#patricia briggs

[emelinepommery]

Last  Friday, Patricia Briggs was at a signing session and I had the opportunity to meet her !✨

She's been so kind to sign this illustration which is a gift for my mother who's also a big fan of the Mercy Thompson saga (like me)

Check out my Patreon and my free Newsletter for detailed tutorials, behind the scenes as a bookish illustrator, digital goodies and more !

[bonemarble]

leah's position within the family unit as a daughter-wife, rather than just a wife (whether this is acknowledged or not) makes her hate for mercy much more sensible than people give her credit for. the violent and excessive nature of her reactions towards mercy since she was a child could have other explanations (who knows, i'm all for alternative interpretations), but i think it works fine when taking into account that being jealous of mercy being cherished as a daughter is part and parcel with being jealous of her as a potential lover. which is not to say this was leah's conscious thought process. i don't think she sees herself as bran's daughter. i just think by nature of how she was brought into the fold, a young girl being raised under bran's tutelage reads as someone filling her exact role. and doing it better! mercy is loved! being bran's wife and bran's "daughter" are not discrete issues for leah, as someone that was raised to be his wife. in this sense, i think she would have projected sexual jealousy and expected that bran would develop a sexual attachment to mercy regardless of his actual feelings, simply because it fits the framework she was given for his behaviour. the fact no one apart from her and bran knew the truth of her turning and that they likely were the only ones having an inkling of the scope of bran's feelings for mercy when she was still a teenager does not seem incidental. leah knows for certain that bran has both the capacity and the inclination to blur the lines between charge and lover and take advantage of someone dependent on him to extract what he needs out of them. or at least the only one that knows this exploitation can entail a sexual component when directed at a female subject.

leah has no one else in the world and her role as bran's mate is her only claim to economic stability and a measure of acceptance and respect, if not love, in life. additionally, she was (re-)created by bran in such a way that her identity, abilities, and whole existence have a use only in relation to him. if she loses him, she does not have anything, not even herself. and since bran does not love her (or so he has made her believe), she cannot try to influence him in order to keep her position. i am not saying her treatment of mercy was right, especially as i am not particularly interested in analysing characters from a moralising standpoint. but i do think it was rational, insofar as in her view the removal of mercy from bran's life was actually the only thing she had the power to affect to ensure she was not abandoned. the only option over which she could exert some control.

what is extremely sad to me is that however much leah may be relieved that bran doesn't finally act on his attraction to mercy (and justly so! it would be the ultimate cruelty for bran to create her, use her, and then also leave her!), the fact he sees the harm he would inflict on mercy by pursuing her and decides to spare her, while he had no problem inflicting that same harm on leah, works as a further confirmation that mercy is in some way better loved. that she is allowed to be seen as a whole person, to grow as an independent being without being crushed under bran's weight. as we have very little of leah's pov, i am not sure whether this thought has ever crossed her mind, but it has certainly crossed mine very often.

[aucoba]

Starting s7 of supernatural and watching Dean fix the Impala and saying "I should do this professionally" makes me think he and Mercy Thomson would have some great conversations

[mercy-thompson-fanfiction]

POV: this stupid social media trend is in your head and some of the videos are wildly unhinged and make you worry for people’s sanity

All: We listen and we don’t judge

Mercy: Sometimes, when you say something, I ignore you and do the exact opposite because it’s the right thing to do.

Bran: I am aware of that. It’s inte—

*video cut*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Adam: The parts car never bothered me. Sometimes I intentionally riled Mercy up just so she would have to think about me while she was doing whatever it was she decided to do to the car.

Mercy: Wait, what?

*video cuts*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Anna: I started casually reinstating music evenings so that my father-in-law could address his inappropriate feelings about Mercy.

Mercy: His what?

Bran: We listen and we don’t—

Anna: No, you can’t judge me, but we are all allowed to judge you for that one.

*video cuts*

Bran: I’m not doing this.

*video cuts*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Charles: I intentionally never let Leah be alone with Mercy and that’s why sometimes, during her childhood, I went missing.

Adam: I can’t think anyone would judge you for that.

*video cuts*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Bran: …I was not exceptionally confident that I wouldn’t kill Charles if the witch told me to. I didn’t want to panic Anna.

Anna: You can’t pick something that is easily judged. We are all going to judge you for that.

*video cuts*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Jesse: I pretend to be on phone calls so that people hear where I am and I don’t walk in on things I’d rather not.

All: We know.

Jesse: I’m just owning up to it.

*video cuts*

Anna: Remember. Something we can’t judge you for.

*video cuts*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Samuel: I—

Anna: Never mind I think we should end this here.

[slowlysointernet]

A long time ago i read an interview in which Patricia Briggs answered a question from the interviewer about Mercy's lack of female friends.

''The men in her life tend to be stable'' is bullshit. C'mon.

She gets groomed by Samuel. She gets raped by Tim. Adam declared her his mate in front of his pack without her knowing or even agreeing. Bran semi kicked her out of Aspen Creek as a teenager.

It's just another case of women holding other women to a different standard.

In hignsight this peice of infomation about her sisters and her college friend (i'm assuming Char?) is funny.

14 books in and Mercy's half sisters whom she's supposedly very close to, only appear in River Marked for a brief while and they never get mentioned again. No appearances. No sisterly phone calls. Nothing.

Apparently she's 'very tight' with her college roommate Char which is funny because we never see her at all. She didn't attend Mercy's wedding. There's no girl to girl chit chat over the phone or text. Nothing.

😂🤨😐😒 I don't want to be harsh or mean but i have to be honest.

I belive this interview was in 2014? Here is the link for the full interview:

[leahsupportgroupmember]

On Leah Cornick - Ramblings Part 1

Leah and Bran have been married for 200 years, they have history prior to Mercy and their issues didnt start with her. Its a bit over blown to think shes at the center of their issues. Since Leah literally killed her own child BECAUSE he was a walker. I think she hated Mercy from moment 0 because she knew Mercy was a walker instinctively and to her that spelled doom and danger and unspeakable horrors. She wanted her out of her life/pack even when she was a baby.

It is AFTER when Bran and Sam etc started showing inappropriate behaviour that it turned worse. We get the story from many pov (Mercy, Charles) and I think Mercy is an unreliable narrator whilst Charles is shown to have character growth and be able to look back at his past with new eyes thanks to Anna’s probing.

Also Leah is obviously deeply insecure in her position as Bran’s mate and from that her position in the pack. He made her that way. Shes only tolerated as long as she is useful. Thats all she knows. For 200 years, he never cared to ask of her past. Probably following his brother’s directive to not speak of the Singer and also to not drudge her non consensual change and mating. But he knew nothing of her life prior?! He never cared, he never asked. It makes me wonder, did he care to know her feelings, her mindset, her perspective on things at all?! When she reacted badly towards baby Mercy and wanted her away from their pack, did he wonder why? Did he bother asking her why? Did he fucking hear her out??

He just assumed a traumatized amnesiac woman was stupid and dumb and bigoted. He never got to know her. He never even bothered.

[sondrawr]

Mercy: You’re one of those awful people who’s good at everything, aren’t you?

Darryl: Not at all, I’m terrible at…

Darryl: …

Mercy: …Humility?

Darryl: No. I excel at humility.

[lecoindecachou]

The werewolves in the Mercyverse are like <3 lycanthropy is a metaphor for having periods but we're misogynists <333 we call revealing our existence to the world our Coming Out but we're homophobes <333

[ridasart]

In her dream, Buffalo Singer had told her that this was her battle. Watching the great fae sword in Charles’s hands, she finally understood what those words meant. Bitterness engulfed her and gave her the power to get to her feet.

Wild Sign by Patricia Briggs

[seiya234]

why adam is basically going to be the next marrock

spoilers for Winter Lost under the cut

I don't think it's going to come up any time soon (or maybe it will lol patty) but this book really, for the first time, seems to be setting up Adam as a future Marrock.

the constant mentions of Adam as a good leader

the multiple mentions in this book that Adam and Mercy are beginning to tangle with weirder and weirder shit, and have to have both an awareness of and are active players in politics outside of the werewolf world

the entire fucking conversation Adam has with Darryl early in the book

where it's brought up that there are both multiple super Alpha wolves in Adam's pack who butt heads occasionally but ultimately are chill with being in Adam's pack.

also there's multiple wolves with Old Wolf Drama in Adam's pack; both of these things are just like Bran's pack.

this fucking quote like

patricia come on

obviously werewolves in patty's world aren't like a monarchy, but Adam has not only married Bran's daughter, but now Bran's brother is in his pack like

Bran may no longer be the leader that the werewolf world needs. Patty makes a point of mentioning in the past few books that since going public the werewolves are under a lot of stress, and in this book she mentions that "the average life expectancy of a werewolf who survived the initial Change was now around eight years." Like Bran has to take care of business but maybe there's another way? there's clearly some tension building there

patricia.

patricia plz.

okay but part of Bran's Deal is that he has a Superpowered Evil Side that is his wolf but also isn't his wolf and it's because of his witch blood.

and huh last few books Adam has been dealing with the Beast, which is kind of like his wolf but also is distinct from it and was caused by a witch and

oh my god i went back to that paragraph and he literally says that the Beast can do magic shit that he and his wolf cant jesus fucking christ patty.

Finally, eventually all old wolves need to get put down.

And Bran is a very, very old wolf.

update i forgot about this one

[theimaginauts]

MERCY THOMPSON

Art by DAN DOS SANTOS

[bonemarble]

love all your posts on pb’s books! I’m so glad I came across your blog! what’s your opinion on Leah’s relationships with men outside of bran and Charles? namely Sam, Asil, and Tag? to varying degrees they’re pretty contentious (I’d say with Tag being the least threatening towards her)

not many thoughts about tag and asil! sorry! i never stopped to ponder about their relationship with leah too deeply as they are not very relevant to her overall story. i will keep this ask in mind for future re-reads and post something once i form a more definite opinion.

sam's trickier. his dislike for leah seems stronger than charles's and yet more shallow. a couple of reasons for this, i think:

1) charles dislikes leah as a person. he may not spend much thought on the finer points of her subjectivity and there's a rigidity to their interactions partly engendered by leah's role as bran's wife. but this role is something charles heeds mostly as a practical consideration in order to avoid his father's chastisement. overall, he sees leah as a human being not as bran's appendage. on the other hand, anyone correct me if i am wrong, i think i have only seen sam refer to leah in relation to her impact on one of his family members. somehow telling.

2) sam's relationship with bran has some ideological fractures, but it is not strained by a lack of love or respect: he perceives his place in bran's heart to be very secure. charles, who has suffered firsthand from bran's neglect and has spent a lifetime executing his darkest endeavours, is in a better position to empathise with leah and mistrust that bran's actions towards leah have the best intentions.

3) sam is also much more callous in the fundamental belief women are sexual objects and reproductive factories over which men have automatic rights. if he wasn't, he would have been much less casual and much more conflicted over his treatment of mercy, a teenager he seduced by deliberately assuming a protective role with the sole intention of making her bear his children. leah "refusing" to mother charles and "depriving" bran of the chance for a happier union must mark her as very unnatural in his eyes. and this opinion would have been reinforced by leah targeting mercy since she was young. that she tried to harm mercy is maybe the only element of personal offence he can muster against her. still it seems he only started intervening when he had the brilliant idea that mercy would make a good mate, so...

i don't think there is much more than this on his part tbh, he doesn't spend enough time considering her (as far as i can tell) for anything else to be there.

as for leah, i think she is jealous of him too, but it takes on a different quality compared to her jealousy for charles. sam was in some ways the closest thing bran had to an equal before sherwood reemerged. despite being the third to charles's second, the fact he and bran are so close in age and have so much shared history leaves an understanding between them that no one else can really penetrate. when leah came to live with bran, charles was a child and his opinion probably mattered as such. sam was already sam and probably the only person bran really trusted in the entire continent. i am theorising here, but logically i think at the beginning leah must have been simply intimidated by him and his disdain, probably angry too. overtime, as the goal for her to be bran's life partner became clearer, i think she must have started to resent his role in bran's life. with charles the competition is a bit more fair: bran loves him and will never love her, but at least the playing field to earn his respect trust etc started out somehow more even. how do you compete with samuel?

[browsingaround2]

Books/Series in the Mercy Thompson universe that I am respectfully (desperately) asking Patricia Briggs to write asap:

(Some spoilers.)

1. More. Bran. Lore. I am insatiable for it. Wild Sign and the short story Silver are everything. How I both love and hate this man. I’m in awe of Patty’s ability with this character.

2. Stephen deserves happiness. Please a spin off where he finds reciprocated love. 🥹

3. More Samuel and Ariana content! What were they doing in Africa?! How did Samuel react to that baby news?!

4. More stories about Ben. He deserves happiness too! (If you want to read my WIP where I’m attempting to do this, check out my ao3 story “Soul Flight”. My page is linked in the pinned post.)

5. The next Alpha & Omega book because oh my goodness Charles Cornick as a daddy 🥹

6. What happened to Tad at college?!?!

7. Will Mercy ever get pregnant? What will that baby BE?!

Please and thank you, Patty.

Sincerely,

Your devoted reader

[mercy-thompson-fanfiction]

MT as DnD

Samuel: You know how you keep mentioning the cat? Like the cat survived the fire. The cat shows up in the yard. The cat, the cat, the cat…

Mercy: Yeah I wanted a pet so I got a cat when I was doing my backstory.

Samuel: But a cat.

Mercy: Yeah. The whole gimmick is that it’s funny.

DM: She wanted a pet.

Adam: Ok but there’s nothing weird about the cat?

DM: What do you mean?

Mercy: I wanted a cat. I was told it’s fine. I gave myself a cat.

Samuel: But we aren’t going to find out that it’s like…a Druid stuck in wild shape or something, right?

Adam: Oh that’s good.

DM: I mean now you might? No it’s just a cat. Would you stop reading into things I didn’t plan out and start reading into the things I have given you? Focus.

Adam: Ok. Well. We rescued that cat, yeah?

DM: Yes. Thank you. Cat is alive.

[slowlysointernet]

I may or may not have posted this before, i can't remember. Anyway here's another little treasure that i found.

👇

[leahsupportgroupmember]

Grovel Fiend

For fucks sake, Patricia Briggs created the perfect climatic conditions for the ultimate grovel scenario (TM) and we are instead forced to listen to Mercy’s whining instead! This is a crime!!

the perfect climatic conditions for the ultimate grovel scenario:

Compelling couple.

Leah is a brash difficult woman. But shes competent and loyal to a fault. Also we know she wont believe he suddenly loves her

Bran is a compelling male character. Nuanced. Scheming. Is the strongest man in that world but very rarely decides to physically throw that around. Prefers to manipulate his way.

Ironically hes the sentimental one out of the too. Shes the more practical one.

He spent the last 200 years convincing her shes unloveable and he cant stand her. Inadvertently tapping into her worst fears and trauma.

He has a solid explanation for why he held at her arms length (mommy trauma, her power over his wolf)

He thought shes the one who did the ultimate betrayal. But turns out hes the one who betrayed her and wanted to kill her! (Chefs kiss angst)

Spent the last 200 years of his marriage, believing the worst of her and finding fault in her.

the mastermind extraordinaire now has a blind spot on his mate and turns out hes doesnt actually know her inner workings

Leah is a brash bitch. She’s difficult. Anrgy etc. Shes not a woe is me Mary Sue. Wont turn the story into a melodrama because shes a proactive character

There is 200 years of (valid) misunderstandings and resentment to unravel.

The sacred mating bond was forced shut for 200 years. The shock. The drama. The possibilities and repercussions!

Could go on and on. But I am not a literary expert. Just a Leah Mega fan.