#mirabel the starless sea

[just-anotherrandomartist]

finally got some more portraits done this was surprisingly difficult idk what was up i’m having funky burnout

[snowfolly]

Commission for @mj-bites of Mirabel (Fate) and the Keeper from the Starless Sea, thanks so much, friend!

[purple-cray0ns]

Star waltzing Mirabel and the lil guy that inspired it!

[derrypubliclibrary]

maybe family can be some guy who found a book in a library, his boyfriend who gave away his name and now has a new one, a captain of a ship who was a former bunny, and her lost in time boyfriend. maybe family can also include a collage student who likes to bake and knit and is trying to get smells into VR and a fortune teller who lives in a farm house and throws yearly winter solstice parties. maybe.

[the-harbour-official]

Harbour Drabble Event 2024 coming soon!!!!!!!!!!

Hey everyone! So brilliant news...July is coming up and I've been thinking about the drabble event we hosted in our server last summer, and how much fun it was and how batshit insane i went on it lol, and I've decided it's a good idea to host it again this year! so this is the post with all the important info for the Harbour Drabble Event 2024 <3333333

"what is this even anyway roo???"

you may ask! if you were not here a year ago! it's a very lowkey event, low commitment for anyone who wants to participate- basically the idea is that you write drabbles about The Starless Sea during or before the month of July and submit them, and I'll post them on this blog!

if you don't know what a drabble is!! it's a very short piece of fanfiction- we're going for this event with the traditional definition meaning its exactly 100 words of fic, usually capturing just one small moment! i highly recommend going for it if you've never written drabbles before, it's a really fun creative exercise and way to write fic without spending a huge amount of time! i had never written a drabble before we did this event last year and i became. quite prolific lol

"ok but what do i do with the drabbles tho????"

some options! you can:

post them to your own tumblr blog and tag us so i can reblog them!

submit them to this blog so i can post them!

if youre in the server and more comfortable with discord you can dm them to me and i will post them here!

"ok fine so what do i write drabbles about then"

the starless sea! lol

last year i gave myself a theme for every weekday (because i was posting AT LEAST once daily god that was unhinged id be like posting two drabbles from an airplane or some shit) but anyway i thought id use these as optional prompts for the event this year! these are not mandatory just some ideas of what to write!

More Drabbles Monday - anything lol

Time and Fate Tuesday - drabbles about Mirabel and the Keeper or their previous incarnations!

Cheese Wednesday - not actually one of my themes last year but kristin @boogleboot wanted a cheese day so a cheese day you will have my dear <333

Monday Part Two Thursday - anything again

Fateheart Friday - drabbles focusing on characters, events, and/or the new Harbour from Fateheart! (the greatest known work of tss fanfic if you havent read it you should)

Sad Times Saturday - angst <3333

Son of the Fortune Teller Sunday - drabbles about Madame Love Rawlins and her children <3333 (yes dorian and kat are her children be so fr)

more prompts may be to come! but yes submit drabbles any time from now until the end of July <33333 love you all peace out

[thehauntedair]

I think you can really understand the role of Fate in the Starless Sea by looking at the characterizations of Zachary and Kat, Fate’s successors at the end of the novel.

Essentially we have Zachary, the “heart”- inevitability, trust, mystery- and Kat, the “body”- agency, will, forcefulness. Fate needs both to fill her role in the story because that is the nature of fate- both passive and active, inevitable and a series of branching choices.

In Zachary we see someone who, for better or worse, wholly believes in fate and continuously puts his life in its hands. Zachary is fairly passive, and follows the role expected of him beginning to end. The signs of his personifying fate are seeded constantly- from the very first story (son of the fortune teller), to drawing mystery books from the library, to continuing to follow breadcrumbs of a story seeded for him even when it brings him to mysterious strangers and threatens his life. Not going out of his way to make friends or meet people but rather letting them approach him- his connections being chance encounters. The way he describes novels as basically like a video game where someone else has already made all the choices for you. The way he is constantly treading old ground- rereading old books, replaying old games, seeking out meaning in things that have already passed and looking for them in other works. The way that- when he reads himself in that book- his first thought is that someone has predicted him- that he comes from the story.

And then there’s Kat- and Kat being forward progress. Kat changing how stories are told by making games with more branching lathways, more choice, more agency. Kat who approaches Zachary, Kat who doesn’t ignore his disappearance when everyone says she should but keeps pushing. Kat doesn’t wait to see what happens- she makes things happen- she happens to other people. She sees the paths and follows them, but is always seeking out new ones, unexpected ones. Kat wants to change things, to make something new. Kat wants to make stories more real, more vibrant. Takes what has happened before as inspiration. Kat understands that Fate is also a choice in how the story moves and breathes.

In the two of them we see a balance. Fate is inevitable. If you do nothing to stop it, fate is something that happens to you whether you like it or not. But fate is also a decision tree, where your choices Do matter in telling the story, in making the story different, yours. Iteration with modification. If you do nothing your choices will be made for you, but that is in itself still making a choice. Fate can happen to you, and you can happen to it. If you move in certain ways, fate can simply be how a story moves, not all that it is.

And I like this.

Zachary fills the role of the fate who lives in the harbor (the story), loving time, moving across predestined paths, retreading old ground and finding meaning and purpose in it. Kat fills the role of the fate who is reincarnated and comes to the harbor new, over and over again, in different bodies, playing new, different parts in each story and becomes a part of and shaping them in her turn.

Zachary becomes literal bosom buddies with Fate, meeting her, seeing her, following her wherever she goes. Fate leads, Zachary follows. For Kat, Fate has been here the whole time, watching, shadowing her movements with curiosity. Turning the paths that Kat walks down towards where she needs her to go, but the paths themselves being choices Kat is taking on her own. Kat leads, Fate follows. If you take them together, Fate can live in the center, or, as she wishes, at the beginning and the end.

[thatwasntlikeridingabikeuasshole]

AHEM! STARLESS SEA FANS!

I HAVE AN INVITATION FOR YOU!!!!! please keep reading, god, if you love the starless sea enough that you're even seeing this we want YOU!!!! are you a long time starless sea fan who has never found anyone else who wants to talk about this book as much as you do? have you always wanted to write/see starless sea fanfic or fanart but didnt think there was a fandom? or have you just finished the starless sea like twenty minutes ago and have been scouring tumblr for anything you can find? WELL I'VE GOT THE PLACE FOR YOU!

WE HAVE A STARLESS SEA DISCORD SERVER!

LINK

reasons why you should join and why this server is the best:

we are all literally just obsessed with the starless sea

and the characters

we draw fanart and write fanfic and even have events with prompts to inspire you to do the same

we have a super cool minecraft server with the inn at the edge of the world and a cherry blossom forest around it with honey and candles and shit

we do storytime where we read to each other in vc from tss, fanfic, or other books and it happens all the time and its really lovely and soothing and fun

we have movie nights and movie afternoons and random impromptu movies but theres a movie every weekend

we have endless headcanons

and a whole channel dedicated to dorian hurt/comfort

i co-run it with @boogleboot who is just the coolest and if you havent met her youre missing out

and theres a bunch of other cool people there too who i love so much

we have a limericks only chat (for which i blame mod boogle its so fun you have to talk only in limericks there)

YOU LIKE THE STARLESS SEA. WE LIKE THE STARLESS SEA. COME JOIN

go click that link girl (gendy neuch). we're so excited to have you. see you in the harbour!!!!!

[halleyys-comet]

You know how Allegra made the painting of Zachary and Dorian before she left the Harbour. I wonder when she realised that Dorian was the man she painted. Like, did she know from the start or did she just meet this kid and at some point went “you know who you really look like…”

[callofthehimbo]

in the final stretch of The Starless Sea and i am just so glad to be able to see myself in a fantasy protagonist. it's so refreshing to have so many casually and boldly queer characters in my favourite genre

and truly nobody does prose quite like erin morgenstern, little paper stars scattered throughout the novel for you to piece together

[phantomwisestory]

"I shuffle them compulsively more than I read them," she says. "I'm surprised there aren't more down here, they're basically stories in pieces that can be rearranged."

-- Mirabel on tarot cards, from The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgnestern

[jamulting]

Okay but I thought of the Keeper/Mirabel with this one.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 1

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians—it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.

Fantasy, portal fantasy, metatextual, adult

The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming series (Book 1: Theory, Book 2: Practice) by Sienna Tristen

Endorsement from submitter: "Part travelogue, part coming of age, this has a really intense focus on the main character's personal growth, with a backdrop of an entire continent's worth of new cultures to explore."

“Life is transformation. You change or you die.”

Ashamed of his past and overwhelmed by his future, Ronoah Genoveffa Elizzi-denna Pilanovani feels too small for his own name. After a graceless exit from his homeland in the Acharrioni desert, his anxiety has sabotaged every attempt at redemption. Asides from a fiery devotion to his godling, the one piece of home he brought with him, he has nothing.

That is, until he meets Reilin. Beguiling, bewildering Reilin, who whisks Ronoah up into a cross-continental pilgrimage to the most sacred place on the planet. The people they encounter on the way—children of the sea, a priestess and her band of storytellers, the lonely ghosts of monsters—are grim and whimsical in equal measure. Each has their part to play in rewriting Ronoah’s personal narrative.

One part fantasy travelogue, one part emotional underworld journey, The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming is a sumptuous, slow-burning story about stories and the way they shape our lives.

Fantasy, metanarrative, secondary world, series, adult

[virtualsoup]

I am not normal by the way about The Starless Sea. I am not normal about Zachary and Dorian. I am gnawing at the bars of my enclosure about Mirabel. I am wondering if everything is a sign and if signs are up for interpretation. I want to write a handwritten letter to Erin Morgenstern but I can't find any way to send her a letter. What really separates a story from real life and who is to say I am not in a story right now. For the love of God someone needs to kiss me so I know that it's better than books describe it

[normalfaerie]

She pulls a cigarette case from her bag and opens it, offering it to Zachary and before he can clarify that he doesn’t smoke he sees that the case is filled with small round candies, each one a different color. “Would you like a story? It might make you feel better and they’ll only work while we’re on the elevator.” “You’re kidding,” Zachary says. He takes a pale pink disk that looks like it might be peppermint. Mirabel smiles at him. She puts the case away without taking one herself. Zachary puts the candy on his tongue. He was right, peppermint. No, steel. Cold steel. The story unfolds in his head more than in his ears and there are words but there aren’t, pictures and sensations and tastes that change and progress from the initial mint and metal through blood and sugar and summer air. Then it’s gone. “What was that?” Zachary says. “That was a story,” Mirabel says. “You can try to tell it to me but I know they’re hard to translate.” “It was…” Zachary pauses, trying to wrap his head around the brief, strange experience that did indeed leave a story in his head, like a half- remembered fairy tale. “There was a knight, like the shining- armor type. Many people loved him but he never loved any of them in return and he felt badly about all the hearts he broke so he carved a heart on his skin for each broken one. Rows and rows of scarred hearts on his arms and his legs and across his chest. Then he met someone he wasn’t expecting and… I… I don’t remember what happened after that.” “Knights who break hearts and hearts that break knights,” Mirabel says. “Do you know it?” Zachary asks. “No, each one’s different. They have similar elements, though. All stories do, no matter what form they take. Something was, and then something changed. Change is what a story is, after all.” “Where did those come from?” “I found a jar full of them years ago. I like to keep them on hand, like always having a book with you, and I do that, too.”

- the starless sea by erin morgenstern

[do-you-ship-this-book-couple]

Do you ship...

[thehauntedair]

Day 2: Honey

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Would you like some honey?”

/

Pressing a kiss to her forehead, softly. She had had to lean down. She had tasted like-

Sinking into it, soft, warm, so gentle-

Darting around grand white pillars looking for a place to hide, heart racing, pounding in her chest-

Dancing, passed from hand to hand to hand, the whole world golden, shining, bright-

Shouting against strong, gasping, salty winds, the smell of the ocean thick in her nose-

Spinning, spinning, spinning, dizzy and gasping with laughter, and friends-

“Four! Three! Two! Happy New-!”

Cannon fire, so loud, why is it so loud-

Kneeling before the moon whispering secrets and promising and begging please, please, please-

His hands on her back, swaying back and forth, back and forth-

“I love you, don’t you dare forget that I-“

Resting the crown on the head of the new king, golden, too heavy, how is he going to bear-

Drums, thumping percussion, moving with it, feeling her bones rattle-

The taste of blood in her mouth, the taste of-

Dandelions, weaving them together, fingers stained green, almost done, just a few more-

“Found you! I got you! It’s your turn you got to-“

Kneeling down, lifting a feather from the ground. Seagull. Huh-

Swinging from a vine, hanging midair, just about to fall into the water, breathless and just about to-

Curling smoke rings drifting up, up, watching them-

Hands wet with clay, turning the table, shaping it, no wait that-

Keys dangling off of a key ring, jingling, just off her belt, and she tugs one off-

His eyes, his eyes-

Sunsets-

Sunrises-

“It looks like the sun is going to-“

Crashing together like waves and the aftermath-

“Are you sure this is going to wash out?” “Oh don’t worry it-“

Climbing up, up, feeling the stinging on her knee but it’s okay, it’s-

All of those owls, there are too many, there are too many of them, they are going to-

Screeching cries, moments, help me, help me, please-

Bones scattered across the room, why were there so many b-

“Well I think if you like him you should probably do something about it, it isn’t like-“

The soft fabric of a blanket, white like snow, a glimpse of it-

“That one is called Orion, you see, it’s those stars right there, they form-“

The feeling of it between her fingers, the strings, and the-

The weight of a sword in her hand, again, dripping with sweat, and she swings-

Gasping for air-

“Are you sure that pink is going to be-“

Drowning, drowning, I’m drowning, help, please-

Hellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohello-

/

“Sweetness, are you alright? I asked if you’d like some honey?”

Fate shakes her head, tears rolling down her cheeks, and presses a hand to where her heart would be, if it were not in someone else’s chest.

“No, no. Thank you.”