#ivy st james

[multitaylorsversion]

sorry not sorry but ivy by taylor swift and valerie (amy winehouse cover) are celia st james and evelyn hugo’s songs!!

[offleetsfinest]

Tag Dump - Muses, pt 2

[thewindsorindex]

British Royal Family: Properties

A list of properties owned by the British Royal Family

The Blue House

King Charles first visited Transylvania in 1988 and was captivated by the country's unique beauty and extraordinarily rich heritage. The impression Romania left on him was so profound that he purchased a Romanian farmhouse in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Viscri in Transylvania in 2006.

The King typically spends a few days each year at the blue retreat, and while the rest of the time, it's rented out to the public.

~ Owner: King Charles

2. Ray Mill House & 3. The Old Mill

Queen Camilla purchased Ray Mill House in Wiltshire in 1995 after her divorce from Andrew Parker Bowles. For over 30 years, it has remained her favorite retreat, featuring 12 acres of orchards, gardens, and beehives that produce honey.

Earlier this year, the King bought the neighbouring property, the Old Mill, to protect Camilla's privacy amidst rumours it would be converted into a wedding venue and holiday rental.

~ Owner: Queen Camilla & King Charles

4. Buckingham Palace

The most well-known and visited of all the royal properties, Buckingham Palace has remained the official London residence of the United Kingdom’s monarchs since 1837. 

Owner: King Charles via the crown

5. St James' Palace

The London palace was the former residence of the monarchs of England until the reign of Queen Victoria. 

It’s also the London residence of Princess Anne, Princess Beatrice, and Princess Alexandra.

Owner: King Charles via the crown

6. Clarence House

King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla Parker Bowles most famously resided in the crown-owned official London residence before his accession. Built in 1825 and 1827, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip lived in the townhouse after their marriage in 1947.

It was also the London home of the Queen Mother from 1953 until 2002. Prince William and Prince Harry also lived here until moving into their own private residences at Kensington Palace in 2011 and 2012, respectively.

Owner: King Charles via the crown (?)

7. Kensington Palace

The birthplace and childhood home of Queen Victoria, the 547-room palace is the London home and office to a number of royals, including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Since the middle of 2017, Apartment 1A was the main residence for Prince William and Princess Kate Middleton and their family, which has four floors and 20 rooms. 

Kensington Palace was also the former home of Princess Diana, as well as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. 

Owner: King Charles via the crown

8. Ivy Cottage, (9) Wren House, and (10) Nottingham Cottage

These smaller properties on the grounds of Kensington Palace have been popular homes in the Royal Family for years. Nottingham Cottage was the former home of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle before they moved into Frogmore Cottage.

Prince William and Catherine Middleton also resided in the cottage before moving into Apartment 1A. Ivy Cottage is currently the first home of Princess Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank. Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, lives at Wren House with his wife, Katherine Worsley.

Owner: King Charles via the crown

11. Windsor Castle

For over 900 years, the crown-owned Windsor Castle has acted as both a private home and an official royal residence for the United Kingdom’s monarchs.

Inside the property is the famous St. George’s Chapel, the location where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle married in May 2018 and Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbanks married in October 2018. 

Owner: King Charles via the crown

12. Fort Belvedere

A part of the Windsor Estate, Fort Belvedere was built in the Gothic Revival style by English architect Jeffry Wyatville in the 1820s. Most famously, the manor house served as the royal residence for Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor, between 1929 and 1936. 

Owner: King Charles via the crown

13. Balmoral Castle

Located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Balmoral Castle served as Queen Elizabeth's summer home and sits on 50,000 acres with 150 buildings.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert originally purchased the castle in 1852, and it's remained one of the royal family's favorite vacation spots.

Owner: King Charles (privately)

14. Birkhall

A part of the Balmoral Castle estate, Birkhall was bought by Queen Victoria for her son Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1849.

The former home of the Queen Mother, King Charles often stayed at the home when visiting Scotland.

Owner: King Charles (privately)

15. Craigowan Lodge

Technically on the grounds of the Balmoral estate, Craigowan Lodge is a more rustic stone cottage about a mile from the main castle.

Then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana would often opt to stay in the seven-bedroom house during their visits to the Scottish countryside.

Owner: King Charles (privately)

16. Sandringham House

This 19,000-acre estate is a private residence of the royal family near Norfolk, England. Queen Elizabeth inherited the property from her family in 1952, with Prince Philip taking charge of the home’s management and upkeep.

The Royal Family usually celebrates Christmas at Sandringham House and attends religious services at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, which is located on the grounds.

Owner: King Charles (private) - if it was left to him that is.

17. The Castle of Mey

The Queen Mother purchased deteriorating Barrogill Castle in 1952 after seeing it on her visit with Commander and Lady Doris Vyner. After extensive renovations of the castle and gardens in 1955, Her Majesty made the decision to restore the structure's original name, The Castle of Mey.

Today, the property is under the stewardship of The King and the Prince's Foundation.

Owner: King Charles (?)

18. Hampton Court Palace

The former seat of the Tudor dynasty dates back to 1514 when Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, King Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, started laying the foundation for a marvelous palace in London.

It was so grand that the King eventually took the Hampton Court Palace for himself and added a hotel, theatre, and leisure complex to the grounds.

Later, when King William III and Queen Mary II took the throne, the royal couple appointed Sir Christopher Wren to expand the palace and landscape architect Capability Brown to tend to the gardens.

The palace and its grounds were opened to the public as a museum in 1838 by Queen Victoria and have operated under the Crown since.

Owner: King Charles via the crown

19. Barnwell Manor

In 1540, King Henry VII gifted Barnwell Manor to the Montagu family for being loyal supporters of the Crown. It remained with the Montagus until the early 1900s when a series of tenants stayed at the Elizabethan manor house in Northamptonshire for short periods.

It would come back into the ownership of the royal family in 1938 when Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, bought the estate. While the Gloucesters no longer live at the 30-bedroom home, they have leased it out to Windsor House Antiques.

Owner: Gloucesters

Status: SOLD The property was sold in April 2024. The asking price was £4.75 million.

20. Frogmore House

Famously known as the location of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s evening wedding reception, Frogmore House has been a Crown-owned official residence in Home Park since 1792.

The estate was originally bought by George III as a gift for his wife, Queen Charlotte, and has remained in the Royal Family ever since. While the house has been unoccupied since 1872, the Royal Family often hosts private and official events at the residence.

Owner: King Charles via the crown

21. Frogmore Cottage

The former home of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Frogmore Cottage shares the same grounds as Frogmore House.

The cottage was built in 1801 under the direction of Queen Charlotte. 

Owner: King Charles via the crown

22. The Royal Lodge

Three miles south of Windsor Castle, the Royal Lodge was the longtime country home of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The Queen Mother continued to use the lodge as one of her country retreats until her death in 2002.

After extensive renovations, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, moved into the 30-room home in 2004 and continues to live there with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

Owner: King Charles via the crown

23. Dolphin House

While he may be currently leasing it out, the island of Tresco was technically owned by King Charles as it's a part of his Duchy of Cornwall. This means the dreamy Dolphin House, which many members of the royal member flock to for vacation, is also owned by the family. 

Owner: Prince William via Duchy of Cornwall

24. Anmer Hall

The 10-bedroom Georgian home was gifted to Prince William and Catherine Middleton by Queen Elizabeth after their wedding.

Located on the Sandringham Estate, the couple lived in the country home full time until they moved to Kensington Palace.

Owner: King Charles (private) - if it was left to him that is.

25. The Palace of Holyroodhouse

The Crown-owned official residence in Scotland began as a monastery in 1128. Holyroodhouse hosts a number of national events in Scotland including Holyrood Week when the monarch celebrates Scottish culture by visiting different regions within the country. 

Owner: King Charles via the crown

26. Hillsborough Castle

The official Northern Ireland residence of the monarch and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hillsborough Castle is set on 100 acres of gardens and trimmed lawns. Other members of the British Royal Family also stay at the castle when they visit the country.

Owner: King Charles via the crown

27. Highgrove House

The private family home of King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla Parker Bowles is most famous for its beautiful gardens, which members of the public can tour on select dates throughout the year. The home’s central location to London, Wales, and other parts of Britain made it appealing to King Charles, who bought the home in 1980. 

Highgrove House was initially used as a weekend home for the then-Prince of Wales and Princess Diana after their marriage in 1981.

Owner: Prince William via Duchy of Cornwall

28. Llwynywermod

Located in Llandovery, Wales, Llwynywermod is the Welsh home of King Charles. The couple often stays at the property in the summer during their annual tour of Wales.

Owner: Prince William via Duchy of Cornwall

29. Gatcombe Park

Gatcombe Park is the Gloucester residence of Princess Anne, Queen Elizabeth's only daughter, and her husband, Sir Timothy Laurence.

The country house and farm were purchased by Queen Elizabeth in 1976 for Anne. Her daughter, Zara Tindall, moved her family to the estate in 2013.

Owner: Princess Anne

30. Bagshot Park

This 57-room royal residence is the current Surrey home of Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex.

After its reconstruction in 1879, the property was owned by Queen Victoria’s third son, Prince Arthur. 

Owner: King Charles via the crown

[petercapaldi-press]

INTERVIEW

Interview: How 1980s Glasgow inspired Peter Capaldi's debut album

3rd November 2021

Paul Trainer Best of Scotland magazine

I WANT to ask Peter Capaldi about his debut album but first he wants to know what the weather is like in Glasgow. He’s planning a trip up for a few days and we spend a moment discussing sensible clothing to pack.

An instantly recognisable actor, there’s not much time spent in pubs these days while he is here but he does like to have a wander around. “I like going around the old parts of the city, where Glasgow emerges, then I will often find myself up around the art school,” he explains.

One crisp December evening a few years ago I was charging through shoppers on Buchanan Street when I was suddenly confronted by the elongated figure and tousled locks of Capaldi as he took a photograph of the police box that sits outside of The Ivy restaurant in the city centre. I relate this momentary, unexpected encounter to him, describing the blue box as “his old office”, an oblique reference to the TARDIS, and his role as the twelfth incarnation of Doctor Who.

He breaks into a cackle, then volunteers: “Sometimes I pass those – Glasgow’s one of the few places with police boxes – so if I see one I send a picture on to a friend of mine who is also in the same mode, shall we say,” giving an intriguing hint at a Time Lord WhatsApp group.

For some people, Capaldi will always be Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It – a bombastic performance characterised by a hail of Scottish invective, creating a political satire monolith that continues to cast a shadow nine years after the show went off air. Being cast in Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero in 1983 was a breakthrough. Ten years later he would win an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film as writer and director of a film about Franz Kafka that starred Richard E Grant. Then there was a memorable turn as Uncle Rory, a significant but infrequent presence in the television adaptation of The Crow Road. More recently, he starred as The Thinker in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. There’s a lot in the back-catalogue.

Before all that Peter started his performing career in music. While studying at The Glasgow School of Art, he put together a band, The Dreamboys, (future comedian Craig Ferguson was the drummer) and enjoyed a small part of the thriving music scene in the city at the time.

While his life went down a different road, he retains his love of music and has recorded a 10-track release called St Christopher. His relationship with music is more to do with storytelling and creating something new. “I’m not that guy who brings a guitar along to every party,” he says.

The story of the album started with an invitation from a friend, Robert Howard, the Scottish singer of The Blow Monkeys, to come along to a few recording sessions at his studio.

“Robert, who’s great and a wonderful musician, does this thing called the Monks Road Social, which is a conglomerate of musicians who put out an album every year, and they’re just happenings. I’d be encouraged to vaguely join in.” At one of these get-togethers Peter was asked if he had anything to record.

“I quickly put together a song, which they recorded in the space of a day, and it was so much fun. I thought: ‘Oh, I really want to do this again.’

“Over a period eight or nine months, I did that. I wrote stuff and sent it to Robert and we would ditch certain ones, and on then other ones he’d say: ‘Let’s hang onto that.’ ”

Did that first song that he wrote make it onto the album? “That was song called If I could Pray, which was released as a single to no acclaim last year. It got about two plays on the radio. That’s showbiz.”

When Peter was in Atlanta in the US to shoot The Suicide Squad he found he had time on his hands. He travelled to Nashville and started writing new songs. A band was assembled and a studio booked in London. Then lockdown intervened. They persevered.

“We just sent it back and forth over the digital ether and then sent it to the percussionist or some other musician who would add something wonderful to it. Because we had the option to do it, we thought: ‘Let’s just put this out and in a very low-key way, just start doing music.’ ”

There’s a lot of Glasgow in this record: echoes of Scotland set against a canvas of Americana guitar and retro synths. “I kept going back to a Glaswegian art school ‘80s vibe,” Peter says.

“The city itself, how it has such a power about it. Glasgow is a wonderful, noirish, synthy setting for things. Robert is very different and his musical experiences takes it in another direction occasionally, which is interesting.”

The American elements enter via those Nashville trips. “When I went there it felt like the spiritual home of any Glaswegian. You feel so at home, the music is elemental and we’ve been fed it already.

“The melodrama and the sadness and the darkness and the joy that’s very present in country music: the west of Scotland is a cauldron of that stuff and we reach for it all the time.

“There’s always a wish among Glaswegian musicians to mythologise the place in music and I think I’m trying to do that as well.”

Peter is open to the idea of taking some of the songs out onto a stage but there’s no tour planned. “Maybe a theatre piece, I don’t know”. He won’t be signing up for a musical. “This isn’t a new career or anything. This is an exploration of my own interest, an expression of who I am, being a performer and an actor and a director. That inevitably leads me to conjure up things, I think, as opposed to making hit singles.”

There’s already one Capaldi in that game. “He’s fantastic and I’m so knocked out by Lewis and I’m so proud of him and he’s just incredible. This is not an attempt to be a pop star.”

If this record, then, picks up where he left off in music, revisiting a time and place, what does he remember of his art school days?

“That was a golden period. In the sense that the government did pay for kids to go into further education and it was an ideology that was respected and it allowed so many of us who came from humble backgrounds to come into these various professions because we were allowed to go and explore.

“Art school was a great melting pot of ideas. There was just a general ethos that you could do anything in that building off the top of the hill there and that you were part of the city. It was the late 70s moving into the 1980s.

“We’d hang out in Nico’s, the first place you could buy a cappuccino or go to The Griffin pub opposite The King’s Theatre. Maestro’s was a nightclub we all use to end up and there was always some piece of nonsense being planned there. We’d do gigs that were not organised or you’d be asked to join other bands to play.

“When we arrived at the art school, we were all dressed as Neil Young with long hair and great coats. Then in the summer the punk thing happened. So we all came back with plastic trousers and peroxide hair. It was very open to all the ideas in the zeitgeist. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it was the perfect place to be.”

St Christopher by Peter Capaldi is released by Monks Road Records on November 19. 

This interview was featured in Best of Scotland magazine, published monthly in The Herald on Sunday and Sunday National newspapers. You can read the November edition here. 

[silantryoo]

ENCHANTED — 1. jesse st james

masterlist | next

taglist (CLOSED)!

@sewiouslyz @ivy-aurora @wbgngrengnwrg @gfriendsapple @sserabey @zhivaxo @forever-in-the-sky2 @perfectsunlight @txtbrainrot @vaeeeel @hopeworld45 @jisooftme @lauxymy4 @nkahydnxo @haeyoui @uzumakioden @hyp3boy @meowrinz @sweet-dhrafts @marimo-anura @limbforalimb @awkwardtoafault @kyaitosz @eggomi @hyukasverse @cine-cult @mits-vi @staryujinnie @nicolecaye @edamboon @bzeus28 @woonie57 @lcv3lies @vvyuqi @dnzsnr @meifeikss @cosettesrants @sofakingwoso @pandafuriosa60 @xxsplatashaxx @cloud-sadness-05 @emphobics @brokeeyedrops123 @444yizhuo @blue4hour @junoswrlld @jihyostolemyheart @isanggayfrog @havex00 @thefirstonetoeverlikemeback

[charlotte-of-wales]

Happy 35th birthday to Princess Eugenie of York!

Born 23 March 1990, Eugenie Victoria Helena is the younger daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah, Duchess of York, and a niece of King Charles Ill. At birth, she was 6th in the line of succession to the British throne and is now 12th.

Born in Portland Hospital, London, Eugenie attended St George's School and Marlborough College before studying at Newcastle University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in English literature and history of art. Eugenie also works privately with a number of charitable organisations, including Children in Crisis and Anti-Slavery International.

The Duke of York's Office at Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank on 22 January 2018. The couple had been dating for seven years, and were engaged on vacation in Nicaragua. In April 2018, the couple moved from St James's Palace and took up residence in Ivy Cottage at Kensington Palace. The wedding took place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on 12 October 2018.

The Brooksbanks have two sons. The first, August Philip Hawke Brooksbank, was born on 9 February 2021 at the Portland Hospital in London. Eugenie gave birth to a second son, Ernest George Ronnie Brooksbank, on 30 May 2023.

[ducktoonsfanart]

Darkwing Duck vs his villains - Darkwing Duck - Duckverse - My version

I haven't drawn just Darkwing Duck for a long time, as I've usually drawn him with Donald and his family for a long time. However, I decided to devote a little time to this favorite series of mine and one of the best that Disney has made. Also the new comics from Dynamite Entertainment aren't bad. Yes, I drew Darkwing Duck (Drake Mallard in a superhero costume as a parody of Shadow and Batman) with his Gas Gun clashing with his villains who were very much the star of his series and caused a lot of trouble for him, his family and St. Canard.

The main villains here in this drawing are Negaduck (created as a parody of Owlman, Reverse-Flash and Bizarro) from the Negaverse with his chainsaw, Megavolt (a parody of Electro), Quackerjack (a parody of The Joker and Toyman) with Mr Banana Brain, Dr. Reginald Bushroot (parody of Swamp Thing, Poison Ivy and Floronic Ma) with Spike, Liquidator (parody of Hydro-Man), Steelbeak (parody of Jaws from the James Bond series, and F.O.W.L. agent), Splatter Phoenix (an artist who has a magical and powerful brush to steal famous works of art), Taurus Bulba (as a Steerminator and a parody of The Kingpin from Marvel Comics), Tuskernini (a failed Hollywood movie director who steals movies along with his penguins), Ammonia Pine (half chicken and half owl who works for F.O.W.L. and constantly cleans and steals from cleaners), Professor Moliarity (a parody of The Mole Man from Fantastic Four) and finally Camille Chameleon (a duck who often changes her face and shape like a real chameleon). I wanted to add more villains, but not all of them would fit in one drawing, so I drew the most important and my favorite ones. Certainly not the first drawing I've done with Darkwing Duck villains, otherwise check out this drawing: https://ducktoonsfanart.tumblr.com/post/735208432464986112

I hope you like this drawing and you like Darkwing Duck and these villains, and feel free to like and reblog this, just don't use my same ideas, without mentioning me. Thank you! Let's Get Dangerous!

Also this is a gift for my friends who likes Darkwing Duck and I hope you like it dear @stormvanari, @imadisneyfan and @finallyimadeanaccount. And to others like you who love Darkwing Duck and these characters.

[iwanthermidnightz]

halietorris via Instagram: she was standing hollow-eyed… 👁️ ❤️‍🩹

My final painting of Celia St James to end the trilogy.

I hope you like her

Some of my favorite details are the cardigan in the corner... the scarlet mark, the ivy on the bricks and the Empire State Building in the background to connect to my "maroon" painting.

beautiful and amazing halie!✨

[leo-regulus]

To keep the ocs exchange, who do your ocs serve, and describe them in two-three lines .

Aaaaight let's go through the LIST. I may still miss a few because rip my life. I'm actually gonna do this below a readmore because if I don't I think someone will kill me.

I have for this decided to exclude the pre-classic era Gold Saints, aka the moms of the classic golds we all love, because my fiance is the one with most of the info on them and I don't have it on hand and if I get anything wrong, the trout population will be affected.

I have also excluded the canon characters whose storylines got mega changed, you'll have to ask about them specifically because it's so plotty I don't think I could tl;dr it in a couple sentences. But there's. There is a LOT.

Please also note that I have details on literally all of them. At least picrew'd for visual designs (but many notes), their division / ranking and stats (height/age/ethnicity/birthday/etc), and a full writeup of their armour and abilities. You would be afraid of my spreadsheets. I have so much on all of them.

Team Khronos

The pitch of their plot is "a few accidental friends in 1986 Greece accidentally end up in Sanctuary in 1746, accidentally change the whole Holy War through the power of friendship and 'I can fix him' to varying degrees of success." My fiance is the one who made and writes them, but we co-write everything ever so not mentioning them would make everything nonsensical.

Khronos Ivy: Local Victorian girl becomes Khronos five seconds before she dies. Causes every problem, but we love her. Her big brothers are Libra Dohko and Mandragora Fyodor, and she forgives no one for taking Bennu Kagaho and Fenghuang Sui away from her. She'll have them back, or every god involved is going to die.

Samara Lancott: Sheltered Greek-American, runs away from her overbearing parents to crash on Ivy's couch. Ends up accidentally becoming Sagittarius Sisyphus' wife about it, and saves his life from Aiacos… by getting Ivy to throw them back to her original time, on the eve of the next Holy War, completely by accident.

Fracture Jesse: Local university prof with five PhDs, two in necrobotany, discovers they're immune to the Pisces poison when they crash-land in Albafica's garden and he has to keep them from dying from multiple injuries. Finally gets to understand their situationship with their not-girlfriend-from-240-years-in-the-future, becomes a Spectre about it.

Kimberley Vance: Sometimes a warrior from a scifi-high-fantasy realm in perpetual warfare ends up with a godly weapon buried for seven hundred years crashes on your couch, and then when you throw yourself back in time, she ends up in a different realm and almost shoots the Gemini Spectre in the face with an actual gun. Hijinks ensue.

Vivian Greylaw: He's been running from his family for so long he put twenty worlds between himself and his past. He knows several centuries' worth of gambling tactics that he taught Manigoldo basically immediately. When Manigoldo wakes up two hundred years later with a Spectre at his side and no memory of how he's alive, it's time to take a roadtrip through twenty worlds and then some tracking down the man whose fault it probably is.

Spectres

Amphiptere Asha: Not much on her, she's Rhadamanthys' daughter twice over and she's trying her best.

Bean Sidhe Rioghnach: Albafica, Regulus, and Pefko's sister. Because Ivy, ended up growing up in Classic era instead of TLC. Bartends for Dionysus Elisha in her free time.

Centaur Viermer: You know him already.

Cerastes James: Lugonis-era Spectre, Garuda, sold his sister to the fae for power. Kinda a dick.

Changeling Asterion: Classic-era child of the Wyvern harem, one of my first OCs for StS, unsure what their storyline should be.

Eidolon / Pyxis Muireall: Aiacos and Shion's daughter that they rescued from Marinas by accident. Garuda, pretty chill, extremely Scottish. Also a Silver Saint.

Fracture Jesse: Had a situationship with a mad Griffon Minos just prior to Classic. This is because they're her dead spouse and because Ivy, it hadn't happened to them yet. Literally everything to me.

Garuda Madeleine: Aiacos' mom in TLC. Was once the Northern Crown Saintia in Sage-era, defected to Hades because he'd throw her a wedding.

Ghost Janice: World's most tired Garuda, roughly Alone's age. Beats up Tenma for fun and for Alone's honour. Should be given TNT.

Griffon Victoire: Minos' stepfather and Madeleine's brother, keeps getting himself in situations where he goes MIA for centuries and people think he's dead. Decent judge, terrible father.

Ker Julia: James' sister, and Wyvern Rose's wife. Head torturer in her time, hates everyone except /maybe/ their two sons, Ilias and Rhadamanthys.

Kitsune Theodoros: Lune, Aries Gateguard, and Sagittarius Aiolos' son. Classic-era, very prim and proper, currently in high school. Probably like Koga's age idk you do the math.

Nix Macrantha: Luco's best friend, a Griffon, and fellow healer of the Meikai. Generally known for his motorcycle, intensely German accent, and ability to drown anyone who annoys him.

Ophiuchus Tiresias: Hades Sebastian and Persephone Liadan's son, classic-era. Spent most of his early life in a living painting, is a bit messed up about it.

Pisces / Loch Ness Theophania: Pisces of Sage's era, Madeleine's wife. Sage didn't quite kill her, but locking someone in the form of a fish for two hundred years means they never come back to you. Was a force to be reckoned with, though.

Reaper Eleanor: Griffon, the actual psychopomp who reaps souls. Classic-era, pretty chill, does not fight in the Holy Wars.

Skoll Leona: Mandragora Fyodor's wife, loyal Garuda, dies alongside Kagaho trying to fight off Scorpio Kardia. Vicious golden retriever in semi-human form, cares not for humanity very much, is the Most Dog.

Tarantula Vanessa: You know her.

Wyvern Rose: Rhadamanthys' daughter in Sage-era, his mother in TLC-era, because she lived that long. Severe and snarly and very draconic, enjoys fancy things and is loyal to no one but her family and the health of the Meikai.

Godvessels

Hypnos Matt: You actually meet him in the first two episodes of TLC, before he fully goes Hypnos. Very chill, very cunning, four hundred years old, knows he's the personal favourite of Hypnos and is way too smug about it.

Thanatos Mick: Matt's twin brother. Snarlier, and more fragile, takes his role as Thanatos' favourite human extremely seriously, takes everything else generally in stride. Has very little cosmos of his own.

Persephone Liadan: Once Pictor Liadan, younger sister of Deathmask's mother Cancer Morrighan. A chance meeting with Hades Sebastian helped her to awaken. Sanctuary really hates her. She also hates them. Bffs with Aiacos of all people.

Hades Sebastian: Shun's direct predecessor, was supposed to be the vessel for Classic-era and then Aphrodite poisoned him straight into a coma. He woke up later with the help of a god from another world, and is the current post-classic vessel of Hades. English major, everyone loves him.

Dionysus Elisha: From the same world Vivian is from, but on the other side of the war. Talks like a stoner, owns a bar, generally very chill but doesn't play ball with Athena specifically. Generally you don't know they're Dionysus until it's too late.

Saints

Pisces Raitis: Luco and Lugonis' dad. His one true love is the Pisces Cloth, and only ever wanted the best for his kids. Did not know he was coparenting them with Garuda Madeleine.

Northern Crown Natalisse: Vanessa's arch enemy, and a close companion to Sasha. Died to Regulus because he causes every problem.

Sagittarius Darren: Sisyphus' and Ilias' father. Horrible human being, very good Saint. Held very high standards for Ilias, then got murdered by him because Ilias didn't want to subject his at-the-time-only son Albafica to his grandfather. Murdered both Ilias' mother and Sisyphus' mother.

Gemini Tobias: Aspros and Defteros' dad. Lost his ability to walk to the Berserkers, tried very hard to protect them from Sage.

Gemini Thalassa: Tobias' twin sister, Aspros' and Defteros' mom. Was not actually the Gemini Saint, because Sage, but did her best by them anyway and they loved her dearly.

Aries Tenzin: Mu and Aldebaran's daughter. Shares the Aries cloth with Kiki, bouncing it back and forth like a hot potato because neither want to follow Pope Kanon's orders 24/7.

Pisces Hayliel: Vivian's daughter, who he doesn't know survived. Aphrodite's successor. Was in charge of keeping Liadan imprisoned until Albafica showed up. She has Issues. Also her one true love is the Pisces Cloth.

Sagittarius Eudoxia: Sisyphus and Samara's daughter, born Classic-era. Wants to prove herself so badly. You can imagine how Sisyphus feels about this. (She later succeeds Kanon as Grand Master.)

The Others Who Aren't Quite Related

We have a ton of fanchildren who don't get involved in the Holy Wars. We established that Spectre children are shapeshifters, combining their parents' surplices into new monsters and shapeshift between that and human. They generally don't stick around for Holy Wars, so whenever we need a new shapeshifter anywhere in our writing, we usually pull the Vólta-Paidiá out.

This includes Shigeru + Xinghua + Maiteng (Dohko and Kagaho's triplets), Story (Fyodor and Leona's daughter), Rhadamanthys' and his harem's frankly ridiculous amount of dragons, Sundara (Shaka's mentor), Lucille + Lucius + Viola + Rugonis (Minos', Albafica's, and Jesse's four kids), Iselinn (Lune and Gateguard's daughter), and a ton of others. I can never keep track of them but that's okay because neither can the damn Spectres.

We have established godvessels for all of the Olympians and then some. The ones not mentioned here have barely anything on them at the moment: we know Apollo Spiros has a whole plotline with his archers, but not exactly what. We'll circle back to it eventually.

In case it's not obvious by now, there is a LOT of worldbuilding I'm skimming and not mentioning. I'm not kidding about that "twenty worlds between Vivian and the rest of the cast" thing. Those worlds have names and cultures and conlangs. This 'verse is an ocean of writing, and we have two thimbles to try and move it out of our heads to where you can read it.

We also developed the personalities of both the Gold Cloths and the Gold Surplices, as well as their history and lore. They are full people and you bet they make that known.

I haven't even gotten into the fact we decided to change things so that Hades wins the classic era Holy War. That meant giving the Bronzes new Surplices, which has been so much fun.

There's. There's so much lore. It's all coherent. This is my true life's work and I am so happy to be doing it.

[paulisded]

The Ledge #669: Namedropping

Tonight's show features the debut of a new theme. It's a format that I've long considered trying out, and this week seemed like the perfect opportunity. Quite often, new albums that I've come across have included songs with a famous person in the title. Most are tributes to said person, but there are also plenty of these types of tunes that just utilize a name for a song that has nothing to do with that character.

So here we have over two hours of these types of songs. They're priarily new or recently released, but there are four segments devoted to individual artists. First off, we have The Replacements, along with a variety of songs devoted to members of the band. Then at the end we have lengthy sections full of songs about Joe Strummer and Joey Ramone.

I can see this format being utilized every few months. Just like the cover songs episodes, I'll set up a folder that I'll toss whatever songs I come across that would work for such a show. What do you think? Is this a worthy idea?

 CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE SHOW!

1. The Replacements - Alex Chilton

2. Tommy Womack - The Replacements

3. Art Brut - The Replacements

4. The Walk Offs - Slim Dunlap

5. The Young Fresh Fellows - Slim's Place

6. The Mad Ripple - Sworn Member of the Slim Dunlap Club

7. Chad Rex and the Victorstands - Song for Paul Westerberg to Sing

8. Square Songs - Paul Westerberg

9. Martha - St. Pauls (Westerberg Comprehensive)

10. The Gravel Pit - Paul Westerberg

11. Eggs - Bob Stinson's Song

12. The Whiskey Daredevils - (Didn't Get) High With Willie Nelson

13. Semi Trucks - Lou and Edie

14. The Grip Weeds - Gene Clark (Broken Wing)

15. Human Toys - The Emma Peel Explosion

16. The Waterboys - Blues For Terry Southern

17. The Waterboys - Everybody Loves Dennis Hopper

18. The Jesus And Mary Chain - The Eagles and the Beatles

19. The Jesus And Mary Chain - Hey Lou Reid

20. The Dogs - John Rock and Roll Sinclair

21. Des Demonas - Elvis and Nixon

22. The Yodees - Brian Wilson (feat. Jennifer Menna)

23. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Kurt Cobain's Cardigan

24. SEXFACES - JUST LIKE JOHNNY AND MORRISSEY

25. SEXFACES - JAMES OSTERBERG

26. The Gum Tree Girls - Double What Killed John Bonham

27. Kryye - Groovie Ghoulie

28. Randells - Paul Stanley

29. Marc Platt - Joe Strummer

30. Cowboy Mouth - Joe Strummer

31. The Successful Failures - The Voice Of Joe Strummer

32. The Musicians Of The British Empire - Joe Strummer’s Grave

33. The Baseball Bats - Joey and Johnny

34. Amy Rigby - Dancing With Joey Ramone

35. Sleater-Kinney - I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone

36. Leeroy Stagger - Joe Strummer and Joey Ramone

37. The Baseball Bats - Joey Ramone

38. The Creeping Ivies - What Would Joey Ramone Do?

39. Brad Marino - Ramones and Stones

40. Ricky Rochelle - I Miss Joey

[irisbleufic]

I haven’t been able to get my hands on Regents’ Park Honey since 2015. Most of the UK vendors that carry it didn’t ship to the US for the longest time. Last week, I discovered one of them now does.

Five perfect jars arrived today, so improbably fast. I opened one right away. Hellebore, ivy, rose. London as I remember it, fragile autumn sunlight in Regents’, St. James’s, as the latest summer’s crop is finally on the café shelves.

So often it hurts to remember what I’ve lost, but sometimes, sometimes I can find it again. Those parks, those flowers, this proof I ever lived there at all.

(I know what I’ve written is proof enough, but this, I can touch. I can taste.)

[rose-of-oz]

𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭.

here is a list of all the ocs i’m most inspired for at the moment! feel free to send any of the ask games i’ve reblogged for them, or just any questions you want!!

dot watanabe — the a-team 2010 (h.m. murdock ship).

felix wilkinson — back to the future (marty mcfly ship).

adam kelleher — the batman (bruce wayne ship).

kalani akana-chen — big time rush (logan mitchell ship).

amara castro — big time rush (kendall night ship).

ezra caulder — big time rush (carlos garcia ship).

lily belle robicheaux — big time rush (poly big time rush ship).

nicki wainwright — big time rush (james diamond ship).

aurelia norrington — bridgerton (poly eloise bridgerton & penelope featherington ship).

eliza norrington — bridgerton (anthony bridgerton ship).

genevieve norrington — bridgerton (simon basset ship).

nicky bauer — brooklyn nine-nine (jake peralta ship).

hemera — the chronicles of narnia (susan pevensie ship).

greta dwarf — disney’s descendants (evie grimhilde ship).

delfina madrigal — disney’s descendants (li lonnie ship).

leo cooper — glee (artie abrams ship).

esme gomez — glee (poly sam evans & artie abrams ship).

parker holloway — glee (noah puckerman ship).

ivy kekoa — glee (sam evans ship).

linus schuester — glee (finn hudson ship).

winn archibald — gossip girl (chuck bass ship).

minty bass — gossip girl (blair waldorf ship).

stella newsome — gossip girl (poly dan humphrey & blair waldorf ship).

rose van der woodsen — gossip girl (vanessa abrams ship).

anastasia upland — the hunger games (poly katniss everdeen & peeta mellark ship).

marnie hoffman — jumanji: welcome to the jungle (anthony “fridge” johnson ship).

helios — marvel cinematic universe (kingo ship).

sophia ramos — m*a*s*h (francis mulcahy ship).

laurens gates — national treasure (riley poole ship).

drew phillipa — riverdale (fangs fogarty ship).

layla dupreti — star trek (hikaru sulu ship).

eleleth — supernatural (oc ship).

via winchester — supernatural (oc ship).

alex wan-stilinski — teen wolf (derek hale ship).

reyna “sweetheart” castillo — top gun: maverick (jake “hangman” seresin ship).

robin hargreeves — the umbrella academy (oc ship).

holly millway — wednesday (yoko tanaka ship).

esther st. claire — wednesday (poly wednesday addams & enid sinclair ship).

faerene tigelaar — wicked 2025 (poly elphaba thropp & glinda upland ship).

ptolemus lovegood — wizarding world (tom riddle ship).

sera malfoy — wizarding world (orion black ship).

[critical-quoter]

February Books

I'm rocking out my reading goal this year. Friends have told me that I aimed too low with 365 books but if I blow it out of the water, I can pretend like I didn't plan that and I am the G.O.A.T.

The Burnt Heart - Mae Pierce ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rules of Our Own - J. Wilder ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rules We Break - J. Wilder ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fabric of Our Souls - K. M. Moronova ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Too Long - I. A. Dice ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Unsteady - Peyton Corinne ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fractured Vows - Montana Frye ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Viciously Yours - Jamie Applegate Hunter ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Never Have I Ever - Stephanie Alves ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Forbidden Skye - Alex Crane ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Flag on the Date - M. L. Chambers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Shucked - Kate Canterbary ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Love Honor Betray - L. Knight ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Loving Romeo - Laura Pavlov ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Waiting Game - G. A. Mazurka ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ See You Soon - Lexie Axelson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I Promise You - Lexie Axelson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fractured Vows - Alexa Michaels ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rule Number Five - J. Wilder ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Set Me Free, Cowboy - R. L. Atkinson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Yours to Catch - Harloe Rae ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ What are the Odds - Madi Leigh ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Scarlet Princess - Robin D. Mahle ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Breakaway Hearts - Nikki Lawson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Feathers and Blood - Ivy Black & Raven Scott ⭐️ Reckless Deal - Maxine Henri ⭐️⭐️⭐️ For Mist and Tar - Jinpher J. Hoffman ⭐️⭐️ A Real Adaptation - Chloe Maison ⭐️⭐️ Stand and Defend - Sloane St. James ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Bad Wolf - Claire Ivy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Xaden POV: Fourth Wing - belle_beebee ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Maiden and the Unseen - Alexis Rune & Jeanette Rose ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Mistress and the Renowned - Alexis Rune & Jeanette Rose ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Capturing His Heart - Regina Brownell ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Pawn of Vengeance - Michaela Jackson ⭐️⭐️ One Last Play - Annah Conwell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Pretty When You Lie - Anne Roman ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Scars of Salt and Silver - Indiana Rose ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Ever Queen - L. J. Andrews ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Since Day One - R. L. Atkinson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Better Hate than Never - Chloe Liese ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Tempting the Billionaire - J. A. Low ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Valkyrie's Bond - Lucy Roy ⭐️⭐️⭐️ It's Not Over - Kaylee Ryan & Lacey Black ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Gentry Rules - Cora Brent ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Saving the Game - Susan Renee ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Of Twisted Thorns - C. E. Young ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rushing Into Love - Kara Kendrick ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Empire of Sin - Rina Kent ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fighter's Second Chance - A. Rivers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Nero - S. J. Tilly ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ More Than Fine - Jenni Bars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Take Me to Hell - Sakura Black ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Villain - L. J. Shen ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Book Lovers - Emily Henry ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Dark Lover - J. R. Ward ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

56 total books read for February 2024.

[unganseylike]

 Hi y’all! As promised, here’s my 2023 reading wrap-up – my reviews and thoughts about some of the books I read this year :) As a heads up, some of these reviews may contain very very vague and mild spoilers just because I personally feel like it’s impossible to give a good sense of my thoughts on media without that; so I’ll list the books I’m going to include in the order mentioned above the cut in case you want to 100% avoid any potential spoilers. Another disclaimer- these reviews are each quite different in content; my goal was to give a synopsis (except for a few I didn’t feel were worth my time), give my thoughts and mostly-non-spoilery takeaways, and connect to an overarching theme of this post. My initial goal was to write like 2 sentences for each book, but that definitely is not what happened. This is a long post. A long post where I gave into my inner booktuber and wrote like I was doing a video. I enjoyed writing this, but. It’s a lot. You might not enjoy reading it.

If you’ve read these books, I’d love to hear what you all thought…Since these are all books I read this year, I haven’t gotten to re-read any yet, and I’d love to have some new things to think about when I do! Please tell me if you check out these books after reading my list <3

Also…let me know if you have any books you’d recommend. I think this list might just give a sense of my picky taste. 

I’d like to give a shoutout the love of my life, Libby, for making this possible.

Books, in order of mention, with numerical ratings: 

What Moves the Dead- T. Kingfisher: 5/10

The Hollow Places- T. Kingfisher: 6.5/10

The Hacienda- Isabel Cañas: 9/10

The Honeys- Ryan La Sala: 7/10

I’m Thinking of Ending Things- Iain Reid: 7.5/10

The Ruins- Scott Smith: 3.5/10

The Cabin at the End of the World- Paul Tremblay: 4.5/10

The Beautiful Ones- Silvia Moreno-Garcia: 4/10

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau- Silvia Moreno-Garcia: 6/10

Where Ivy Dares to Grow- Marielle Thompson: 5/10

Beloved- Toni Morrison and The Turn of the Screw- Henry James (brief discussion, no ratings)

Paris Is a Party, Paris Is a Ghost- David Hoon Kim: 8.5/10

The Fragile Threads of Power- V.E. Schwab: 4/10

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue- V.E. Schwab: 4/10

When the Angels Left the Old Country- Sacha Lamb: 6.5/10

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes- Suzanne Collins: 8.5/10

Project Hail Mary- Andry Weir: no rating because didn’t finish (bad)

Station Eleven- Emily St. John Mandel: 7.5/10

Severance- Ling Ma: 9/10

Annihilation- Jeff VanderMeer: 9.5/10

The Archive of Alternate Endings: Lindsey Drager: 8/10

Ok, let’s kick this off with my first category: horror and/or I read this because I thought it was horror but it wasn’t. Over the last two years or so, I’ve gotten into reading horror–ish books, because I like the genre expectations, and it freaks me out less to read it than watch it.

Over the summer, I decided to check out T. Kingfisher. I’d heard good stuff about her as a horror author. I first read What Moves the Dead. This is an adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Both this book and the new Netflix show are pretty different from the original and each other, but of the two adaptations, What Moves the Dead is probably closer in tone and setting (19th century countryside, gothic elements), but that’s mainly because the Netflix show has barely anything to do with the original (thanks Mike Flanagan!). Like the original, the plot kicks off with the narrator receiving a letter from the Ushers asking for help, leading them to travel to a crumbling manor. On the other hand, Kingfisher’s book does casually take place in what must be an alternate reality; it’s set in the fictional country Ruritania, and the narrator, Alex, is from another fictional country Gallicia. This world building mainly functions to normalize nonbinary identity and unique sets of pronouns. This does play into the plot, but I feel like it wasn’t necessary to create a fictional culture just for this, or otherwise it should’ve played more of a role in the story…like the narrator could’ve just said ka uses neopronouns and it would’ve been more straightforward than creating whole new countries. This worldbuilding aspect was probably my biggest issue with the book (though of course I love cool linguistic discussions about pronouns and gender!), maybe along with the random cameos by Eugenia Potter (as in, relative of thee Beatrix Potter, of Peter Rabbit fame). There are some great creepy bits with fungus, rot, rabbits, and corpses. There are some similarities to the fungal horror in Mexican Gothic (which T. Kingfisher actually discusses in the appendix), but it’s not quite the same – either way, we love the crossover between fungus and gothic lit! Overall, certainly a far better adaptation of Poe’s story than Mike Flanagan’s, but some of the original content seemed out of place, while other original aspects needed more fleshing out. 5/10. 

I decided to try another book by T. Kingfisher, The Hollow Places, which I had heard really good things about! This one’s an adaptation of the novella “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood, which features some sinister willows and cosmic horror (fun fact: I read the novella because Algernon Blackwood is where Martin Blackwood of TMA gets his last name) (fun fact 2: read “The Willows” it fucks. it’s free on project gutenberg). Unlike What Moves the Dead, Hollow Places takes place very much in the present, following a recently divorced woman who moves into her uncle’s museum of oddities. She and her GBF (okay, actually, he’s the eccentric middle aged neighbor who is a barista at the cafe the narrator goes to get wifi, but he does feel a bit gay best friend cliche to me) slip through a hole in reality to an in-between dimension full of willow-y islands…and hungry eldritch beings beyond their perception. Please appreciate that full sentence. I really liked the times while the duo was in this other place, but some of the moments in their own dimension felt a bit discordant; I honestly think it’s because their present was so modern. Like it felt weird to read them discussing memes after exploring a deadly pocket world. But maybe that’s the point of setting horror/fantasy in the modern world instead of a vague past. Despite this complaint, I actually think this a better adaptation in comparison to What Wakes the Dead, with original content nicely expanding on aspects of the novella. I did kinda hate the climax, but I’ll ignore that and rate this 6.5/10. When you fear getting torn apart by terrifying otherworldly beings, it really does put your ex-husband’s annoying texts into perspective. 

Before I get back to mid books, let’s talk about one I really liked: The Hacienda from Isabel Cañas. I actually wrote a few notes about this right when I read it because I knew I wanted to share something about it eventually. Those notes were: “cinematic, especially in flashbacks, not so typical final girl or just female protag period.” Which was not that helpful for writing this review because I don’t remember wtf I was talking about, but I’ll try to interpret past-Julia for you all. The book takes place after the Mexican War for Independence, during which the father of the main character, Beatriz, was executed. So, with her and her mother dependent on the goodwill of their cruel estranged family, Beatriz happily accepts a proposal from a hacienda owner and is ready to prove herself a capable homemaker. But, there’s something deeply wrong with the house, something that wants Beatriz dead. The only one that believes her is the priest Andrés, who has recently returned to the area, where his beloved grandmother had taught him witchcraft and had been a pillar of the community. He struggles to keep his witchcraft secret, while protecting Beatriz and trying to take on his grandmother’s mantle. I think I enjoyed nearly every moment of this book! I got a little stuck on the beginning, but once I got through the first few chapters, I was so invested in the story and was really following the ups and downs as Beatriz tries to solve the mystery and escape some evil shit. I loved the main characters, especially the women and Beatriz’s role as a gothic/horror heroine (hence the “not so typical final girl” note?), and I remember being surprised by the actions of characters I thought I was rooting for! Also, it must be said. Hot. Priest. I’m not generally a big fan of romances, but it worked for me lol. And, as I said in my notes, some scenes were so cinematic- I could picture exactly how they’d play out in a (good) movie. 9/10! I need to reread this, it was one of my favorite books I read this year! 

Around the same time, I read The Honeys by Ryan La Sala, and also had written down some terrible notes (adding some punctuation to make it semi-readable): “the horror of hypermasculinity, hyperfemininity, and the gender binary, bees, mean girl cliques, superorganisms like bees and aspen and rot. Actually very similar to midsommar in terms of grieving protag and sunlight horror and uhhhh joining a cult. Also I learned the term social horror.” I think that says it all…but I’ll give a more clear summary. When Mars’ twin sister dies terribly, he decides to attend her preppy summer camp in her place to reconnect with her memory and learn about her strange violent death. Mars is genderfluid and has always struggled in his political and public-facing family, thus resulting in his parents placing their hopes and confidence in his sister. But at Aspen Conservatory, Mars finds himself drawn away from the traditional gender roles of the camp and toward his sister’s elite and insular female friend group, the Honeys. They seem to accept Mars as one of their own, but what exactly does that mean? Overall, I really enjoyed the book, especially for all the creepy stuff that happens by daylight. It’s a great example of social horror; the gender binary sure is sinister in this book! I had a few complaints though. I thought Mars was a fun protagonist, but I didn’t always understand his motivations and occasionally he felt a bit annoying to me…but he is a teenager who has just witnessed his sister’s horrific death, so perhaps that behavior was intentional. I wasn’t a fan of the mystery reveal/conclusion, it felt a bit out-of-left-field to me, but maybe I just missed something. Also, it was a little too YA for me at this point in my life (though I wouldn’t actually classify it as strictly YA, if that makes sense), but I’m picky about genre, as you will see in these reviews. 7/10– after writing this review, I’m definitely considering rereading so I can see if I pick up on more foreshadowing!

I had a note saved for my next book I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Iain Reid), but it’s a spoiler for the entire thing so I won’t share. All I’ll say is, it was a joke about final girls…you’ll get it if you read it. I read this after trying to watch the movie on Netflix and giving up because it was boring in a discomfiting way (the stilted conversation and repetition was all intentional but it was getting to me), but I still wanted to know what happened and figured the things that bothered me in a film media wouldn’t be problematic in a book. I honestly don’t know how to describe this because it’s super surrealist and very easy to spoil with any of my personal takeaways. Most basic summary of all time: a woman questioning her relationship with her new boyfriend decides to go on a road trip to meet his parents. I actually recommend watching the movie trailer to see whether you’d like the book, because it gives a good sense of the inexplicable weird and tense vibe and atmospheric horror. 7.5/10 because reading this made me feel itchy. It was supposed to make me uneasy, and it sure did the job.

Ok, next are two books I don’t feel like describing in depth because they were mid/bleh. The first is The Ruins, by Scott Smith. I just learned they made a movie of this? I was thinking that it would actually work better as a movie than a book, but apparently it did terribly in theaters. Quick summary- four young American tourists in Mexico explore Mayan ruins in search of a fellow traveler, but become trapped on a hill covered with man-eating vines. The official summary mentions “a creeping horror” and “the terrifying presence that lurks there,” so I want to explicitly say that the big bad is man-eating vines because I was expecting something a bit deeper based on the blurb. I’d classify this as survivalist/nature/psychological horror and want to note it’s pretty gory. I’d give 3.5/10. It’s fine, but not what I look for out of the horror genre. 

The second book is The Cabin at the End of the World (Paul Tremblay). I saw really good reviews for this (btw there’s also a movie, which I haven’t watched but apparently is very different), but it also wasn’t all that interesting to me. I honestly don’t remember the plot very well/don’t feel like I have anything to write about it, so you might be better off looking it up, sorry. I’d give 4.5/10 though. 

Next, we have a few books that fit under the “I read these thinking they’d be horror” umbrella. This is my own fault for assuming Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s other books would be similar to Mexican Gothic. I would say I mainly didn’t like these books because I thought they were going to be a different genre, so take my word with a grain of salt. I read Moreno-Garcia’s The Beautiful Ones and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau over the summer. The Beautiful Ones is what I learned is called a “novel of manners,” where the quirky main character must navigate elite society to search for a suitor. The twist is that this takes place in a historical fantasy universe– the main character and her love interest have telepathic powers. I wish that the fantasy elements were more smoothly incorporated; I think this book could’ve been much better as magical realism. Even if the author didn’t want magic to be the main focus but for it to still be included in the story, magical realism would make that possible! I’d give 4/10, but that’s partially because I’m not really interested in the genre; if you like romance or YA fantasy with a twist, this might be fun, but I unfortunately do not! 

I somehow made the same mistake with The Daughter of Doctor Moreau. Okay, actually this one might’ve been a result of requesting it on Libby months before, then forgetting what it was by the time I got the book. This one I liked a bit better because the story had more interesting political meaning and is sci-fi/historical fiction, but it still wasn’t 100% for me. It’s inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, which I haven’t read, so I can’t comment on this as an adaptation. It takes place at a hacienda in 19th century Yucatan, Mexico, where Dr. Moreau experiments making human/animal hybrids and cares for his sickly daughter, Carlota; beyond their estate, a Mayan rebellion is mounting. The plot kicks off as the Moreau’s resources dwindle, and they hope to resolve their financial troubles with a union between Carlota and their patron’s son…but, of course, things are not what they seem at the hacienda. I enjoyed reading the book, mainly for the commentary on connections between colonialism and patriarchy, and was definitely invested in the story, but I think it just wasn't my taste– all in all, though, 6/10.

One more book in this category, but this one’s not actually my fault. This one actually mentions Mexican Gothic in the description just to fuck with me I guess. Where the Ivy Dares to Grow (Marielle Thompson) does indeed intentionally use gothic tropes and subverts them, which I guess is cool, if you don’t carry a sense of betrayal about getting gothic lit baited :/ Saoirse travels with her fiance to his family’s ancestral manor as his mother reaches the end of her life, but his parents have nothing but contempt for Saoirse. Plus, the passion has long since cooled between her and her fiance, especially as he has grown exasperated with her mental illness that causes her to disconnect from reality. Though the manor seems unwelcoming at first, she eventually grows attuned to its idiosyncrasies, and begins to slip back in time to meet her fiance’s charming ancestor. While I found a lot of this book frustrating (not just because of the genre betrayal…), I did like the incorporation of a protagonist with a dissociative disorder (specifically, Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder) into a fantasy genre. I think many times with fantasy, characters will question their sanity, only to be reassured with the realization of the truth of their magical reality. Here, the fantasy setting doesn’t negate Saoirse's struggle with mental illness, or vice versa. I think the conclusion was well done in this vein, and it increased my perception of the whole book. Despite my bitterness. 5/10. 

Before we leave the horror genre, I want to mention 3 books I read during my ghost fixation this spring, which don’t 100% fit as horror, but y'know, ghosts. I read Beloved (Toni Morrison) for the first time ever! There’s a million things online/in literature about Beloved, it’s a classic, nothing unique I can say, other than it’s so so incredible and who am I to give it a rating. My class read The Turn of the Screw (Henry James), which is the 1898 novella that “Haunting of Bly Manor” is based on (once again, Mike Flanagan is out here making wild adaptations…). We discussed it through a queer theory lens, and I recommend reading it with attention to sexuality and innocence, and how interrogating these things can be deeply violating. 

I read an excerpt of David Hoon Kim’s Paris Is a Party, Paris Is a Ghost for that same class, and I liked it so much that I read the whole book. Fun fact- half of the title alludes to the poem “Ghost Q&A” by Anne Carson, which I actually used in a web weaving post (here’s the relevant line: “A: have you been to Paris; Q: no; A: Paris is a ghost; Q: no it’s not”).  It plays with nonlinear time, since ghosts classically disrupt the progression of time and the definition of a “present;” us trc folks are quite familiar with that… The book follows (in the most ghostly use of the word) Henrik, a Japanese adoptee raised by Danish parents, an expat living in Paris. To top off the layers of identity and belonging, Henrik begins working for a blind physicist (i.e., someone who can’t see and question his ethnic background) as a translator between English and French, neither of which is his first language. The book is divided into three parts across Henrik’s life; the first centers around the implications of his girlfriend’s hikikomori. The third part focuses on Henrik later in adulthood, which I personally found less engaging than the other two (which I REALLY liked), but that may just be me and my interests as a young person, and that was my only issue with the book. I’d say this book is for fans of nonlinear storytelling, ghosts (of course), interrogation of identity, language and the art of translation, ambiguity, and weird shit. 8.5/10. Also I have a pdf of the first chapter (from when I read it for class), so DM me if you want to read a sample. 

Finally, we are done with horror (or are we? More on that later).

Next is a category I call “YA/YA adjacent/adult fantasy/gave me YA vibes sorry I know this is a controversial classification but that’s how I think of it.” 

I’ve already made two petty posts about the two V.E. Schwab books I read this year , The Fragile Threads of Power and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (here’s one post, can’t find the other now). They were…fine. First, Fragile Threads– it’s a spinoff series (?) from A Darker Shade of Magic, which I read a while ago and liked but forgot the details, so I think I’m a pretty good objective reviewer here. This new book takes place seven years after the original series and follows the original main characters and a few new ones. I think it was a good choice to have this fairly hefty time skip. The original characters are now in their late 20s/early 30s, which is unusual in the genre (or often post-time skip, the characters’ issues will be suddenly all solved and they’re all comfortably settled into adult life and domesticity). On the other hand, the new main characters are both tween girls, which felt like a strange choice and made everything feel kinda disconnected. I would’ve liked to spend more time with the new characters; the older set had pretty disproportionate screen time (perhaps Schwab felt readers who are big fans of ADSOM would be unhappy otherwise?). The major plot beats felt really rushed and unearned (especially the resolution of one of the major conflicts offscreen…if you’ve read it you know what I mean). When the next books in this new series come out, I’ll check them out, but I’m not that invested. 4/10. Regarding Addie LaRue, yea it was mid and I don’t feel like delving into it. readwithcindy has a video about the whiteness of the book  and books like it, which is worth checking out. Also 4/10. I still don’t believe that every person in the world would feel compelled to COMMENT ON ADDIE’S FUCKING FRECKLES WHAT IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT HAVING SEVEN FRECKLES I DON’T GET IT??????? Anyway. 

As per many tumblr recommendations, I read When the Angels Left the Old Country (Sacha Lamb). It’s a queer Jewish immigrant story that follows an angel and demon who are chavrusas (Talmudic study partners); they leave their shtetl for America to find and help a girl from their village. Along the way and through their time in America, they explore things like free will, gender, names and identity, labor justice, and fucking up rich people. I felt like this was a good historical fantasy, and I’m always up for Jewish fantasy! I’m not super into the angel and/or demon thing I know tumblr people like, so fans of those tumblr posts that are like “an angel is actually high tension wires” would probably like this. 6.5/10 - not 100% my taste, but definitely a fun read and I can’t believe this is the only really Jewish book I read this year. Someone tell me about more Jewish books please. 

There’s a couple other books I read in this category, but I don’t feel strongly about commenting on them (and we definitely don’t need to discuss the fact I read two game of thrones books in like a week for no reason), so let’s move on to my next set, sci-fi/apocalypse-y/dystopia. 

I read A Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds early this year. Obviously lots of people have been discussing it recently because of the movie, so all I’ll say is that I was pleasantly surprised. I was nervous it might be another pointless spinoff about a villain’s backstory (and trying to justify their actions), but this is definitely not that. This book had shit to say, and it was really well done. 8.5/10. 

I want to start the rest of this category with a book I didn’t like before getting into books in this genre that I felt worked so much better, at least for me. My brother sent me a paragraph-long text with a glowing review of Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir). He’s not a big texter, so I figured I had to check it out- I joined the long long waiting list for the book. And, I couldn’t get through it. I really tried, but everything about it annoyed me so much, despite the fact I had liked The Martian which is a fairly similar style. First, the narrator exemplifies the worst of scientist characters; while reading this book, I posted several times to complain about this problem. If you haven’t seen my many personal posts about my life, I currently work in a microbiology lab and ultimately want to become a research scientist. I regularly interact with truly incredible scientists, people I aspire to be like one day. But if I asked my supervisor to calculate a star’s orbit in her head, I think she might slap me. I really don’t think you can write a realistic scientist who is an expert in every subject, and the weirdly humble and immature attitude of the book’s narrator pissed me off more because of this. The fact he claims to be a microbiologist but seems to do everything but microbiology is beyond the point…It would be much more interesting to me to have the narrator find himself so out of his depth in a time of crisis and/or when alone in space. Of course, this would require some more creativity to move the plot forward, but that could be really cool! My other major reason for not finishing was the actual apocalyptic conflict. This was more a personal thing for me than a book problem; the conflict is a bit convoluted, but not bad in itself. Honestly, reading about an all-consuming response to a planetary crisis was just overwhelming and some aspects of their stopgap solutions made me physically nauseous (I don’t want to give specific spoilers but uh. I think the idea of what happens with the Sahara and Antarctica were what actually made me finally stop reading). On the other hand, it made me so sad to think about a reality where such a crisis warrants the appropriate response. We have a real planetary threat on our hands, and we can’t even mobilize the bare minimum measures because of the same capitalist and exploitative motivations that have driven climate change this whole time. This second unrealistic aspect gave me a good dose of climate doom. I can’t rate the book because I didn’t finish, but I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts on this one, since I don’t understand why it has been so praised. 

I do think it’s possible to more realistically handle the idea of proportionate crisis response and normalcy/lack thereof in an apocalypse situation. We have all been living through a pandemic and have all personally experienced how quickly the definition of “life as normal” can change, as well as seen our world’s failure to raise a just and appropriate response when profit is in the picture. I’ve felt pretty sensitive to how fiction handles these topics, and I have a few broad  categories for pandemic media: pre-COVID and eerily accurate or pre-COVID and absolutely inaccurate; post-COVID and insensitive (it gives the audience a little elbow, like “hey we all remember THAT right, look, it’s been incorporated into this story lol!”) or post-COVID and tastefully incorporates some interesting insight or post-COVID and ignores the whole thing (though it’s a different question whether you can create something fully new without incorporating lived experience even subconsciously) (as another note, I want to add that before 2020, I was really into the science history of pandemics, but haven’t done much reading on that front since) (also, when I say post-COVID, I mean post-outbreak. COVID rates are soaring right now, let’s stop ignoring this. While we’re in a parenthetical, please get the new vaccine if it is accessible to you). 

Both Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel) and Severance (Ling Ma) were indeed published prior to 2019, and so they fit into category #1. Reading them this year actually felt really valuable and almost cathartic, rather than anxiety-inducing. Station Eleven loosely follows several people who are connected by their involvement in a production of King Lear immediately before the outbreak of a deadly flu. The fairly extensive glimpses into their lives prior to and after the outbreak round out really nicely. I like that we see such a range of ages of characters. One of the main characters was a young child when the flu started, and most of her screen time takes place twenty years after; only a small fraction of her life took place in what the older characters view as “normal” times. So what does that mean for people like her (or those born after the outbreak)? Should she be mourning something she experienced for just a few years? Her whole life has taken place during a period of apparent transition, but what is the world transitioning to? When does a transition end? After twenty years, there’s a sense of peace and predictivity to her reality- isn’t that a sort of normalcy? I also really liked the way all the characters were loosely connected to one another; there are lots of books with such setups, but I like that this connection doesn’t entail some great mystery or a climactic meet-up. Connection is just how the world works. 7.5/10; it left me with things to think about, but it was a bit of a slow read for me at some points.

While I read Station Eleven because I saw my lovely mutual posting about it, I read Severance because my coworker posted about it…but what are mutuals if not coworkers. It is similarly made up of pre- and post- outbreak scenes, but it follows only one character, Candace Chen (interesting quote from a New Yorker article about this choice: “...Ma flouts a trope of dystopian fiction, a genre that, with its fixation on the fate of civilization, has a tendency to produce protagonists meant to stand in for society at large. Rather than an Average Joe, Ma gives us a Specific Chen, conjuring an experience of the apocalypse through the lens of someone whose variegated identity is not an exotic distraction but part of the novel’s architecture”). These scenes of the past are less strictly cohesive flashbacks, and more snippets of Candace’s dispassionate existence. When the epidemic breaks out, she keeps working her corporate job in bible manufacturing in New York City, even as her superiors and coworkers leave or fall ill, even as the city’s infrastructure crumbles and she moves into her office, until she eventually is rescued by a band of survivors. Candace is a cog in a machine, otherwise adrift and lonely in late-stage capitalism. The Shen Fever isn’t a disease where the victims fall ill and die, leaving the sight of the narrative; the fevered linger, acting out loops of their daily/familiar routines until they finally wear themselves ragged and die. So, there definitely is more cutting, explicit criticism of consumerism and capitalist society in Severance than Station Eleven. It’s also more psychological (and ambiguous). While Station Eleven gave me a sense of peace and calm occasionally, I never felt that here, where the non-fictional aspects of life under late-stage capitalism is inseparable from the book’s fictional dystopian elements (perhaps the difference in tone between the two books is because Station Eleven is about connection, and Severance’s narrator exemplifies the disconnection wrought by capitalism). There’s not really a sense of urgency or stress, though. In my opinion, that’s because (as many of us have experienced) when crisis is happening all the time, people become exhausted and adjust their idea of normalcy to some level of tragedy. Between the symptoms of the fever and Candace’s commitment to work a pointless job through a pandemic, this book really did eerily reflect the world’s insistence on “life as normal” during the beginning of COVID. There is so much more to talk about with Severance (I was mainly focusing on how it compares in regard to a sense of normalcy in crisis, but there’s SO much interesting stuff in it- I didn’t mention at all, for example, the role of immigration), and I highly recommend checking it out if you don’t mind an uncomfortably realistic sense of impending capitalistic doom! 9/10.

These three apocalypse books all used scenes set before, during, and after the onset of a crisis, so it’s interesting to me that they have such different relationships with normalcy. I’d be super intrigued to hear what y’all think about these books (or other similar ones) and their very different treatment of the same themes.

Sorry for the mini book report there. It’s time for me to talk about one last sci-fi book, which was actually one of my top books of the year- Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer). I read this after I finished my last finals of my university career, and I finally had some time to myself. It was a strange and liminal sort of period for me, existing in this space for two weeks where I was just anticipating graduation and my move to a new city, a looming end to life as I had known it the last 4 years. I spent several evenings sitting on the quad, enjoying the nice May weather, and barely noticing as the sun set and it grew dark around me. I really expected nothing from Annihilation and couldn’t believe how much I loved it. For one, it gives me hope that scientist characters don’t have to be awful (unlike Project Hail Mary’s protagonist, the narrator here sticks within her field and even explicitly mentions being recently refreshed on the scientific topics relevant to the story). I don’t know what genre you would call this– it’s like 60% horror 40% sci-fi (but I couldn’t bear to add another book in the horror section, that’s why it’s in here, and also I wanted another jab at Project Hail Mary’s protagonist); it’s cosmic horror, where the incomprehensible thing is biology and the strange inhuman beauty of nature. The narrator is simply called The Biologist, a woman who is absolutely fascinated about the natural world; she’d be satisfied staring into a puddle in a parking lot for hours. I love her. She joins a mission, made up of women also referred to simply by their fields, to learn more about the mysterious environmental disaster zone called Area X. The movie’s description calls this a “mysterious zone where the laws of nature don’t apply,” but I think the Biologist would say the exact opposite. The story, told through her field journal, records the team’s investigation into Area X and the terribly strange and beautiful things she encounters there; meanwhile, she reluctantly reveals her not-so-scientifically-objective motives for signing up for this doomed expedition. You’ve probably heard of the movie and/or seen gifs of its beautiful visuals; this is one of the cases where the movie is pretty good (and Oscar Isaac is there), but it’s really a completely different piece of media than the book- I recommend reading the book as a separate entity than the movie. This one is a 9.5/10! Once I reread and better understand the conclusion, I’d probably add that 0.5 points back. Has anyone read anything similar to Annihilation they recommend? I need more of a funky scientist interacting with surreal natural horror. 

Ok, one last book that I would consider miscellaneous to my categories here, but theoretically could be scifi? 

I read The Archive of Alternate Endings (Lindsey Drager) after seeing a quote from it in a tumblr post. In fact, you might’ve seen the post I recently made with a different excerpt from it. I finished it just before the new year so that I could fit it in here and give it the honorary place of the last book :) Archive combines a lot of things I know y’all like: the circularity of time, folktales, web weaving, siblings, tragedy, nautilus shells, etc. Since we’re at the end of this post, I’ll give a better go of describing an experimental book: a natural history of storytelling, as traced through the tale of “Hansel and Gretel” and Halley’s comet. Not sure if that makes sense, but essentially, Archive reveals the human connections at each 74 year interval of the comet’s orbit, from 1378 to 2365, through revisiting the meaning of “Hansel and Gretel” to different pairs of siblings. Compared to other works that attempt to do the grand connections across time and space thing, Archive does this very well, probably because this structure is not an afterthought and it’s not a tool to build anticipation of the characters meeting- it’s the thesis statement. One thing I did have trouble with was the incorporation of real historical figures into this piece, especially considering its structure. I was able to more easily digest some of the historical liberties taken than others; I didn’t mind the historical figures and original nameless characters separately, but it was strange to see Ruth Coker Burks (though she’s not named explicitly) interact with a pair of fictional siblings. 8/10. Other than that issue, I think this book worked well and was a great last read for 2023!

I said that was the last book, right? Sorry.

I realized I’ve never posted here about one of my favorite books, and I want to use this as the chance to talk about it, if anyone’s still reading at this point. 

I read A Tale for the Time Being (Ruth Ozeki) in the spring of 2022. I learned about this book because someone had left it in a classroom I was teaching in, and I thought the title was great, so I took a picture of the cover and eventually searched for it at the library. How’s that for fate? Here’s a brief summary. A novelist with writer’s block finds a journal that has washed ashore. Alongside the novelist’s annotations, we read the words of Nao, a Japanese teenager. Nao has decided to kill herself, but first she wants to do something that’ll matter: write about the incredible life of her great-grandmother, a hundred year old Buddhist nun. Despite her best attempts to focus on her grandmother, Nao ends up using the journal as a diary, documenting the events of her own life that have led her to plan a suicide. While Nao’s life and her intentions are obviously extremely bleak, she writes with a delightfully bright and peppy voice that makes her journal both a pleasure to read and that much more devastating, as we quickly begin to care deeply for Nao. The novelist’s parts of the book are objectively weaker than Nao’s, but her role as helplessly studying the journal years in the future is definitely necessary for the book to work (plus she’s the framing device). I do want to note content warnings for Tale; suicide, of course, but also I was surprised by brutality of Nao’s bullying (I’d loosely define some of it as torture) and the escalation of events toward the end. So adding some less obvious CWs in case people wanna check it out: graphic depictions of bullying; sexual assault; racist fetishization of Japanese women; child neglect; and lots of discussion of suicide. Beyond that, I’d add that this book is just absolutely packed full of everything, which can make it seem occasionally a bit all over the place, but it’s all connected, so it’s worth it to try to follow the various threads. From reviews I see online, some people LOVE this book, others hate it, so it might be an acquired taste…but personally, I recall it as one of the best books I’ve read and am going to take this as motivation to finally reread it. 

Right, now we are done. So what are the takeaways of this ridiculously long post ? Here are few bits of wisdom I learned from my 2023 reading: You have got to read the originals that adaptations are based on because Mike Flanagan and co will fuck around with the source material, but also because knowledge of the source material can add a lot to your understanding of an adaptation you enjoy (and there’s usually a reason someone found them worthwhile of adaptation). Screwing with time can work incredibly well in any genre, but it will come off as cheap if the author doesn’t get the implications of non-linear time and just wants an excuse for excessive flashbacks. There is good pandemic fiction out there, you just have to avoid cringey COVID-derivative material. Stop making your scientist characters be experts in everything, and start making them obsessed weirdos. And take better notes than a string of adjectives if you want to write in-depth book reviews. 

Thanks for bearing with me through this post! Let me know what you think! Did you read these books? Agree with me or disagree with every word? Do you have any recommendations for me? Read something good with a ghost in it? Or do you want to share books from this year you hated? And should I channel my inner booktuber and do more posts like this?

Happy New Year!

Julia

[the-empress-7]

Honestly, if Charles is so bent out of shape about having to pay for his freeloading relatives via Duchy of Lancaster funds, here’s a thought. Swing the hammer and cut them all loose!

Most of them can support themselves! Charge them an appropriate rent to live in royal properties but cut off the gravy train of allowances and stipends. It’ll free up a few hundred thousand pounds that Charles can spend on Camilla’s vacations.

And frankly, the only ones who’d be affected are the Kents, Gloucesters, and Yorks. Kents and Gloucesters will resolve soon enough with natural attrition. So it’s just Andrew and maybe Eugenie who’s the problem.

(Sussexes are irrelevant because they’re not working royals and don’t have royal lodging. Beatrice and Edo have an apartment in St. James’s Palace and I assume they’re paying rent of some kind. Eugenie might still have Ivy Cottage, but she really shouldn’t if the Brooksbankses are living in Portugal part-time as has been announced…and if they’re not living in Portugal anymore, that needs to be announced too and she can go sponge off Andrew in his giant lodge.)

The best part is that Charles knew how this all works, and has for decades. He knows better than anyone else how the Duchy of Lancaster works and who he'd be responsible for when the time came. No wonder he spent years talking about a slimmed down monarchy. The man is a cheap skate just like his second born son.

[scbrvght]

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ( starter call ) - I've been just seriously feeling supernatural au so ♡ for a starter for one of my muses with a supernatural verse listed below ! I used to have this whole au sn!verse option so we can use that or take things in another direction. will shoot you a message to clarify muses and things ! ♡

I've always had this lil sn!verse set in like a dark academia university for sn kind of thing... think wednesday or the witch school sabrina went to in caos vibes. I used to advertise this verse a lot more years ago & I miss it n' feel super musey for it.

if you're interested in supernatural things outside this setting I'm totally okay with that too !!

st. cuorem's university

hidden deep in a misty forest in oregon, st. cruorem’s university serves as a sanctuary of arcane knowledge and supernatural prowess. outwardly, it masquerades as an elite private school for the wealthy, but beneath this facade lies a realm steeped in dark academia and ancient secrets. its sprawling campus, a blend of gothic architecture and enchanted landscapes, boasts ivy-clad stone buildings, towering spires, and grand archways adorned with intricate carvings of mythical beings. the grounds, perpetually shrouded in twilight, hum with magical energy and the scent of pine. inside, dimly lit corridors resonate with the whispers of centuries-old incantations and the soft rustling of ancient tomes. flickering candlelight casts elongated shadows on walls adorned with portraits of past luminaries, their eyes seemingly alive with hidden knowledge. the library, an expansive labyrinth of texts, houses volumes from alchemical treatises to forbidden grimoires. the student body is a diverse assembly of supernatural beings, from vampires and witches to werewolves and more enigmatic creatures, each honing their unique abilities. rigorous training occurs in hidden chambers and expansive, enchanted arenas where students practice spellcasting, combat, and mastery of their inherent powers. st. cruorem’s is not just a school; it’s a who's who of the supernatural world. the social hierarchy here is fierce and competitive, with the elite vying for prominence in a world where power is everything. ancient lineages of vampire royalty, demon nobles, and other powerful entities create an environment of intense rivalry and elitism. secret societies and ancient orders vie for influence, their clandestine gatherings adding to the campus's air of mystery. for those who see beyond its facade, st. cruorem’s is a proving ground where alliances are forged, rivalries ignited, and the future leaders of the supernatural world are shaped.

participating muses

alice winsor ( fc: emily alyn lind ) - vampire royal

estella pierce ( fc: sabrina carpenter ) - succubus

cooper vincent ( fc: rudy pankow ) - succubus

xavier bloom ( fc: benjamin wadsworth ) - demon bastard son

nova lin ( fc: chase sui wonders ) - hellhound

serena anders ( fc: madelyn cline ) - witch

isabelle brooks ( fc: josephine langford ) - siren

monroe tate ( fc: madison bailey ) - werewolf

finley acosta ( fc: evan mock ) - vampire royal

ezra jones ( fc: felix mallard ) - werewolf

logan calloway ( fc: katie douglas ) - reaper

reid calloway ( fc: drew starkey ) - reaper

camron calloway ( fc: jeremy allen white ) - reaper

tinsleigh howe ( fc: kristine froseth ) - witch

elias howe ( fc: barry keoghan ) - warlock

arlo zimmerman ( fc: sean kaufman ) - werewolf

colby alira ( fc: thomas weatherall ) - vampire

lunara polat ( fc: derya pinar ak ) - cupid

max ortiz ( fc: gabriel guevara ) - warlock

elodie moreno ( fc: nicole wallace ) - witch

kalen asher ( fc:  jonathan daviss ) - warlock

river st. james ( fc: nicholas galitzine ) - vampire

dane amato ( fc: simone baldasseroni ) - demon prince