#leo b. stoker

[jackchampioncumpit]

Luca Padovan

[lunabug2004]

I just watched Are You Afraid of the Dark?: Ghost Island after hearing not-so-great things about it and honestly, I loved it. It's definitely not perfect, or really scary like it's "supposed" to be, but it was definitely a fun & quick -- only three episodes -- watch and honestly better than I expected from Nickelodeon (not that I had particularly bad expectations). I loved all the characters, especially the boys (Leo, Max, & Ferris) for some reason, and the story, and the plot twists were pretty well done!

Now, granted, I'm saying this as someone who went in blind, I've never watched the original show or any other season of the reboot. But I'm really sad that it doesn't seem they're continuing it because I would've loved to watch another season, even though it doesn't seem to be the same people for more than a season, which sucks. Oh well, at least we got this one, and I for one, really enjoyed it! <3

Here's a pic of some of the gang!

SLIGHT SPOILERS (relationships) after the break

I wanted to talk specifically about the relationships in it, too. They were all so adorable, especially Leo and Max (romantic) and Leo and Bella (besties)! Leo's my fav so it might just be my bias and love for lgbtqia+ representation talking, tho.

Anyways, look at these cuties!!!! I absolutely fell in love with them and wish we could've seen more of them but there's only so much that can be done in 3 episodes.

[v-akarai]

References in Servamp

Arabian mythology

Jinn. Ch. 16

Greek mythology

Elpis. Ch. 75

Moirai. Ch. 108

Pandora. Ch. 130

Pygmalion. Ch. 123

Pandora's Box. Ch. 97

Japanese mythology

Gashadokuro. Ch. 129

Kitsune. Ch. 3

Raijin. Ch. 85

Norse mythology

Baldr. Ch. 39

Bifröst. Ch. 88

Brunhild. Ch. 88

Fimbulwinter. Ch. 40

Freya. Ch. 65

Frey. Ch. 131

Gleipnir. Ch. 101

Hati. Ch. 91, 131

Hod. Ch. 39

Hliðskjálf. Ch. 96

Idunn. Ch. 65

Loki. Ch. 15

Mimir. Ch. 29

Mjölnir. Ch. 53

Ragnarök. Ch. 101, 122, 131

Sigurd. Ch. 101

Thor. Ch. 41

Yggdrasil. Ch. 42

Biblical references

Abel. Ch. 8

Adam. Ch. 128

Boaz and Jachin. Ch. 42

Eden. Ch. 21

Eve. Ch. 1

John the Baptist. Ch. 122

Judith. Ch. 147

Lucifer. Ch. 135

Noah. Ch. 145

Nod. Ch. 29, events

Hinduism

Asura. Ch. 57.5, 89.

Tarot

The Fool - Mahiru. Ch. 50

I. The Magician – Night trio. Ch. 41

II. The High Priestess – Mikuni. Ch. 42

V. The Hierophant - Shuhei. Ch. 77

X. Wheel of Fortune - Junichiro. Ch. 53

XII. The Hanged Man - Tsurugi. Ch. 50

XV. The Devil – Shamrock. Ch. 72

XVI. The Tower - Touma. Ch. 47

XVII. The Star - Iduna. Ch. 73

XVIII. The Moon - Yumikage. Ch. 69

XX. Judgement - Mikuni. Ch. 144

Literary references

 "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" Lewis Carroll. Ch. 3, 4, 7, 19, 98, 122. Misono, Lily, Dodo, Mitsuki, Yamane, Hattori, Mikuni, Bad B and Good B.

"As You Like It" William Shakespeare. Ch. 10, 38.5. Mikuni's spell.

"My Fair Lady" English nursery rhyme. Ch. 10 Mikuni's spell.

"Dracula" Bram Stoker. Ch. 12, 30. Hugh.

"Romeo and Juliet" William Shakespeare. Ch. 23, 34. Hyde, Ophelia.

"Faust" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Ch. 29 Johannes.

"Through the Looking-Glass" Lewis Carroll. Ch. 29, events. Mikuni, Johannes.

"Julius Caesar" William Shakespeare. Ch. 23, 84. Hyde.

"Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" Robert Stevenson. Ch. 23, 37. Hyde, Licht.

"Macbeth" William Shakespeare. Ch. 24, 31. Kuro, Saint Germain, Mahiru.

"Night on the Galactic Railroad" Kenji Miyazawa. Ch. 26, 142. Higan, Tsubaki.

"The Little Prince" Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Ch 30, 67. Kuro, Mahiru, Sloth demon, Gear, probably Jeje.

"Hamlet" William Shakespeare. Ch. 33, 34. Hyde, Ophelia.

"The Phantom of the Opera" Gaston Leroux. Ch. 36 Licht and Hyde technique.

"Peter and Wendy" James Barry. Ch. 44, 56, 74. Tsurugi, Touma, Mahiru.

"Ring a Ring o' Roses" nursery rhyme. Ch. 53 Junichiro's spell.

“Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens” James Barry. Ch. 53, 75. Tsurugi, Touma.

"Death in Venice" Thomas Mann. Ch. 55 Gilbert technique.

"Total Eclipse" a play by Christopher Hampton. Ch. 55 Rayscent's technique.

"The Morning of the Last Farewell" Kenji Miyazawa. Ch. 57.5 Tsubaki.

"Spring and Asura" Kenji Miyazawa. Ch. 57.5 Tsubaki.

"The Catcher in the Rye" Jerome Salinger. Ch. 62 Shuhei.

"Four and Twenty Blackbirds" Agatha Christie. Ch. 62 Shuhei's spell.

"Metamorphosis" Franz Kafka. Ch. 62 Shamrock technique.

“The Nighhawk's Star” Kenji Miyazawa. Ch. 62, 76. Shamrock technique.

"Rock-a-bye Baby" an English lullaby. Ch. 70 Touma's spell.

“Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein” lullaby. Ch. 70 Touma's spell.

"Who Killed Cock Robin" an English nursery rhyme. Ch. 70 Yumikage's spell.

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" Lyman Frank Baum. Ch. 70, 88. Tsukimitsu brothers’ spells.

"Daddy-Long-Legs" Jean Webster. Ch. 74. Dark Night Trio, Touma.

"King Lear" William Shakespeare. Ch. 86. Hyde.

"The House of the Sleeping Beauties" Yasunari Kawabata. Ch. 86. Iori.

"The Divine Comedy" Dante Alighieri. Ch. 118, 120, 121. Niccolo, Ildio, Gluttony demon.

“A Brute's Love” (人でなしの恋) Edogawa Rampo. Ch. 122 Mikuni, Lily.

"Coppelia" ballet Leo Delibes. Chapter 122 Mikuni, Lily.

"Salome" Oscar Wilde. Ch. 122, 147. Mikuni, Lily.

"Turandot" opera by Giacomo Puccini based on the play by Carlo Gozzi. Ch. 129, 136. Lily.

"The Tempest" William Shakespeare. Ch. 131. Licht and Hyde.

"The Old Man and the Sea" Ernest Hemingway. Ch. 134 Hugh.

"Flowers for Algernon" Daniel Keyes. Ch. 135 Hugh.

"Jane Eyre" Charlotte Brontë. Ch. 136. Hokaze.

"Madama Butterfly" opera by Giacomo Puccini. Ch. 136. Lily.

"Hansel and Gretel" the Brothers Grimm. Ch. 140. Faust and Otogiri.

"Girl Hell" Yumeno Kyusaku. Ch. 147. Mikuni, Noah.

Music

"Für Elise" by Ludwig van Beethoven. Ch. 34

"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" by Johann Sebastian Bach. Ch. 125

Sonata No. 17 "Tempest" by Ludwig van Beethoven. Ch. 131

Movies

"It's a Wonderful Life" (1946). Ch. 131

"Life is Beautiful" (1997). Ch. 131

I believe this list can be expanded. Somewhere I’ve written only chaps when some reference was mentioned for the first time and omitted all further mentions.

Special thanks to hello-vampire-kitty, joydoesathing and passmeabook, because some works wouldn’t be included in the list without their observations.

[dataanalyzer]

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffeneger

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34 Emma – Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

I find it kind of funny that the complete works of Shakespeare and Hamlet are both on here. You'd think you'd only need one or the other. Also I've read all of Harry Potter except for the last book because I heard the ending was terrible, but since it didn't list specific books I didn't bold it. I've also seen the play of the curious incident but I'm not sure if that counts either.

I'm hoping to be able to get all the way through Dracula in real time this year. 🙏🏼

How many have you read?

The BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below. Reblog this and bold the titles you’ve read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein 3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffeneger 20 Middlemarch – George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 34 Emma – Jane Austen 35 Persuasion – Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne 41 Animal Farm – George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving 45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding 50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel 52 Dune – Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens 58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 72 Dracula – Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses – James Joyce 76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal – Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession – AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel 83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 94 Watership Down – Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

[persephonediary]

I’m at peace with the fact I might forever remain single due to my parasocial relationships with poets and writers who have died hundreds of years ago..

[moonkissedmeli]

literally not a single soul asked

but, i'm going to share anyway. here are my favorite reads this year in no particular order:

Fiction - Novels

Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" (Honestly, a masterpiece. I can't wait to devour his entire library. Read it. No notes.)

Leo Tolstoy's "Ana Karenina" (If you're looking for your next existential crisis, here ya go.)

Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" (I know I'm super late reading this and the whole world has already been in love with it for ages, now I finally know why.)

Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (In all fairness, this is on my list every year).

Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" (This is also always on my list, idec. Shelly's monster may teach you a bit about being human.)

Stephen's Fry's "Mythos" (Honestly, just a super fun read. Really good starting point if you're a budding Hellenic or into ancient Greek mythology, in my opinion. As long as you take it as a starting off point for further research and understand that he has put it together to be entertaining.)

Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" (You will never love a book so much where 97% of the characters and their actions are entirely insufferable. You might wonder why you began, but won't be able to stop and will be grateful that you didn't. Handsomely and meticulously written, as well.)

Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" (Historians, anthropologists, romance, and vampires. Chef's kiss.)

Madeline Miller's "Circe" (I JUST LOVE IT OKAY)

Anne Rice's "Interview with the Vampire" (I will never take criticism about this book. No notes, lmao.)

Fiction - Novellas

H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwitch Horror"

H.P. Lovecraft's "The Lost City"

H.P. Lovecraft's "The Festival"

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla"

Aristophanes' "Lysistrata" (Every moment of this will have you saying what the actual fuck lmao)

Non-Fiction

Viktor Frankl's "A Man's Search For Meaning" (Just saying, this is written by a Holocaust survivor who is also a psychologist. There are graphic depictions of his sufferings. Major trigger warnings and all that - but, I still highly recommend as this is a really life changing book. His message and eloquence touched me in an indescribable way.)

Walter Burkett's "Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical" (Really, I recommend this as required reading to all Hellenics and those interested in ancient Greek religion.)

Dorsey Armstrong's audiobook, "Medieval Myths & Mysteries"

Lacy Collison-Morley's "Greek and Roman Ghost Stories"

Anne Baring and Jules Cashford's "Myth of the Goddess: An Evolution of an Image"

Estelle B. Freedman's "The Essential Feminist Reader"

Alexandra Kollontai's "The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman"

Bernadotte Perrin's Translation of Plutarch's "The Parallel Lives" (Juicy Roman drama).

Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations"

Robert Graves' Translation of Suetonius' "The 12 Caesars" (Juicy Roman tea, with a hint of bias though)

[guccibootyellow]

Extra Reading for IWOAW

If anybody’s interested in what books- queer, historical, cultural, religious, and spiritual- that have currently inspired me or have been referenced in the au, here is a current list. Again, this is not conclusive; I have way more lined up to read! 😁 I hope you enjoy and maybe feel inspired to read some 💖 (I love reading sm so consider these as book recommendations too haha). 

Queer Reading

Fiction

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson

Ash, Malinda Lo

The Color Purple, Alice Walker

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

All About Sarah, Pauline Delabroy-Allard

Alice in Leatherland comic series, Zanfrardino & Ramboli

A Woman Appeared to Me, Renée Vivien

Non-Fiction

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, Edited by Helena Whitbread

Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister, Anne Choma

Female Fortune: Land, Gender, & Authority, Jill Liddington

Gentleman Jack, Angela Steidele

Presenting the Past, Jill Liddington

No Priest But Love, Anne Lister, Edited by Helena Whitbread

The Ladies of Llangollen: A Study in Romantic Friendship, Elizabeth Mavor

Historical, Cultural, & Religious Reading

Fiction

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

Sense & Sensibility, Jane Austen

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

Hard Times, Charles Dickens

Camilla, Frances Burney

Emma, Jane Austen

Little Women, Louisa M. Alcott

Bleak House, Charles Dickens

The Stark Munro Letters, Arthur Conan Doyle

The Murders in the Rue Morgue & Other Tales, Edgar Allan Poe

The Christmas Books, Charles Dickens

Middlemarch, George Eliot

Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

Shirley, Charlotte Brontë

Mary & The Wrongs of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft

Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen

Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens

Carmilla, Sheridan Le Fanu

The Winter’s Tale, William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare

Non-Fiction

Poverty & Poor Law Reform in 19th Century Britain, 1834-1914, David Englander

The Peterloo Massacre, Robert Reid

Growing Up in Nineteenth Century Ireland, Mary Hatfield

India in the Persianate Age, 1000-1765, Richard M. Eaton

Property, Aristocracy, & the Raj, Ranjit Sen

Nineteenth Century Ireland, D. George Boyce

Jane Austen’s Letters, Edited by Deirdre Le Faye

The Fall of the Asante Empire, Robert B. Edgerton

An Era of Darkness, Shashi Tharoor

The Age of Revolution, Eric Hobsbawm

Captain Swing, Eric Hobsbawm & George Rudé

Religious Reading (Historical, Informational, & Scriptures)

Hinduism for Dummies, Dr Amrutur V. Srinivasan

Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction, Kim Knott

Ramayana: A Retelling, Daljit Nagra

Hinduism: An Introduction, Owen Cole & V.P. Hermant Kanit

On Hinduism, Wendy Doniger

The Catholics, Roy Hattersley

Awakening of the Heart: Essential Buddhist Sutras and Commentaries, Thich Nhat Hanh

The Upanishads, Translated by F. Max-Müller and revised by Suren Navlakha

Cultural Reading

Brit(ish), Afua Hirsch

Orientalism, Edward W. Said

Secret Bedford, Paul Adams

Extra Influences/Reading

Lorna Doone, Richard Blackmore (historical appropriate romance)

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (for the writing style)

Dracula, Bram Stoker (for the writing style)

The Tale of Steven, Rebecca Sugar (for additional character references)

The Count of Monte Cristo (on its uncompassionate treatment of women and my references to that in the book)

Moll Flanders (additional historically accurate reading)

[thatyaromanceblog]

Favourite Classic Book of All Time

Being the data enthusiast that I am, I decided to have some fun with the answers from my recent post about people’s favourite classic books. I’ve taken the 41 top answers from my last post and sorted them randomly into 10 groups to determine Tumblr’s favourite classic. The top 2 books from each group will go onto round 2 and so on and so forth until we have 4 books remaining. You can vote in as many as you want. The polls are linked below and will be up for 48 hours (until Thursday at 8pm GMT)! Please reblog if you’re interested so we can get as many responses as possible!

May your favourite book win!!

Round 1 includes:

Group A: Dracula by Bram Stoker, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Othello by Shakespeare and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

(Link A is being contrary and isn’t working for some whoops)

Group B: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Group C: 1984 by George Orwell, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Group D: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, The  Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Group E: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Animal Farm by George Orwell, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and Hamlet by Shakespeare

Group F: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo and The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Group G: Lord of the Flies by William Golding, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy and the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Group H: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and the Cantebury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Group I: The Illiad by Homer, Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, The Master and the Margarita by Mickhail Bulgakov and Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Group J: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe and the Sherlock Holmes Series by Arthur Conan Doyle

[hardlyfatal]

gary’s writing workshop: lesson 5: point of view, part 1

Defining Points of View

Points of view, which I’ll refer to henceforth as POVs, is the narrator’s position in describing the events unfolding in a story. POV filters everything in a story, so if you get it wrong, the entire thing is compromised. There are four types: first, second, third limited, and third omniscient.

First, let’s go over why they’re named as they are. Linguistically, grammatical person is the distinction between who is participating in an event. If a person is by themselves, to whom would they speak? Themselves. They are alone, there’s just one of them, so they are the first person. 

If they are speaking directly to someone else, instead of one person, there are two. The other person is the second person.

More than that, by default, is three or more, so if the individual narrating isn’t first or second, all that’s left is the third person, of which there are two kinds1.

Note: This explanation is solely to explain how the terms came to be called this. It does not mean that scenes with one person must be done in first, with two people in second, and 3+ people in third.

So what does all of this have to do with us? What does it mean to us as writers of fiction?

Narrative Modes/Voices

POVs are also known as narrative modes or narrative voices. I’m still going to call them POVs to make it easier for us, though.

1. First person: 

 When the story is told by the narrator, filtered through the protagonist as if they’re telling it themselves. “I” tells the story. The character relates the story directly, using the pronoun “I” but also sometimes “we” if the narrator is part of a group. “We” should only be used very sparingly.

Pros: It mirrors real life, as we experience our lives only from our own POVs and think of ourselves in terms of “I” and “we”. It creates a clear and direct connection with the reader, and thus also sense of immediacy and intimacy. Excellent for getting the protagonist’s opinion of their own appearance – you get a front-row seat to how they sees themselves, through the filter of their own experiences and conditionings. Their looks could cause them pain… or pleasure, if they think they’re hot stuff.

Cons: Like all limited POVs, you’re pretty much restricted only to scenes showing what the protagonist experiences. Using “I” all the damned time can quickly become redundant and repetitive, and there’s no effective way to make substitutions for it. It’s harder to establish who, exactly, “I” is so you have to take care to pinpoint the protagonist’s identity at the start of the story, and it can feel awkward2.

There’s also a risk of too much introspection, to the point of claustrophobia since we lack exposure to any other POVs besides the primary. The character has to be particularly strong and compelling to sustain interest throughout the story. There’s a danger of the author inserting too much of themselves because it’s easy to slip into that when you’re writing a lot of “I” statements.

Examples: The Hunger Games series, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jane Eyre, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, and Rebecca.

2. Second person: 

When the story is told to “you”, where “you” are one of the characters. It’s pretty rare to see this in published fiction, usually just when someone’s trying to be artsy, but more frequently in fanfiction, where it’s used in “you are the OFC paired with (Favorite Hot Dude) stories that don’t even try to be anything but blatant self-inserts. Gotta give them points for honesty, at least.

It works best, IMO, in an epistolary story, such as Part Two of my None But You series, where the characters were writing letters to each other. The letters were written in second person, with the assumption that the letters’ authors were directly addressing the recipients. Dracula by Bram Stoker is primarily an epistolary novel and much of it is written in this way as well.

Pros: It creates a feeling of closeness and intimacy between the narrator and reader; it’s as if the former is speaking directly to the latter. It makes the writer less likely to yammer on about backstory or engage in overlong or unnecessary flashbacks. 

If your aim is to render the narrator oblivious to or disrespectful of boundaries, or to describe a dynamic between two people that is intense and encompassing, this is an excellent way to create that ambiance and hammer home the point without having to use the narrative itself; the POV does a lot of the heavy lifting in this regard.

Cons: That closeness and intimacy is kind of intrusive and can feel uncomfortable and downright unpleasant to the reader. It can seem like an assault, relentless and exhausting, since you’re dictating what the reader is supposed to be experiencing, thinking, and feeling. It’s harder to develop secondary characters, and subplots featuring them, because the focus is inherently on the narrator-and-reader duo. It’s weird and uncommon and can be distracting and hard to get through.

Examples: Bright Lights, Big City and various shorter stories by Margaret Atwood, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Faulkner, and Leo Tolstoy. 

3. Third person: 

When the story is told about one or more characters: “he” or “she” or, more rarely, “they”. The two main kinds consist of: 

a) Third omniscient: This POV has been extensively used in some of the most famous fictional works of all time. The story is presented by a narrator with an overarching, all-knowing POV that sees, hears, and knows everything that is happening at all times, including the thoughts and emotions of each character.

The narrator may not be a character in the story, even, merely acting as an observer from a distance who’s recounting events as they progress. Think of it as someone describing a movie they watched; they weren’t in it, but they know everything that happened, regardless of whether various characters were present in a scene or not.

Pros: It can feel ‘traditional’ in the manner of great works of literature. It gives the author freedom to explore multiple characters in a way that sees the ‘bigger picture’ instead of only what each character would be able to perceive; a forest-instead-of-the-trees perspective. Your voice as the author will end up coming through more strongly than that of the characters; if your intent is to give a sense of godliness, that the story is being relayed by a superior figure who sees it all, this would work well.

The author, and therefore the narrator, is not restricted only to what the character would be able to know because there is no filtering3 through a character to begin with. It can create an ‘epic’ format of storytelling because it grants the author the ability to dart back in time for a flashback, or ahead in time to hint at or fully reveal the repercussions of current events in the story, thus contributing to the forest-not-the-trees big picture feel.

It creates a lot of distance between narrator and reader, thus permitting a more effective and easier-to-write description of events since you don’t get bogged down with as much need for showing instead of telling. If your aim is to create a more remote dynamic between characters and reader, this is the best way to go about it.

Cons: The same distance that makes it easier to describe events can weaken the sense of intimacy and how personal the story feels to the reader, and since third person omniscient is already pretty distant feeling, that can make identification with the characters take a big hit.

Can lead to info-dumping; feels a lot like ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’ because, as an omniscient narrator, they might know everything that’s happening, but they’re not really feeling as the characters feel, as they act and react to events. Thus it can significantly reduce the visceral feel of the story, and whatever connection the reader makes with it.

If you do try to ‘zoom into’ a character’s feelings, you then have to ‘zoom out’ again so you can either return to omniscient narration or zoom into another character, and all that back-and-forth can create not only a sense of literary vertigo but also make the story feel uneven and disorganized. That same strength of voice, with the author being stronger than the characters, can become a problem if it feels like the story is more about you than them.

Examples: The Da Vinci Code, Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, Brokeback Mountain, the Discworld series, the Lord of the Rings series, and The Scarlet Letter. 

b) Third limited: The story is restricted to narration by only the main character(s). In mainstream literature, it’s usually just the single, main protagonist, but in popular fiction, including many romance novels, there are two or more characters who narrate from their POV4. The huge majority of stories are written in third limited.

Pros: This is the best of all worlds; you get the ‘bigger picture’ benefit of distance that first and second persons lack, but also have access to the thoughts and feelings of the characters in an effective, less distant way. Since the majority of fiction is written in this way, it feels effortless and doesn’t force the reader to stretch to comprehend what’s happening. Since the scope of narration is smaller, and the characters only know whatever is filtered through them, the author can write them in ways that make it easier for the reader to identify and connect – enhances intimacy between character and reader.

Cons: Likewise, with the smaller scope, narration loses that all-encompassing sense of time from past through present to future, and of space from events unfolding in a number of places – you’re limited to only what the narrating character perceives in their particular time and space until and unless you switch to someone else.

Examples: the Harry Potter series, the Song of Ice and Fire series, 1984, Cloud Atlas, Ender’s Game, Fahrenheit 451, The Old Man and the Sea, Alice in Wonderland, and The Cask of Amontillado.

Homework

Your homework is that, if you have any questions or are confused about any of it on the first read-through, write out your thoughts to help organize them, and then try to answer them on your own through in-depth scrutiny of the lesson’s contents – see if you can figure it out for yourself, without explanation from me or anyone else.

I’m hoping you’ll have epiphanies because if you can catch on without assistance it will have more meaning and you’ll get a deeper comprehension of the issue. It’s so important, I really want to you get it as well as possible.

Endnotes

1 There are actually more than two but they fit under the umbrellas of either omniscient or limited and only literary analysts actually care and none of us are here to write a dissertation about this shit so let’s just narrow it down to the main two.

2 Many a Mary Sue and Gary Stu is born because a less-than-deft author favorably describes their protagonist in a way that irritates the reader. Plus, how to go about it? Many fall into the trap of the ol’ “looking in a mirror” scene, which ends up seeming narcissistic more than not. It’s been done and done and done a zillion times since the invention of fiction a few thousand years ago – it’s gone beyond trope to cliché and now is universally considered by good authors to be lazy, shitty writing.

3 We’ll be going over filter words in more depth in a later lesson but for our purposes here: they are words that aren’t strictly necessary and act as a layer, or filter, through which the reader must pass to get to the story’s meaning. This meaning as well as urgency and intimacy can create distance between the character and the reader. Words like “saw”, “thought”, “wondered”, “felt”, etc. are filters.

4 Having numerous POVs in a single story is very difficult to keep organized and maintain, and I advise against it until you have mastered just doing two of them, as in a romance novel. I took on five POVs for Desperado, and don’t think I don’t regret that choice every damned time I have to write another chapter.

© 2019 to me

[tabloidtoc]

OK, August 26

Cover: Pregnant Kate Middleton is having a baby girl 

Page 1: Contents 

Page 2: Contents 

Page 4: Taylor Swift is back on top 

Page 6: Cameron Diaz gets candid 

Page 7: Joanna Gaines’ self-care secret, Kathie Lee Gifford may be enjoying retirement too much and longtime friend Hoda Kotb is concerned, casting Denise Richards on BH90210 is causing tension between Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth 

Page 8: Aaron Paul loving fatherhood, Angelina Jolie’s oldest son Maddox heading to university in South Korea, Cindy Crawford not letting daughter Kaia Gerber start her own makeup line and Kaia says Cindy must be jealous 

Page 9: Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert keeping their distance, Kelsey Grammer was refused entry to the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge since he failed to adhere to the dress code 

Page 10: Red Hot on the Red Carpet -- disco glamour -- Adriana Lima, Alysia Reiner, Zendaya 

Page 11: Rita Ora 

Page 12: Who Wore It Better? Kat Graham vs. Lily Aldridge, Leslie Bibb vs. Joan Smalls, Jessica Chastain vs. Andie MacDowell 

Page 14: News in Photos -- Sistine Stallone and Corinne Foxx at the premiere of 47 Meters Down -- Uncaged 

Page 15: Quentin Tarantino, David Foster and Katharine McPhee, David Burtka and Neil Patrick Harris and their kids and David Furnish and Elton John and their kids 

Page 16: Issa Rae and Robin Thede, Ben Stiller, Dakota Johnson and Zack Gottsagen and Shia LaBeouf 

Page 17: Eva Longoria, Whitney Port, Ariel Winter and Levi Meaden 

Page 18: Kate Walsh and her dogs Rosie and Amico, Sailor Brinkley-Cook and brother Jack 

Page 19: Matt Damon and daughter Gia

Page 20: Amy Poehler and Natasha Lyonne, Rachel Zoe and Rebecca Gayheart, Tiffany Haddish and Melissa McCarthy and Elisabeth Moss and Crystal Dunn and Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan and Ashlyn Harris 

Page 22: Paris Jackson and Gabriel Glenn, Janelle Monae 

Page 23: Pitbull, Amanda Seyfried and Milo Ventimiglia, Kelly Killoren Bensimon 

Page 24: Lucy Hale’s new home 

Page 26: Gigi Hadid and Tyler Cameron are on 

Page 27: Liam Hemsworth and Miley Cyrus on the outs, Olivia Munn has made it clear to boyfriend Alex Gonzalez that she’s ready to be a bride, Renee Zellweger and Doyle Bramhall under pressure 

Page 28: Brody Jenner and Kaitlynn Carter split, wedding bells for Joshua Jackson and Jodie Turner-Smith, Love Bites -- Ariana Grande and Mikey Foster dating, Dakota Johnson and Chris Martin reunited, Brandon Jenner and Cayley Stoker pregnant 

Page 30: Cover Story -- Prince William and Kate Middleton’s baby joy 

Page 34: Here Come the Brides -- Sarah Hyland and Wells Adams, Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez 

Page 35: Jennifer Lawrence and Cooke Maroney, Stassi Schroeder and Beau Clark 

Page 36: Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell -- Secrets of their marriage 

Page 38: Where Are They Now? Gossip Girl -- Chace Crawford, Blake Lively, Ed Westwick 

Page 39: Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Taylor Momsen 

Page 40: Interview -- Joaquin Phoenix gets serious 

Page 42: Live Your Best Life -- Elizabeth Hurley, Andi Dorfman, Jennifer Aniston 

Page 43: Kourtney Kardashian, Heidi Klum, Jennifer Garner, Pippa Middleton, Lady Gaga 

Page 47: Style Week -- Margot Robbie 

Page 48: Denim Skirts -- Tessa Thompson 

Page 50: Denim Jackets -- Jamie Chung 

Page 51: Jeans -- Olivia Palermo 

Page 52: Beauty -- Kate Bosworth 

Page 54: Entertainment 

Page 55: Q&A -- Britney Young of Glow 

Page 58: Heidi Klum and Tom Kaulitz’s wedding details 

Page 60: Hollywood Heat Meter -- Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Falchuk are moving in together, Prince Charles visited Daniel Craig on the set of the latest James Bond movie and he was offered a small role, Cole Sprouse and Lili Reinhart, Tyrese reignited his feud with Dwayne Johnson, Macaulay Culkin recreates Home Alone, Stars Taking a Hiatus from Social Media -- Channing Tatum, Demi Lovato, Kunal Nayyar, Cardi B 

Page 61: Sound Bites -- Orlando Bloom, Jessica Alba, Kirsten Dunst 

Page 62: Horoscope -- Leo Demi Lovato 

Page 64: By the Numbers -- Leslie Jones

[jackchampioncumpit]

Luca Padovan

[demidemilitclub]

So I was walking through Barnes & Noble the other day with my mom, and we were both lamenting about how far behind we are on reading, especially as I have a lot of classic literature to read through in addition to all the modern literature that I’ve been recommended. We decided that in the new year, we were going to use our time to read a lot more and sort of systematically go through and catch up on what we need to. That being said, I’d love recommendations of stuff I need to/should read if you have any.

The Art of the Short Story is required reading for my Story and Character class this coming semester, so I’m going to read about 50-60 of the best short stories over the past 100 or so years from a variety of men and women of various ethnic and racial backgrounds. And in walking through B&N, talking with my mom and my sister, and remembering what I already have, I have made a rough list of (in no particular order):

The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

The Once and Future King by T.H. White

Various Works by Stephen King

1984 by George Orwell

It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy

The Wolves of Mercy Falls Series by Maggie Stiefvater

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

The Dark-Hunter novels by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss

The Throne of Glass Series by Sarah J. Maas

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Ulysses by James Joyce

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Middlemarch by George Elliot

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carrol

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Possession by A.S. Byatt

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

The Collected Short Stories of Isaac Asimov

I’d love to read more stuff by more diverse authors and make sure I’m caught up on the modern fantasy scene. If you have anything to add or subtract to my list, feel free to let me know!

[eledritch]

so in the THIHV remastered all the names will be changed?

Yes, the characters in THIHV Remastered will have new names and some changesin appearance. This is partly because copyright (duh), but also because at thispoint these characters are…pretty far removed from the “originals.” They’revampires in modern day California, I mean, c’mon. And in all honesty, whilewriting them I feel like they’ve taken on a life of their own. They feel likemy own, anyway. For me, AUs are like…springboards. I have a vague template Ican follow if I wish, and interpret how I wish, and the end result is oftenvery different from whatever I originally took inspiration from.

Listen, Paradise Lost is fanfiction of the Bible and it’s not evenreally an AU, so, moving on…

There are also changes in other names, including:

Aliak/Aliakans (ALL-EE-AHK, I may change this, the name is sort of themashed together result of various indigenous tribes & languages in SouthAmerica)

Strix (the strix is an early predecessor of vampires and isa bloodsucking bird monster or evil witch; the name led to the Romanian strigoi,the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.)

The names for the characters of THIHV Remastered so far (subject to change) are:

Leandro “Leo” Esteban Espinosa Diaz (Leo ofc means “lion,” & Leandro means“lion man.” Esteban means “crowned in victory,” and Espinosa means “thorn.”Diaz is his mother’s surname, meaning “day.” Leo has brown skin,wavy & slightly longer hair, and dark brown eyes which turn blue when he uses his magic. He’s still a snarky Cuban beanpole/mildly oblivious unreliablenarrator with a big heart and a sparkly equally snarky crystal.)

Kieren Sorahiko (I think I’m just gonna have him take Tashi’ssurname bc they’re married lol. Kieren is Irish, and means “little darkone.” He has no bangs/less bangs but his hair is still a total mess and gets inhis face frequently. Kieren has hazel eyes and is half Chinese; this makes moresense than for him to be Korean based on the flow of immigration to Californiaat the time. His mother had him in 1890, so she would have had to be in the USby 1882 before the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed due to a huge influx ofChinese immigrants seeking the gold rush & the resulting xenophobia in theUS. So, Kieren is half Chinese, half Irish.)

Katashi “Tashi” Sorahiko (Katashi means “firm/hard” (heh) and Sorahiko means “sky prince.” Both are ~roughly~ Edoperiod names since he was born way back then. He’s still from Osaka, Japan.Tashi has gray eyes, long hair, stubble, lip scar instead of nose scar bc a)I’ve always been partial to lip scars and b) makes more sense for a vamp tohave a lip scar lmao. He frequently keeps his hair tied back in a bun or loosebraid. I’ll be honest, I think Tashi might SOMEHOW be hotter than hisinspiration and I may have created a monster, pun intended.)

Sage Griffith (Sage means “prophet,” but it’s also a plant…that’sgreen…sorry. Sage is petite, freckled, has shit vision and big glasses, greeneyes, and violently ginger hair they keep tied back. Big nb nerd.)

Hugo Palepoi (I really like the name Hugo for him bc it means “intelligent/brightmind,” and the name Palepoi is a native Samoan surname. Hugo is big n soft asever, with very short black/dark brown hair and dark brown eyes.)

Sonia (Sonia means “wisdom” in Greek and “golden” in Hindi.She’s pretty much the same wonderful eccentric multidimensional witch she always was.)

Adeyemi/Ade (AH-DAY-EMEE, Yoruba name meaning “the crown fits me.” Her nickname “Ade”simply means “crown.” No silver/white hair, she’s gonna have long thick wavybrown hair in a braid, but still blue eyes, dark skin, general badass princess)

Folarin (Yoruba name meaning “walk with glory,” I’m just gonnarework Folarin’s entire character because I can lmao. Dark hair and skin, asthe other Aliakans tend to have, blue or green eyes, and a fabulous beard.)

Lord Lucian (Romanian name meaning “light” bc BOY DO WE LOVE IRONY.Tall. Devastatingly handsome. The worst. Fully silver/white hair, blue eyes,and light brown skin.)

Lady Hecate/Yewande (Yewande is a Yoruba name meaning “mother looked forme,” and Hecate is of course the Greek goddess of witchcraft. Silver hair,brown skin, gray-blue eyes.)

King Dragomir (a Slavic name that 1. sounds cool and 2. is deeply ironicbc it means “one who cares about peace.”)

Max (Shortfor Maximus Rex.) Possibly the most stereotypical dog name besides Buddy.Listen, I like it.

As for a bunch of the other vamps….

Thace = Tobias

Ulaz = Ezra

Kolivan = Viktor (you don’t know how tempted I am to name himVlad. I won’t. I WON’T)

Nyma = Myra

Rolo = Ray

Antok = Kota or Koda

Luxia = Xialu

Florona = Norani

[iwt-v]

A, B, J and S for the movie asks?

Thank you!

A. A movie you think is underrated: Blood Diamond with Leo DiCaprio. I never heard much hype about it but omg it was fantastic. Not only was the acting by all three main characters great, the story was both riveting and tragic, AND all based on true facts. The social significance cannot be overstated.

B. A movie you think is overrated: Guardians of the Galaxy. Everyone was raving about it when it came out and people told me I’d love it. Maybe it was just too hyped for me idk, but while it had some memorable moments it was just too “goofy” for lack of a better word. Nothing made sense and I guess I was expecting science fiction and got space fantasy instead.

J. A genre you wish was still popular: The gothic films, especially from the 90s. Interview with the Vampire, Sleepy Hollow, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Crow. I loved those so much. 

S. A movie you’d like to see remade and which director you’d pick:  Green Lantern! For the love of God, yes please. I didn’t have a problem with Ryan Reynolds, but everything else about that movie just sucked balls. Christopher Nolan could have made it great, or even Zack Snyder could have made it better than it was.

[send me some movie asks]

[rhaill]

100 Books English/German

Saw this on @sorrel-ly‘s blog and thought HEY I LOVE THESE THINGS and also I’m a book...seller? I work in a book store so I ought to know my shit

well

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte Harry Potter series - JK Rowling To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee The Bible Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman Great Expectations - Charles Dickens Little Women - Louisa M Alcott Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy Catch 22 - Joseph Heller Complete Works of Shakespeare Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger Middlemarch - George Eliot Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald Bleak House - Charles Dickens War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy David Copperfield - Charles Dickens Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis Emma - Jane Austen Persuasion - Jane Austen The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne Animal Farm - George Orwell The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood Lord of the Flies - William Golding Atonement - Ian McEwan Life of Pi - Yann Martel Dune - Frank Herbert Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens Brave New World - Aldous Huxley The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov The Secret History - Donna Tartt The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas On The Road - Jack Kerouac Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie Moby Dick - Herman Melville Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens Dracula - Bram Stoker The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson Ulysses - James Joyce The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome Germinal - Emile Zola Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray Possession - AS Byatt. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell The Color Purple - Alice Walker The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry Charlotte’s Web - EB White The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks Watership Down - Richard Adams A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas Hamlet - William Shakespeare Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

15/100 read 7/100 to read

JRR Tolkien - Der Herr der Ringe / The Lord of the Rings Die Bibel / the Bible K. Follett - Die Säulen der Erde / The Pillars of the Earth P. Süskind - Das Parfum / The Perfume A. de Saint-Exupéry - Der kleine Prinz / The Little Prince T. Mann – Buddenbrooks / Buddenbrooks N. Gordon - Der Medicus / The Physician P. Coelho - Der Alchimist / The Alchemist JK Rowling - Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen / Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone D. W. Cross - Die Päpstin / Pope Joan C. Funke - Tintenherz / Inkheart D. Gabaldon - Feuer und Stein / The Outlander I. Allende - Das Geisterhaus / The House of Spirits B. Schlink - Der Vorleser / The Reader JW von Goethe - Faust. Der Tragödie erster Teil / Faust. Part one CR Zafón - Der Schatten des Windes / The Shadow of the Wind J. Austen - Stolz und Vorurteil / Pride and Prejudice U. Eco  - Der Name der Rose / The Name of the Rose D. Brown - Illuminati / Angels & demons T. Fontane - Effi Briest / Effi Briest JK Rowling - Harry Potter und der Orden des Phönix / Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix T. Mann - Der Zauberberg / The Magic Mountain M. Mitchell - Vom Winde verweht / Gone with the wind H. Hesse – Siddharta / Siddharta H. Mulisch - Die Entdeckung des Himmels / The Discovery of Heaven M. Ende - Die unendliche Geschichte / The Neverending Story U. Hahn - Das verborgene Wort / not translated? F. McCourt - Die Asche meiner Mutter / Angela’s ashes H. Hesse - Narziss und Goldmund / Narcissus and Goldmund M. Zimmer Bradley - Die Nebel von Avalon / The Mists of Avalon S. Lenz – Deutschstunde / The German lesson S. Márai - Die Glut / Embers M. Frisch - Homo faber / Homo faber S. Nadolny - Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit / The discovery of slowness M. Kundera - Die unerträgliche Leichtigkeit des Seins / The unbearable lightness of being G. Garcia Márquez - Hundert Jahre Einsamkeit / One houndred years of solitude J. Irving - Owen Meany / A prayer for Owen Meany J. Gaarder - Sofies Welt / Sophie’s world  D. Adams - Per Anhalter durch die Galaxis / The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy M. Haushofer - Die Wand / The Wall J. Irving - Gottes Werk und Teufels Beitrag / The cider house rules G. Garcia Márquez - Die Liebe in den Zeiten der Cholera / Love in the time of cholera T. Fontane - Der Stechlin / Der Stechling H. Hesse - Der Steppenwolf / Steppenwolf H. Lee - Wer die Nachtigal stört / To Kill a Mockingbird T. Mann - Joseph und seine Brüder / Joseph and his brothers E. Strittmatter - Der Laden / not translated? G. Grass - Die Blechtrommel / The tin drum E. M. Remarque - Im Westen nichts Neues / All quiet on the western front F. Schätzing - Der Schwarm / The swarm N. Sparks - Wie ein einziger Tag / The notebook JK Rowling - Harry Potter und der Gefangene von Askaban / Harry Potter and the prisoner of Askaban M. Ende – Momo / Momo (The grey gentlemen) U. Johnson - Jahrestage / Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl M. Morgan – Traumfänger / Mutant message down under J. D. Salinger -  Der Fänger im Roggen / The catcher in the rye D. Brown – Sakrileg / The da Vinci code O. Preußler – Krabat / Krabat A. Lindgren - Pippi Langstrumpf / Pippi Longstocking W. Dirie – Wüstenblume / Desert Flower S. Tamaro - Geh, wohin dein Herz dich trägt / not translated? M. Fredriksson - Hannas Töchter / Hanna’s daughters H. Mankell – Mittsommermord / One step behind H. Mankell - Die Rückkehr des Tanzlehrers / The return of the dancing master J. Irving - Das Hotel New Hampshire / The hotel New Hampshire L. Tolstoi - Krieg und Frieden / War and peace H. Hesse - Das Glasperlenspiel / The glass bead game R. Pilcher - Die Muschelsucher / The shell seekers JK Rowling - Harry Potter und der Feuerkelch / Harry Potter and the goblet of fire A. Frank – Tagebuch / The diary of Anne Frank B. Groult - Salz auf unserer Haut / not translated? Original Les vaisseaux du cœur C. Brückner - Jauche und Levkojen / Manure and stock J. Franzen - Die Korrekturen / The corrections C. Hofmann - Die weiße Massai / not translated? S. Hustvedt - Was ich liebte / What I loved W. Moers - Die dreizehn Leben des Käpt’n Blaubär / The 13 ½ lives of Captain Bluebear R. Gablé - Das Lächeln der Fortuna / not translated? E.-E. Schmitt - Monsieur Ibrahim und die Blumen des Koran / Mr. Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran K. May – Winnetou / Winnetou Annemarie Selinko – Désirée / Désirée S.Zweig - Nirgendwo in Afrika / Nowhere in Africa J. Irving - Garp und wie er die Welt sah / The world according Garp E. Brontë - Die Sturmhöhe / Wuthering heights C. Ahern - P.S. Ich liebe Dich / P.S. I love you G. Orwell – 1984 / 1984 Ildiko von Kürthy – Mondscheintarif / Moonlight tariff I. Allende – Paula / Paula M. Levy - Solange du da bist / If only it where true J. M. Simmel - Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein / not translated? P. Coelho - Veronika beschließt zu sterben / Veronica decides to die H. Mankell - Der Chronist der Winde / Chronicler of the winds M. Bulgakow - Der Meister und Margarita / The master and magarita S. Zweig -  Schachnovelle / The royal game W. Kempowski - Tadellöser & Wolff / not translated? L. Tolstoi - Anna Karenina / Anna Karenina F. Dostojewski - Schuld und Sühne / Crime and punishment A. Dumas - Der Graf von Monte Christo / The count of Monte Christo T. Kinkel - Die Puppenspieler / not translated? C. Brontë - Jane Eyre / Jane Eyre B. Wood - Rote Sonne, schwarzes Land / Green city in the sun

17/100 read 4/100 to read

[pinksnailsaver]

BBC 100 books tag

To answer @papofglencoe​‘s question about the weird nature of this list (particularly the redundancy of authors as well as Shakespeare/Hamlet and Narnia/TLTWATW), this list was voted by the public, per the BBC’s site:

In April 2003 the BBC's Big Read began the search for the nation's best-loved novel, and we asked you to nominate your favourite books.

Below and on the next page are all the results from number 1 to 100 in numerical order!

BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below. Bold the ones you’ve read (and italicize the ones on your reading list).

I’m changing the rules because the social scientist in me wants more input, and because there were 11 books on this list I’ve never even heard of.

* = haven’t read the book but saw the movie ? = never heard of this book b + i = read part but never finished

And if I can rec one book on this list, it’s The Secret History.

Thanks @thegirlfromoverthepond and @papofglencoe​ for the tag.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte Harry Potter series - JK Rowling To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee The Bible (people have bolded this but I bet you haven’t read all of it) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman Great Expectations - Charles Dickens Little Women - Louisa M Alcott Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

Complete Works of Shakespeare (ditto what I said re: Bible) Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier *The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk  ? Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger Middlemarch - George Eliot Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald Bleak House - Charles Dickens War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck *Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame *Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy David Copperfield - Charles Dickens Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis  *Emma - Jane Austen Persuasion - Jane Austen The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne Animal Farm - George Orwell The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ? Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood  Lord of the Flies - William Golding Atonement - Ian McEwan Life of Pi - Yann Martel  Dune - Frank Herbert *Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ? The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ? A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens Brave New World - Aldous Huxley The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov  The Secret History - Donna Tartt The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas On The Road - Jack Kerouac Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie Moby Dick - Herman Melville *Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens *Dracula - Bram Stoker The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ? Ulysses - James Joyce (my college bf wrote his thesis on this, which I had to read twice, so I’m counting it) The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ? Germinal - Emile Zola ? *Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray Possession - AS Byatt ? A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell *The Color Purple - Alice Walker *The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ? Charlotte’s Web - EB White The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom *Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ? Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ? Watership Down - Richard Adams A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ? *The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas Hamlet - William Shakespeare *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I’m going to tag @sunsetsrmydreams​ and any of my followers who have actually read this whole post.