 

Favorite Scene (and Favorite Quote): 

I think my favorite scene is the final scene, because it really feels like the thesis statement of the entire film. In it, Cheryl Dunye sits talking to the camera as if she were talking to Jane (Fae’s lover) before diving fully in to this fictionalized life of this invented Black lesbian. Cheryl says the following: 

“I mean I know she meant the world to you but she also meant the world to me and I know those worlds are different. But the moments she shared with you the life she had with Martha on and off the screen, those are precious moments and nobody can change that. But what she means to me, a 25-year old Black woman means something else. It means hope, inspiration, possibility. It means history. And most importantly what I understand is that I am going to be the one who says I am a Black, lesbian filmmaker who’s just beginning, but I’m gonna say a lot more and have a lot more work to do.”

And she has, she has done a ton more work since her debut here in 1996.

Score 

9/10

This is a very smart film with a lot of things to say, there was a lot of bad acting (which to be fair I did kinda love), and they made me listen to far too much karaoke in that one scene. 

Also, Cheryl Dunye? Hot

Next up, Set it Off (1996)

[hannahssimblr]

Chapter Thirty (Part 2)

“Fucking hell,” He twists away and grabs the front of his hair. The rain has eased to a mist now but the clouds still shield the sky and block the light out like an early dusk. His limbs become a bit stilted and stiff as though he’s forgotten how to control them. “Fuck,” he says hoarsely, and he drops onto the wet sand and shoves the heels of his hands into the sockets of his eyes “This is it then, isn’t it? Things are over with us.”

I hesitate for a moment before sitting next to him, and the seat of my dress immediately soaks through and I don’t care about it. “Yeah,” I say gently, “They have to be, don’t they?”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

“I want you to go and be happy.”

He lets out an agonised, strangled noise, and it takes me a second to realise that he has begun to sob into his hands, and it’s the strangest thing, but I think I can feel my heart physically breaking inside my chest, tearing apart, ripping right down the centre. I didn’t know that when people spoke about heartbreak that this is what they meant all along. The ache inside me feels unbearable, and I want so badly to reach for him and tell him that I don’t mean any of it, and yes, I’ll take that Green Card and yes, I’ll come and live in Los Angeles, but instead I cram my wrist to my nose and I cry with him because it seems like the only sensible thing I can do. 

And once I’ve started I cannot stop, and the tears come, and they come, and they fill my eyes until I can’t see a thing but the greys and blues of the sea blurring together like watercolour bleeding down the page, and then I wipe them and I look to my right where Jude’s head is bowed and his shoulders are shaking, and I tell him that I’m sorry. He says something I can’t understand because he is crying too hard, but I don’t know that it really matters what it was, because on some level I know what he’s saying. Just like I do, he simply hurts. 

He sniffs and drags the heel of his hand up across his nose. He shakes his head as tears roll off the end of his spiky lashes, “God,” He says eventually, “I just really thought- I think I took it for granted that I’d get to be with you forever, or something, like we were perpetual-” and he bares his teeth and heaves a shuddering sigh into his lungs, eyes fixed on his feet, embarrassed, like he can’t bear to look at me and see what I think of him crying on the ground. “I wanted everything,” he chokes out, “All of the stupid stuff, you know? Christmases and New Years, I wanted to get you birthday presents and anniversary presents and travel with you and just- just wake up with you and make you breakfast and-” he squeezes his eyes shut, “But like, I can’t have any of it and now I just have to live without you, and it’s so horrible-”

I comb my fingers through the back of his hair and I whisper, again, that I’m sorry.

“I love you,” He says, though he knows that it’s not enough, and I know it too, because loving Jude Turner is like loving a memory, the dream, the idea of a man that my seventeen year old self believed would solve me, would prove that I am worthy of happiness only because he loves me back. And perhaps it’s an idea that he loves too, a girl who would make him feel young and careless and reckless, who would expect nothing, ask nothing from him but to be free.

I swipe at my damp cheek, “Yeah but one day you won’t. Someday when I’m long gone you’ll look back on this time and you’ll think about how glad you were that you never compromised or let yourself be held back by some girl. And then-” I sniffle, “-when you’re living this amazing life, and you’re happy and you’re successful and surrounded by people who love you you’ll think ‘oh yeah, her, God, you know, I don’t even remember what her name was anymore.’”

“No,” he shakes his head firmly, “No, I’m going to love you for my whole life.”

And then I make the loneliest sound I’ve ever made, somewhere between a gasp and a sob as I relent and throw myself into his chest so that I can let him hold me. He kisses my hair so gently and rests his cheek upon my head and says simply, “I’ll miss you.”

“And I’ll miss you,” I reply, “And don’t think I’ll ever forget you either. You know that you’re going to be everywhere, you’ll be the ghost that follows me around. Every time I wake up and you aren’t there, or get home and you aren’t waiting at the door, and every time my feet touch this coastline, and I get into the sea, or see the roof of that beach house poking over the dunes I’ll think, you know, I really wish he was here, because everything I did was better when he did it with me,” I exhale thickly, “But then I’ll think of you somewhere else in the world where I know that you’ll be happy and I’ll just be happy to, because I want that for you, I really do, even if I don’t get to be a part of it.”

There’s a long pause while we cry together, and he reaches down to brush fresh tears from my cheekbones, “I feel lucky to have known you when I did,” He says, “When I- When I go to LA, you know, I doubt I’ll be back again for a very long time, and- God, -and by then who knows where your talent will have taken you and what you’ll be doing. To know you now feels like the greatest privilege, and I know that you’re telling yourself that I won’t remember you years from now, but actually I’ll be saying, yeah, I knew that girl once and she was incredible, I caught her in a moment in time and you should have seen her, when talent just radiated off her like the heat from a sunburn and she didn’t even know it yet.”

I turn to face him and look him dead in the eyes, because I don’t know the next time I’ll get to really look at them, “You’ll be happy,” I insist. If I mean it I can make it so.

“You too,” He says , “And maybe when we both are we’ll find our way back to each other again.”

“Yeah, I hope so,” I say, and in that moment the sun finally breaks through the clouds, just a sliver of it, and it hits the side of his beautiful face, glows on his cheek and his hair and through his brown eyes to turn them golden, the colour and warmth of flames.

That’s how I’ll always remember him. 

And when our story is over and the edges of the clouds turn pink and amber, I get up to walk away. I turn to look at him one more time though I can hardly bear to. Standing there in the sunlight he simply raises his hand. “I’ll see you, Evie,” He says. 

“Yes,” I say, “someday.”

THE END To my Tumblr readers, thank you so much for reading along. It's been a pleasure to share this story with you.

For a very long time I knew that I wanted to tell a story like this. I felt like I had so many things to say, about growing up, about this country, about the way it feels to inhabit it, how it felt to be young and bored with no money to spend during the recession era – the uniqueness of that particular moment in time and the feelings, places and people that have changed in the years since, but I just never got around to it.

One evening in July of 2022 my mother, who has become an avid wild swimmer since her retirement, took me down to the beach to take a dip in the sea. It’s a beach I’ve been on a thousand times having grown up just a few kilometers away from it. I’d swum in it, walked it, even worked on it for three summers during my early twenties but for some reason on that day I felt overwhelmingly nostalgic about it. This is not a very exciting beach, I thought, but isn’t it a bit beautiful in it’s own way. From my place, neck deep in the water I looked at the way the marram grass shimmered in the wind and bits of old fishing nets and driftwood littered the coarse sand. A line of identical holiday homes peeped up over a low stone wall, and a little corrugated iron summer house sat right in the middle of the dunes, flat roof, wooden deck. I’ve always wondered who owned it.

Later on I got home and typed a few paragraphs of a story on my computer. I hadn’t written a thing in years. Then I just didn’t stop.

I’d spent the entire pandemic overanalysing my teenage traumas, reliving the things I’d done in college and into the first years of my twenties. A lot of weird things happened to me. Very dramatic things, honestly. I think I am the sort of person that draws highly erratic types to me or perhaps is just inclined to stir up emotionally intense situations, and as a result my life had felt like a whirlwind, some sort of strange carousel until I was forced to step off it in 2020. There’s no point getting into it, really. You’ve read Lucky Girl, so you get the gist.

I have to say thank you to my wonderful friends for being my biggest cheerleaders during this process. They hyped me up and listened to my every thought, proof read, problem solved and helped me to understand that it’s not embarrassing to do this, in fact it’s actually pretty cool to publish a story in this way. Grace & Sarah, thanks for letting me borrow from your lives as much as I borrowed from my own, and for talking in circles with me about everything and anything that came into our heads. I love you to bits ❤

Also to my partner, who never read this story, but tells his friends that his girlfriend wrote a book!! Who brought me tea and cooked me food while I was in a whirlwind of inspiration. He really just wanted me to come into the living room so that we could watch Succession, or White Lotus, or X Files, or whatever else we were binging during the last 15 months, but he never complained. “Ah, sims.” He’d say, and shut the office door.

To my first love and my teenage friends, who I think of all the time. Who embodied a time and a space that I’ll never inhabit again, but I’ll never forget any of it. I remember all of the places or the people who were around me while I lived out the end of my childhood, and when I revisit the places we used to go there are a thousand tiny snapshots of memory everywhere. Of these teenagers that don’t exist anymore, who are all entering their thirties now, of the time we had, the person I used to be and the inexplicable importance of those few short years. Nowadays when I’m there, on those beaches and in those woods I swear it’s like there’s a ghost there with me, and it’s me, the person I used to be. I’m reminded of the incredible distance I’ve come since fifteen.

To my readers most of all, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You really kept me going when it got tough and when it all felt too close to the bone, and I was a bit too freaked out to write. Your comments made this story such a wonderful experience and I’m so glad that I got to share it with you all. I still kind of can’t believe that so many people have read this thing – it’s bizarre. I really didn’t think a single person would care, but here we are. You’re all angels.

All my love,

Hannah.

Beginning // Prev // Epilogue

[freyrmichokolatte]

Timmy forgor arc because I'm a fucked up little shit and I want my fave to suffer because that's how I am smh

Timmy canonically puts notes on everything that's important to him because he might throw everything related to Cosmo and Wanda so it shouldn't be any different that he'll put notes on everything related to the rest of the Nicktoons

But what if he also writes everything that happened in a diary and kept it hidden in a box filled with things related to his Godfamily and the Nicktoons?

Timmy already turned 18 and the next day after his birthday, the first thing he saw when he woke up is an empty fish tank still filled with water. Timmy got super confused because why is there a fish tank here? Why does it have water when there's literally no fish inside? Then he saw the sticky note and went oh ok I guest I shouldn't throw it out then.

Throughout the day, he keeps seeing sticky notes with his hand writing on it saying "Don't throw it out me! -Timmy Turner". Timmy doesn't know the purpose of all the things because he only does this when it's actually important so he doesn't understand why there's a sticky note with the same message pinned on his old hat.

When he, Chester, and AJ hangout, they'd sometimes ask him about the things he forgotten and Timmy is just confused. His reaction are just "What?" "Since when did that happen?" "Talking to objects? Did you hit your head or something cause wtf" Chester and AJ had to suffer but didn't dive too deep into it.

That until Chester mentioned Jimmy

Timmy isn't the type to forget people that he's close and actually liked him. So when Timmy said he doesn't know who Jimmy is it caused a havoc. Chester made cards filled with things related to their childhood while AJ interogated the poor brunet's head off just to get answers so he could somehow cure his bestfriend's amnesia.

This went for Gods' know how long it just keeps going.

But hey the Nicktoons fianlly visited hoorayyyy

They didn't encounter Timmy first though, they encountered Chester and AJ. They both felt like their dreaming but soon dragged them into their shared appartment with Timmy because wtf their bestfriend's bestfriends who doesn't even know they're his bestfriends from different universes are here and oh are they glad.

Before the Nicktoons could even say something, AJ and Chester already bombered them with concerns relating to Timmy while the three are all just there sitting on a small couch and saying literally the same things as if they were one person.

Where's Timmy? What happened to his Fairy programs? What do you mean he has amnesia? He doesn't remember us? What the fuck does this mean? Is this related to the Fairy World's rules?

They were all distraught. Spongebob who's no longer in disguise is sobbing. Danny is in denial. He sees him as his kid brother and said kid brother sees him as his big brother there's no way he could've forgotten him right? He denise it, there's no way.

And Jimmy is fucking depressed. After a long time of trying to find a way to go to Timmy's universe, the first thing that was said to him was that Timmy forgot about them.

Jimmy was mad. He wasn't mad at Timmy for getting his memories erased, he was mad that he didn't do anything to prevent it. He was mad at himself. But he knew damn well that there's no way of stopping Da Rules and the rest of the Laws of the Fairy World.

Meanwhile with Timmy, he sneezed as he's currently going back to his old house to get the rest of his old stuff. Then he went to the attic and saw some weird big old box with his name written on it. The box was filled with notebooks, diaries and pictures.

Timmy was utterly bamboozled

He skimmed through some of the pages. Fairies? Ghost brother figure? A talking sponge? And he's hooked? Timmy doesn't even know anymore. Then he took the photos inside the box.

What the fuck.

Why is there a sponge? It's alive? Why is there a floating guy behind him? Who's he brunet with a weird hair style?

And why do these strangers feel so familiar?

The more he dives deep into it, the more his head hurts. Timmy decided to brush it off temporarily and took the box with him. He'll get his stuff next time.

ANYWAY the rest is up to you guys on how you want it to end I'm out of energy to write the rest ksksakjssfhasksf

[sofya-fanfics]

It's Been A Long Time

Fandom : That '90s Show

Relationship : Jackie x Steven

My Fictober 2024 contribution for the prompt : “it’s been a long time”.

I’m sorry for the mistakes, English is not my native language. I hope you like it.

Summary : Jackie was about to put her hand on the handle of the glass kitchen door when it suddenly opened. She was so absorbed in the fact that Donna had returned that she had not paid attention to the person behind the door. She froze, in shock. He was the last person she expected to see.

“Steven !” she managed to utter.

“Jackie,” he said indifferently.

Disclaimer : That '90s Show belongs to Bonnie Turner, Terry Turner, Gregg Mettler and Lindsay Turner.

@fictober-event

AO3 / FF.NET

Jackie parked in front of the Formans house. It was official, Donna and Leia had moved in Point Place for good. Every time Donna came to town, they only saw each other briefly. From now on, they would be able to see each other whenever they wanted, like before. And even if Jackie would never admit it to anyone, she was happy to see her best friend again.

It was Jay who had informed her that Donna had just arrived. As soon as he had told her the news, Jackie had rushed into her car and had driven to the Formans house.

She went behind the house to enter the kitchen. It was a habit she had had for years when she spent her days in the Formans basement with her friends.

Now it was her son and his friends' turn. Years go by, but some things never change.

She was about to put her hand on the handle of the glass kitchen door when it suddenly opened. She was so absorbed in the fact that Donna had returned that she had not paid attention to the person behind the door. She froze, in shock. He was the last person she expected to see.

“Steven !” she managed to utter.

“Jackie,” he said indifferently.

There was a silence for a few seconds that Steven finally broke.

“It's been a long time.”

Jackie refrained from giving a scathing answer. Was that all he had found to say to her ? Yes, it had been a long time. Almost twenty years. Twenty years without giving any news, without knowing where he was, or what had happened to him. She suspected he must have kept in touch with Mr. and Mrs. Forman. Maybe with Eric and Donna. Of course, she could not blame him. They had broken off long before he left.

“Indeed,” she finally answered. “Are you here for a long time ?”

“I just came to pay Mr. and Mrs. Forman a visit. I was about to leave.”

So quickly, she thought. It did not surprise her. Why would he bother to stay, when he had done everything he could to disappear from her life.

“Bye Jackie.”

He walked past her and headed for the exit. Why, Jackie wondered. Why was her heart beating so fast when he did not seem to care about seeing her again ? Why were all the feelings she thought she had forgotten for him resurfacing ? She was happy with Michael, well, most of the time. And Jay was what she had more precious in her life. Yet, just one word, one look from Steven and she knew she would fall in love with him again.

“Steven !”

Jackie opened her eyes wide, surprised by her action. She had called him without thinking, without knowing what she was going to say to him. He turned round, waiting for her to speak. Jackie took a deep breath and said :

“It was nice to see you.”

“It was nice to see you too.”

He smiled at her and continued his way. It was then that Jackie understood that this unexpected meeting had troubled him as much as it had her. She also understood that it was impossible for her to fall in love with Steven again, since she had never stopped loving him. But Steven was part of her past while Michael and Jay were her present and her future. She watched him walk away, until he disappeared, and she entered the Formans’ kitchen.

Over the years, she had often imagined what her reunion with Steven would be like. Now, she could turn the page on this period of her life and continue moving along with Michael.

The end

[mlobsters]

supernatural s15e19 inherit the earth (w. eugenie ross-leming, brad buckner)

i'm not sure i want to watch this, actually. all right, next day. let's see. combination of not wanting to watch them grieve cas after that weird reaction i had to 15x18 plus feeling like writing anything about spn is completely pointless. power through

covid lockdown-era city views, along with the akf/always keep fighting on the tower and the actual coke ad about social distancing "staying apart is the best way to stay united" well this is not helping my mental state and also presents confusing idea that this universe was affected by covid, which it obviously isn't. along with everyone being raptured

SAM I did this. We could have just given Chuck what he wanted, you know, his grand finale. But I resisted. I pulled the thread. I thought we could beat this game, do it better. We tried to rewrite him, and the whole world paid the price.

taking a moment to address the absurdity that chuck's being such a brat over the fact that the brothers won't kill each other he's gonna rapture the entire earth

CHUCK I mean, picture it. The two of you... And your little lapdog Jack... Rotting on a lifeless planet, knowing it's this way because you wouldn't take a knee. Eternal shame, suffering, and loneliness. Whew! That's deep. That's sophisticated. That's a page-turner.

it is something

little schmaltzy but i'll take it. ah, well. for 30 seconds at least. i know he comes back though so it's all good

very pretty lighting

i think it's been long enough i don't care about the endless reasons to get pellegrino back on the show and i'm just happy to see him and his overflowing charisma

LUCIFER Mm. Yeah. Alright, team. I don't want to bring ants to your picnic, but that ain't gonna cut it. Okay, think about it. If the Empty pulled me off the bench, it's 'cause the Winchester charm ain't enough, right?

harsh but fair

LOL new death, dead death, lucifer actually working with chuck, dead lucifer. we're making it snappy, folks

haha and now michael was working with chuck too and he's dead. this is sure something

gotta get them covered in blood and beaten to a pulp for old times' sake

okie doke. they figured out the michael business, jack is a power vacuum, sure. we gotta wrap this up, fellas

haha makes me think of this 1998 merlin miniseries with sam neill when they all turn their back on queen mab and she loses her powers because everyone forgets about her

SAM Then I think it's the ending where you're just like us and like all the other humans you forgot about. DEAN It's the ending where you grow old, you get sick, and you just die. SAM And no one cares. And no one remembers you. You're just forgotten.

i think about it a lot so i made some gifs a while back 😂

all right. de-raptured and people indoors

not sure how i feel about this whole speech from jack about how he's gonna be as new god and basically around but not around. sucks they semi-lost their kid too

SAM You know, with Chuck not writing our story anymore, we get to write our own. You know, just you and me going wherever the story takes us. Just us. DEAN Finally, free.

kind of surprised this wasn't the finale honestly, especially with that montage that managed to get me crying.

[yue-muffin]

*cracks knuckles* Here we go.

I have been quite curious about ORV for a while, though I had absolutely NO idea what it was about until I finally decided to take the plunge. I mostly keep finding interesting playlists, quotes that promise lots of pain and suffering, and cool fanart. I avoided it until now because it's long. Really, really long. And long series either go one of two ways with me: I either binge the entire thing at the cost of my sleep (and sanity) or read it so slowly I forget what happened in the first half by the time I get to the midpoint.

Anyways, something overcame me this weekend and I decided to finally read it.

Chapters 1-6: Prologue + Starting the Paid Service

I was genuinely surprised to learn the story is about a book becoming reality with death game shenanigans because, again, I've only ever seen pretty fanart and vague quotes that revealed nothing about the plot. Immediately, I was like 'okay, I'll read a bit and give it a chance'. This isn't normally my type of genre, but I do read outside my comfort zone sometimes (and enjoy it, like SVSS which is transmigration + comedy which is usually not my thing).

The opening lines caught my attention, actually, they work really well as a hook despite being the ending of the webnovel in the book. It leaves you with a lot of questions

"There are three ways to survive in a ruined world. I have forgotten some of them now. However, one thing is certain: you who are currently reading these words will survive."

Also, not that you really need the reminder with the page count right below, but it definitely implies this is going to be a looong journey. If there are only three ways to survive and you've forgotten some already, that must have been quite the journey...Anyways, I just really like the tone of the opening lines.

So, like, Kim Dokja is sadly relatable haha. The struggle of the daily grind is real. So is wondering how your coworkers can have so much energy or be such go-getters when you're just trying to get through the day.

However, his reaction to the whole 'fiction becomes reality' or even the traumatic head-bursting deaths right in front of him just isn't normal. And also sliiightly worrisome. Genre-savvy he might be, that's some traumatizing shit right off the bat! Although, that kind of goes for anyone in this story who survives past the first few chapters.

But Kim Dokja is surprisingly chill about the whole thing. The whole scene with the crickets also shows that he's intelligent...and also kind of good at messing with people. He might monologue to us, but he certainly doesn't go into detail with any of the people around him, or explain much about why he's doing something.

The story also shows a pretty realistic range of reactions to all the traumatizing crazy going on.

And for a story I wasn't sure I was going to like, it sure is a page turner. I'm not terribly used to all the game mechanics, but they're actually pretty fun. The game commentary just sparks joy in me, for some reason.

The whole "sole reader of this entire novel" thing is also interesting. One, it does put him at an advantage to literally everyone else "canon" to the story or not. But on a meta level, who do we write stories for? Sometimes it's for oneself, but most of the time stories are made to be shared, they're tools used to communicate with others. So, that makes the "final" line in the novel even more impactful. To you who are reading this story...

Next up will be chapters 7-11: Protagonist...

[an-aura-about-you]

let's keep going with Handbook for Mortals!

Chapter 12 part 2:

when we last left our hero, Scheherazade just got embarrassed as hell because she had no defense for Sofia's legitimate questions and also Sofia is banging Zade's dad. what a queen. I wish I could high five and/or kiss her. easily the best part of the book. maybe I should write Lani Sarem a fan letter about how much I love Sofia.

-we pick up after the show with Zade and Mac taking a walk in the park well after midnight. but since this is Vegas, that's not unusual and there are a lot of people around.

-a guy asks them if they'd like him to do a card trick, and Mac says Zade isn't allowed to do magic? I have no idea where that's coming from. saying that would imply he knows about Zade's magic, but he doesn't. we also know that, if she's not allowed to do magic, she is already breaking that just by participating in the show.

-we once again hear about Zade's showblacks fetish and also she's on this pseudo-date with Mac while in full show makeup. she changed into her street clothes, but seriously? stage makeup on a date? I mean, I guess there are stranger things in Las Vegas, but still.

-ooooooooof Zade says her maternal grandparents were literal... well. she uses the g-slur. between the use of that word and Zade and her mother being porcelain white, I sincerely doubt that anyone in their family is actually Roma. I'm pretty sure Zade is just using the term the way Skye Turner did to describe Sarem. Zade's family, to borrow a phrase I use for a different character I write fanfic about, are people who look like a new age shop threw up on them.

also I haven't forgotten that Zade's family have been landowners in Tennessee since the 1700s AND the family home is comparable to Tara. (I wonder if they use the plantation to grow weed now.)

this feels like it should be a tally for the bigoted language but also a tally for the bigger bigotry at play with Zade/Sarem using the g-slur for themselves.

-ahhh, and here it is: the narration confirms that Zade thinks talking about Spellman being her father would be trouble. WHY didn't we know this before??? also, THIS is confirmation that Zade has known who her father is. everything about the way this is phrased indicates that she has known since the start of the book that Spellman is her father. so why don't the readers, who have been along for the ride of Zade's thoughts this entire time, know this? because it would ruin the twist, of course. but unlike The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, this serves no purpose. or at least, it serves no purpose for Zade because concealing this information only makes things worse for everyone, herself included.

-also I wonder how many other pieces of media I can negatively compare this to. so far, from what I remember, I've compared it to Rebecca, Gone with the Wind, The Disaster Artist, Sunset Boulevard, Legally Blonde, High Noon Over Camelot, Ella Enchanted, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and to a lesser extent the 1001 Nights and the Book of Esther to drag Scheherazade about not living up to her name.

-we've also reached page 231 in this book and now, for the first time, Zade is mentioning that she's been wearing a family necklace this whole time. you couldn't find a way to fit that into your description infodump back in Chapter 0?

also, the picture of Zade on the cover shows her wearing the necklace, but the problem with that is it's essentially paratext. covers can and do change, though I doubt this book is ever getting reprinted, but it is on a dust jacket covering a white book bearing the triple moon symbol. dust jackets can get removed or lost. I actually don't know if paperback versions of this book exist, but if they did, they're even flimsier. also, in the unlikely event that this book ever did get a second edition, they would probably have to use different cover art since the one on the dust jacket is plagiarized.

-she also claims the necklace is very important, but if it's so important, why are we only just now hearing about it over halfway through the book?????

-after Zade starts getting evasive about her parents, which I don't even understand because she COULD just say, "I don't like to talk about my parents," and then move on to safer territory, Mac starts tickling her and that segment ends with him straddling her in public and giving her a kiss. dang, guess what they say about Las Vegas is true.

-we then skip ahead to Zade and Jackson running into each other while she's on her way to lunch. after crashing into each other, Jackson puts Zade in a kabedon.

and I'm just gonna use the first gif I found for that because it's hilarious

-unfortunately Jackson is interrupted from making his move by a little girl who's a fan of Zade's and wants a picture with her.

-ok, I'm baffled about why Zade is the performer this little girl has picked out. the girl's mom says the girl won't stop talking about Zade after seeing her last night, but the only trick we know Zade has in the show is her high dive trick. that doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would capture a little girl so much, to the point that there was nothing else about the show that was more interesting.

and this is not knocking high dive acts. that shit IS impressive! it takes a level of courage and skill I know I'm surely lacking. but I would think a little girl might be more interested in something like, say, Sofia's Dance Illusion that's no longer in the show. (will I ever stop talking about Sofia? probably not, but can you honestly say I'm wrong about this? what do you think is going to capture a little girl's imagination more, an impressive high dive act or a beautiful magic dancer?)

idk maybe the kid wants to be a daredevil. mom better keep an eye on her or this might happen

-and of course the little girl has to say she wants to be just like Zade when she grows up. I am currently channeling Strong Bad's energy from this moment:

(actually I would love to see SB talk about how this is the crappiest Vegas show he's ever been to. I think he'd say something like there's too much boring acrobatic and magic crap, or acromagic crap, and bands that should be confined to AM radio only and stop fouling up our precious FM stations. also where are the showgirls?)

-Zade tells us she likes using quotes and sayings so that she can feel like she can always comment on something without sounding dumb. so when are you gonna stop sounding dumb? (ok that one was low-hanging fruit, but it's not my fault that Sarem is bending the branch down towards me.)

-you know those jokes they'd sometimes make in SpongeBob Squarepants where Sandy would rattle off some ridiculous list of things like it was a Texas saying? Zade is doing the unfunny version of that talking about how Jackson has charm flowing out of him like sweat.

and the chapter pretty much ends there with Zade moving on so she can go to lunch. that scene was there to reinforce the two things we know: Zade is amazing and Jackson is hot.

I mean I guess it's good that this chapter sort of gave us moments with both love interests, but all of this feels like some kind of salad of a chapter. it was all about Zade's relationships, but the most unifying part of it was the first part with her talking to Zeb and Sofia and getting on slightly better terms with both of them.

also this is how I'm picturing Sofia now for anyone who wants to see:

hey if Sarem is gonna put the term Magi Girl in her book, I figure it's not that much of a stretch to visualize Sofia as Tira Misu from Sorcerer Hunters.

[mattzerella-sticks]

birds of a feather

Gotham Knights, Cullen Row & Carrie Kelley, 1.5k, GA

"With Batman gone, the Gotham Knights have taken his place in defending the city..." For now. But once their names are cleared, will that still be the case?

Cullen hopes it is. Though never expecting his life to turn in such directions, he finds himself liking the idea of being a vigilante. He even has ideas on what that might be like - keeping track of it all in his sketchbook that he doesn't show anyone. Because telling a piece of paper is one thing. Telling another person was something else. It made it all more real, and Cullen wasn't sure if he wanted that.

He has to decide quickly once someone catches him dreaming on the page again.

           Clean lines. Distinct, but subtle, patterns. Dark colors that blended in with the city’s natural shadows. Cullen carefully applied these aspects to the figure stamped into his sketchbook, hunched over its pages with a half-filled mug of quickly cooled coffee forgotten to his right and the last beams of daylight filtering in through the dusty and oversized window behind him. His fingers twitched through muscle memory. He had already drawn this figure tens of times since he, his sister, and the others first started nesting inside the unused academy clock tower. He had drawn the figure standing. Crouching. Bisected by the inner seam because the drawing took up two pages or a tiny speck that huddled within a corner. His profile was captured from all angles. He glowered forward, confidently, every time Cullen captured his full face. The figure jumped. He dived. He soared across the Gotham skyline. Cullen was only limited by his imagination. He tore through many pages, slashing different scenes onto paper of the figure in action. Tonight’s session was simple. The figure swung wide in a graceful arc towards the page’s edge, steely determination visible even behind the mask that partially concealed his face. It was as if he expected to break the page’s borders under his fist, yearning to exist beyond the page. Cullen did not believe he was ready for that, yet.

           “That looks awesome.”

           Cullen’s hand smothered the figure as his gaze jerked up and onto Carrie.

           The smaller girl stood over him, smiling, still dressed in her school blazer and slacks despite the school day having ended hours ago. “Sorry,” she said, stepping back. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

           “No,” he said, “it’s okay.” Cullen slowly dragged his hand off the page, but not fully. His fingers skimmed the figure’s chest. “I thought everyone’d be out longer.”

           “Yeah. Steph texted me that her, Turner, and Harper will be out a little bit later.”

           “Is Duella not with them?”

           “I think she’s… doing her own thing.”

           “That – yeah, that sounds like her.” Cullen relaxed further, revealing more of his drawing. He twirled and tapped his pencil’s eraser on an unmarred section of the sketchbook. “What are you doing here so late?”

           Carrie shrugged. “I was… I had been helping Br… helping bring one of my classmates up to speed on stuff that he missed while he was out.” She fumbled over her words, twisting her fingers and faintly blushing. Cullen noted it. He didn’t mention it. “Figured I’d stop by and see if you needed anything.”

           “Me, specifically?”

           “Well, all of you. But since you’re the only one here…”

           He let himself smile. It was thin and tired. “I think we’re good for now. We hadn’t blown through the last of the supplies you and Steph smuggled in for us.”

           “Good, that’s good.”

           Carrie lingered. She didn’t stay in that one spot, taking cautious, measured steps across the floor, but she stayed near where Cullen sat. Her gaze bounced around the room, briefly connecting with his sketchbook and then flying elsewhere every few seconds. It was the only place her eyes landed more than once.

           Cullen sighed. “It’s… it’s a stupid drawing.”

           “It’s not stupid.” She said that too fast and knew it, too. Carrie huffed, squaring her shoulders and pinning him in his seat with her smile. Its sincerity nearly blinded him. “I think it’s really cool.” She inched closer to him. “What’s it of, if you don’t mind me asking?”

           Now he tensed. His stare dropped from her to the figure beneath him.

           Cullen worried at his bottom lip as he considered telling Carrie about his drawing. He’d been keeping this particular secret for quite some time and enjoyed doing so. It was a needed escape during the uncertain days and weeks that were spent trying to clear their names before the clock ran out on them. It gave him hope in those moments when it seemed like they were going nowhere, and the battle was too big for just them to fight. Cullen was afraid that, if he voiced it, the figure would lose his power. That Cullen dreamed too big, like always, and it’d be ripped from him and the cold, crushing waves of reality would seep back in to drown him.

           However, pushing against all that fear, was the fact that – out of all the members in their ragtag family – Carrie would understand his drawing, and what it meant, the best.

           He listened to that voice more than all the others.

           Cullen handed her the sketchbook. “It’s… me.”

           Carrie accepted it and studied what he had drawn. Then, with a small nod and a raised brow, she silently asked if she could flip through the rest of his marked pages. He signaled his assent.

           She carefully inspected his work. Her quiet review was tortuously long, the air in the tower thickening because of it. Cullen’s hands curled into fists. He nearly snapped his pencil in two.

           Finally, Carrie closed the sketchbook and handed it back to him. “These are all really good,” she told him. Then, she asked, “Do you want to be a vigilante?”

           “Aren’t I kinda one already…” he laughed, “the news certainly thinks so.”

           Carrie chuckled alongside him, pulling a seat close and sitting on it. “You’re on your way,” she said. “But I always thought you and your sister… that once you cleared your names you’d be out of here. Wasn’t that why you took the job in the first place?”

           Cullen stopped laughing. “It was.” He shifted in his seat, using the hand not holding his pencil to tug on his sleeve. “But… I don’t want that to be the plan anymore.”

           “Really?”

           “No, it’s…” He sighed. Cullen tipped his head back and hit the wall. He looked away from Carrie and found it easier to talk. He continued. “I wanted to start over in a new city because I thought there was nothing here for me other than my sister. And, well – being framed kind of sucked, and having Batman… Bruce… having Turner’s dad die and the city plunging into chaos since then also sucked… but because of all that I think I see now that there is something for me here? That maybe I didn’t before because I was… I was too focused on running away to notice. And letting some – some jerk scare me out of my home. When really it’s him and all the other jerks out there that think they own the place who should be scared out of our home, our city.” There was a lump in his throat he tried swallowing past. “Gotham needs people to step up now that Batman’s gone. To help. I like what we do and – and that it helps people. And even after we do clear our names and stop the Court, I think I’m gonna keep at it.”

           There wasn’t any teasing. No snide laughter or condescending hums. Carrie didn’t seem like the type, but Cullen was prepared for any outcome.

           Except, apparently, for Carrie laying her hand on his knee and telling him, “I think that’s wonderful.”

           He was startled by that. Cullen’s gaze found hers and he asked, “It is?”

           “Yeah.” She squeezed his knee as she spoke, “You’re right. Gotham needs people looking out for her, for the safety of everyone who lives here. Bruce… was one man. He did his best, but he couldn’t be everywhere. He couldn’t solve every problem. With him gone, it’s people like us who have to do our best and fill the vigilante-sized hole that was left behind.”

           Cullen was helpless to stop the smile that appeared on his face at her words. He reached forward and laid his hand atop hers, gently tapping the back of it in gratitude. “Do you think we’ll be enough? Batman was one man. We’re a bunch of kids.”

           “We’ll never know if we don’t try. But…”

           “But?”

           “I think we can be even better.”

           It was almost cliché, but Cullen felt lighter because of Carrie’s encouragement. Despite all that troubled him over the past few minutes, he found it easy to laugh with her and believe what she had said. Almost like what scared him wasn’t as powerful as he first thought.

           Carrie nudged her knee into his, drawing him from his contemplation. “Did you come up with a name?” Her face scrunched, brows drawn in and glasses rising off her nose. “I hope you didn’t think you’d be another Robin.”

           “No, no. There can be only one Robin.”

           “Is it bat-themed, then?”

           “No, it’s still a bird.”

           “But not a robin?”

           Cullen sighed, flipping open his sketchbook again to a page near the end with different names scribbled throughout it. “I’ve been thinking, going over different species and seeing which one made the most sense. There’s this big book of birds in your library, and I got a few I’ve been sitting with.”

           Carrie tapped at one of the names. Starling. “I like this one.”

           He did, too. “Still, I don’t know how it could strike fear into the hearts of criminals.”

           “Like Robin does?”

           “If you say it with a deep enough growl… Robin. See! Robin… spooky.”

           She punched his shoulder, laughing, “Shut up!”

           They spent the next hour debating codenames and Cullen’s dreams hadn’t felt more real.

[virtueofnothing]

The world is a Great Wheel that grows tall and withers in equal measure. All things ride its turnings; ruling for a time flowering and splendid, fruits of life's magnificence. Then we grow old and stagnate, returning to the hungry earth to nurture the next cycle. In this way we live our lives in eternal change, becoming more then less then more again. Life can be found in all things here, it permeates the very foundations of existence. Tis not for us to judge when wild animals tear at one another, or great oaks take root in corpse dross, or fungi enslave whole colonies of social insects.

Naturally this makes a bridge between the ephemeral and flesh, as much between wilderness and civilization. Death hungers for life, just as life aches to pass its time on the Wheel. Hungry Ghosts crave the sensations of the living, while living beings strain to pierce the Veil that is only a turning away. Those Wise of The Wheel seek sacred Mysteries like the Empress Hanging herself; shades clothed in flesh and speaking through beasts’ cries. They are but two sides of the same coin. A stag runs through the woods leaving a trail of blood. His flesh will sing in the stomach of the hunter and kudzu will grow along his bones. This is Its Truth, flowers blooming splendid before being plucked and pressed between the pages of the Old Ways.

Time moves forward, yes. But here, in the fullness of the Wheel, time has no true substance, for growth and decay birth one another in the same instant, there are no beginnings or ends, nor past or future. Only a cycle always moving in ceaseless cycles unto eternity.

Things happen. They always have and always will; this is how the Wheel sees Fate, markings on the spokes that signify important events but will naturally happen in the same way, just more worn. Eventually these testaments to experience will erode to the point of no longer being recognizable from their origin, but that is simply the nature of things.

Space is the movements of the Wheel itself; connections growing and dying in lockstep. Sympathy & synchronicities are simply where ourself and others have gone, and will continue to go. When Fate and Space run together in harmony they keep things going at a holistic rate; relationships cultivated then returned to the earth as right to do.

The Wheel and its Turners have gods of their own. They are primordial things, representing that which is of substance here, great hunting wolves, and leviathans of the abyssal deeps. But also, the lesser things equally of importance, the first corpse to be interred to a graveyard and the wheat seed that will eventually feed thousands; exalted as they are, for they are life clothed in death, and death clothed in life. All things have power, yet it is those who create momentum in the Wheel who are truly impactful.

I have found Timber's Wise have difficulty discerning where the line is drawn between the elemental forces & extancy; as they do with most things, we simply don't care much to ponder it though. Are the massive storms or roaring wildfire that ravage hearth and land really that different from the Wild Hunts of old? What matters to the Wheel's Truth is not in these details but rather in how it changes nothing. Of course tsunamis rip apart fishers' homes and disturb aquatic ecosystems, but new spirits join the local cycles and sediment rearranges the topsoil in peculiar ways. And those who survive another day will adapt to it all or perish.

Yet the Wheel is not as wild as it appears. The symbols and rites invoked here may be frightening to a people who have forgotten the true sacrament of sacrifice, but they are its fundament, and even the most detached city-dweller offers their own obeisance. Grinding the grain, seeding the soil, slaughtering the lamb, and brewing the beer distinguished complex creatures from the more base; they still do. Burying the dead and hoping they will be reborn to whatever next comes, we build our testaments of memoriam for those who no longer walk among us as if it matters. And in ways, it does. Both royalty and fodder, all things are the Wheel, and the Wheel is in all things.

[treesap-blogs]

FIREKEEPERS DAUGHTER REVIEW! A few days late and I wrote it late at night still emotional and processing the book with minimal revisions made since then lol please have mercy

Greetings, Tumblrians! I can say with complete confidence that this account has for sure become a book review account! Aaa. Not what I anticipated, had to change up my bio order a bit. This book, Firekeeper’s Daughter, is the first thriller that I’ve ever read(beginning to end at least), which made it a bit of an intense one to get through (especially when 100 pages in I’d forgotten most of the summary, thought I was reading a romance and got confused, and then the character I’d gotten the most attached to got murdered lmao?!?!).

Now first things first, this is probably one of the only books (that I’ve read) that I can call a page-turner! I have ADHD, so my attention span is a little faulty when it comes to reading or watching stuff unless I’m super invested in it. A lot of books that reviewers say are “impossible to put down” were unfortunately ones where I could do literally just that, even if the writing quality was admirable. (Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is one of the only other ones I can think of that goes against that, finishing it within 2 November days was what kickstarted my love of reading again! Without it I would not have this blog💕.) But within a week(actually, a little less than that if I’m remembering correctly), I was about halfway through! Daunis’s integration of her heritage and the Ojibwe teachings passed down to her into her investigation, as well as the richness of Boulley’s writing and my genuine investment in both Daunis Fontaine and the meth-related rabbit hole she found herself in, was what kept me trudging through all of the difficult content throughout. Then, the period in which I’d borrowed this book had expired, as this was meant to be something to read for my free time in ELA, but the teacher had a very strange schedule with trying to be both easy on us and get our current unit done so it meant that we couldn’t finish our choice books. Thus, I hadn’t actually had the chance to pick it up in months, the last time I’d read some of it being in about October of 2022. So this is probably the one with the strangest reading schedule of my current covered stories.

Also, some people are gonna be indifferent to the “Secret Squirrel” stuff, others are gonna hate it, I was in the former crowd. The gimmick got predictable after the first few times but considering this was the first time I’d read a book that was this font of intense, I didn’t mind it that much.

It definitely also gets more intense the further along you go. That’s where I began having some issues with how, in the midst of all of the serious topics covered in this, SA was written and described?? Not that it was glorifying anything, it certainly was not, but.. in the case of Grant, it felt like just a way to make him seem more like a villain(and therefore, one other character, whose mention would technically be a spoiler but they’re directly related). While those scenes were (thankfully) brief, and weren’t gratuitous(but they did..get particularly graphic), it was distressing to see them included. I do wish that this was one of the books I’d read that had trigger/content warnings on the first page for that reason(some of the ones published in the last 3 or so years, like Iron Widow or Blood Scion, have done that). It leaves a bit of an icky aftertaste in my mouth.

To change topics! I did like how Daunis’ struggle of secrecy, as well as her kind of living a “double life'' at multiple points was handled. Particularly, the conflict within her family was written really well. A lot of the guilt she had surrounding her parents and how they turned out due to her conception and life hit me hard??? There’s a line that really gut-punched me on page 394: “Children are never to blame for their parents’ lives. Parents are the adults; we are the ones responsible for our choices and how we handle things … If I’m in limbo, it’s because I chose to remain there. Even inaction is a powerful choice.” (Boulley, 394.) (Okay, fine, maybe I just wanted to have an excuse to quote that.)

WE’RE ENTERING SPOILER TERRITORY NOW! Parameters will be marked if you want to skrrt around it.

I don’t know how anyone else felt about the romance between Daunis and Jamie (I’ll make sure to check out some reviews afterwards!), but it just made me feel uneasy? I get that Jamie was supposed to be a (young) rookie investigator, one making up for the dent left in his record at that, but it was incredibly unprofessional for him to start a relationship with a (slightly) younger woman he was meant to only work alongside (and also had to technically teach how all the FBI things worked due to her being really new to this and only there for this specific investigation). Not that there was really much of a mentor-trainee dynamic there, Boulley made it pretty clear they’re on similar levels intellectually, but..still. Felt a little sketchy! I could understand Ron’s concerns, and I’m glad Daunis addressed some of those issues towards the end of the novel.

Anyhow! Some people in the reviews I’d read halfway through felt that Daunis’ recurring grief didn’t really feel impactful, as they didn’t feel emotionally attached to Lily, but I..actually did? She was the character in the first paragraph of this review I was mentioning vaguely. Perhaps I’m biased, due to some stuff I was sorting out emotionally at the time, but I do feel like it could be justified with the writing itself; We got a good idea of her personality, her importance to and relationship with Daunis, and some of her past(which would be part of the plot later on). And it doesn’t feel rushed(at least in my opinion); the first 100 pages or so of this book is meant to be a lighthearted introduction to our main character and her life, not the mystery we as the readers are about to be entangled in along with her. Yet. (And when shit hits the fan it feels like the kind of whiplash our protagonist got hit with.) While Daunis was a fairly reasonable person and so was Lily a lot of the time, Lily had a more upbeat and sarcastic part of herself that contrasted with her friend(and made their dynamic really work, I think). The pair interacted basically like sisters. I could see why Daunis was left emotionally and mentally scarred after what had happened to her. (And I did tear up a little bit at that brief scene in the afterlife.) (If anyone who’s read the book is reading this now though, please let me know what you thought!)

Last bit of criticism I have: For the final reveal of the masterminds behind the drug distribution inside the trailer, I felt it got..a little bit too “villain monologue”y? Fine, it’s a staple of the mystery genre, but the way that there’s just. Snide remark after smirk and every step of the timeline spelled out in a very know-it-all manner by Mike got annoying after being placed in an extremely serious story that grounds itself pretty intensely in reality. (I think it’s mildly funny that Levi was quite literally the “weakest link” though, and that one argument after the party didn’t just have an insult thrown in out of nowhere kshdhfomefo.)

Also, were the deaths of some of the other students ever explained??!! Was it a side effect or intentional? I can’t remember if that thread was left unresolved or if there’s something I’m forgetting.

END OF SPOILERS! 

So, in conclusion, would I recommend this book? Most likely. Just be careful about the kind of story you’re going in for, and the kind of content that will be included. I feel it’s a little packed; it’s like Boulley really wanted to use this novel as a way to talk about not just some of her own experiences as an indigenous woman, and help people outside of her culture learn a bit more about it, but also tackle issues within her community; all within a narrative that already has a lot of elaborate threads going on(with the family drama/history and the mystery itself)! It is her debut novel, however, so she’ll have the chance to continue to grow as an author(and this was a well-written book albeit not without flaws!).

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5.

Paz, signing off!

(Book trigger/content warnings: SA in both frequent mentions, and scenes on page 226-228 and 370-371(latter is worse in content), racism, including 2 instances of slurs(used by indigenous characters themselves but aren’t reclaimed), grief, PTSD, typical thriller stuff like drugging and kidnapping.)

[marjaystuff]

Interview with Pamela Fagan Hutchins

The Detective Delaney Pace series is a modern-day western thriller. She can be described as a vigilante with a badge. People should read all the books starting with Her Silent Bones, then Her Hidden Grave, Her Last Cry, with the latest, Her Forgotten Shadow. The character Delaney Pace is street tough, tenacious, intelligent, and steps up to the plate to become a mother to her two adopted daughters, Kateena and Carrie. As with all these books the crime thriller is based on the abuse of women and will keep readers on the edge of their seats. The plot is action packed, fast paced and a page turner.  

Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the series?

Pamela Fagan Hutchins:  I have a friend that is a former ice-road-truck driver who must drive in horrific weather. My editor wanted me to write a tough female detective. I live in Wyoming, which is where my friend also lives. I thought how I could match a homegrown Wyoming tough woman that developed some special skills by being an ice-road-trucker and changes a career to become a Sheriff deputy. I chose Wyoming because I was already writing other books with this setting and knew readers wanted more Wyoming books. 

EC:  What is an ice-road-trucker?

PFH: There are ice roads through Canada and the Dakotas where they are open a couple of months a year, in the very depths of winter. People use these roads to get across which would otherwise be water. 

EC: Was there a common theme throughout the four books?

PFH: I like to think about the setting, the people, and the timeframe. I wanted to write books that included the modern West.  What would uniquely happen there, something culturally appropriate. I also look for a new way to kill people and how to solve the murder. I think of books in threes.  The first three books dealt with Delaney’s brother. The next three books will emphasize the impact on her regarding the loss of her mother. 

EC:  Do you think your books are modern Westerns?

PFH:  For me, yes.  The characters have a rugged individualism, embrace their neighbors, and never shrink away from hard work in the Rocky Mountain West. They are cowboy-like. The setting and the culture are western. 

EC:  Each of the books has abuse of women, please explain.

PFH: The way I approach the bad guys is to have them have a reason for the brutal way they treated women, and to make sure the crime was a balance between protecting sensibilities with a sense of fear. If Delaney was not a deputy, she would be a vigilante. The bad guys deserved what happened to them. I am not a fan of unlikeable protagonists and unreliable narratives. This is a western sensibility in that the good guys should retain their goodness, and the bad guys are bad.

EC:  How would you describe Delaney?

PFH: She is inspired by my friend who has mechanical aptitude, mental toughness, ruggedness, and a soloist.  She has knowledge of the area since she already grew up there. These help in her career as a deputy. Delaney is a risk-taker, calm in a crisis, direct, protective, prickly, has a sense of humor, sarcastic, stoic, defensive, and has a sense of justice. She is very outdoorsy. 

EC: How has Delaney’s backstory affected her?

PFH: What drives her is being abandoned as a child after her mother left and her father was killed. This informs a lot of her life choices.  She has the attitude no one else will have a chance to hurt me. 

EC:  How would you describe the two girls, Kateena versus Carrie?

PFH: Kateena is sassy, loyal, and proud of her Aunt Delaney. Carrie had to overcome abuse, has control issues, and is a “gamer.” She has become more of a live gamer, learning to drive the big rig. Carrie was originally a video gamer because it was an escape mechanism for her where she was able to control this imaginary world. 

EC:  What is the relationship between Delaney, Kateena, and Carrie?

PFH: Kateena has this blood bond with Delaney.  She is almost the ulterior ego of Delaney. It is very easy for Delaney to relate what Kateena is going through. Delaney felt duty bound by honor and code to take in Kateena to make sure she was not deserted.  Carrie helped Delaney grow her heart. Delaney has become a champion of girls and the wrongs done to young women. Kateena and Carrie are recognizing each other as sisters, taking care of one another but also having their disagreements. The girl’s relationship with Delaney is based on love, emotion, and fear of loss. They come together with this trauma bond. 

EC:  What about the relationship between Leo and Delaney?

PFH:  He compliments Delaney in solving a crime because he is the computer expert. He is smitten and in love with Delaney. They are well suited for each other. Because Delaney is afraid of being abandoned again, she is afraid of committing. They can relate to each other because both have moral ambiguity.  I want to make sure he is tough enough for her. Their relationship is like a ping pong game where she trusts him, then doesn’t; cares for him, but cannot show it; angry at him, but loves him; does not like his secrets but she has her own secrets. She never trusted anyone so that when something occurs, a bump in the road, she easily backs out. She is inconsistent toward him. 

EC:  Was the latest book a cliffhanger?

PFH:  Yes.  My editor talked me into this.  There was a whole other paragraph, but I took it out. I wrote book 4 as if the series was not going to continue, but there will be a book 5. 

EC:  Next book?

PFH:  The title is tied into the plot line. Carrie and Delaney have forged a bond over the big rig where they have something in common. Leo is going to do something very shocking at the end of this book. This book has a raging wildfire.  Delaney and Carrie find a body where the fire swept through this house. It will be published in April. 

THANK YOU!!

[leserattevirginie]

Evocation by T.S. Gibson (Synopsis and longer, rambly thoughts under the cut)

Genre: Urban Fantasy Romance Star Rating: 3,75 ⭐️

Plot: ⬜️ Plot holes big enough for a herd of elephants ⬜️ I think I’ve read this before. (Unoriginal to the max.) ✅ Enjoyable but not super memorable. ⬜️ You have my undivided attention. ⬜️ Mind = Blown

Characters: ⬜️ Mary Sue is in the house! ⬜️ These are cardboard cut-outs. ✅ Good main cast, but the rest is forgettable at best. ⬜️ Generally well written. ⬜️ Complex ⬜️ What do you mean characters? These feel like real people!

Personal Enjoyment: ⬜️ DNF ⬜️ Somebody free me from this hell (but also no, I won’t DNF) ⬜️ WTF did I just read??? ⬜️ I don’t like it, but I also don’t hate it. ⬜️ It’s a good book but I just never want to pick it back up. ⬜️ No strong feelings either way. ⬜️ Enjoyable read ✅ What a page turner! This is fun! ⬜️ I think I’m in love ⬜️ (new) all time favourite

World Building: ✅ This takes place in our world. ⬜️ Worldbuilding what worldbuilding? ⬜️ This feels like a TV set. ⬜️ Not super deep, but present. ⬜️ Detailed, believable. ⬜️ You bet every single ant has its own 100 page backstory!

Pacing: ⬜️ drags/is rushed in all the wrong places ⬜️ Inconsistent ⬜️ something undefinable feels off ✅ mostly fine but the ending feels rushed ⬜️ dragged a bit in the beginning but picked up eventually ⬜️ I don’t love it it but it fits the book perfectly. ⬜️ Good/no complaints ⬜️ Amazing! Could not put this down!

Writing: ⬜️ This is painful ⬜️ I’m cringing ⬜️ Not great, but not bad either. ✅ Neutral (Didn’t really notice.) ⬜️ Elegant but not overly flowery. ⬜️ So beautiful I actually stopped and noticed it. ⬜️ I’m not sure if this is just a bad translation. ⬜️ I’m not confident enough in my language skills for this language to comment on the quality of the writing.

Synopsis (fair warning, imo the synopsis pretty much sums up the entire plot):

As a teen, David Aristarkhov was a psychic prodigy, operating under the shadow of his oppressive occultist father. Now, years after his father’s death and rapidly approaching his thirtieth birthday, he is content with the high-powered life he’s curated as a Boston attorney, moonlighting as a powerful medium for his secret society. But with power comes a price, and the Devil has come to collect on an ancestral deal. David’s days are numbered, and death looms at his door. Reluctantly, he reaches out to the only person he’s ever trusted, his ex-boyfriend and secret Society rival Rhys, for help. However, the only way to get to Rhys is through his wife, Moira. Thrust into each other’s care, emotions once buried deep resurface, and the trio race to figure out their feelings for one another before the Devil steals David away for good…

Thoughts

Don't read this book for the magic! Yes, it is there, but honestly it is mostly decorative. The focus is definitely on the relationship between the three main characters. You could take out the occultism, change a thing or two, and it would work just fine as a contemporary romance novel. Personally, I found the parts related to the curse to be the weakest - the loophole in the contract was obvious, ffs. And the way they dealt with it in the end may have been great for the relationship building, but otherwise it just felt a bit rushed and convenient. I did like the romance, I just wish it had taken them all more than one month (?? or maybe I misread?) to get to where they got in the end. Nonetheless, Watching these three idiots bounce off each other was definitely the highlight of the book for me. I'm not sure I like any of them very much by themselves (maybe Moira) but I do like them together. The book is written in triple POV, and we get a fairly good sense of who they are and what makes them tick, especially David and Moira. (As for the side characters, I unfortunately have to admit I've already forgotten most of their names and what they brought to the plot.)

One thing that struck me as a bit odd was a sort of tonal shift towards the middle of the book. Maybe I imagined it, but in the beginning there was some subtle humour that was slowly phased out. Personally I think that's a shame, because I was sure I'd found a new favourite in Evocation. In the end it is just a book I liked, but didn't love as much as I had hoped I would.

[cafalla]

2024 READING - COMPLETED BOOK 7/12

After waiting a few days following my last reading post, I got my hands on the sequel to Flame in the Mist!

It's been a few days since I've finished Smoke in the Sun (408 pages), and I have to say, I really had fun with this story. Both books were such page turners for me!

I don't normally like hardcover books, but I had to spend the extra dollar on thrift books to get the hardcover edition. The paperback edition offered didn't have this beautiful cover art, and I wanted both of my books to match appearance wise!

I do intend to keep these around, rather than re-donate them. I can see myself revisiting them in a couple years, after I've forgotten some of the details lol. And the books simply look pretty, even on the spine.

I did not overstay my time with this story, and I felt satisfied by the end. Some book series can drag on and on over multiple books, and I find myself losing interest by the 3rd book or so. But that's just me.

I enjoyed this second book. However, because of the circumstances of this second half of the story, I couldn't help but notice I was missing what I loved about the first book - the interactions between Mariko and Okami. They are kept apart from each other for most, is not practically all of the second book, save a few short meet-ups.

Their few moments they did have together were great and full of tension, and the epilogue was very sweet. I just wish we had a little more time with them at the end, when they finally were able to freely be together. I guess I wanted a more drawn-out reunion to make up for them hardly being together for this book.

I did enjoy the scenes with Mariko and Raiden though. Honestly I would've liked to see a bit more of their development...it felt like Raiden warmed up to her too quickly, but that's just me. I live for romance and slow burns lol, I always want more.

Strangely enough my main problem was the amount of editing errors and typos I came across, particularly in the last few chapters of the book.

Tensions were high and dialogue was intense...then I'd come across an extra period at the end of a sentence. Roku's name was written as Roka once, and it stopped me dead in my tracks with confusion until I realized they were talking about Roku. Ranmaru was once spelled as Ranmaruao or something like that at one point.

It was very distracting for me, especially when I was reading so fast because I was engaged in the end game. Ah well. I'd still recommend these if the plot of the first book sounds even remotely interesting to you!

—

Yay, I've hit 2k pages read!

I also finally did go on that thrift book hunt. My to-read pile is now thoroughly stocked up! I've already started my next adventure. x

—

Total books read: 7 Total pages read: 2,232

[jolmi]

#May read

Prompt: one-word title

#studyblr w/knives reading challenge!

“Stories are powerful. What you don’t understand is that you have not yet written the ending.”

Yes! This is the second book, the sequel to Gilded, and it proved to be an exceptional page-turner. The gradual unfolding of the mystery had me on the edge of my seat throughout.

A brief Synopsis: Serilda and Gild cannot break the curses that tether their spirits to Adalheid's haunted castle. She is pregnant with Gild's child. Yet becomes the queen of Erlking and the King wants this child to be born. The only thing he doesn't know is that her firstborn is already promised to Gild. But what does the Erlking want?

Soon it becomes clear that the Erlking doesn’t only want to use Serilda to bring back his one true love. He harbors a desire for retribution against the seven gods who have long confined the Dark Ones behind the veil. If the Erlking succeeds, it could change the mortal realm forever. Meanwhile, Serilda is determined to work with Gild to help him solve the mystery of his forgotten name and past.

All Serilda has is her gift of storytelling, which is also the reason she had ended up being the enemy's puppet. Can Serilda break their curse and find Gild's name, before the Endless Moon, before Perchta, Erlking's beloved and the evil demon is brought back to life?

What do I think? Spoilers (maybe)!

" It isn't true, she wanted to whisper. To lean forward and nuzzle her cheek against his temple. To press him against the wall and mold her body to his. I am not his. I will never be his. "

The love story between Serilda and Gild was the most complete and slow-burn romance I might have read, and this quote tells it all. And here, it's the female who can save the male, from literal demons. She wants to find his name, his memories, his everything and he is ready to give up on everything for her. He does not know that it's his child she is carrying, nonetheless, he wants to protect them.

Its a true fairy tale, with the villains being 100 percent cruel. Its apparently the retelling of Rumpelstiltskin fairytale. (I have no idea). There is no way you will be misguided and have confusions on who is 'good' and 'bad'. It is nicely researched and the mystery unravels so slowly that you are gummed to the book till the end. There are folk-lore, legends and myths- nicely sprinkled throughout the story. I did not find any loopholes in the story telling, all the loose ends were joined at the end.

All the twists in the novel, shocked me! I did not expect stuff like that. I bought the book because of their beautiful prints and embossed letters, and the good story was a bonus.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐