#im thinking about continuing the raven cycle bc i only read the first one but id need to reread it so maybe not now

[fadeintolight]

i want to read a book can i get book recs please

[slowdripsunrise]

MORE READING UPDATES OMLLLLLLL i forgor about this blog again. it will happen again tbh but i still have to go through all of the books i finished in late 2023 up to now... i'm gonna try and get as many as i can done but probably wont get all of them lol. probably very long post/rant + spoilers for various books under the cut

keep in mind i have shit memory and all of these books were finished a while ago so be warned for bad analysis and summaries

-How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu: this book was a collection of short stories that are interconnected through characters and a central storyline - a plague. i thought the concept was super interesting and i had heard really good things about it from people i share a reading taste with so i went into this expecting to be blown away and i just. wasnt. i LOVED some of the short stories and there were a few that made me cry, mainly snortorious and the robot dog story where the mom died, but other than that it was kinda a let down. the ending fucking sucked ngl. like i thought we were leading up to some profound moment, especially calling back to the chapter where people are relieving their memories in the dark, because i thought that was really compelling and interesting, but it was just fucking aliens. like it reallly feels like a cop out to me. like a whole "and it was all just a dream" type ending. im not gonna rate it actually yes i am i'd give it like 2.5-3 stars. only because some of the chapters were super hard hitting but other than that. meh.

-The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater: WHOOOOO BOY. i ate this shit up. god if i had read this in middle school or high school i am 100% certain it would have become my entire personality. like i fucking get it. i totally fucking get it. i'm treating the whole series as one book rn bc they all kinda blend together in my mind and its been a while but just. the fucking vibes. good lord the vibes were so good. can't pick out any 100% certain things i particularly noticed but i will reblog every webweave about this series there is trust. rating the entire series as 5 stars mostly because i listened to the audiobook and they did SUCH A GOOD JOB ON TH E AUDIOBOOK OML like. at first i was kinda thrown off bc i wasn't expecting it to be so. southern? but once i finished the first one i knew there was no way i could just go back to reading it with a physical book like audiobook all the way the narrator was so awesome and i love the southernness of it.

-What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher: my first t. kingfisher book! i loved the vibes, the world, the whole new set of pronouns, that shit was so fun, overall a nice short and sweet creepy ass fucking book. like im a huge wimp so i was deffo nervous and freaked out at some points, especially with the rabbits lol idk why but those were unnerving. the author did a really good job of conveying the mc's anxiety and fear while also adding in some humor and soldier rationality and stoicism. lol. cute i liked it 3.5/4 stars.

-Fault Lines by Emily Itami: tbh mostly picked this one up for the cover and it was really just a standard cheating story where the mc gets back together with her original husband because of their kids. nothing i remember to be groundbreaking at all really. 2.5 stars

-Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez: I really wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did. the pov changes i think were very well done and intentional and weren't confusing at all! the narrators for the audiobook were wonderful and really brought life to the story, a lovely book.

-She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan: honestly, looking back on it, i was never really captivated by this story. it took me a long time to get into it, and i really never connected with any of the characters. a lot of it was more confusing than not, and i'm honestly not sure if i feel the need to continue the series. may be a case of me not being in the right mood for it, but i don't see myself trying it again. kinda sad cuz i was excited to love this but oh well. win some lose some.

-Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr: hands down my fav book of 2023 and one of my fav books of all time. like i have a feeling this review is going to be either very long or very short because there is no way i will be able to write out all the ways i love this book. the owl motif. the environmental extremism from seymore that i can 100% relate to. the way that he fell down that path in a way that felt realistic to me, based on his circumstances, and it isn't implied in my opinion, that all autistic people are like this, that all autistic people can take things to the extreme like seymore did. the audiobook was wonderful. the interconnected stories over time i think is one of my new favorite tropes/plots/metas. if done well (cough how high we go in the dark) it gets me every single time. XENO and everything about him. i was listening to the audiobook at work and during his death i had to fight back tears lol. god. and the kids in the play and how they wanted to end the story.... fuck my life. and konstance and her curiosity and oh my god everything about this book messed me up. 5/5 i think thats all i'll be able to say before i combust.

-Chlorine by Jade Song: what a weird little book. really liked it. audiobook slayed. not much else to say. recommend for weird lesbians. 3.5/4 stars.

-A Dowry of Blood by S. T. Gibson: THE AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR IS SO FUCKING GOOD AT HER JOB I COULD LISTEN TO HER TALK ALL DAY I THINK IM IN LOVE WITH HER. the story was really good love a good vampire story love a good creepy story. fun time. listened to the audiobook in like an hour hour and a half car ride it was a good time. 3.5 stars.

and that ends off all of the books i read in 2023 !!!!!!! YIPPEEE!!!!! i'll stop here and make a separate post for the books i've read so far in 2024 just for organizational purposes and also because i am hungry and need to stop lol. if you made it this far through the post i love you and also sorry for the long rant but also too bad because this is my blog and you clicked on it. happy reading :)

[the-little-prophet]

BDRP Questionnaire 2019

Posting this on Charlie since I actually talked about him quite a bit! Let’s gooooo

Characters: Berlioz, Hades, Kiara, Nala, Andrina, Merida, Charlie, Apollo, John, Su, Ashleigh, Nemo, Jun

Pick one of your characters and talk about their growth (we recommend choosing an older character, but it’s up to you!) What about their story has surprised you? What are you proud of? How have they changed from their original inception to now?

This one goes out to Charlie. I pitched Charlie very deceptively-- claiming he was a prophet, aligning him, at first, with Calliope, making it look like Charlie’s magic was of the classical, Cassandra-inspired kind. But all along, I knew that what I wanted Charlie to be was more of this sci-fi/fantasy blend as an homage to his movie’s sci-fi bend too. This year, I got to actually reveal that Charlie is a time traveler after two years!! This is very exciting for me! I’ve enjoyed being able to lean into Charlie’s new image systems with this reveal, even though I’m out of my depth and breaking like 67 different time travel rules, probably lol. Still, it’s been great to take him to that place, and to invent Future-Charlie as both a deux ex machina and an expression of identity/choice/free will etc etc. I did not have Future-Charlie in mind when I created Charlie, so that was something I was proud of coming up with!

Pick another character and talk a little about where you WANT them to go. What are your plans for them going into the new year?

I’m going to talk about Nemo if only because everyone else feels like a spoiler lol. Nemo, as a relatively new character though, is still full-speed-ahead on his initial goals that I outlined for him in his application. Now that Nemo’s been established in the school and he has this little group of buddies, I want:

To focus on his wing. I want Nemo to push himself, get himself in a spot of trouble, potentially injure himself.

Reveal his wings to at least one mundus friend

Continuing to infuse his posts with body image issues. This is a slow build kind of plot that really is like...the broth of Nemo’s plot-soup, lol, while training for his placement is the chicken and belonging at school is the noodles….it needs to be this throughline more than like, para a, para b, para c. at least for now.

Pick a thread or a plot that you’re proud of and talk about why you loved it.

I could pick a lot of threads here lol it’s honestly so HARD. But I think I want to shout-out to the Charlie/Jim first kiss thread because it surprised even me and Hannah. We initially planned for the first kiss to be just that-- one kiss, then we done, Jim and Charlie go on to be friends. But like in the best of cases, Jim and Charlie’s palpable chemistry actually informed more of Charlie’s arc and opened up avenues previously closed to me/Charlie since Charlie had been so SHUT to the idea of love. So! I really loved that thread. Also because like, I literally made Charlie experience the big bang after his first kiss. And THAT’S the BEST way to use magic in my opinion. Like when you can infuse magic with an emotional catharsis-- I think the other time I did that super well was similar actually, when Herc kissed Kiki’s cheek and she grew a tree in his room lol. So yeah! Some of my best writing in that thread, amazing chemistry, big surprises. It was an absolute pleasure.

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 strengths and talk about why you think it’s one of your strengths.

-Image systems. I dragged myself for this, but I think it’s something that really helps me find a character’s voice and make myself excited to RP them! Also, I think it’s what people like about my writing sometimes. Maybe. IDK, lol. -Complex Emotion: I’m stealing this from my mentor who said I’m good at creating complex emotion and so you know its true. My most introverted characters get the bulk of this naturally--they are introspective and feely and give themselves the space to think and feel. But I really want to try to inject more into my extroverted characters. I think I’m doing well for Nemo, who had undiagnosed anxiety and so that informs a lot of his personality in very interesting-- very OPPOSITE-- ways as Berlioz; Nemo struggles with being alone because ‘alone’ means he gets too in his head. That’s been really fun for me and why he’s quickly become one of my fave voices to write (I know, u all thought it was because I am in love with Jimin (true), but no its bc Nemo is an anxious, big feeling baby and he’s always so Alive to me, plus i was made to write a fairy it was always my destiny.)

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 areas of improvement.

-Dialogue: PERSONALLY I feel like I’m not great at dialogue. Some posts are better than others and I think I’m good at like…..texting dialogue? IDK. I feel like I struggle in paras though to craft good dialogue. It’s just, rn, average dialogue. Of course not every post needs to have hilarious, punchy, great dialogue. But do my characters sound different? Am I doing all I can to create rhythm and speech patterns? -Filtering: Im being very picky rn, because actually I don’t do this too much, but I do it enough where I’m like, I gotta go read some really stellar writers adn ban myself from using “Feel” and “think” for like a whole month. What I’m talkinga bout is like: Ber realized/ Ber thought / Ber knew. That kind of writing is totally fine, but that’s about it. I need to come up with more creative ways to talk about feelings and abstract concepts!!!

-Character: I know everyone is probably like………….how dare lauryl put this here. But listen. I don’t think I struggle with character on RP. But outside of RP? Oh boy! The THING about RP is you MUST create a character, that’s your vessel for writing here, and so you do all that development plus u got the four years of worldbuilding informing that character, and literally EVERYTHING CHARACTER DRIVEN ITS...THERE IS NO OTHER WAY.  Outside of RP though I think I have struggled because my natural affinity is worldbuilding and shit like that. I’m type 5 baby, I am attracted to characters who let me poke at things I don’t know anything about, like even Jun, part of it really is like, petitions and grocery store management lmfadsofij. SOOOo idk I just need to be able to focus on crafting characters that are compelling vessels for the cool shit I like to do outside of RP.

Pick one of your plots, or even just a character, and come up with a list of 3-5 “mentor texts” where you can look for inspiration or research, then write a short (2-4 sentences) why you picked those texts. JOHN DARLING BREAKS INTO FAERYLAND 1. Call Down the Hawk/Raven Cycle: It’s no coincidence that my reread of Raven Cycle last winter played a pretty big part in inspiring this new version of John. The descriptions of the magical forest Cabeswater and the hunt for Glendower have the same kind of contemporary fantasy vibe that I really like for John. And of course, Ronan’s dream magic is very much intertwined with the faery realm feeling like a dream (and Ashleigh, obviously, as a dark faery who can manipulate them). More than that though, the attention paid to the psyches of each character and how they drive the plot forward is just… /chefs kiss. 2. The Mabinogian: I want to draw from these classic Welsh/British stories and incorporate them in creative ways! Or just as, like, motifs are something. :) I have tried to do this but would like to be a lot more intentional, instead of just being like lmao let me look up some random shit for this one reply~ 3. The Hazel Wood: This book deals with characters coming into the real world from a book world! This kind of goes along with the Mabinogian as I kind of ish want to do something similar, only treating the Mabinogian as a historical, cultural text as opposed to a fiction. This book also focuses a lot on fairy tale tropes (like numbers) which I really want to incorporate in John’s stuff. I want to ideally write some of my own fairy tales-- I have one in mind actually through Ashleigh but it’s related to John too since he’d the scholar of said stories.  

And now, a wishlist!

-Exploring Nemo’s disability. This is slightly challenging for me since we don’t have many fairies, but I’m brainstorming some ideas and hope to really kick it off in January, leading up to his Talent Placement Test.   -I really want to have a lot of town-centric plots for Jun. Would love to rp with the police officers! I want to have Jun try to get some ppl arrested tbh ahah, like, Fflew for loitering, or maybe reporting Mitte. I would love some arch nemeses tbh-- Mitte does seem like a good one. AND I want to submit at least three petitions next semester!! Maybe i should make that two!! Still!! -Do some Bonfamille plots. I already have something I’m really excited about and have already planned here so this is a teaser… -Keep writing essays. The fairies have been great, getting me really inspired to do these.What’s been an amazing mental exercise, and why I cannot stop writing these, is thinking about how the political philosophy of Pixie Hollow informs how it functions: technically, socioculturally etc. It’s really fun for me to basically build a communist thought project and then enact it for real. I feel like I’m learning a lot about...well, societies, lol, and how the material factors endlessly bleed into, and shape, ideas and beliefs (and vice versa). Also, I literally have to do these because when Nemo is IN the Hollow and I want to write him getting a glass of water, I’m faced with a lot of technical questions: do fairies have running water? Does he have to get it from a stream? How do they keep things cool? Etc etc. And that’s why I go off on these, and I’m excited to keep doing them, as many as I can, with feedback from my fellow fairies. Also, do want to do ones that are NOT fairy related, so we’ll see about that. -Write John backstory. He’s gone on a few other adventures and I’d like to actually one-shot those maybe lol. -Alternate Charlie Timeline: This is something that’s bopping around in my head and I haven’t found the perfect way to make it happen, but I want Charlie to travel to an alternate version of his life and get stuck. When I figure out the right way to do this, my partners will also get to rp alternate versions of their characters lol. That’s fun right!! Of course it is, we do it all the time with AUs, but this one obvi be more personal and more closely tied to canon.

OPTIONAL: Why do you RP? First and foremost, I RP because it’s writing for the sake of writing-- joy for joy. I think this is even more important this year as I’ve had to focus on mentorship writing outside of RP. RP became the place where I didn’t have to think so hard about making everything make sense, lol. It gave my brain a break so I could be less judgmental of myself and just have fun and do the most ridiculous stuff...and some of my fave stuff iS ridiculous because of that...like Nemo and Sindri making flower crowns or the ASC nonsense. It’s this kind of light, fluffy, low-stake (but still High Stake) stuff that provided me endless joy when I needed it the most. Second of all, I RP because I really want to invest in people’s creative energy. I think doing so gives back to myself. Building canon, helping people brainstorm, seeing people grow-- I feel like a proud mom when I get to have this kind of mentorship role myself. I talked to MK about this, but even though Sam left to go off and do greater things, that’s like-- to me, it was a lot like he was graduating from this weird BDRP school I’ve helped create. I felt nothing but pride and happiness for him and really felt like, if BDRP was to explode tomorrow, I ACHIEVED the thing I set out to do when, four years ago, I sat on my computer and drafted BDRP’s mission and vision and committed myself to this admin role. And THAT’S what I want ideally-- for BDRP to be this collaborative place that doesn’t focus too much on what makes sense, on sitewide plots that force people into roles. I have always wanted plots like ASC and John’s search for Excalibur to be able to exist side by side, and I think we’ve done that. Now we just have to tend this garden, don’t we, haha? May BDRP bear many delicious fruit.