#i think the nature of this witch would be devastation or loneliness.... maybe.....

[vilochkaaa]

do you remember when i drew dobson as one of magician girls from "madoka magica"?

now i've drawn something worse - his witch form.

I'm sooo cringe

[mysterytickingnoise]

Someday

Pairing: Merlin x Reader

Genre: Bittersweet Angst

Word Count: 2,058

Summary: After getting caught and accused of doing witchcraft, and failing to prove your innocence to Uther, you have to take desperate measures to flea the kingdom. Unfortunately your escape plan works a little too well, and without your knowledge the people close to you end up mourning you.

Request from @joyismycenter : "If you’re asking, I’d love some bbc Merlin x reader where he though the reader was dead but she/they turn out not to be. Love me that happy angst"

Authors Note: Thank you so much for sending in the first request for this blog! Fair warning I'm doing all my writing on my phone at the moment and I couldn't really get the ending to flow how I wanted it to so it's not perfect, but I really hope everyone likes it!

[Image Description: A gif of Merlin (from the BBC Show Merlin played by Colin Morgan) looking over his shoulder. End description]

It was such a silly mistake.

You trusted someone too soon, tried to help them.

Next thing you knew you were being accused of witchcraft. It was true but considering your accuser had no real evidence you thought perhaps you could argue your way out of it. You called them crazy, demanded proof, spouted off any alternative explanation for what had happened to no avail. Uther didn't give a damn about proof, the moment the word magic was held against you it was up to you to prove you hadn't used it.

Even if you hadn't, how do you prove a thing like that?

Pleading your case was useless, and the one person who could help you had left with Arthur and the knights before any of this had begun. Even if they somehow showed up before the execution, you wouldn't want Merlin's help.

He couldn't be caught helping you, not with his destiny. You weren't worth the risk, though he certainly would've argued otherwise if he'd had the chance.

No, you only had one choice left in your small cell. You would have to find an opportunity to use something that you saved for a situation such as this. When an old friend came to visit, to say goodbye, that was your opportunity.

You asked them to come back with the blue vial tucked in the back of your armoire. "It's a poison," You had told them. "I don't want to give Uther the satisfaction."

Tearfully, they obliged. In the middle of the night you chugged it down, and not one hour later your 'body' was wrapped in a sheet and wheeled out of the dungeons 'To be buried in the morning.' But the enchantment on the potion wore off before then, and you woke up alone and free.

You crept out of Camelot at the break of dawn with nothing but the clothes on your back, making it to the treeline before your will broke down and you turned back to look at the old castle peeking out over the tall walls.

Your home was behind those walls, your friends lived there, and the man you had surely fallen for. Tears stung your eyes as you thought about him, the fact you never got to say goodbye, how long it would be until you would see him again.

You could risk waiting for him to return, but if someone outside of Arthur's party were to catch you...you would be forced to do something you'd regret. You'd have to cross the line of no return and goodbye at that point would surely be permanent.

'Someday,' You thought, 'Until then, he'll understand, he might even come find me.'

Little did you know the guard who discovered the empty cloth had no intention of telling the king that the body of a prisoner had gone missing on his watch. No, he had a family to tend to, he wasn't losing his position because of some witch. It didn't even cross his mind that you might not be dead.

There was an empty grave in the pauper's field the next morning, and any questions on your whereabouts were contained in the mind of one underpaid guardsman for two years.

Meanwhile, Merlin had been devastated when he heard the news, even confused. Gaius told him the whole story, what he knew of it anyway, but he could never wrap his mind around it. It didn't make sense. He had spoken to you only a few days before, you smiled and hugged him and told him to come home safe. And just like that you were gone? The irrational fear of someone you tried to help, and the blind tyranny of Uther, that's all it took and now nobody would ever see that smile again. No, it didn't make any sense at all.

He eventually did what he had to do, put on a brave face and got back to work. And yes, a while after that night things got somewhat close to normal again. But there were always moments where he'd think to himself that he'd have to tell you about his day or a joke he heard, and then he'd remember. In other moments, he'd see Uther laughing at dinner or be forced to hear one of his speeches and his jaw would clench just a little tighter than it had before. And when he found himself awake in the middle of the night, when the world was dead silent and the only light in his room came from the moon, it was because he had found himself caught up in the memories you had together.

You had those nights too.

You had been dead on your feet by the time you stumbled into the small, reclusive village you'd learn to call your home. You'd been told that nobody really ever passed through on purpose, and they liked it that way. You told them that you could use a life like that, and then asked if they had need a physician. They did.

Sure, a reclusive person probably would've loved the little life you built for yourself. You had a small but cozy spot to live on the edge of the village, not long after you showed up you began to tend to minor wounds and ailments, making a few friends along the way. Occasionally two farmers would ride into the city to barter off crops for supplies and other things, eventually they began to bring you back a book or a small trinket each time to thank you for your work. It was nice.

But still loneliness tugged at your heart, more than you imagined it would when you took that last look at your home. On the most random days, doing the most random things, you'd find yourself thinking about everyone again and crying for up to an hour before you could pull yourself together again. Those moments became more rare over time, but they never hurt any less. You were never quite back to normal.

Finally, you were wrapping a farmers broken finger, speaking about the state of the kingdom and how you were surprised Uther had felt the need to improve anything it all, when you heard the news.

"Oh, no. The king died months ago, Arthur's in charge now."

You knew you must've gone pale, as the next thing the man said to you was a question of your health. You were quick to respond with a growing smile, "Why didn't you say something earlier?"

He shrugged at you, "I'm not all that concerned with politics. These men, they're all the same to us out here, you know?"

But you knew the difference.

Your life depended on it.

You finished his treatment and sent him away without much else to say on the matter. You had to pack, after all. Later on that day you pleaded with a neighbor to let you borrow her horse, and your friends gathered around as they overheard you say you needed to go to the capitol. You honestly felt a bit bad leaving in such a rush, but after you relayed a safe version of your story, why you came here and why you had to leave, they all seemed to understand.

With many promises from you that they could send for you if they ever needed to, and many words of encouragement from them, you took off. Even when you stopped in the night to allow the horse some rest, you never got any yourself, too excited and nervous and overwhelmed all at once. You spent hours contemplating what to say to everyone, but nothing seemed right.

Another days journey, and you were home.

The response you got to your return wasn't what you expected. Your first stop was to check on the friend who got the potion to you in the first place, and strangely they let out a short shriek before slamming the door in your face. You knocked again, speaking through the door. "It's me...I'm back?"

"Go away!"

You furrowed your brow at them, hurt and confused. But ultimately you walked away, thinking a reaction like that might be deserved considering what you must've put them through that night. As you continued down the street there were a few people who recognized you and proceeded to clear out of your way with gasps and whispers, pulling along anyone they were walking with.

Last time you were here you had been accused of witchcraft, and two decades of fear don't just disappear with a new king, so you simply accepted that as the reasoning and started to make your way up through the lower towns.

On the other end of the city, Merlin had just reached the end of an extremely long day. It had dragged on so long that it felt as though the walk from the armoury to his room took another hour. He didn't even bother to get something to eat, he just wanted to sleep. So naturally when he had just layed down in bed when someone decided to knock on the front door, he didn't know any better than to be annoyed.

At first he thought Gaius would take care of it, then he remembered that he wasn't home.

Maybe they'll just go away.

Whoever it was knocked again and he pulled the pillow over his head.

Please go away.

The front door creaked open and he heard a familiar voice call out. "Hello...Gaius? Merlin?"

He sat up, a heavy feeling settling into his gut as he realized where he had heard that voice before.

But...it couldn't be. Could it?

He shook his head, leaving his bedroom to shoo out the person who couldn't have been you.

But there you were, flipping through an old book that had been sitting on the table since the day before. When you noticed he was standing there you looked up with a sad smile, saying the only thing that you could think of; "Hi..."

"Hi?"

"I uh- I know it's been a long time," You started, crossing your arms over your chest in an awkward stance. "I wish I didn't have to leave like I did but..."

"Leave??" He repeated what you said once more. Finally you registered how strangely he was looking at you, not angry or upset but bewildered, and maybe even scared. What he said next confused you even more. "How are you alive?"

"I thought you might've had more faith in me than that." You joked, but he wasn't amused. "Am I missing something?"

He was hesitant to approach you, unsure of how he was supposed to say it but he tried. "They told me you were gone, that you'd poisoned yourself. I mean...Gaius saw you."

"It was meant to look like that, but it was a trick." You said. "I left when I awoke, they didn't tell people I escaped?"

He shook his head no, tears starting to stream down his face. "...I can't believe this."

As the reality of the situation hit you, you couldn't help but cry as well. All you were guilty about, what you thought you put your loved ones through, it had actually been so much worse. "I am so sorry, if I had any idea I would've- well I don't know what I would've done. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm just, I'm so happy that you're here, and you're okay." Striding over with a grin, he pulled you into his arms. "I've missed you."

"And I, you. More than I could ever put into words." With a laugh you continued. "Things got so boring without you."

"I'm sure they did, you won't believe some of things I have to tell you."

And that was all it took, you both sat down at a table as you filled each other in on everything that had happened in the last two years. It took hours, there were multiple times you had to stop and collect yourselves as certain stories had you laughing until your stomachs ached. Gaius came home and after another tearful welcome back he made you all something to eat and had plenty of his own twists on things that had happened.

As if no time had passed at all, the world felt normal again. You were back where you belonged.

You were home.

[pentanguine]

Favorite Books of 2019

Half of this list is Terry Pratchett. That’s not hyperbole.

20. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

Everyone adores this book, and while I certainly loved it, I think it may have been a bit overhyped for me. But this was the first Discworld book I read where I remember finding it heartbreaking--not just angry at injustice, but angry at the tragedy of injustice. 

19. The Truth, Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett writing a well-developed romantic arc?? It’s more likely than you think! I am also a sucker for philosophical questions like “What is The Truth?”

18. Small Gods, TP

I think chronologically, this is the first blisteringly angry Discworld book, where you suddenly realize how much fury is pent up in the satire. There’s a lot of futility and frustration in this story, but the ending is so simple and quiet and good.

17. Record of a Spaceborn Few, Becky Chambers

I find Chambers novels to be more like leisurely explorations than novels with a driving plot, and I could have happily explored this culture for days. Again, I’m a sucker for philosophical questions: What is the meaning of death? What purpose does culture serve even when it’s no longer practical? What makes a human society work?

16. In an Absent Dream, Seanan McGuire

I love this book’s style of focusing on small moments, and putting all the battles, quests, and conventional milestones of growing up off the page. This is a brutal read, but the brutality is in the terrible, everyday choices Lundy’s forced to make.

15. Monstrous Regiment, TP

Come for the cross-dressing, stay for the social commentary on war, nationalism, religion, and being an underdog of any stripe. Gender is bonus window-dressing.

14. The Wee Free Men, TP

I’ve realized that I love Pterry’s approach to kids’ books because he spends them deconstructing tropes, even the tropes of deconstructing tropes. Tiffany Aching is incisive and bookish, but also hard and selfish, and also sensible, and also strange...she’s like a real kid! A real person!

13. I Shall Wear Midnight, TP

Later-Pratchett often dispenses with the satire and goes straight for righteously angry social commentary, and this book packs a wallop. Stand your ground! “...change the present, so that when it becomes the past, it will turn out to be a past worth having!”

12. The Library Book, Susan Orlean

"Makes history come alive” is a cliche, but so true in this case. Even at its most drily factual, the book is gripping as it explore the rollicking past of American libraries and westward expansion, with some gorgeously poetic homages to stories and fire.

11. Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

If you’ve only watched the movie, which predictably focus on big, theatre-packing action sequences, I encourage you to read the books. They tell the story of ordinary people going through unimaginable horror, but also a delightful, bittersweet tale of undying friendship. [They’re also very racist. Tolkien, why.]

10. Jingo, TP

And this was the Discworld book where I felt like he really started to develop his characters as people. Almost a year later, my most vivid memory is of the hilarious friendship between Colon and Nobby.

9. Unseen Academicals, TP

Worth!! This book is brimming more of that glorious, cold, barely contained fury, and even though it’s not Pterry’s strongest writing, I adore it. Nutt and Glenda work together so well and make a perfect pair of unlikely badasses.

8. Going Postal, TP

My note for this book says “Moist is an inspiration and a riot,” and although I don’t remember why I found him inspiring, he is definitely a riot. Or maybe cleverly orchestrating one from behind the scenes.

7. The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson

This is a pretentious book about ideas. It’s dense, intellectual, packed full of high-brow culture, and honestly, sometimes kind of annoying. But the writing and the story are so rich, and her interpretation of queer motherhood is so original, that it’s almost impossible to put down. I’m also in love with language that talks about the impossibility of language. 

6. Thud!, TP

One of the things I love about Discworld is that it’s never easy. There’s none of this Shining White Warrior defeating the Evil Dark nonsense, just Sam Vimes, reading Where’s My Cow?, becoming more jaded and more determined to be a good man at the same time.

5. The Fifth Elephant, TP

I’ll be honest that I read this book almost a full year ago and don’t remember the nuances of why I loved it, but it was the first Discworld book that blew my mind. It made me jump around my room; it made me want to reread it immediately; it made me stay up until 1AM having passionate opinions about a man named Carrot.

4. Gender Queer: A Memoir, Maia Kobabe

This was probably my most anticipated book of the year, and it more than lived up to the expectation. I’ve been reading Maia’s comics for years, and they’re beautiful reflections on nonbinary experiences (and often on books, nature, and activism as well). I read eir memoir twice in two weeks, each time in one sitting, and it did make me cry.

3. Caroline’s Heart, Austin Chant

I am determined to make “Trans Western” an actual genre, and this is the jewel in the crown of the books I’ve read so far. It’s a gentle love story between a witch and a cowboy that’s also a devastating tale of grief, with excitingly original world-building. If you’ve never read Austin Chant, I encourage you to give him a try--he’s a wonderful writer.

2. Days Without End, Sebastian Barry

Days Without End is a good book to read when you’re Sad. The entire book feels like a slow, quiet elegy to some forgotten idyllic time, but who can say when that time was? The Wild West is full of cold, dirty, violent death, starvation, genocide, loneliness. There’s nothing to romanticize here, and yet somehow Barry has written an impossibly R/romantic book. Every sentence is slow, quiet, and poetic. Every moment, however horrific, feels like it’s drifting slowly through a strong spell of sunlight. I could try and describe the dreamy horror of this book for days and never come close to capturing what it does.

1. In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado

Everyone is raving about this book, and there’s a reason for that: it’s GENIUS. The structure of the book is genre-busting (or maybe genre deconstructing would be more accurate), and the writing is like poetry in that every word feels so deliberate and loaded with meaning. I took three pages of notes as I read and I’m not sure it was enough.

[that-is-just-so-typically-me]

I’m both devastated and grateful that I went through life-altering personal trauma during these last years that have been and still are excruciating for everyone. I’ve been trying to make my own sense about what is “changing” in America (rather, crescendoing - it’s all the next development stage of centuries of the same evil and social sickness), and maybe this is just something everyone eventually realizes, but I can’t stop seeing the scaled-down versions of these awful power struggles and strategies play out in the immediate world I see around me, and in my life. The same low hum of menace we all feel in our world now (though many heard it long before) I recognize, just in a higher octave, in the ways people have hurt me and in my own fears and uncertainty. When my past relationship ended and the love of my life left me for good after what was a truly personality-altering experience in our last try at a relationship, my fundamental understanding of how the world works and what I thought my life would be radically and rapidly changed. I never actually understood PTSD until I was diagnosed, which is sort of a no-brainer, but I just wasn’t expecting that an experience could actually make the world feel totally alien to me. To this day when I’m pondering the world and myself as I see them now, I’m still often surprised at how it feels like I accidentally slipped through to a mirror dimension where everything feels just *wrong*, like if I could just find a witch to help me break the curse, I’ll wake up back in the timeline I was meant to be in, as the person I was before, with the person I love and in a world that while hard and painful, doesn’t feel like I’m in the Other Mother’s world from Coraline. Intellectually I know that the past will never change, and that so much time has passed, my ex must be such a different person too, and I know that I must stay the course of moving (and I will, and I have hope that one day it won’t hurt anymore).

But the hardest part is the way I see the world now. I don’t know how someone people can be hurt so many times and still trust, still open their hearts. But with this, and facing it all while the world threatens to entirely destroy itself, I feel more isolated and alone than ever. I feel others feeling it to - the ones with loving partners, lots of stability in the home and work life, and strong innate abilities to feel loved by and connected to others, however, I know are doing better than the rest of us. It’s one of the most tragic realizations I’ve had - that power accrues power, the lack of it leads to more lack of it. Even with the benevolent and good power of love and connection: the less you have of it - the more difficult it is to enjoy it with others or even find others to share in it - the more likely it is to lose what you already have. But what all of this rambling (I’m so sorry - I can’t tease out the most sensible way to connect all of my points when I’m tired, which seems the only time I write anything in) is getting at is that this chronic loneliness I think leads naturally to lack of connection - one of the most aggressive infections that keeps wounds from healing (regardless of what caused the wound), on the personal and the social strata. Loneliness is like sugar feeding the bacteria of individualism… when you start to internalize that your best efforts (usually inadequate when hindered by the forces of exhaustion, poverty, mental illness, or powerful habits/loss of social skills formed by self-isolation in a pandemic or the loss of social skills) aren’t enough to make and sustain the connections that abate loneliness (and I don’t mean just romantically), you internalize that you are fated to do this alone. It robs you of your ability to identify with others - I don’t know how to explain this honestly, but I see it in so many people, including myself, and especially in the loneliest people I know. Reciprocity begins to feel like a myth, whether your self-narrative is that you don’t deserve it or people are inherently selfish and won’t give it to you, or both. The idea of people being capable of and wanting to connect with you, and you being capable of and wanting to connect with them, feels like a strange and distant dream. You become not a part of the world but something placed in or upon it. It’s the individual case of a much larger pattern that stacks and feeds back into itself and creates the battlefield that is the hyperindividualism of white, capitalist culture. The normalized sadism, the treatment of everyone from employees to even our most intimate loved ones as resources that must be cut off and ditched the moment they “underperform”, and the replacement person substituted in with almost no glances back at the people we replaced like commodities - some walking away with lessons, but in so many ways and after so many times (and I mean this far more in the context of workers in capitalism) typically stacked behind us in landfills.

It’s something that I’ve found to be helpful for coping in hard moments (especially at night when I have the fewest distractions and most time to ruminate) when I remind myself that I cannot, I must not, resign myself to the hopelessness that I will feel this alone always. My self-worth is still so low after a lifetime of negative experiences and poor mental health, but I’ve still been set back so many years even after a couple of years of recent healing. But I know if I subscribe to this worldview of an inherently unkind, “dog-eat-dog” world that will always leave me alone, that will always result in being left the ways in which I have been left before, I will cut off that feeling part of me, the part that connects me to humanity as a whole. I would simply rather not live than mutate into someone who becomes a perfect bullet for the arms pointed against the hope of a future for this world. If I really want to help fight for the world in which we survive this and maybe even come through knowing better and doing better, I have to keep fighting to keep myself whole. Internalizing that there is no hope for me to feel and give love again the way I can feel and give love so brilliantly, with my reckless, grinning, soft heart held in my open hands, would create those same patterns in my actions on the larger scale. Because these things scale up or down in perfect fractals - if I believe there is no love and trust to find around me, I will inevitably believe there is none to find *all* around me.

Despite the narrative the trauma keeps telling me, to protect me in a misguided way, one of my strongest traits is my big love. I just need to remind myself that despite what happened in the past, there are people even now waiting and wanting to hold that love safely, to value it, who want to give love back because they know their love is safe with me, too. My friends and family are just waiting for me to put down my shield and let myself be loved.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Supernatural: First Blood (12x09)

This is one of those episodes where the objective quality of the content does not match my actual enjoyment level. In many real ways, this episode was not that great. It had some serious problems. But I, personally, with my brain turned off, really loved it. Let's talk.

Cons:

The reason this episode isn't actually that good, despite some hella awesome acting, action, and one-liners, is because all of the bells and whistles are resting on an extremely weak foundation. We all know it's stupid that Sam and Dean got taken in the first place. Why did they hang around with an unconscious POTUS, again? And then there's the fact that these top-secret government guys take these two men who they believe to have attempted the assassination of the President, and there's no urgency to figure out how they got to the president? They aren't at all concerned with how their security was breached? Their method is to just wait Sam and Dean out. They think the worst torture of all is loneliness.

This is another problem with the episode. We see Sam and Dean being left alone in tiny little rooms for six weeks, but we're not really shown what was so torturous about this to them. Did they start to lose their grip on reality? Did either of them try and talk to the guy who brought them their food? No. But apparently, in Dean's words, the torture of solitary is worse than Hell itself. Is it, though? Is it really? I find it hard to believe that these two would be broken by six weeks alone. If the show wanted to sell me on that, they needed to show, more explicitly, why it was difficult for them. Maybe being left alone with their own thoughts about their mistakes starts to make them unravel? Or maybe instead of being left completely alone, they are given glimpses of authority figures, and hints and suggestions that the other brother is being tortured as they sit there? Anything more than just a terminal case of boredom, which is what it seemed like.

And did Dean not try and pray to Cas? It should have been fairly easy for him to find them, you would think. There was no attempt to explain why it was so difficult for all of these magical beings to track them down. There's even a scene where Cas goes to Crowley for help, and Crowley basically shrugs his shoulders and says that because his police officer contacts aren't important enough, he hasn't heard where Sam and Dean are. I mean... he's a demon. His mother is a witch. A tracking spell? Something? There wasn't even a discussion of using supernatural means to track down the boys, and that seems like a serious oversight.

All of the flaws listed above are with the premise of the episode itself. There is one flaw that I need to mention that goes a little deeper: Billie the Reaper is dead. Now, don't get me wrong, the scene where Cas kills Billie to save the Winchesters is really emotionally affecting. It brought new depth and understanding to Cas' character, something that's definitely sorely needed. But... come on. Have we not learned our lesson about killing off our very few female characters? Not to mention our only living named character of color (unless I'm forgetting somebody... but if I am, it's not somebody with as much screen time even as Billie). I'm about damn tired of this! And from a story perspective, Billie simply never played enough of a role! There were so many cool things you could have done with this whole Death 2.0 thing, but... no. Another fascinating character wasted.

Pros:

You would think after four long paragraphs of flaws, I'd come down pretty hard on this episode. But the fact is, I really loved it.

The plot is really just about Sam and Dean escaping, and Mary and Cas doing everything in their power to find them. It's a simple story, in a lot of ways. It goes back to the promise we got at the beginning of this season that we would be focusing on smaller stories. I mean, a secret government bunker seems like it would be big stakes, but there's no all-powerful being trying to destroy the universe, here. It's just Sam and Dean being trapped, and finding a way to get back to their family. I liked the basic story.

Sam and Dean communicating silently and being on the same page is one of my favorite elements of this show. Since Supernatural is built, naturally, on the conflicts between these two, it's always a special treat when we see how cohesive and competent they are. They trust each other, and they don't need to talk much to know exactly what to do. These soldiers don't stand a chance against them, and it shows in their brutal efficiency. What with all the crazy Big Bads that the Winchesters have had to face, it's sometimes difficult to remember just how bad ass they truly are. This episode is a good reminder of that.

Dean is the one who comes up with a plan to get them out of their prison: Billie will kill them, and when they're taken from their cells, they get to come back to life one more time. The catch? At midnight, one Winchester dies permanently. It's a simple conceit, and it's not as if the boys haven't been in similar situations in the past. The thing that makes it so powerful this time is that Dean doesn't sacrifice himself to save Sam, or vice versa. They both make the deal, knowing full well that they might be giving up their brother to gain their own freedom. Dean knows that Sam would never agree to the deal if he phrased it in such a way that insisted he be the one to die. And since they spend all their time working on a way to escape their pursuers, when the moment of truth arrives, they still haven't discussed who is to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Of course, Mary jumps in and offers to be the one to die, so we never get to see how that conversation would have played out. But I just love the trust that Sam and Dean showed in one another. They were both feeling such dread about this moment, both obviously wanting to take the sacrifice for the other. But they weren't insisting, weren't shutting each other down, weren't falling on their swords without talking it out first. Character development!

On the other side of things, you have Mary and Cas, both looking for Sam and Dean while also trying to continue to hunt, filling the void of the Winchesters' absence. Cas was just... wrecked during this whole episode. Misha really brought his A-game. He was stressed, and tired, and so, so scared. He felt like he had let down his family, and it was so sad to seem him struggling with that. Mary is back to hunting, as she's not sure what else to do with herself while she and Cas both wait for information. I think my favorite moment was when Cas expresses his own inadequacy and failures as a hunter. He tells Mary that he tried to investigate a string of mysterious deaths, but he didn't know who to talk to, or what questions to ask. Mary later takes care of it for him, proving that she still knows how this whole hunting game works. It was a great scene, because it showcased how helpless Cas still is, sometimes, when he's dealing with the human world around him. It also parallels him with Mary, who, despite still feeling a bit like an outsider, is starting to get her head back in the game.

The British Men of Letters are brutal as ever, here. Cas enlists their help in finding Sam and Dean in the woods, and they use satellite imaging technology to pinpoint their location. Mick isn't having much luck in recruiting American hunters, since none of them are happy at the idea of taking orders from bureaucrats. I like that the British MOL is maintaining its presence, and upping the creepy factor. See, Sam and Dean managed to escape without killing anybody. Later, Mick and Mr. Ketch go back and kill everybody who knew about Sam and Dean, leaving a whole wake of ruthlessly murdered bodies in their wake. We're upping their threat factor without making them too much the focus. It's infinitely preferable to all that stuff with the torture-happy chicks from the first few episodes of the season.

And... let's talk about that ending. Holy mother of Chuck. Sam and Dean are facing a terrible decision: who should die? Mary offers herself - she is a Winchester, after all. She holds her gun to her own head, but just as she's about to pull the trigger... Cas stabs Billie with an Angel blade, killing her. And then. Cas gives a speech that makes this whole episode worth it, even if there hadn't been anything else to praise. He talks about how he won't let any of them die, because this sad little world needs every Winchester it can get. "You mean too much to me. To everything." He looks like he's about to burst into tears, and the looks that Sam, Dean, and Mary give him are just devastating. This is obviously going to have ramifications down the road, but from the look on Cas' face, he doesn't care. He'd risk anything to avoid losing a Winchester.

There you have it. This episode can get away with quite a bit, in my eyes, for the simple fact that it focuses on the subtle interplay between Sam and Dean, and it shines a big spotlight on Cas, giving him really meaty material and emotional scenes. That's all too rare in Supernatural, and it's enormously satisfying when it does come around. This damn never-ending show seems as impossible to kill as a Winchester. We've got a Season Thirteen waiting for us after this season wraps up... and I for one will definitely be tuning in.

7/10

[islamcketta]

2019 has been a busy year. Between raising a 4 year-old, investing in my adult relationships, making Head of Content at my day job, and trying (always) to keep writing, I have not blogged here as much as I’ve wanted to. I have been reading, though, and I thought I’d take one quick pass at sharing all the things I loved most with you in one fell swoop. I’ve linked to longer reviews that I did manage to write, and at the end of the post I’ve included links to where my own (recent-ish) work can be found.

On Being an Artist

Witches’ Dance by Erin Eileen Almond

Classical music, madness and a tale of genius that doesn’t go quite the way you think it will? Mix that all up with some great writing and you have Witches’ Dance. This book helped me get past some of the fears I have about committing to the artist’s life (and I’m so grateful).

What Light Can Do: Essays on Art, Imagination, and the Natural World by Robert Hass

This book sits in the precarious pile of “books I can’t live without” to my right as I type right now. Bob Hass is always thoughtful and intelligent and this collection of essays covers so many topics I love—from poetry to fiction to art—and reading it was like spending an evening in deep conversation with the dearest of friends. In one essay where he’s writing of Judith Lee Stronach, Hass says, “the practice of poetry was for her, a centering, a way of being clear-eyed, of discovering feeling in verbal rhythm” which helped me see why I’ve returned to this essential practice in recent years.

Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work by Edwidge Danticat

There are many things to admire about this collection of essays by Danticat, but what I connected to most was the connection she made between being an immigrant and being an artist. “Self-doubt is probably one of the stages of acclimation in a new culture. It’s a staple for most artists” perfectly captured for me the combination of humility and striving for better that drives my own artistic practice. Danticat’s insightful reflects on her own experiences and those of other artists living between cultures is a worthwhile read, whether you’re interested in art or simply the human condition.

Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet by Christian Wiman

Somewhere in the middle of musings on the loneliness of poetry, the need for technique in writing, and the importance of the negative space that silence imparts in poetry, Wiman accomplished the very rare achievement of making me laugh aloud while reading. He also reminded me that part of the beauty of America (which can be hard to see these past years) is how much change is part of our very essence. This is a good book to read to osmotically improve your work while growing your own artistic survival suit.

On Womanhood Today

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas

Red Clocks is the dystopia we all fear is right around the corner. It’s brilliantly constructed to portray a myriad of women’s individual experiences while also reflecting the many sides of what could happen if we don’t protect the rights of women. It scared me right into action and I’d highly recommend it if you need a kick in the pants.

Landscape with Sex and Violence by Lynn Melnick

I read this book in a hospital in Spokane while someone I love was being ravaged by a surgeon’s knife. It was strangely appropriate and adequately devastating given that the book is about the life of a sex worker. It’s a painful book to read and also an important one as it humanizes the women we so often fail to see. It’s helped me look more deeply at the lives of those forgotten women in my own community, like learning about the number of serial rapists victimizing them within a few miles of my home.

What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence

Mothers and daughters… it’s a fraught landscape that’s ripe for literary mining. The essays in this book do just that. From abuse to deep love, it’s a worthy read that’s helping me heal.

blud by Rachel McKibbens

I saw McKibbens perform one of the poems from this collection at AWP this year… about the rape of her grandmother and how the man helped her make sandwiches for her boys after. The mundanity of the violence against women in this book is devastating, because it’s everywhere and it’s accepted and because McKibbens is brave enough to look it right in the face and name it.

The Guineveres by Sarah Domet

Being a teenaged girl is hard. Being a woman trying to love the teenaged girl you once were is not easy either, but this book put me sweetly in the mindset of that time in my own life in ways that helped me heal a bit (all while telling a compelling story). I loved the myriad portraits of the different Guineveres—they were a good reminder to look deep into any group to see beyond the stereotypes you think define them.

Educated by Tara Westover

If you haven’t yet read this memoir of growing up in a fundamentalist LDS household in Idaho, you might be alone. I read it while flying over Idaho and Montana and it brought back so many memories of what it was like to live in a place where individual rights are paramount to everything. Westover’s writing is really, really good and her portraits of a very flawed family are as loving as they are terrifying.

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This little book speaks big, even just from its title. I was gifted this book during a semi-annual Ladies and Literature event that I live for because it’s an evening filled with intelligent, worldly women talking about the books they’ve loved. The premise seems so obvious and yet I know how necessary it is. The woman who gifted it to me said she was glad I was getting it because someday my son should read it, too. It’s based on Adichie’s TED talk, but goes deeper, so start with this video and then commit to the full 52 pages some afternoon when you have a moment to become a better human:

For the Craft

The Story of My Face by Kathy Page

If you struggle at all writing compelling suspense, this book is deeply educational (and it’s a great read to boot). We learn very early that this strange story begins with the protagonist’s face being horribly disfigured as a teenaged girl. As the book weaves between the now of her adulthood investigating the odd religious sect she once encountered and the then which led to her injury we are constantly reminded that there is a story to her face. But Page knows that all the details leading up to that story (both in the then and in the now) are compelling enough that she can dangle the mere mention as we follow her like salivating dogs through the full narrative. It’s a fascinating read for a non-writer. For a writer, it’s essential.

Shapes of Native Nonfiction

I could have put this book, deservedly, under any number of categories, but I chose this one because the essay by Stephen Graham Jones shook me to my artistic core. It’s a gorgeous collection of writing by Native authors and I learned many names I should have known long ago. This anthology is filled with artful essays about everything from literary craft to the deep pains inflicted on Native peoples as the US was colonized. I am grateful to the editors (one of whom I call a friend) for expanding my reading horizons and allowing me to read much more deeply about the country I call home.

The Paris Review, Issue 228

I’ve been reading The Paris Review for ages, because it made me feel smart, cultured, and literary long before I had the guts to just write already. But I haven’t always connected with the work in the magazine, especially the poems. This is the best issue of the magazine I’ve read to date. The interviews introduced me to new and exciting ideas, the stories were fascinating, and I think I loved every single poem.

House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk

Is there any fame in saying I loved Tokarczuk before the Nobel? This book is layered and complex and exceedingly well written. I wanted to read it because it reminded me of the Poland I once knew, but what I got was a much better understanding of how telling a story from a wide variety of perspectives yields nuance and beauty.

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

I already wrote in depth about how very much I enjoyed the braided narrative of this book. It’s accessible and yet complex and I was recommending it to a friend just this week. I love Ozeki’s work. This might be her best book yet.

Field Notes on Science & Nature

I learned about this book in a session on poets who cheat on poetry with prose during AWP. Or maybe it was about prose writers cheating on prose (with poetry) but the upshot is that there are so many ways to see the world that we ignore if we’re just looking at literature. This book included a wide variety of scientific perspectives that were fascinating and also very enriching. I loved it so much I bought if for my sister-in-law. I also shoved my copy into my husband’s to-read pile. When asked recently what was the thing I loved most about my son I said, “He’s curious about the world.” This book is for the curious. Enjoy!

To Love Widely the World

McSweeney’s #52

This particular issue of McSweeney’s focused on stories of movement and displacement and I adored it. I met authors I’d never read before (particularly a couple from Africa that blew my mind) and felt that glorious thrill of seeing how very similar and how very different we are at the same time. I learned new techniques of storytelling and dug into histories I’d never really understood before. It’s a fantastic read that only lacked for not including anything by Elena Georgiou.

Night of the Golden Butterfly by Tariq Ali

When I started this post I’d only read this last book of Ali’s Islam Quintet and I wanted to recommend it here because I loved the ways the diverse array of characters helped me look at modern-day Pakistan anew (and also because it reminded me of travel tales my dad would tell me about the Khyber Pass when I was a kid). But the holidays wore on and I continued to be obsessed with this series and I’m now almost done with three more books in it. I’ve learned about Muslim Spain, Saladin, and turn of the (last) century Turkey and I can’t get enough. The best books are the ones where Ali really flexes the dialogues between the characters, but I’m loving them all and how they’re adding layers and layers to my understanding of the world.

Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers by Frank X. Walker

A poet friend recommended this book to me at AWP this year and I was very glad I read it. Not only did it help me expand my own understanding of the Civil Rights era in the US (something we could all use a refresh on, it seems), but I learned specifically about Medgar Evers. The switching of voices between Evers’ wife and that of his killer and his killer’s wife was devastating and rich. Read this to break through “our great tradition / of not knowing and not wanting to know.”

Video Night in Kathmandu and Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East by Pico Iyer

I love Pico Iyer’s way of looking at the world as a sort of permanent exile. The experience of being in-between cultures is something I always relate to and it’s in his work that I feel most at home. I don’t know if this book is better than The Global Soul, but it’s the book of his that I’ve most recently read and I very much enjoyed the throwback feeling of reading about a completely inaccessible China (among many other things) and thinking about how far we have (and have not) come.

BOMB Magazine, Number 146

BOMB has to be my A-1 magazine for inspiration. Although it’s only published quarterly, I carry it with me for weeks on the bus as I read interviews between artists of all types to learn about the synchronicities in artistic practice and what parts of the zeitgeist different disciplines are feasting off of now. This particular issue is one of the best so far. I don’t know if it’s because the throughline of water helped me look deep into the very many ways that one subject can be approached or if it’s because it raised my environmental and social awareness or maybe because it exposed me to more Native artists than I’ve ever encountered. But it was fantastic and I hope to carry it on the bus for many weeks to come.

If you’re interested in reading any of these books for yourself, please visit Powell’s and I’ll earn a small commission.

My Own Publications

Touting your own work is always a little weird, but I am proud of my writing and this has been a good year for getting poems published with 34 submittals (most of which contain multiple poems) and four acceptances. Two aren’t yet published, but here’s where you can find the two that have been, plus some other work I may have forgotten to ever mention.

“Bhanu Kapil in the Night.” Minerva Rising: Issue 17. In print only. “Kenneth Patchen on a Bookshelf.” {isacoustic*}. Online. “Re: Emergence.” Riddled with Arrows. Online. “The Needle.” antiBODY. Online “Swans.” Towers & Dungeons: Lilac City Fairy Tales Volume 4. In print only. “Marco Polo.” Poetry on Buses, 4Culture, King County. Online.

I also published “Yet All Memory Bends to Fit” at Cascadia Rising Review. Their site is currently under construction, so I’m including the text here:

“Yet All Memory Bends to Fit”

Reading Harjo I see the end of my memory— her ancestors, my severed line not at the ocean, but even after. Though we paint pysanki, our frozen pierogi are served with a side of poppy seed cake, courtesy of Moosewood. And the branches more established? Daughter of the American Revolution, I once ran a welcome wagon (kind of) until my wealth ran out, or I was given up, my siblings too many. I Rosied rivets and spoke Welsh with the old nostalgic for an accent I’d never heard. What can I claim? How can I know where I start if I can only love the memory of coal dust that darkens upper leaves. And maybe that’s what’s with this city wrong, where so many of us came to start anew— severed, floating while all around us Natives hunkered down, frozen shadows, street corners and basements— a tripline of roots we’d rather not see.

Cheers to a new year of reading adventures in 2020. Please always feel free to share your favorite books with me. It’s a wonderful way to connect to what makes us human.

The post The Best Things I Read in 2019 appeared first on A Geography of Reading.