#miss j's book of fragments

[musings-of-miss-j]

"Radiation. The one thing you actually have a good reason to be afraid of."

The mentor gestured at the sigh on the wall, almost reverent in his fear.

"An ugly death is the only possible outcome of wandering into ruins with this sign. Not a single being knows why."

The hazard symbol was familiar to the pupil, engraved into her brain. Bright yellow, black circle cut into three parts. Recognisable.

More than her imbecile of a teacher would ever know. Swinging her legs over the arm of her chair, she pondered the sign with bored detachment.

"Spicy air," she remarked. "Quite literally."

Her mentor scowled. "Only a fool like yourself would react with such disregard. A good fraction of beings worship radiation as a god, hoping it'll free them of its dangers, and here you are"- he shot her a glance of contempt- "acting as though it'll simply burn your tongue on the way down."

She grinned lazily at him, fiddling with the fireproof vest she wore beneath her shirt, adjusting the straps.

"Hey, I'm just saying, the witches are right. Rocks do have auras and shit, unfortunately for us, these auras are murderous. Although," she mused to herself, now gazing at the weathered ceiling of the elf's home, "It definitely would have banishing properties. Against anyone. Technically, they're right," she said, rolling back round to face the mentor.

He was quite literally smoking from his pointed ears.

"Changelings," he muttered angrily under his breath, storming out of the room.

She smirked at his receding back. It had been ridiculously easy to convince the elves and the rest of the fae she was a changeling, not the very being they feared to the point of complete avoidance. The ones that had invented the machines that produced the radiation imps, gorgons, trolls, werewolves and every other creature in between were so afraid of. The ones who still lived among their ruins, experimenting endlessly with the mutation that had saved them all by making them immune to the very thing that nearly wiped them out.

They might have their pretty magic and fancy traditions, Kilia reflected, but science trumps all.

It was time to head back to the lab.

In a world of dragons, sorcery, war, and monsters, there are many risks and even risk takers. Everyone though, elf, monster, or man knows to avoid those few ancient ruins that contain symbols of suffering and a word of the ancients, RADIATION.

[alexxia-1version]

Drake and his new album

Drake returned with new music this Friday, October 6, with the release of For All The Dogs, his eighth studio album with 23 songs in total.

The Canadian releases this work after doing the project in collaboration with 21 Savage that was titled Her Loss. Also happening is Honestly, Nevermind, which is his most recent solo work.

The first time we heard about this album was thanks to a fragment that Drake showed in his book Titles Ruin Everything. «I made an album that went with the book. They say they miss the old Drake; Girl, don't tempt me: For All The Dogs," says part of the book.

For All The Dogs had to be delayed several times due to releases such as Young Thug's BUSINESS IS BUSINESS and then Lil Uzi Vert's Pink Tape.

By August, it was learned that the cover had been designed by Adonis Aubrey, the Canadian rapper's only son. They also began to speculate on a date and it did not come.

However, with the premiere of the single Slime You Out with SZA, Drake gave hints that the album was actually coming and hours before the official release of the studio album he published the song 8 AM In Charlotte on his Instagram account.

Among the 23 songs that For All The Dogs has there are collaborations with Bad Bunny, J. Cole, PARTYNEXTDOOR, 21 Savage, Sexyy Red, Lil Yachty, Chief Keef Yeat and Teezo Touchdown in addition to SZA. Regarding production, the names of Boi-1da, Tay Keith and Lil Yachty stand out

[eliasorchard]

the earth is still warm from you — william j. moriarty

william j moriarty x gn!reader. he's aging, but without you.

tags; short, you're dead btw, not proofread cause im lazy

a smart part of him will always wait for you to come back.

despite his logical mind, he can't help but hope—and so hope he does. hope is all he can do. most nights he's chasing the flickering shadow that is you in his dreams and by the mornings he'll wake up, rub his eyes, and let the tears flow. it's unfair, terribly so; the unfair proximity of dreams.

you are gone.

he misses you.

when he has his meals, he doesn't have you to share it with.

when he's laughing, it feels hollow because you aren't there to complete it. he's come to realise his moods are extremely dependent on you. now with you elsewhere, life has come to a stop. everything zooms past him but he stays — stays in that old house that was once yours too. it will always remains yours. as long as he keeps finding tidbits of you around the place, your favourite books on the bookshelves, the clothes you wore that he can't make himself throw.

he still finds your hair sometimes in the shower, or in front of the vanity mirror where he'd spent a very long time just enjoying combing your hair. the length didn't matter, just to be able to hold a part of you, watching as the bristles momentarily disappeared and reappeared was calming.

no matter how much he cleans the house, a part of you always, always remains. he should throw them away, but he can't. that same hope—that thin streak of hope, it always clings onto him. he believes if he collects enough pieces of you, he'll be able to put you back again. he'll see you again.

or perhaps it's just because his eyesight has grown worse over the past few years. his vision is now blurry, and it's a shame that he can no longer look at you, look at the photo frames that permanently captures the two of you in it. mortal life is so temporary—he's so temporary. he's slowly begun to forget what your face looked like, and it pains him.

"you definitely can't die before me." your voice still rings out in his ears. now that he doesn't have the vision, all he has is the memories to rely on for fragments of you.

"neither can you." william remembers saying so. it was initially said as a joke, a light conversation between the two of you. "if you must, take me along with you."

"alright then," you'd smiled up at him. "i promise." then you stuck out your pinky finger at him and he laced his own with yours. "we're going to go down together."

"you make it sound like we're going on a mission, dear."

"isn't life exactly that?"

and now he holds his hands over the ears of his heart. you've broken your promise. he's not sure it could take it.

william understands, it is the nature of life. someone has to leave first. this is a very old story, and there are no other versions to it. it's unfortunate that it wasn't him. grief is an unfinished staircase and he continues to stand over it.

perhaps he always will.

there's a room full of clay in the house somewhere. every evening he returns, lights a dim light, and his hands start molding the clay to the shape of your face. it's a race against time, both his vision and memory are failing.

"you forgot to get groceries while... grocery shopping? you—of all people?"

"we wear the same skin, i'm bound to make mistakes."

"maybe you're getting old." you said. and he blinked at that. maybe he really was. it didn't scare him at all, though. it was nice, the thought of growing old with you was nice, and it made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

"perhaps i am." he snaked his arms around your waist. or was it your shoulders? he can't recall. they're fading.

"it's time you get a physical reminder so you remember.*

"a physical reminder?"

"a physical reminder. anything physical to remind you of something. groceries, for example. note that down."

william wants to be certain it’s flawless—to be sure that something as simple as clay could capture the intricacies of your face. this is all he has left of you, a fragile sculpture that could soften and crumble with the slightest warmth.

this is all that remains.

oftentimes, by the end of his session, he'd end up with a sore back, clay caked under his fingernails and cheeks and shirt smudged with streaks the colour of clay. he doesn't mind it one bit. it's his final physical reminder of you.

william's vision is gone and his memory has diminished.

his dexterity remains — decades of practice in those aging hands of his, now trembling when he picks the houseplant you both took great care of watering when you were alive, ceaselessly writing and more. the habit hasn't left him. now, instead of subjects related to his field of interests, he writes you letters. he can't seem to write straight, with his vision gone — he only has the lifelong experience to depend on.

but even that fails him. sometimes the sentences overlap, words crash against one another and the gaps between them are too wide. it's not like he would know, though. nobody tells him. he thought aging would be beautiful, but you're not here. and now he looks piteous.

to my dearest,

i know i said i'd keep track of the letters i write — but my memory no longer serves me well. i hope you will forgive me. winter is quietly approaching the land. my brothers say the chill is setting in, but i do not feel it. your presence has left such a lasting warmth in my life, in my world, that even now, the earth still holds it.

no winter could ever take that warmth from me. i've met so many people, and while they're all wonderful, none of them could ever compare to you. no one else even comes close. you shone brighter than them all, with a light that still lingers even now. to me, even in death, you feel more alive than anyone left in this world.

and i miss you, more than words can say. i love my darling. my darling is dead.

p.s. i'm sorry i can never mail these letters to you. your new address is unknown to me.

william will continue to sleep on his side of the bed, just as he did when you were here. your side will remain untouched, and your pillow will remain fluffed — as if you're just a breath away. he’ll keep your space beside him; always and one day, when he finally closes his eyes for the last time, he’ll leave this world the same way—still holding your place, still waiting for you. his last wish will be simple: to rest beside you, in the place where he's always belonged.

there is an empty grave besides his own.

if they finally find your body, his six-word will carries only one request: "please put (name) next to me."

[ao3feed-drastoria]

Fragments Of A Future

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/9ZcNCGs by ahighandlonesomesound Anthology of canon-compliant oneshots providing missing moments from throughout Harry's schooldays and beyond into the future. Expect humour, fluff, occasional angst, alternate character perspectives on major story beats, and some fast-and-lose interpretations of supporting characters' interior lives. Compliant with book canon, may well ignore Pottermore. As well as being compliant with book canon, this anthology has several threads of continuity binding the various chapters together, and making this work the first entry in and eventual spine of a long-running, slow-moving series called the Unofficial Expanded Potterverse. Several chapters are being spun-off into AU standalone fics, these will be flagged in the relevant chapter in case you want to go and explore that AU. Words: 3092, Chapters: 2/?, Language: English Series: Part 1 of Carrie's Unofficial Expanded Potterverse Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: Gen Characters: Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Draco Malfoy, Cho Chang, Rose Weasley, Rolf Scamander, Neville Longbottom, Padma Patil, Parvati Patil, Pansy Parkinson, Filius Flitwick, Demelza Robins, Katie Bell, Viktor Krum, James Potter, Albus Severus Potter, James Sirius Potter, Lily Luna Potter, Hermione Granger's Mother, Hermione Granger's Father, Hannah Abbott, Narcissa Black Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Severus Snape Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks, Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Scorpius Malfoy/Rose Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Rolf Scamander Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Missing Scene, Missing Moments From During And After The Books, Unrequited Love, Fluff, Angst, Yule Ball (Harry Potter), Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament (Harry Potter), Luna Was Secretly In Love With Harry During Books 5-7 And You Can't Convince Me Otherwise, Rose Weasley Became A Historian Of The Second Blood War, Draco And Harry Have To Put Up With Each Other In The Nightmare Shitlib Future JKR Envisioned, Anthology Of Oneshots Basically, Christmas Fluff, Christmas episode read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/9ZcNCGs

[musings-of-miss-j]

He laughed easily, head thrown back.

"Oh no, that's impossible. I'm new in town, you see, and-"

She cut him off with a glare.

"I don't know how many people you've tricked, but there is no way I'm going to be one of them. Answer my damn question. What are you doing here?"

His face fell, and he stared at her, bewildered. He attempted to brush it off with another laugh, but it sounded false and uncomfortable.

"No, no, you must be mistaken, I have that sort of face," he insisted. She stared at him in disbelief.

"I recognise you, idiot. Stop trying."

His mind raced, and she saw every emotion flicker across his features, a clear indicator of his thoughts. He hadn't been expecting this is the slightest, she thought drily. He was so sure it would work, just like it always had. Didn't even consider the alternative. She leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed, glowering at him as he tried to muster up something to say.

Flummoxed was a mockery to what he was feeling. No one ever remembered him if he didn't want them to. The memory of him simply disappeared the moment he thought it, the second he wished to try again, give a better first impression, or in this case, have a second first date because the first first date didn't go well. This had never happened, ever, as long as he'd lived, and it was a distinctly uncomfortable experience when the person you wanted to introduce yourself to already knew who you were. And was pissed because he'd said the wrong thing on a date. He could already see how he probably looked, fidgeting with his hair and coat, (a nervous tick that he couldn't suppress whenever his social anxiety started acting up) looking like a complete and utter fool. He could feel the blood rushing to his face, painting it a blotchy red.

"I- How- You're not supposed to be able to remember me," he blurted, immediately regretting it. She appraised him with a disdainful expression, smoothing a stray hair back into her perfect braid.

"I see my grandmother's curse somehow malfunctioned and worked out in your favour," she mused.

“Hi, nice to meet you, I’m-“

“I know who you are. Why did you come here?”

[rjdent]

Joe Fearn's review of the Poems & Fragments of Alcaeus, published in the Hastings Online Times:

Book details:

[grandhotelabyss]

I don't want to join a pile-on. Conservatives and centrists are on Twitter right now trying to get this professor fired from a university position for the above; he has been suspended today. I suppose, pragmatically, that open calls for murder are a free-speech limit case. I care only because I at least twice taught from the author's Doom Patrols to accompany the Grant Morrison comic in my graphic novel class. In that three-decade-old book, the professor writes:

Craig Owens and Celeste Olalquiaga, among others, suggest that Walter Benjamin's analysis of allegory is particularly appropriate to postmodern culture. In allegory, signs become materially insistent in their own right, detached from referential meaning; the mechanical piling up of fragments takes the place of organic completion or symbolic translation. The postmodern landscape is evoked by J. G. Ballard as a vista of garbage-strewn high-rise apartment buildings, shattered concrete littered with husks of burnt-out cars, snuff videos in incessant replay. Benjamin sees melancholia as a compulsive response to an intolerable situation: one in which everything seems to be fragments and ruins, in which we know that we are irrecuperably estranged from a supposed 'origin' to which we nonetheless continue compulsively to refer. Allegory "represents a continuous movement towards an unattainable origin, a movement marked by the awareness of a loss that it attempts to compensate with a baroque saturation and the obsessive reiteration of fragmented memories" (Olalquiaga). We imagine that these ruins once were whole, that these abandoned structures originally had a rational use, that these signs formerly had a sense, that we used to be organic bodies instead of robots. Dubious assumptions, to be sure; but as Nietzsche puts it, one has recourse to such fantasies and such arguments "when one has no other expedient." Anxious critics today, like Adorno and Eliot before them, feel cut off, with nowhere to turn; and so they shore up fragments against their ruin, seeking desperately to assuage their narcissistic wounds. But as Nietzsche knew, every proposed remedy to nihilism only increases the strength and depth of nihilism. We invent our lost objects posthumously. The more we brood over supposedly estranged origins, the more those origins take form retroactively, even as they recede from us. Melancholia is a recursive, self-replicating structure: it continually generates the very alienation of which it then complains. I want to suggest, therefore, that allegorical melancholy is less a mark of postmodernity per se, than it is a symptom of the desperation of traditional humanist intellectuals (whether of the Marxist or the conservative variety) who find themselves unable to adapt to what McLuhan calls "postliterate" culture. These people should get a life. In the postmodern world of DOOM PATROL, we couldn't care less about the decline of print literacy, of the nuclear family, of historical awareness, or of authentic class consciousness. We play gleefully in the rubble, for we know that such antiquated notions will never subvert anything; the grounds of contention and debate have long since shifted elsewhere.

Here is the danger in preferring theory to art, in translating art into theory: you will catch the ideas in all their murderous purity but miss the emotion in all its impure sympathies. The above passage is eloquent in its knowingness, but misses the qualities of satire and elegy in Ballard, of sentimental-universal concern in Morrison. Morrison in particular has been as clear as possible in rejecting civic violence as a solution to social inequity; this is almost the entire political point of The Invisibles, The Filth, even New X-Men.

[I posted the above early this morning, thought it was needlessly provocative and immediately took it down, and now I'm posting it again. Artists and intellectuals shouldn't call for political violence; this is axiomatic with me; I stand by it.]

[wind-rider]

It’s miscellaneous fandom time!!! Here we go!!

Jayfeather

(Of the warriorcats variety)

Apparently I have a favourite character type (of several) and that is whatever the intersection of this guy, Moon and Stone from the Raksura series, and Colin tmagp is. Perpetually prickly and snarky yet lovable and clearly have a soft spot for certain other characters or things. Jayfeather beloved, genuinely one of my Favourite Fictional Guys of all time. Grumpy old man since birth and boy does he deserve it <3

Whiteout

(Of the Wings of Fire variety)

Whiteout <33333 my beloved my heart and soul she deserves every good thing ever. I’m so sorry your brother was evil I’m glad you had a good life in the end. We stan neurodiversity rep in the murder dragon series

Qibli

(Also of the WoF variety)

Qibli my son my baby boy my beloved. The most character ever and honestly looking back, how much I related to him probably should have indicated my adhd far sooner. Zoomy brain buddy you deserve the world and also that love triangle (iykyk) should have ended in a polycule fight me

—

PJO

Disclaimer: I have not read PJO. I have not read any Percy Jackson books. I was a warriorcats and WoF kid. Everything I know about this series is passive knowledge acquisition from participating in a crossover AU my friend mir ( @giraffes-golashes ) convinced me to co-write with them using my UsherRP characters. My Knowledge Is Very Fragmented so yk don’t murder me or ask me things about the series I just like the blorbos okay anyways here we go

Percy

Yes everything I know about him is from my friend’s portrayal of him in an AU yes everyone else except them and myself are wrong about him don’t worry about it /j

Anyways, definitely one of the guys of all time, mans has really been through it huh. ADHD king who is also bi, fight me (please don’t I will lose but feel free to go fight mir about it because they will win <3)

Annabeth

Annabeth! Girlboss, she’s great, would trust her with any task ever. Like all the pjo characters I know of (not very many), lots of depth to her character, very good very cool go do some world domination you deserve it

Leo

Double bingo!!! You can tell who my favourite characters are by bingos alone. Anyways, the GUY he is my favourite guy the best boy the most character of all time. I rotate him at high speeds like a rotisserie chicken in my brain. Same category as Qibli when it comes to Type Of Favourite Character, both of whom are reflected in some of my OCs (cough cough Jaz). Love him and from what I’ve heard canon did him dirty so I have decided it doesn’t exist after a certain point <3 as you do

—

And that’s- oh, wait, I missed one. Just for you, mir.

I was going to do OCs but I am So Tired so this will be all unless I change my mind. Hope you enjoyed! If you don’t mind me I’m now going to sleep for a week (and rotate the blorbos)

If anyone wants me to say my opinion on a character with this bingo

[duckprintspress]

Contributor Spotlights: N. C. Farrell and Era J. M. Couts

Welcome to She Wears the Midnight Crown and He Bears the Cape of Stars, two brand-new anthologies that share a common theme – masquerades – but tell different types of stories – wlw in She Wears the Midnight Crown and mlm in He Bears the Cape of Stars. These collections are the latest titles from Duck Prints Press, the indie publisher founded by fans to publish original works by fan creators, and they’re crowdfunding NOW, only on Seed & Spark!

Curious about the collections? Well, here’s a sneak peek of the works of two of our creators!

She Wears the Midnight Crown Contributor Spotlight: N. C. Farrell

Biography: N. C. Farrell (they/he) grew up in California’s Silicon Valley, where they spent long days hiking the coastal mountains, reading an impressive number of books about dragons (and cats, and spaceships, and magic, etc.), and creating stories with their friends. He moved to Massachusetts for college, where he studied psychology while reading more books (some of which were even for classes!), participating in LARPs, and ensuring that the SF/F club’s student-run convention had a solid schedule. Since graduating, N. C. Farrell has worked in various education-related roles. They currently spend much of their free time reading (more translated webnovels than paper books right now), writing (a lot of fanfic), practicing aikido, playing TTRPGs, and being supervised by a small shadow in the shape of a cat.

Story Title: Eldest Daughter Seeks Her Wife

Teaser:

I couldn’t help but think Bea would want to document this as I mixed milk and honey in my mother’s silver bowl. Bea wanted to document everything; it made her a fantastic journalist while also making any journey we took last twice as long. The photos were worth it, though; Bea’s scrapbooks were tomes of rich memory from our college meeting to graduating together to marriage and the newness of a home of our own.

She took in the whole world, and I wasn’t going to let anyone take her away from it. 

I pricked my finger and squeezed a few drops of blood into the honeyed milk before wrapping a bandage tight around the tiny wound. I didn’t want the fairies having free access to my blood; there were too many things they could do if they touched it outside of my own ritual.

Then I picked up the silver bowl and approached the fairy circle. “I wish you were here to see this,” I whispered to Bea. “You should be the one making history.”

He Bears the Cape of Stars Contributor Spotlight: Era J. M. Couts

Biography: I’ve been a writer for over 20 years.

Well, if I actually think about it carefully, it has probably been longer than that. I do remember writing a story on MS Paint when my age was still single digits. I could have used Word, but Paint was funnier, it let me draw my scenes there too.

So maybe I should rephrase it: I have been a fanfic writer for over 20 years. There, that looks a bit better. I wrote a few originals, too, but those never saw the light of day. They will, eventually.

I like to write about characters and their development. I like to write about feelings and struggles and how complicated life can be even when it looks so simple. I like to write epic love stories that don’t always have a happy ending. But most often they do.

I will, one day, write a dystopian series that I’ve been plotting for over a decade. One day, certainly one day.

Aside from being a writer, I’m a reader, an opinionated mind, an Aries, an immigrant, a coffee lover, and a night owl that has been forced to conform to the social norm of waking up early only to become a “Morgenmuffel.”

I am passionate, energetic, lazy, and sarcastic. I’m a CrazyCatLady in the making, a food lover that cannot cook, the Man™ my grandma wanted me to marry, and a happy soul in my own shoes.

And, above all, I am weird. I am queer. And so damn proud of it.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Tumblr

Story Title: Fragments of Sand

Teaser:

“Do you miss it?” Aoi’s voice was so low Kaveh could barely hear him. The witch’s Mask was old past an age any human should reach, frail as wet paper. They sat together in the belvedere of what had been a castle, eyeing the ruins taken by nature. Kaveh’s Mask – tall, handsome, healthy – contrasted with Aoi’s. He sighed, unsure of what the witch meant but too tired to ask. “Your home.”

“It’s a dark and humid place, devoid of life except from the ones I feed from,” Kaveh shrugged, flexing his hand. The burn in his palm gently fading, pointing to the success of yet another mission. Year 317 of 400, mission no. 3981. “There’s nothing to miss there.”

“I meant the desert,” Aoi said, as though commenting on the blue colour of the sky. Kaveh closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, shook the damn tingle from his blood before staring at the centenarian woman next to him. Aoi gave him a delicate smile. “Your soul smells like the desert. Dusty, dry herbs, and camel breaths. Far older than most of the religions that walk the earth today.”

“Aoi,” Kaveh warned, low and gravelled, a bleeding wound refusing to heal.

“An ancient Bedouin turned vampire…” It wasn’t pity that crawled under Aoi’s broken voice. It was a cold tone of deep sorrow, a relatableness that Kaveh hadn’t encountered before. It was foreign and, in all its passiveness, it pulled strings that Kaveh thought long broken. “Born under the scorching sun only to have it turn into your demise… it must’ve been hard.”

“What’s your point?!” he snapped, glaring at the Mask next to him.

“There’s no point…” Aoi said, soft, delicate, the weight of several lifetimes on his eyes. “I miss home too.”

Intrigued? You should be! But, if you want to read the rest of these stories you’ll need to back our campaign, running now through July 14th, 2022!

Visit Our Page and Learn More!

[finishinglinepress]

NEW FROM FINISHING LINE PRESS: Out of Love in Spring by Hailey Spencer

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Out of Love in Spring is a strange little book about love, loss, and the changing of the seasons. This collection walks us through a journey of falling in love before you’re ready, and falling out of love exactly when you’re meant to. From pantoums on killing birds to job applications about the loss of identity after a breakup, this collection will surprise and delight at every turn.

Hailey Spencer is, in the words of her wife Elizabeth, an absolute cloud of a girl. She is obsessed with fairy tales and has an equally passionate rivalry with ants. She lives and writes in Seattle. For more on Hailey and her work, visit haileyspencerwrites.com

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR Out of Love in Spring by Hailey Spencer

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“Last night we unzipped our skin.

I thought it’d be a relief to be human again

But to my surprise, I found

that I missed the smell of smoke

from the villages I left burning in my wake.”

Spencer’s voice is relentless as she drills into the dangers of love. Read these wonderful poems at your peril—and your delight.”

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[secretivemessenger]

Okay so Leos and Fawn are from the same game, it's a paid r18 bl game called "The Divine Speaker", buy it on steam, it's cheap and very very worth it, i absolutely adore this game :"

Jasper,Kay and Clive are all from a free romance game called Heart Fragment, keep in mind heart fragment only has book 1 atm, book 2 & 3 ( containing Jasper and other characters' routes will be downloadable content, you will have to pay 4$/5$ for each according to the official heart fragment twitter, book 1 has Jasper snd Kay's routes, you can choose from a fem or male mc! But keep in mind they missed some parts about calling mc a girl when you choose male mc!

I have a lot of bl games i'm playing atm, thinking of downloading Dramatical Murder( watched the anime a while back and didn't know it had a game ) though someone said in the bad ending the mc gets amputated and totured..

Also thinking of buying that fucked up bl game Room no. 9, it's a fucked up game but i really really love the characters and plus, it's cheap on steam (around 10$ for me), Nana don't hate me for wanting to buy it, it's a fucked up game with a fucked up storyline but i'm actually curious yk....except for the whole scat thing, that one is disgusting.

That's kinda it for my rant lmao, i should rlly ask my bf to buy them for me/j

Maybe I’ll buy them?

Definitely interesting

[that-spider-witch]

On the topic of Book!Edward Hyde

Or rather: The topic of his existence (or lack thereof).

Browsing through the J&H tag, I’ve seen a lot of book readers be spiteful of every single adaptation of the character and its pop culture version because it misses the moral of the book: That Hyde and Jekyll were just one and the same, and that Jekyll was the one doing all the bullshit that went down and that Hyde was just a mask to keep his reputation intact.

Most of these rants go on to imply or outright accuse of any author doing the split personality take on the plot to have never actually read the original book, or that Edward Hyde never existing is something that the book leaves loud and clear, something irrefutably canon.

Having read the book too, I’m here to say: Yes and no. You could read the book and still get a “two character, one body” impression from it. Allow me to explain...

While the plot of “Jekyll is Good, Hyde is Bad” is truly bullshit and the very thing that the original novel rips into pieces, whether Hyde could be considered to have a will of his own is a little more ambiguous and it can actually be interpreted either way.

Note that I’m using the word “will” and not “personality”: Hyde is still Jekyll, they both have the same personality, but while Jekyll is a rational human being, Hyde is Jekyll but without the strings of societal norms, morals and impulse control holding him down.

Book readers who go by the take that Hyde never existed also claim that the book is very clear that the changes brought by the formula are just external: Jekyll is completely himself the whole time and “Hyde” is just a mask.

And this is true... At first. Depending on how you interpret Jekyll’s unrealiable narration, “Hyde” actually slowly develops something of a will of his own as Jekyll’s evil nature, given a body of its own by his dumb experiment, continues to develop.

Here’s a fragment of how Jekyll describes the experiment and the very first transformation:

“That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads. Had I approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend. The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prisonhouse of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly toward the worse.”

“Edward Hyde” (who at this point still doesn’t truly exist as his own being and it’s just a mask for Jekyll to use) is evil because Henry Jekyll himself is evil. But while Jekyll-as-Jekyll has good personality traits as well as bad, Jekyll-as-Hyde is just everything that Jeyll finds evil about himself and nothing else. This paragraph also states very clearly that Jekyll’s intentions were never good.

If this was the only instance in which anything along the lines of “two characters as well as two appearances” was mentioned, then yes, there would be no room for debate on the whole “Hyde is just a fake identity and nothing else” because there wouldn’t be evidence of the contrary. It would be clear text.

Except that Jekyll, unreliable narrator that he is or not, also gives us evidence to support the theory that Hyde, while still not being a completely separate split personality on his own right, does develop a certain awareness of himself and a will to act somewhat separate from Jekyll’s. 

Of course, this all still falls on Jekyll’s own fault, and even if we consider Hyde as something of an alter, he’s still nothing but the scapegoat that Jekyll uses:

“The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience slumbered.”

Something all book readers will be familiar with is that Jekyll’s narration uses “I” when writing about most of Hyde’s actions, while also mentioning both Henry Jekyll and Hyde on third person. Jekyll tries to dissociate himself from his crimes this way.

But... Whether also done by Jekyll to still reflect guilt from himself or not, the text also refers to Hyde as having a nature of his own, albeit one irreversably connected to Henry Jekyll’s own hidden desires.

“Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit. Jekyll had more than a father’s interest; Hyde had more than a son’s indifference. To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless. The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.”

There’s a clear divide here, with Jekyll and Hyde having something of a different outlook on life, something that outright doesn’t make sense if we are to consider Edward Hyde as just Jekyll’s alias. 

Something to note here is that the divide between the two personas is not of a moral nature, but something much more mundane and selfish: To Henry Jekyll, his social status is everything, and his main drive to keep transforming into Hyde again and again is to enjoy a life of sin without repercussions. To Hyde, said social status can go to hell for all he cares, but still keeps the ruse because his concealment is ultimately necessary for his continued existence, something that the narration will go back to later.

After this point of the book, which is when Jekyll goes to sleep and wakes up transformed on his other body the next morning, the doctor becomes scared and goes cold turkey for two months, having decided to stop being Hyde forever and return to a normal life. It doesn’t lastlonger than that: Hyde returns not because he takes control, but because Jekyll turns himself into Hyde on purpose once again, by his own free will.

“I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself upon his vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by the dangers that he runs through his brutish, physical insensibility; neither had I, long as I had considered my position, made enough allowance for the complete moral insensibility and insensate readiness to evil, which were the leading characters of Edward Hyde. Yet it was by these that I was punished. My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring. I was conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more unbridled, a more furious propensity to ill. It must have been this, I suppose, that stirred in my soul that tempest of impatience with which I listened to the civilities of my unhappy victim; I declare, at least, before God, no man morally sane could have been guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a provocation; and that I struck in no more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick child may break a plaything. But I had voluntarily stripped myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the worst of us continues to walk with some degree of steadiness among temptations; and in my case, to be tempted, however slightly, was to fall.“

Something fun to note here: Jekyll describes Hyde, and/or himself when he’s Hyde, as being comparable to a child. First by merely noting that Hyde’s body is younger than Jekyll’s, then by comparing him to a “son” and Jekyll as the “father”, and now comparing the murder of Danvers Carew to a child breaking a toy. 

Speaking of the murder, Jekyll is 100% guilty of it: Even if Hyde was a completely different being with his own traits and goals, which he is not, Jekyll would still be responsable by virtue of willingly going through the transformation again like an idiot.

That being said, the text continues to give Hyde some semblance of personality:

“Hyde had a song upon his lips as he compounded the draught, and as he drank it, pledged the dead man. The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God. The veil of self-indulgence was rent from head to foot.“

From this point on, everything goes to hell: Henry Jekyll is relieved that now that Hyde is a wanted murderer, he now has no choice but to stay as Jekyll and leave that sinful double life of his finally behind (”Jekyll is the Good half” my ass!). But, surprise surprise! He starts to transform unwillingly, and now he needs to constantly drink the potion to stay as Jekyll. 

Fun fact: Do you remember which thoughts are the ones that trigger the first unwilling transformation after the murder?

“I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then as in its turn faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde.“

The thought that he, too, was just like any other man. Something that his Hyde half knows as a fact, but that Henry “I’m superior than all these lazy peasants around me because I’m rich... I mean, because I have active good-will” Jekyll considers undignified, and therefore, cruel or evil. O Sweet, sweet Victorian hypocresy.

And it is from here on out that the narration acknowledges Edward Hyde as being his own character somewhat, somehow, at least as part of Jekyll’s conciousness.

After the transformation and the visit to Lanyon:

“My reason wavered, but it did not fail me utterly. I have more than once observed that in my second character, my faculties seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic; thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment.”

“Then I remembered that of my original character, one part remained to me: I could write my own hand; and once I had conceived that kindling spark, the way that I must follow became lighted up from end to end.“

“He, I say—I cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.“ 

“When I came to myself at Lanyon’s, the horror of my old friend perhaps affected me somewhat: I do not know; it was at least but a drop in the sea to the abhorrence with which I looked back upon these hours. A change had come over me. It was no longer the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me.“

It’s curious how Jekyll’s narration uses “I” when looking back at Carew’s murder, and yet it is just from here on out that he’s oh so repulsed by Hyde than he uses He/Him pronouns for him. 

And, most of all, when he has locked himself up:

“The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll. And certainly the hate that now divided them was equal on each side. With Jekyll, it was a thing of vital instinct. He had now seen the full deformity of that creature that shared with him some of the phenomena of consciousness, and was co-heir with him to death: and beyond these links of community, which in themselves made the most poignant part of his distress, he thought of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as of something not only hellish but inorganic. This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life. The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll was of a different order. His terror of the gallows drove him continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself regarded.”

And what immediately follows is my favorite part of the book:

“Hence the ape-like tricks that he would play me, scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books, burning the letters and destroying the portrait of my father; and indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would long ago have ruined himself in order to involve me in the ruin. But his love of life is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken and freeze at the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion of this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut him off by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him.”

This petty behavior of supposedly destroying and vandalizing Jekyll’s stuff to spite him is mentioned yet again just a few sentences later,along with the following line:

“This, then, is the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think his own thoughts or see his own face (now how sadly altered!) in the glass. Nor must I delay too long to bring my writing to an end; for if my narrative has hitherto escaped destruction, it has been by a combination of great prudence and great good luck. Should the throes of change take me in the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed after I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and circumscription to the moment will probably save it once again from the action of his ape-like spite.“

This assertion from Jekyll that, as far as he’s concerned, he will be already dead when he transforms for the last time, is what closes the book:

“And indeed the doom that is closing on us both has already changed and crushed him. Half an hour from now, when I shall again and forever reindue that hated personality, I know how I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or continue, with the most strained and fearstruck ecstasy of listening, to pace up and down this room (my last earthly refuge) and give ear to every sound of menace. Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the last moment? God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.“

If taken at face value, these lines actually paint Edward Hyde as being somewhat able to think his own thoughts and do his own actions, while still just being the childish, “ape-like” part of Henry Jekyll’s mind. Emphasis on childish, not evil, the evilness is all on Henry. Edward Hyde is still nothing but Henry Jekyll’s psychological scapegoat, and the one that Jekyll technically leaves behind to deal with the mess he himself created by “dying”.

I’m not trying to get more people to interpret the book this way nor am I saying that the ”Hyde is not real and Jekyll is a lying bitch” take is actually wrong, because it is not. I’m just pointing out the book could actually be interpreted differently by different readers, and they’d still have sentences in the book to back their interpretation on.

Now, if we could all stop hating and throwing shade on every content creator out there who “got the book wrong”, that’d be peachy. 

[jokertrap-ran]

(未定事件簿) EVENT!「致斯卡提的情诗」 [Tears of Themis] EVENT: A Love Poem to SKADI Translation (The Manor of Hermes: Lu Jinghe Route)

*Tears of Themis Masterlist / Mobile Masterlist *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *The tracking tag for ALL Event Stories will go under: #Tears of an Event

Expensive Sculpture:

MC: What a pretty sculpture…

Lu Jinghe: Isn't this one of Lale's artworks?

MC: Lales? That famous oil painter? Did he do sculptures too?

Lu Jinghe: Of course. Although Lales was publically well-known as an oil painter…

Lu Jinghe: His sculptures are also just as valuable as his oil paintings.

Lu Jinghe: Actually, each and every one of these sculptures are extremely expensive due to there not being many to begin with.

He circled the sculpture a couple of times before finally squatting down behind the statue.

Lu Jinghe: For such a large sculpture like this… I'd say that it'll be something exceedingly hard to obtain without the right assets and connections combined.

MC: Which means the owner of this Mansion's…

Lu Jinghe: That's right. They're someone wealthy and respectable; someone with a big circle of friends.

MC: ...Is that so…?

Lu Jinghe: Okay, Lawyer sis; let's not think about this for now.

Lu Jinghe: I found something else too.

MC: What?

Lu Jinghe: Look.

He brought his right hand in front of me; in his palm, laid a single Purple Jewel Fragment.

MC: A fragment of "Allie's Winter"!

Lu Jinghe: You bet’cha!

☆ Obtained: Expensive Sculpture! ☆ Obtained: Purple Jewel Fragment!

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

[Expensive Sculpture Info]

A Sculpture from Lales, an Oil Painter. There are not many of such sculptures made by Lales being circulated in the world, thus, not only are these works very expensive, but they're also hard to obtain. This particular piece located in the Mansion is shocking in both size and exquisiteness; in order to purchase something like this, the buyer must have accumulated a large wealth of money along with undoubtedly strong personal connections.

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Strange Wall-painting: 

Lu Jinghe: Wait!

MC: What's wrong?

Lu Jinghe: Is this… The Cult of Rebirth?

MC: The Cult of Rebirth? What's that?

Lu Jinghe: Have a look at this picture.

He pointed to the artwork mounted on the wall.

Lu Jinghe: Find anything odd about it?

MC: Hearing you say that, it does feel a little off…

MC: This painting has… Wings, weird-looking skulls, and… Eyeballs?

MC: Why would you combine these things together?

Lu Jinghe: Because they're the iconic symbols of the "Cult of Rebirth".

Lu Jinghe: The Cult of Rebirth was a heretical cult popular among a small circle of people in the last century.

Lu Jinghe: They believe that people are born bearing sins.

Lu Jinghe: But at the same time, they also believe that everybody has a chance to cleanse themselves of such evil.

Lu Jinghe: The skulls here represent evil, the wings, of chance; and the eyes, the gaze of "god", himself.

MC: Wow… You really know your stuff.

Lu Jinghe: I heard my teacher mention it back when I was taking the class on "Art and Religion".

Lu Jinghe: Although it was a niche cult, it's followers included a good many artists and painters back during its prime.

Lu Jinghe: And inspired by the strange doctrines and customs of the cult, they proceeded to create many "amazing works of art".

Lu Jinghe: Like the famed "Seven-day Prayer" series of artworks; they're basically showcasing the whole process of how this religion is worshipped.

Lu Jinghe: The painting before us is very similar to that of the third artwork in the "Seven-day Prayer" series in terms of its content and the technique used in its creation.

MC: I seem to recall seeing the "Seven-day Prayer" series of artworks on the internet before… But they all looked pretty "distorted", so to say.

Lu Jinghe: In the field of Art, distortions and mania are sometimes deemed as a type of "beauty".

Lu Jinghe: Although, I must say that the "beauty of mania" that is expressed in works related to the Cult of Rebirth only panders to a very small group of people who find it aesthetic…

Lu Jinghe: It's not just you; it's something that many people who study Art may not even recognize or accept.

Lu Jinghe: And that's precisely why there are only a small handful of people who understand these paintings, as well as the teachings of the Cult of Rebirth.

MC: But for this painting to appear here of all places? Wouldn't that mean that…

Lu Jinghe: There may be believers of that Cult here.

MC: …..

Lu Jinghe: Wait, there's something else here.

Carefully checking the painting again, he made an unexpected discovery on the back of its frame.

Lu Jinghe: A Purple Jewel Fragment. It should be the missing piece from "Allie's Winter".

☆ Obtained: Strange Wall-painting! ☆ Obtained: Purple Jewel Fragment!

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

[Strange Wall-painting Info]

The Cult of Rebirth, a heretical Cult that was popular among a small group of people in the last century. Many “amazing artworks” were left behind as it’s legacy due to the many artists and painters that had been part of their following, among which is the “Seven-day Prayer”, that has garnered the most fame.

The painting that has been hung in the Living Room of the Western-style Mansion is very similar to that of the third painting in the “seven-day Prayer” series in terms of the content portrayed in it and the technique being used.

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Incomplete Roster:

MC: Wait a minute, Lu Jinghe.

I opened the case before us and retrieved something from its depths.

Lu Jinghe: A Roster… But part of it's already destroyed.

MC: What's wrong?

Lu Jinghe: Look at how these words are being written; find anything odd?

MC: Hmm… Looks like they're a combination of skulls and feathers…

MC: Could this be encrypted, by chance?

Lu Jinghe: That's right. This is an encryption method unique to the Heretical Cult of Rebirth.

MC: And can you understand this type of encryption?

Lu Jinghe: Yup. I once saw it on one of the paintings that were presented during class.

Lu Jinghe: Although this "Cult of Rebirth", with an exceedingly small following, didn't leave any written records behind…

Lu Jinghe: They still managed to leave behind many works of art as its legacy, due to the large number of artists and painters in their midst.

Lu Jinghe: The second painting of the "Seven-day Prayer" series depicts the Cult of Rebirth's Sacrificial Ceremony…

Lu Jinghe: And it also depicts and shows how this manner of encryption came to be, in detail.

Lu Jinghe: But at the same time, the trick to solving this puzzle also lies within the very same painting itself, hidden from sight.

MC: So you're saying that… You can understand what's being written?

Lu Jinghe: Of course, I ended up specifically studying up on everything to do with the seven paintings in the "Seven days Prayer" series.

Lu Jinghe: Now, let me see…

Lu Jinghe: He took the Roster and went through it page-by-page.

Lu Jinghe: ...The number that's being recorded here should be the number of "tributes" that the Cult members gave.

MC: "Tributes"? And what would that be?

Lu Jinghe: "Tributes" for the leader of the Cult.

Lu Jinghe: The Cult of Rebirth believes that people are weighed down by sin upon birth, but at the same time, everyone also has a chance to clear themselves of such sins.

Lu Jinghe: And that the reason why you'll encounter such misfortune, is due to the sins you bear.

Lu Jinghe: So you'll have to cleanse yourself of these sins, if you wish to be rid of misfortune.

Lu Jinghe: But cleansing yourself of such sins alone isn't enough; you require a "Messenger of God".

Lu Jinghe: And this person is the very head of the Cult. He declared that he was the son of God, hence, possessing the ability to communicate with God.

Lu Jinghe: And believers can get him to play "Oracle" for them, as long as they pay the proper tributes.

Lu Jinghe: Their sins can be cleansed, so long as they do as the "Oracle" instructs.

Lu Jinghe: The speed at which the "Oracle" works is tantamount to the amount of "tribute" paid. The more tributes you give, the more efficient it will be.

MC: Isn't this the same method being utilized by Multi-level Marketing Organizations now?

Lu Jinghe: Yes, but back during the era where the Cult of Rebirth was at its prime, scientific knowledge itself wasn't exactly something that was widely known, so…

MC: Then, how much did the people listed on this Roster pay?

Lu Jinghe: Let me see…

Lu Jinghe: There are some who handed over land instead, and some who used gold as their tributes; all of which amount to huge sums of money.

MC: Why…

Lu Jinghe: Looks like it's very likely that this Mansion is a gathering hub for the believers of the Cult of Rebirth.

MC: ……

Lu Jinghe: Oh, right. This Roster also came with something else.

He handed me the thing he had been holding in his hand.

MC: A fragment of "Allie's Winter"!

Lu Jinghe: Yup.

☆ Obtained: Incomplete Roster! ☆ Obtained: Purple Jewel Fragment!

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

[Incomplete Roster Info]

A Roster that’s been badly burnt. The visible part of its content is as follows: (Ps. Chu Dai has already translated the contents of the Roster, so please go on ahead and read it with a peace of mind~) “Year 19xx, Month x, Day x. The amount of “Tribute” everyone gives will be recorded in this book for easier verification in the future. …… L.Mー Tribute Amount: Five properties and one ranch in Sakya Fyjord; the title deed to which have already been transferred. …… J-S.Hー Tribute Amount: Twenty gold bars; has already been sent to headquarters. …… Y.MーTribute Amount: Five gold bars and an Orchard; the items and the title deed to which has already been transferred. May the Son of God cleanse your sins as soon as possibly; may you be pure and untainted forever.” 

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Worshipped Idol:

There was a shrine atop the table with strange patterns painted all over.

There was also a photo in the middle of the shrine.

MC: Lu Jinghe, do you make any sense of this?

Lu Jinghe: This is… An idol of the God that the Cult of Rebirth prays to!

MC: An idol of the God they pray to? Are you certain?

Lu Jinghe: Of course, I'm sure about it.

Lu Jinghe: Even though the Cult of Rebirth is such a small heretic Cult that not many people know of it…

Lu Jinghe: The paintings that have been painted onto this shrine is still something that's kinda famous in the world of Art.

Lu Jinghe: Some of the decorative Frescoes on the roof of smaller churches are based off this painting.

Lu Jinghe: Or stained-glass arrangements, so on and so forth.

MC: Based off this? But this painting's full of… Eyes, strange skulls and wings…

MC: Not exactly suited for your ordinary church…

Lu Jinghe: What's being imitated isn't the content, but rather, the composition of the painting.

Lu Jinghe: The shape and colour of the paintings you're talking about are quite vastly different.

Lu Jinghe: Hence, it's not an easy task at all to skilfully integrate this…

Lu Jinghe: Into a piece of work, and at the same time, express what the painter truly wishes to show.

Lu Jinghe: But still, the painting on this shrine is very skilfully done. It expresses the especial secretively of the Cult of Rebirth exceedingly well.

MC: That's true. You can imagine just what sort of Cult the Cult of Rebirth is...

MC: Just by looking at this God.

Lu Jinghe: Later, a great artist in the world of Art chanced upon this painting and was inspired by it.

Lu Jinghe: After that, he utilized a similar composition method when painting a church mural.

Lu Jinghe: In the end, the fresco became an immediate success the very moment the church opened to the public.

Lu Jinghe: And consequently, this manner of composition also rose in popularity.

Lu Jinghe: But a large part of the masses only knows of the works of this great artist, and not the divine intent that had been behind it for the Cult of Rebirth.

Lu Jinghe: I, too, learnt it by chance back when I was studying in Florence, Italy.

MC: So, just what exactly does this shrine represent?

Lu Jinghe: According to the teachings of the Cult, if there's something you require God's help with…

Lu Jinghe: The first thing to do is to pay the leader money in an expression of "sincerity"; in other words, "paying tributes".

Lu Jinghe: And the next step would be to enshrine an idol of this God in your own home for twenty-one days, to await the day where God descends and graces them with his presence.

MC: So this picture that's on the idol is placed here because…

Lu Jinghe: Look, there's a message at the back of the picture.

Lu Jinghe: "I hope that the great God can cleanse my daughter of her sins and wake her from this madness."

Lu Jinghe: "-Lasture Modro".

MC: So Mr. Lasture was one of the Cult of Rebirth's believers… Did he enshrine this statue for the sake of his daughter, Allie?

Lu Jinghe: Correct. And judging from the sheer size of this deity, I'd say that his "tribute" was by no means small.

Lu Jinghe: And his position and status in the Cult itself was probably not a low one either.

MC: ……

Lu Jinghe: Right, there was also something else in the shrine.

He revealed the palm of his hand.

Lu Jinghe: I found this behind the photograph earlier; it should be one of the missing Jewel Fragments of "Allie's Winter".

☆ Obtained: Worshipped Idol! ☆ Obtained: Purple Jewel Fragment!

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

[Worshipped Idol Info]

A shrine unique to the Cult of Rebirth. One is required to enshrine this divine box at home for twenty-one days if they require the help of “God” to accomplish something. Lasture enshrined this wish-granting box here for the sake of his daughter, Allie, in hopes that God could “cleanse her sins and wake her from the madness”. It looks like he has forked out quite a lot in terms of “tributes”, all for the sake of this one God.

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Divine Message Ⅰ:

A roll of sheepskin parchment laid under the rags of the bench that had been placed in front of the bed.

Lu Jinghe stepped up, giving the roll of parchment a once over.

MC: Find anything?

Lu Jinghe: How about you tell me if you found anything first before asking me that, Lawyer Sis?

MC: ……

MC: The shape of these words feels like a combination of both skulls and feathers alike…

MC: Is this some sort of code?

Lu Jinghe: I knew you’d figure it out! That’s right, this type of encryption is…

Lu Jinghe: Exactly the same as the one I saw in the famed second painting of the “Seven-day Prayer” series.

Lu Jinghe: If I’m not recognizing it wrongly, I’m pretty certain this is an encryption method unique to the Cult of Rebirth.

Lu Jinghe: On one hand, it is to ensure that internal information is not disclosed, to prevent the government from sanctioning them; and on the other hand, it is to show and express the “divinity” of the leader…

Lu Jinghe: The Cult uses iconic skulls and wings to represent different characters.

Lu Jinghe: Similarly, they also use this method to convey information to each other.

MC: Then what's written on this sheepskin parchment is…

Lu Jinghe: “Your prayers have been heard by God.”

Lu Jinghe: “In a couple of days, a servant of God named Geraldi will arrive to cleanse the sins of Allie Modro.”

Lu Jinghe: ……

MC: ……

As I recalled what Lu Jinghe said, my eyes drifted elsewhere…

A gleaming object in the gaps between the bench that had been placed before the bed caught my attention.

MC: This is…

I edged towards the bench in front of the bed.

MC: It's the Jewel Fragment we're searching for!

☆ Obtained: Divine Message Ⅰ! ☆ Obtained: Purple Jewel Fragment!

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

[Divine Message Ⅰ Info]

The Cult of Rebirth’s Leader’s reply to Lasture. The content of the letter has been translated and is as follows:

“Dear Mr. Lasture Modro,

Your prayers have been heard by God. In a few days, a servant of God by the name of Geraldi will arrive to cleanse the sins of Allie Modro.

I hope your dreams come true.”

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Handwritten Divine Message:

MC: Lu Jinghe, look at what’s inside this drawer! There’s an actual jigsaw puzzle in there!

Lu Jinghe: Want to try piecing it together?

MC: No thanks… I don’t know how long it’ll take for us to piece these 20 pieces together when there’s no complete picture for us to refer to…

Lu Jinghe: So what? I know what the picture’s supposed to look like when completed.

MC: !!!

Lu Jinghe: From the looks of the image printed on the puzzle pieces…

Lu Jinghe: It looks exactly the same as the fifth artwork from the “Seven-day Prayer” series that I once saw.

Lu Jinghe: I still remember how it looks; we’ll be done in a jiffy.

His hands continued in their movements as he spoke, and soon, puzzle pieces that had once been scattered all over the floor were brought together as one complete picture.

At the same time, he took out a piece of white paper from his pocket and sketched the image that the completed puzzle formed onto it.

MC: Why did you sketch it down?

Lu Jinghe: “Seven-day Prayer” is one of the few paintings about the Cult of Rebirth that still currently exist…

Lu Jinghe: In addition to depicting the whole worshipping process of the believers, it also records a whole lot of things about the Cult’s unique code of encryption.

Lu Jinghe: They often use such graphical encryption methods to transmit information, so I wanted to redraw this picture and see…

Lu Jinghe: If there’s anything hidden in this puzzle.

MC: Did you figure anything then?

Lu Jinghe: Yeah. According to how the encryption of the Cult of Rebirth works, the message that’s being conveyed in this puzzle is…

Lu Jinghe: “To Geraldi, there’s no need for you to seriously treat his daughter at all; just be aware that after his daughter passes away...”

Lu Jinghe: “You’ll need to find a way to transfer all the properties of the Modro Family, including the Western-style Mansion to the Son of God through any means necessary.”

MC: If that’s so, then isn’t this Geraldi guy just a conman!?

Lu Jinghe: ……

Lu Jinghe: Try looking again and see if there are any other loose pieces.

MC: Let me have a look…

MC: Nope… Nothing here.

MC: But I found some Jewel Fragments in one of the corners.

Lu Jinghe: Alright then… I guess it's not all for nothing.

☆ Obtained: Handwritten Divine Message! ☆ Obtained: Purple Jewel Fragment!

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

[Handwritten Divine Message Info]

A puzzle that was left out in the Collection room, pieced together into a complete picture. After translating the pattern of the picture according to the workings of the unique encryptions of the Cult of Rebirth, the obtained content is as follows:

“To Geraldi, there’s no need for you to seriously treat his daughter at all; just be aware that after his daughter passes away...You’ll need to find a way to transfer all the properties of the Modro Family, including the Western-style Mansion to the Son of God through any means necessary...”

There are 20 pieces to this puzzle that conveys this information. If we were to convert it to 4 digits, the numbers will be “0020”; and it seems like these four digits have some correlation with the locked code case in the same room where the puzzle was found, and the secrets hidden within.

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Traces of a Magic Circle:

MC: (I finally managed to collect all the Fragments!)

MC: (The notch on the lock of the door is similar to that of the strange rune segment of “Allie’s Winter”...) 

MC: (The Purple Jewel, in it’s entirety, is supposed to fit in here...)

MC: (Guess I’ll just slot it in and see how it goes.)

☆⋅⋆…⋅⋆⋅⋅⋆⋅…⋆⋅☆

MC: Lu Jinghe, look at the ground!

MC: Is this a Magic Circle?

Lu Jinghe: This is the Cult of Rebirth’s “God-inviting Circle of Blood”.

MC: ???

Lu Jinghe: The Cult of Rebirth will always draw a blood formation like this one before they proceed to cleanse their fellow followers of their “sins”.

Lu Jinghe: They believe that God can be guided from the Realm of the Gods to the Human Realm through this, further increasing the success rate of “cleansing one’s sins”.

Lu Jinghe: And the name of the person being cleansed of sin will be written on the edge of this “blood formation”.

Lu Jinghe: So, who was this formation created for…?

He walked to the edge of the circle where a line of handwritten words could be vaguely seen.

Vague as it was, it wasn’t too much trouble for us to recognize it, for we’d already seen this name many times within this Mansion.

"Allie Modro".

Lu Jinghe: So it really is for her…

MC: But from the looks of it, it seems like the circle wasn't completed…

Lu Jinghe: That’s right, but the “God-inviting Circle of Blood” is usually only painted on the very same day they cleanse someone of their sins…

Lu Jinghe: I’m afraid something must have happened to Allie Modro on the day where they were supposed to “Invite God” and “cleanse” her of her sins.

☆ Obtained: Traces of a Magic Circle!

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

[Traces of a Magic Circle Info]

The unfinished "God-inviting Circle of Blood" that had been in the Sacrificial Room. The name of the person being cleansed of sin has been written at the edge of the "blood formation"—— Allie Modro.

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Collection Room's Code Case: Study Notes

MC: So many books! And lots of them are on famous codes!

MC: Oh? Are these books… For learning the Akkadian Language? 

I continued sifting through the things within the Case.

MC: (There are also some wastepaper and notes that were used to practice writing the words of code…)

MC: (And the owner of all this stuff is…)

I looked through the covers of the notes and books again.

MC: (These books were all given to Allie from a Private Tutor by the name of Lalyre…)

MC: (Looks like she was studying these codes along with Akkadian.)

MC: (All these notebooks used for practice belong to Allie, but there's one under the name of Winter…)

MC: (Unless Winter was studying alongside Allie?)

MC: (And then, he also took this change to use the two languages?)

I hurriedly flipped through "Winters" notebook.

MC: (There’s another sentence on the last page…)

MC: “Thank you… For being willing to fulfil this dream of mine…”

☆ Obtained: Study Notes!

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

[Study Notes Info]

The notes that Allie and Winter left behind, from when they were both studying Akkadian and other kinds of code.

☆⋅⋆…⋅───── ⋆⋅A Love Poem to SKADI⋅⋆ ────⋅…⋆⋅☆

[magicalforcesau]

Fragments of the Garden - Origins - Part 3

A companion collection to Dancing With Ghosts in Your Garden

(ao3 link)

Satine started to sit next to Obi-Wan every time she saw him at breakfast. Usually they would break out into an argument five minutes in, but even still he started showing up for breakfast more, and Satine always came back the next day.

It was Cody that had suggested they go find him at lunch hour and Satine had agreed easily, because she definitely noticed despite his appearances at breakfast, lunch and dinner were still another story entirely.

That was how she found herself, carrying two plates of food and following Cody with his plate down the hall to that empty classroom.

“Is this seat taken?” Cody asked shoving a couple of the desks together, surprising Obi-Wan completely.

“I- No?” He answered automatically.

“Good,” Satine responded, “It was a long walk here and I’m hungry,” She set down her plate in front of her and Obi-Wan’s plate in front of him. Cody was already digging into his food and he struck up a conversation with Satine quickly about their Charms homework. Obi-Wan was a little too dumbstruck to join the conversation, but did listen to them talk as he ate the food they’d brought him.

The end of the lunch period drew near and Cody collected Satine’s plate.

“Do you not like desserts or something?” Satine asked, noting the slice of apple pie sitting untouched on Obi-Wan’s plate. Being asked a direct question he responded with a surprised blush.

“It’s not that I don’t like them,” He admitted, “My mother says I can’t have any.”

“What? Why not?” Cody asked, surprised. Satine however remembered the women’s icy gaze and stayed quiet.

“She says men don’t like sweets,” He averted his gaze which was very unlike him.

“Well she’s not here right now,” Cody announced, “And what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her!”

“Cody’s right,” Satine found herself saying, “Plus he likes dessert so clearly her logic is false,” Obi-Wan opened his mouth, probably to argue when they heard the clamber of students heading their way. They grabbed their bags and Cody grabbed their plates and they headed out.

Satine decided that tomorrow she’d bring him 2 desserts.

***                                            

That night was their first Astronomy lesson. They were supposed to start much, much earlier, but the headmaster had, had a little trouble replacing their professor after the last one had been in some sort of accident. Satine couldn’t get anyone to specify past that, but she suddenly missed not having class when she was rolling out of bed at eleven to head towards the astronomy tower. The first years all went together, and she found herself walking next to Obi-Wan.

“Are you okay Satine?” He had the misfortune to ask, she glared at him, looking absolutely perfect as always.

“Make a note,” She told him, “to never wake me up, unless it’s an emergency,” Obi-Wan wasn’t sure when that would ever be useful information to have, but he stored it away anyways, with a nod.

They all sat on the floor of the tower as the oldest wizard Satine had ever seen, made his way slowly to the front of the class. He was holding a piece of parchment in shaky hands and squinted through his glasses to read it.

“Hello class,” He spoke in a raspy voice and Satine had to wonder if this poor man would even make it through the year, “I’m going to take attendance, please raise your hand when I call your name,” and with that class started.

Satine let her focus wander until he got to the J’s and tuned in right when Kenobi would be called.

“Kenobi,” The professor squinted at the paper, clearly struggling with Obi-Wan’s stupidly wordy first name, “B-Ben?” He decided on. Obi-Wan, who’s ears had gone red, raised his hand.

“It’s Obi-Wan, sir, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” He corrected, Satine could hear the embarrassment seep into his voice and she slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from snickering.

“Oh, sorry my dear boy,” He moved on quite quickly to, “Kryze, Satine.”

“I’m here,” She raised her hand, laughter coating her voice, and Obi-Wan gave her a sideways glare, but perhaps it had been worth waking up so late anyways.

***                                            

“Good Afternoon, Ben,” Satine greeted him, plunking down his lunch in front of him (two desserts as she’d decided) and sliding a desk over for herself, while Cody did the same.

“Ben?” Cody questioned, and Obi-Wan just rested his head on his arms with a groan.

“Don’t you dare tell,” His voice was muffled, so Satine elected to ignore him.

“The new astronomy teacher messed up his name during attendance,” Satine said gleefully.

“She won’t let it go,” He raised his head back up with a red-faced glare.

“Obi-Wan and Ben don’t even look alike,” Cody noted with a confused smile.

“I’m well aware,” Obi-Wan told him.

“Anyways, Ben,” Satine attempted a straight face, “I went to the trouble of picking you out two desserts today and it would be rather rude of you to not eat them.”

***                                            

Satine was struggling with a rather long and tedious history essay. She supposed Ben was too, because he’d hidden himself behind a textbook and she hadn’t seen him come up for air in hours.

“I’m never going to get this done,” She sat back against the plush blue couch with a sigh, breaking the silence she’d been dying to break for at least 30 minutes now.

“What part are you stuck on?” He asked without even putting the book down.

“I have all the information, I think,” She mused, “But I’m struggling with how to format it,” At that Ben did lower the book.

“Do you want me to look it over for you?” He asked and she shook her head.

“I was thinking of taking it to my mentor actually,” Satine admitted. Ben seemed to freeze at the mention of a mentor, but didn’t make any move to go back to his reading.

“That would be a good idea,” He agreed slowly, “They’ve probably written the same paper,” She could tell Ben was now attempting to hide behind his book to finish the conversation, they’d been friends for around a month and he just kept getting easier and easier to read. She grabbed the spine of his book and pushed it down.

“I’ve never asked you,” Satine thought out loud, “Who’s your mentor?” Ben froze again and she could see he was trying very hard not to avert his eyes, “I’ve never seen you with anyone else in the common room? Are they from a different house?”

“No they’re a Ravenclaw,” Ben started slowly, “They’re just much older than you’d expect,” Satine furrowed her brow at him and he continued knowing the answer would be pulled from him one way or another, “You know our fifth years aren’t a very big class,” He tried before trying again, “You know Qui-Gon right?”

“Professor Qui-Gon is your mentor?” Satine asked incredulously, Obi-Wan then did avert his eyes.

“Well like I said, year five isn’t a very big class, and people probably saw ‘Kenobi’ and decided to choose someone else,” He trailed off, “It’s not so bad I like Professor Jinn,” Satine shoved the book out of his hands and wrapped her arms around him suddenly. It was only for a moment before she pulled back.

“I’m sorry, Ben,” She told him.

“I- Well, yes,” Ben seemed a little dazed, but Satine thought not much of it, and instead went about gathering her papers together.

“I’ve got to run if I want to catch the fifth years when they get out of class,” She told him standing up, “I’ll be back later though, if you want me to look over yours,” He nodded, gathering his book off the floor.

“Alright, thank you Satine.”

***                                            

The snow was falling outside the window as the train pulled out of the station, Ben was staring out the window, brooding, and had been for some time. Satine had originally elected to ignore it in favor of chatting happily with Cody about their Christmas plans, but as time wore on, she couldn’t take it any longer.

“What are you planning on doing for the holidays Ben?” Once the words were out of her mouth, she saw Cody wince and had a sudden need to backtrack and delete the last second of her life.

“Oh, the holidays?” Ben contemplated, stretching his hands over his head and readjusting to actually look at his friends, “My parents will be throwing their annual Christmas Party. I suppose I will be hosting,” Satine remembered then, Cody’s mention of the Kenobi’s parties and she suddenly realized that going home for Ben, may not be the joyful celebration it was for her and Cody.

“You should write to us!” Satine demanded, “I don’t know what I’ll do all break if I don’t have someone to argue with,” She exclaimed dramatically. Cody rolled his eyes, but looked at Ben and nodded.

“I could use a distraction from my little brothers, I’d gladly welcome a reason to hole up in my room,” He grinned.

“My owl could use the exercise,” Ben joked, but then added, “If I can find a way, I’ll send you an owl.”

The trolley came by then and Ben bought each of them a sweet for the ride home. Satine contemplated, as she watched his eyes light up upon discovering his chocolate frog card, that she really didn’t know a lot about him. She vowed that come next semester she would start to learn even more, but until then she was just happy to be on a warm train sharing sweets and laughter with her two closest friends.

[musings-of-miss-j]

It was a pity, I thought to myself, watching him struggle and curse as he tried to make his way back to the safety of solid ground. A bit of a waste of the good-hair-gene.

"Don't struggle," I advise him, crouching so that he can see my face more clearly. "There's no other way this can happen. Find peace in that. Accept your fate."

He yelled out, clearly frustrated at the lack of progress his straining was resulting in. I watched, sympathetic, refusing to look away even as one of his hands began to slip. I couldn't help him. Or any of the others. I was just the guide, the chaperone for those who met a tragic end. I couldn't change any of it, no matter how hard I'd tried in the beginning.

"What the hell, why won't you help me?!" He strained out through gritted teeth. "Just pull me up, give me your hand!"

I stared at him. The uneven edge was beginning to slide from his grasp. Tiny fragments of stone tumbled into the yawning valley below, the clattering sound taking an age to reach my ears.

"I'm sorry," I say gently to him. "I can't do anything. It was only ever going to be this way. Just look at me, breathe, enjoy the cold air, the sound of the leaves, the birdsong. It'll be the last you ever hear of it."

He looked at me then, and the realisation began to creep into his eyes. His face dawned with understanding, and my heart twinged at the thought of him blaming me in his final moments. It was my choice to do it this way, I reminded myself like I always had to. I chose to come down to this circle of the universe, accompany the living to their deaths, feel as much of their pain as I possibly could, rather than watch it from afar from the comfort and detachment of the heavens.

He struggled anew, the prospect of death awaiting him miles below awakening the primal urge of all living things to hold an to life, strain against the tightening chains of death with tooth and nail. I couldn't cry. The sadness rolled over me, and I felt it the same way one watching the news about this might. I hated it, hated how, despite my best efforts, I was so disjoined, so unconnected to human emotion, how I could never truly empathise with those I guided. I should be crying, watching this man grunt and cry out, legs flailing, arms straining, sweat drip down his brow. His desperate eyes should make tears roll down my cheeks. But it didn't. It never had and never would. All I could do was offer my presence as he and countless others inched towards their deaths.

"Please, PLEASE!" he was shouting in earnest now, and all I could do was watch. The fight was going out of him.

"FUCK, WHY ARE YOU LEAVING ME TO DIE LIKE THIS?!"

"I'm here, aren't I?" I said, hating how steady my voice was. I reached out to caress his cheek, knowing he'd never feel anything again in a few moments.

He made eye contact with me, and I felt a rush of relief at the acceptance in them. He was at peace, I hoped.

With a swift movement, he took hold of my arm and pulled himself up before I could register that he had even touched me. I stared agape as he plated his feet firmly back on the ground, dusted off his hiking jacket and shot me a sly grin.

"I bet you thought that would be the end of me, didn't you?"

How could he sound so at ease, so unruffled? And more importantly, how the hell was he alive?

I stumbled upright, pulling out my phone (carrying around a traditional book for these kinds of things was simply too impractical) to make sure I had the date and time right. Had I somehow waltzed into the wrong human's death?

"Don't bother checking," he said, that smug grin still on his face as if he hadn't tasted the bitter touch of death moments prior. "I was never going to die."

"What the hell?"

He extended his arm, the typical human initiation for their greeting.

"I figured the newly crowned god of theatricals and showmanship would do well to acquaint himself with the deity of tragic deaths."

“Hey, it’s okay. This was meant to be.”

“Easy for you to say! You’re not the one hanging off of a fucking cliff!”

[isfjmel-phleg]

March 2021 Books

Little Women: An Annotated Edition by Louisa May Alcott and edited by Daniel Shealy

This one had more of a textual focus. I didn’t know that Little Women had been subject to considerable revisions of wording--the version of the story that I and most other readers are familiar with isn’t the original text, and these word choices do make a striking difference.

The Annotated Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and edited by John Matteson

This one had more of an autobiographical focus. I especially enjoyed the photographs of Orchard House and many of its artifacts (including Anna Alcott Pratt’s wedding gown!).

Torch by R. J. Anderson

For the first time, I’ve had the pleasure of reading an early draft of a novel and then the final version. Seeing this book go from an already strong draft to a beautifully satisfying finished work increases my respect for @rj-anderson‘s writing process and dedication to making this final installment the best it could be. The close of Ivy and Martin’s story and respective arcs is exactly what one could hope for them. Well-worth the wait, much enjoyed, and highly recommended.

Melinda Takes a Hand by Patricia Beatty

Backstory: this was a book my mom found for me at the library when I was very young (her tastes for me at that age gravitated toward girls’ historical fiction), and I couldn’t get into it and never finished it--something I seldom did. After figuring out the title, I was curious how it would read for an adult.

I can see why my six-year-old self wouldn’t have been able to get much out of the book’s plotline or brand of humor. It was light and enjoyable, with an interesting author’s note regarding her historical research (which seemed pretty thorough, aside from “women back then fainted, like, all the time because corsets, just read their literature”--citation needed?)

The Complete Mapp and Lucia: Volume 1 by E. F. Benson

This was pitched to me a long time ago by a former classmate as “Wodehouse, but with a focus on the ladies.” I found one of the volumes of the complete set in England and have been dragging my feet getting to it ever since. I wanted to like it, and there were situations and characters in Queen Lucia (the first book) that were rather amusing. But Miss Mapp (the second, with a completely different cast) was a painful slog to read, even though it wasn’t very long, and by the time I got about three-quarters into Lucia in London, I gave up.

It was social satire and humorous antics among upper-class(ish) people in 1920s England, but the resemblance to Wodehouse ends there. Wodehouse approaches his characters and fictional world with an attitude of affectionate mockery, generally not mean-spirited, and even his ridiculous characters have something human and likeable about them. Benson, on the other hand, presents the reader with characters who are nearly all deeply unpleasant, full of pettiness, pretension, and social rivalry. They’re not likeable and probably not intended to be, and the worldview overall is deeply cynical. Chapter after chapter of “aren’t these people awful and worthy of ridicule” got rather grating for me. I do not deny the literary quality of Benson’s work, but I regret I found it disappointing to come expecting a refreshing metaphorical glass of lemonade and get straight lemon juice instead.

The Professor by Charlotte Bronte

I like the Brontes on the whole, but I fully understand why this one was initially turned down by the publisher (leading Charlotte to write Jane Eyre instead, a much, much, much better piece). It was interesting to see the roots of themes that would turn up in her later work, but the narrator, with his pronounced bigotry and judgments about people’s (especially women’s) characters based solely on physical appearance, wasn’t as easy to root for as the text seemed to expect the reader to find him.

Emma by Charlotte Bronte and “Another Lady” (i.e. Constance Savery)

Since this is based on a fragment (just a few chapters) of Bronte’s, most of the book was Savery’s. While she never quite captures Bronte’s tone (a perhaps impossible feat), the story she creates from Bronte’s setup is enjoyable and charming in its own right.

The Clockwork Crow by Catherine Fisher

This one had such a charming, atmospheric premise and setting! But it was all so underdeveloped that I felt like I was getting only half a book. Fisher seemed to be aiming for the lower end of middle grade, which might account for the length, but I think readers around the intended age could handle a book about twice this one’s length. This was a story that deserved more realization than it got.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

At some point, I’d like to properly get in on the discussions jellicoelodge is doing, and since I didn’t have the mental energy or philosophical whatsit to handle Lewis’s The Great Divorce any time soon, I thought I’d try the alternate reading. And I’m so, so sorry, but I didn’t care for it at all. Some of the content was a little much for my taste, I didn’t care for the characters, and the humor was lost on me. Except for that one academic guy’s theory that the Brontes’ brother was the real author of their work because such great books couldn’t have been written by a woman, and the knots he ties himself into trying to prove it--which was hilarious because I have encountered a very similar mindset in real life, and it deserves all the satire it can get.

Winterhouse by Ben Guterson

I think I’d need to reread this one to decide if I loved it, but the characters and atmosphere were a lot of fun.

The Garden of Lost Secrets by A. M. Howell

Not quite as suspenseful as I was expecting, but the setting was lovely and the protagonist engaging.

The Bookwanderers by Anna James

Loved the premise. Wasn’t crazy about the execution. Anne Shirley and Alice made multiple appearances and felt out of character each time, not only because their dialogue didn’t ring true for their respective eras (and was inexplicably peppered with the cloying phrase “ever so”?) but also because the attitudes felt off. This Anne seemingly couldn’t mention Diana without saying something along the lines of “she’s my best friend, but she’s so unimaginative”--even going so far as to claim that it’s a trial to her to have such a friend. Excuse me? Canon Anne is nothing but genuinely loving toward and appreciative of her bosom friend, and anything else does her character a disservice.

ALSO a big twist has some downright weird implications and I won’t spoil it but...yikes.

Father’s Arcane Daughter by E. L. Konigsburg (reread)

Reread because I wanted to rewatch the film adaptation.

Song of the Abyss by Makiia Lucier

Although the characterization in this one wasn’t as strong as in Isle of Blood and Stone (and Lucier tends to overuse fragments that would do better as clauses--not important, I know, just something I found distracting), the worldbuilding continues to be very striking, this time featuring some rather chilling twists.

Creatures of Light by Emily B. Martin (reread)

In preparation for a reread of Sunshield, in preparation for reading Floodpath.

The Flight of Swans by Sarah McGuire

Gorgeous, heartfelt retelling of the relatively lesser-known fairy tale “The Six Swans”/”The Wild Swans.” I enjoyed it more than I expected to.

The Good Ship “Red Lily” by Constance Savery

Savery loves plots about family members on opposite sides of an ideological conflict, and she handles them so well that I gladly read every variation I can find. Although this one might not be the strongest example of this style of story for her, it was a fun read.

Magic in My Shoes by Constance Savery (reread)

Reread on a whim.

Tenthragon by Constance Savery

This is Savery’s only novel for adults. Although the protagonist is a child, the heaviness of the themes (a highly dysfunctional family, abuse in numerous forms, and intense revenge) calls for an older audience. Apparently some critics when this book came out thought Savery had taken on more than she could handle.

But whether that’s the case or not, I was riveted. Savery combines her gift for compelling characterization with a plot that speaks to my shameless Gothic-loving sensibilities for a result that feels like Wuthering Heights without the love story and with a far more satisfying ending that leaves open the possibility of reconciliation and forgiveness, themes common in Savery’s work.

Unfortunately for me the book is out of print and no one seems to have read it since roughly 1930, so I am alone with my feelings on this.

Hollowpox by Jessica Townsend (reread)

Enjoyable, as all the Nevermoor books are, although after the reread I think this one is my least preferred of the three. Supporting characters took a backseat to a plot with some rather heavyhanded themes, and the characters and their relationships are much of what gives the series its heart in the first place. Hoping for more of that in the next installment!