#red queen 4 fan fiction

[nveland]

Been thinking about writing a glassheart or stolenheart hunger games / harry potter au mini series lately, should I push through with the idea? 🤔

[5sospenguinqueen]

Bedtime Stories | Daniel Ricciardo x Author! Reader

Summary: For the past six years, you've been dreaming of a future with Daniel. Until one silly little interview shatters every illusion.

Warnings: Swearing. Angst. Baby fever. End of a relationship. Daniel bashing.

Female reader with various faceclaims. Takes place in the 2022 season.

Main Masterlist

next.

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User 2 no, it's not an announcement. her best friend is currently pregnant and she was gushing about looking forward to aunty duties

User 3 omg her and daniel would make the cutest babies though

→ User 4 i bet she can't wait until they have their own mini-me

User 5 imagine our rom-com queen going from writing the cutest but filthiest fiction imaginable to writing about why you should eat your carrots

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22•05•22

User 6 i can't believe this man was talking about being in the height of his career when he's been nothing but a flop since leaving red bull

User 7 the way he's been stringing this poor woman along for 6 years, knowing how badly she wants children, to then decide in a random interview that he's never going to have kids because they would be a 'distraction'

User 8 fans spotted y/n running from the pits once she saw that daniel was safely done with racing

User 9 i fear we may be witnessing the downfall of something we once held sacred

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16•06•22

fallontonight just posted

liked by YourUserName, kellypiquet and others

fallontonight did you know @ YourUser Name was once chased by a kangaroo? find out how in tonight's episode of The Tonight Show 📚🦘

4,477 comments

YourUserName thanks for having me! ✨

User 11 excuse me, ma’am, reassess what

User 12 daniel has been absent from her last 3 posts

→ User 1 not even in the likes or comments

→ User 2 and he didn't even congratulate her on the recent book launch

→ User 3 ya’ll are reaching. he's busy racing. she's busy doing book promo. they still follow each other

User 4 anyone notice she didn't look as happy as she usually does

→ User 5 yes! and i swear she got teary when talking about her life plans 🥺

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YourUserName just posted

liked by maxverstappen1, mclaren and others

YourUserName my happy place 🌊🐚🦀 Aug '22

4,990 comments

User 6 does this mean a new book is coming soon

→ User 7 girl, we’ve just had one. let the woman rest

→ YourUserName sorry, my lovelies but i don’t think i'm in the right headspace to being right a romance novel at this time

→ User 6 confirmation??!?!

→ User 7 we’re children of divorce

→ User 8 honestly fuck those two because i couldn’t have cared less about vroom vroom boys until mother started dating one and now i'm crying in class ‘cause they’re over

landonorris get that bread, queen 🍞

→ YourUserName who let you out of daycare

→ User 9 not y/n and lando interacting like she didn’t break his teammates heart

→ User 10 more like his teammate broke y/n’s heart. let's not make daniel out to be the victim here

kellypiquet p said get writing those children’s books so she can brag about aunty y/n to her friends

→ YourUserName my sweet girl. i saw the cutest dress the other day for her so I’ll pop round soon x

→ User 11 i love their friendship

→ User 12 get this woman a child. She’s too sweet to be stuck in cool aunt mode forever

User 13 anyone notice she didn't do her annual birthday post for daniel?

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04•09•22

User 14 no because the interviewer was so real for that. checo has a few children and he’s currently 2nd best. max is nowhere to be seen on the grid he's that far ahead and he makes sure p is his priority when she’s there so???

→ User 15 and the way he stormed out. i bet PR are sooo happy with him

User 16 nah because mclaren recently announced that they’re not extending his contract so he currently doesn't have his seat and doesn't have his y/n, all because he thought he was better than that

YourUserName posted a new story

danielricciardo posted a new story

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danielricciardo just posted

liked by landonorris, estebanocon and others

danielricciardo yesterday was something. p17 wasn't the result we were expecting, and the media were a challenge but it's always a delight to be in Suzuka. Moving on to the Americas

5,509 comments

User 1 maybe if y/n was there, you wouldn't have done so badly

User 2 maybe if he had a baby waiting in the paddock he would’ve had more incentive to do better

mclaren we’ll get them next time 💪

User 3 letting mclaren and lando down

→ User 4 the real reason he and y/n broke up is because he has no wins. she should move onto lando or something

→ User 5 he’s way too young for her

→ User 4 they'd make a good looking couple tho

(comments have been disabled for this post)

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19•10•22

YourUserName just posted

liked by charles_leclerc, bloomsburypublishing and others

YourUserName thirty, flirty and thriving. please enjoy a small snippet of my 30th birthday, organised by my favourite girl. these are the nice moments before she plies me full of cocktails and i become the sloppiest person in monaco tagged: kellypiquet

kellypiquet any chance to celebrate you 🤍🤍

→ kellypiquet and an even better chance to drink the entire bar and force max to carry us home

→ maxverstappen1 i'm just glad i was able to pull you both out of the sea before you drowned

landonorris can't believe you tried (and failed) to stop us from gatecrashing

→ YourUserName it was an exclusive event, we don't let randos in

→ landonorris i know you're joking but it still hurts my feelings

maxverstappen1 happy birthday, sloppy. you don't look a day over 40

→ YourUserName i'm gonna let that slide but only because i love the bag that kelly told you to buy

User 7 happy birthday to the best author

User 8 happy birthday queen

carlossainz55 happy birthday, y/n 💐

liked by YourUserName

danielricciardo happy birthday x

User 5 kelly and y/n look like the funnest people to hang out with

→ User 6 literally need to know how to become part of their duo

lewishamilton happy birthday, y/n. have a lovely night 💕

liked by YourUserName

mclaren happy birthday to papaya's favourite author (we're still waiting for a racing rom-com that is quite clearly about your favourite f1 team and their super sexy admin) 🥳🥳

liked by YourUserName

Request are open!

Baby Fever Angst Series

[ladcedes]

controversial!

summary f1 heartthrob lando norris starts dating a hot, up-and-coming celebrity with a not-so-hot personality and some fans protest…

disclaimer reminder this is completely fictional!!! the “faceclaim” (very loosely) may be rachel zegler but in no way am i basing it off her personality!!! no hate to her at all i love her sm

the tweet:

comments

user-1 isn't this lando norris' new gf

user-2 no way she's featuring on a DRAKE album 💀💀

yourusername

Liked by bellahadid and 223,449 others

yourusername one thing about me and red carpets... i'll always be serving cunt ❤️‍🔥

view all 442 comments

hunterschafer yess always serving the best looks

bairdballad absolute icon!!

(liked by lando norris)

⤷ bairdballad wtf lando liked this

⤷ snowangel @.bairdballad lando is so real for that

landonorris always a stunner

⤷ yndefender so can we take this as confirmation that they're together

⤷ ynmyloves @/yndefender if this isnt confirmation idk what is 💀

ln4life her language is so vulgar why would lando be with her

⤷ futuref1w4g ikr she's such a bad influence

⤷ angelyns icb you actually said vulgar 💀 lando norris is a fully grown!! BRITISH!! man!!

⤷ milcedes @.ln4life @.futuref1w4g average instagram comments...

lewishamilton 👏👏👏

⤷ ylnstars LEWIS??? lando you better get tf up

⤷ ultraviolenced ariana what are you doing here

2007wdc we should expect lando of all drivers to be with a girl like her most tbf

⤷ 9thwdc aside from lewis

lando.jpg

tagged: yourusername

Liked by daniel3.jpg and 342.112 others

lando.jpg and that marks the end of the 2023 season ✨

view 4 comments

yourusername not a single pic of my face yet you tag me... someone tell him that's not how soft launches usually work

⤷ lando.jpg @.yourusername who says i'm trying to do a soft launch

⤷ yourusername @.lando.jpg you showed me hundreds of other 8K HD pictures of me with my face and only post faceless ones?

⤷ lando.jpg @.yourusername maybe i'm just gatekeeping your face

⤷ yourusername @.lando.jpg it's ok lan, you can stop trying to cover up your loser soft launch attempt, i'll still love you

comments have been disabled

yourusername

tagged landonorris

yourusername cheers to the haters 🥂 he still loves me xx

3 December 2023

view 316 comments

georgerussell63 @ landonorris Your gf is scary help

landonorris you tell em babe

norrislclrc queen behaviour i say

ln4life can’t believe he’d get with you

⤷ ynloml and? you think he’d ever look in your direction?

⤷ ynvfx literally get a life how are you still out here yapping about them even on insta??

ladcedes using this "comment" as an author's note! this is so scuffed im sorry i started it back in early december planning to do more for it but i got busy and atp just wanted to get it done 😭

⤷ ladcedes so for anyone confused about the drake album randomly being there… yeah…

[tyrantisterror]

What are your top favorite fairy tales? Either classic literarily stories, adaptations of literary fairy tales, wholly modern fairy tales, or even just stories that you think are structured like fairy tales. (Roald Dahl books, Studio Ghibli movies, even Shrek and Puss in Boots movies, etc.)

That is an unfathomably vast genre of fiction to try and condense into a ranked numbered list. I think... I think that may be impossible to actually answer as requested. But I can ramble about some of my favorites I suppose.

Let's do this sorta like the Oscars and divide things into categories.

Category 1: The Heavy Hitters

Some fairy tales are significantly more famous than others, so this category is for them: the heavy hitters, the classic fairy tales that are most well known, as defined by my own nebulous perception of which fairy tales are more popular than others.

Of the heavy hitters, my favorites are Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk. Little Red Riding Hood is such a spooky story no matter which telling you're looking at, and has contributed a lot to both the fantasy and horror genres thanks to its simple yet evocative premise and visuals. Jack and the Beanstalk, meanwhile, is just a really solid story of a trickster fool, which is one of my favorite archetypes in all of fiction. Love a good trickster fool.

Category 2: The Obscurities

As I said, this ask is covering a HUGE amount of fiction in its topic, especially since the border between a fairy tale and, like, ANY folklore isn't really well-defined (not in a way anyone can agree too, anyway). But there are a lot of obscure folktales I love that are at least sometimes lumped in as fairy tales, and I'm gonna list them here:

The Lambton Worm - a classic tale of dragon-slaying and getting fucked over by prophecies

The Lindworm Prince - queen can't concieve and consults a witch, ignores witch's directions, gives birth to human baby and dragon baby. Dragon baby grows up and demands a wife before human baby can get his, and a clever girl decides this is her chance to get rewarded for monster fucking.

Maud and the Dragon of Mordiford - the story of a girl who adopts a dragon only for it to end tragically, which inspired one of the novels I'm gonna write one of these days

Tam Lin - the story of a woman who wanted that elf dick and wasn't afraid to do some weird shit to get it

Biancabella and Samaritana - a story about a girl and her sister who is a snake because her mother had trouble concieving

King Odd - a story about an odd king who's actually an exiled fairy queen in disguise, and the man who wins her heart after surviving her attempt to execute him. It's like a Nordic medieval Tenchi Muyo.

You've probably noticed some themes about my favorites right now - lots of stories with dragons, people being transformed into monsters, and heroes who are into that monster shit.

Category 3: Archetypal Pieces

Ok, so for this I'm going to focus less on individual folktales and more on recurring plotlines, character types, and story beats, which you begin to notice the more you read up on Fairy Tales in part because many of the more obscure ones take beats from ones you're probably more familiar with and mix them together in new ways. So, my favorite plot beats in fairy tales:

Any sort of monster, obviously

The villain who literally removed their heart out of fear of being vulnerable

The baleful polymorph (i.e. a human who inhabits a beast/monster body against their will)

Monsterfucker protagonists

Trickster Fool protagonists

Disobedient Girls (examples: Little Red, Goldilocks), though I don't like how this archetype is treated

You want to have a baby and seek a witch and she gives you VERY SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS which you ignore because you really want this baby and oops you've got twins and one of them is some sort of monster good job asshole

The hero helps three (or more) people/creatures in need, and when shit hits the fan, they return the favor

Category 4: Modern(ish) Adaptations

Our penultimate category focuses on adaptations of fairy tales from, like, the 1900's on - anything made in a century I've lived in part of, basically. These arguably shouldn't be divided from "normal" fairy tales, but my brain regards them differently than, like, Victorian era fairy tale retellings, because hey, I lived in the age of these, more or less. They're "modern" for whatever nebulous definition of that word my brain's decided on.

And there's a lot for me to put in this category. Sleeping Beauty might be my favorite of Disney's fairy tale retellings, though Beauty and the Beast is a strong competitor for that role (and maybe Mulan, if we count its source material as a fairy tale, but I'm not sure we can). I think overall I like Sleeping Beauty's more stylized animation and character designs as well as its less conventional story-telling structure a bit more than B&B's, but Beauty and the Beast is still gorgeous and kind of perfectly scripted, so it's a tough competition.

My alltime favorite adaptation of fairy tales, though, would be Jim Henson's The Storyteller:

Using the magic of 1980's muppeteering, it adapts several fairy tales, many of which are more on the obscure side, and sometimes mashes a few different ones together to make sure each episode has a good three act structure. It's wonderful and fully captures the weirdness of fairy tales, while also having a lot of heart - The Heartless Giant is my favorite of the whole series.

Category 5: Works Inspired By Fairy Tales

I almost lumped the following stories into the above category, but while the division is, again, purely in my mind, there's something different about modern works that claim to adapt fairy tales 1:1 and ones that take fairy tale characters or concepts and throw them in entirely new tales with different directions, so that's what our final category will be.

I've gushed about Puss In Boots: The Last Wish enough that I don't think it'd surprise anyone that it would end up here - the same goes with the works of Rankin Bass, which is why I doubt anyone is surprised I'd put The Last Unicorn here too (technically based on a book, but it still fits the "has big fairy tale vibes despite not being based on one specific one" that I'm using to justify this category).

Pan's Labyrinth would also go in this category, with a protagonist who's both a trickster fool AND a disobedient girl, as well as a beautifully gothic take on fairy tale motifs. I'd put Company of Wolves here as well, being a very multifaceted riff on the Little Red Riding Hood story and a movie that sets both my analytical and creative parts of my brain on fire each time I want it.

I'd also put The Path, a short video game explicitly inspired by Company of Wolves, on this part of the favorites list. It's a game about, like, a DOZEN or so different takes on Red Riding Hood and her story, all with different flavors and subtext to analyze. It's unsettling but good.

Dimension 20 had a whole season focused on a horror-themed crossover of fairy tale characters called Neverafter that was fantastic, with one of the best riffs on Little Red Riding Hood I've ever seen, Puss in Boots and Pinocchio working together as con artists, and a vampire Snow White, so yeah 10/10 there, no notes.

And while I've only seen scattered bits of it, what I've seen of Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, a sequel series to Disney's Rapunzel adaptation, is pretty great, though maybe I just think Cass is hot.

If you put an angry woman with a sword in your work of fiction I will at least stay for a few episodes to see what you do with her.

Given how much it consumed my brain in so little time, Revolutionary Girl Utena has to rank among my favorite Fairy Tale things ever - like, this is too chaotic a list to really rank things, but if I were to try, it'd at least be in the top 10. The same is true for Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, which in addition to being a big fun crossover between a bunch of the Heavy Hitter fairy tales, is also one of the best musicals ever written - and indeed, one of the best stage shows of all time.

Shit, where do I put A Midsummer Night's Dream? It feels like it should be here, but it predates the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, whose works my brain categorizes as "old fairy tales" rather than "modern fairy tale retellings." Well, it'd be somewhere among these categories, being one of the best tales with fairies in it ever told.

The Princess Bride would be up high like Utena no matter what - it's one of the best works of fiction about love that we've got. Same goes with Galavant, which I consider its spiritual successor, although I think one could argue Galavant isn't specifically a fairy tale pastiche and is more just a lampooning of fantasy in general.

Oh, and The Hazards of Love, a concept album by The Decemberists, should be here too. That's the last one I can think of right now, but I'm sure I'll think of a few others later that I like enough to regret not putting on here.

[books-of-ochre]

"The Vampire Chronicles is a series of gothic vampire novels and a media franchise, created by American writer Anne Rice, that revolves around the fictional character Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman turned into a vampire in the 18th century." - Wikipedia

Note: Would highly recommend reading in order. First 3 books are great, but do not think you need to read all 13. I explain more at the end.

Interview with a Vampire (1976) Based on a short story Rice wrote around 1968, the novel centers on vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, who tells the story of his life to a reporter.

Good Reads || My Rating: 5/5

The Vampire Lestat (1985) Lestat. The vampire hero of Anne Rice's enthralling new novel is a creature of the darkest and richest imagination. Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now a rock star in the demonic, shimmering 1980s, he rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his eternal, terrifying existence. His is a mesmerizing story --- passionate, complex, and thrilling.

Good Reads || My Rating: 5/5 (personal favorite)

The Queen of the Damned (1988) The rock star Vampire Lestat prepares for a concert in San Francisco, unaware that hundreds of vampires will be among the fans that night and that they are committed to destroying him for risking exposing them all. The sleep of a group of men and women, vampires and mortals, around the world is disturbed by a mysterious dream of red-haired twins who suffer an unspeakable tragedy. The dreamers, as if pulled, move toward each other, the nightmare becoming clearer the closer they get. Some die on the way, some live to face they terrifying fate their pilgrimage is building to. Lestat's journey to a cavern deep beneath a Greek Island on his quest for the origins of the vampire race awakened Akasha, Queen of the Damned and mother of all vampires, from her 6,000 year sleep. Awake and angry, Akasha plans to save mankind from itself by elevating herself and her chosen son/lover to the level of the gods. As these three threads wind seamlessly together, the origins and culture of vampires are revealed, as is the length and breadth of their effect on the mortal world. The threads are brought together in the twentieth century when the fate of the living and the living dead is rewritten. 

Good Reads || My Rating: 5/5

The Tale of the Body Thief (1992) For centuries, Lestat—vampire-hero, enchanter, seducer of mortals—has been a courted prince in the dark and flourishing universe of the living dead. Now he is alone. And in his overwhelming need to destroy his doubts and his loneliness, Lestat embarks on the most dangerous enterprise he has undertaken in all the years of his haunted existence.

Good Reads || My Rating: 4/5

Memnoch the Devil (1995) In the fifth Vampire Chronicle, Lestat is searching for Dora, the beautiful and charismatic mortal daughter of a drug lord. Dora has moved Lestat like no other mortal ever has, and he cannot get her out of his visions. At the same time, he is increasingly aware that the Devil knows who he is and wants something from him. While torn betwen his vampire world and his passion for Dora, Lestat is sucked in by Memnoch, who claims to be the Devil himself. Memnoch presents Lestat with unimagined opportunities: to witness creation, to visit purgatory, to be treated like a prophet. Lestat faces a choice between the Devil or God. Whom does he believe in? Who does he serve? What are the element of religious belief? Lestat finds himself caught in a whirlpool of the ultimate choice.

Good Reads || My Rating: 3.5/5

The Vampire Armond (1998) Now, we go with Armand across the centuries to the Kiev Rus of his boyhood - a ruined city under Mongol dominion - and to ancient Constantinople, where Tartar raiders sell him into slavery. And in a magnificent palazzo in the Venice of the Renaissance we see him emotionally and intellectually in thrall to the great vampire Marius, who masquerades among humankind as a mysterious, reclusive painter and who will bestow upon Armand the gift of vampiric blood. As the novel races to its climax, moving through scenes of luxury and elegance, of ambush, fire, and devil worship to nineteenth-century Paris and today's New Orleans, we see its eternally vulnerable and romantic hero forced to choose between his twilight immortality and the salvation of his immortal soul.

Good Reads || My Rating: 4/5

Merrick (2000) We again meet Louis, Lestat, and David. They are followed by the beautiful witch Merrick Mayfair, an offshoot of the Mayfair clan, with Julien Mayfair as one of her ancestors. She knew David when he was a mortal man working as a member of the Talamasca and it is through David that Louis seeks Merrick's help in resurrecting the spirit of Claudia.

Good Reads || My Rating: 2/5

Blood and Gold (2001) Here is the gorgeous and sinister story of Marius, patrician by birth, scholar by choice, one of the oldest vampires of them all, which sweeps from his genesis in ancient Rome, in the time of the Emperor Augustus, to his meeting in the present day with a creature of snow and ice. Thorne is a Northern vampire in search of Maharet, his 'maker', the ancient Egyptian vampire queen who holds him and others in thrall with chains made of her red hair, 'bound with steel and with her blood and gold'. When the Visigoths sack his city, Marius is there; with the resurgence of the glory that was Rome, he is there, still searching for his lost love Pandora, but bewitched in turn by Botticelli, the Renaissance beauty Bianca, with her sordid secrets, and the boy he calls Amadeo (otherwise known as the Vampire Armand). Criss-crossing through the stories of other vampires from Rice's glorious Pantheon of the undead, haunted by Pandora and by his alter ego Mael, tracked by the Talamasca, the tale of Marius, the self-styled guardian of 'those who must be kept' is the most wondrous and mind-blowing of them all.

Good Reads || My Rating: 3/5

Blackwood Farm (2002) Lestat is back, saviour and demon, presiding over a gothic story of family greed and hatred through generations, a terrifying drama of blood lust and betrayal, possession and matricide. Blackwood Farm with its grand Southern mansion, set among dark cypress swamps in Louisiana, harbours terrible blood-stained secrets and family ghosts. Heir to them all is Quinn Blackwood, young, rash and beautiful, himself a 'bloodhunter' whom Lestat takes under his wing. But Quinn is in thrall not only to the past and his own appetites but, even more dangerously, to a companion spirit, a 'goblin' succubus who could destroy him and others. Only the unearthly power of Lestat combined with the earthly powers of the Mayfair clan could hope to save Quinn from himself and his ghosts, or to rescue the doomed girl Quinn loves from her own mortality.

Good Reads || My Rating: 2/5

Blood Canticle (2003) Lestat is back with a vengeance and in thrall to Rowan Mayfair. Both demon and angel, he is drawn to kill but tempted by goodness as he moves among the pantheon of Anne Rice's unforgettable characters. Julien Mayfair, his tormentor; Rowan, witch and neurosurgeon, who attracts spirits to herself, casts spells on others and finds herself dangerously drawn to Lestat; Patsy, country and western singer, who was killed by Quinn Blackwood and dumped in a swamp; Ash Templeton, a 5,000 year old Taltos whose genes live on in the Mayfairs. Now, Lestat fights to save Patsy's ghost from the dark realms of the Earthbound, to uncover the mystery of the Taltos and to decide the fate of Rowan Mayfair.

Good Reads || My Rating: 1/5 (least favorite)

Prince Lestat (2014) The vampire world is in crisis – their kind have been proliferating out of control and, thanks to technologies undreamed of in previous centuries, they can communicate as never before. Roused from their earth-bound slumber, ancient ones are in thrall to the Voice: which commands that they burn fledgling vampires in cities from Paris to Mumbai, Hong Kong to Kyoto and San Francisco. Immolation, huge massacres, have commenced all over the world. Who – or what – is the Voice? What does it desire, and why? There is only one vampire, only one blood drinker, truly known to the entire world of the Undead. Will the dazzling hero-wanderer, the dangerous rebel-outlaw Lestat heed the call to unite the Children of Darkness as they face this new twilight?

Good Reads || My Rating: 2.5/5

Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016) The vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, hero, leader, inspirer, irresistible force, irrepressible spirit, battling (and ultimately reconciling with) a strange otherworldly form that has somehow taken possession of Lestat's undead body and soul. This ancient and mysterious power and unearthly spirit of vampire lore has all the force, history, and insidious reach of the unknowable Universe.

Good Reads || My Rating: 1/5 (this one is also pretty bad)

Blood Communion (2018) Lestat takes us from his ancestral castle in the snow-covered mountains of France to the verdant wilds of lush Louisiana, with its lingering fragrances of magnolias and night jasmine; from the far reaches of the Pacific’s untouched islands to the 18th-century city of St. Petersburg and the court of the Empress Catherine. He speaks of his fierce battle of wits and words with the mysterious Rhoshamandes, proud Child of the Millennia, reviled outcast for his senseless slaughter of the legendary ancient vampire Maharet, avowed enemy of Queen Akasha, who refuses to live in harmony at court and who threatens all Lestat has dreamt of....

Good Reads || My Rating: 2/5

Overall, my opinion of the series is that it went on for far too long. After Queen of the Damned, it should have ended, but instead we got 10 other books with varying levels of rereadablity. After Merrick, the quality that I usually see within Rice's work seemed to suddenly fade with each new book. Then we got to Blood Canticle and I wanted to give up. I ended up finishing the series to see if things go better. Unfortunately, they did not.

Anne Rice is an amazing writer, but like Stephen King, has misses within her discography. The Vampire Chronicles has always been hit or miss, with many loving and adoring the books, hating them, or somewhere in between. Personally, I am of the opinion that this series has very high highs and the lowest of lows, and its many faults are due to the author not knowing when enough is enough.

Series Rating: 3.8/5

[autistic-captain]

BBC Ghosts Quiz

All information hopefully correct as of 15/09/2023. Answers can be found below once all the questions have been asked.

Question 1: What is Kitty’s favourite morning song?

Question 2: What are the colours of Mike and Alison's egg cups in the episode Not Again?

Question 3: Which actor voiced the Youtube video about the moon landing?

Question 4: What is the name of the concept character who haunted the neighbouring property and served as an example of “it could be worse” for the other ghosts?

Question 5: Who plays Dandini in the best pantomime that Mike has ever attended?

Question 6: How many swans are visible when Mary says “that one be Lucifer’s lackey, for sure”?

Question 7: According to The Captain, what items does Lucy carry secreted about her person?

Question 8: What were the items listed in “grandma went to the shops and bought an apple”

Question 9: What did Pat joke that Thomas’s variation of Cinderella would involve?

Question 10: How many scouts were there in Pat’s troupe during the archery scene?

Question 11: Where is the circus that Mr Cheese allegedly owns?

Question 12: According to Kitty, what are the colours of the rainbow?

Question 13: What does the Captain do while waiting to hear the King’s Queen’s speech on the wireless?

a. He paces across the room

b. He waits silently and patiently

c. He hums a little tune

d. He repeatedly bounces his leg

Question 14: What does Mike eat in Bump In The Night?

Question 15: What is noteworthy about the final scene of Free Pass?

a. Toby Nightingale pays for reparations to the house to prevent any further accidents

b. All the ghosts watch Mamma Mia

c. The sleeve of Thomas’s shirt appears to be wet

d. Thomas’s breath is visible

Question 16: What film do they all watch at the end of Redding Weddy?

a. Top Gun

b. The Notebook

c. Space Odyssey

d. Ghostbusters for the irony

Question 17: Who plays the ghostly doctor?

Question 18: According to Mathew Baynton, which modern musical artist would Thomas be a fan of?

Question 19: Which of the following did NOT occur in BBC Ghosts:

a. Fanny and Humphrey’s body have a romantic subplot involving cherry blossoms and Pat and Mary find it rather sweet

b. Robin doubts the existence of gravity until Florence inadvertently debunks the conspiracy

c. Thomas convincingly sells pleasing cheeses on Button FM

d. Kitty organises a sleepover and makes The Captain patrol the grounds in case Freddy Kruger is there

Question 20: Which characters does Pat have nicknames for?

Question 21: Which football game does Julian spoil for pat?

Question 22: Part 1: In “the hardest word” what does Fanny compare the sorry song rehearsal to?

Part 2: how does Humphrey reply?”

Question 23: How far did Mike say he was going to run?

Question 24: What species is the large tree houseplant in Mike and Alison’s room?

Question 25: What names does Alison call Robin when she’s shouting at the ghosts in Guerilla War?

Question 26: What is the name of the self-help book that Alison reads?

Question 27: What was the name of Kitty’s teddy bear?

Question 28: Why can Kylie Minogue see ghosts?

Question 29: The poster in Mike and Alison’s bedroom depicts what:

a. Diagrams of various British wildflowers

b. Dancing ghosts

c. A poster for a fictional band

d. Dancing skeletons

Question 30: In Something to Share, Mike is convinced that he can now see ghosts due to a peculiar concoction and a misunderstanding. He’s very excited by this and exclaims “I’m going to see a caveman” Does this ever happen in the series and how?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Answers

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Question 1: What is Kitty’s favourite morning song?

Answer: There’s a Lark in the Bushel.

Question 2: What are the colours of Mike and Alison's egg cups in the episode Not Again?

Answer: white with a blue pattern and plain white. Additionally the white with a blue pattern also appears in the episode “The Hardest Word”.

Question 3: Which actor voiced the Youtube video about the moon landing?

Answer: Ben Willbond

Question 4: What is the name of the concept character who haunted the neighbouring property and served as an example of “it could be worse” for the other ghosts?

Answer: Pete

Question 5: Who plays Dandini in the best pantomime that Mike has ever attended?

Answer: Humphrey and it’s a wonderful performance.

Question 6: How many swans are visible when Mary says “that one be Lucifer’s lackey, for sure”?

Answer: 5

Question 7: According to The Captain, what items does Lucy carry secreted about her person?

Answer: A field telephone. A bag, and within that bag is a smaller bag, and within that bag, a bag smaller still that contains a stick of lipstick stick, a tiny mirror, and a comb.

Question 8: What were the items listed in “grandma went to the shops and bought an apple”

Answer: An apple, a packet of Monster Crunch Munch, a bottle of sherry, Playboy magazine, an Enfield N°2 standard issue revolver, swingball, and a lace brassiere.

Question 9: What did Pat joke that Thomas’s variation of Cinderella would involve?

Answer: Cinderella drowning herself and the prince dying of a broken heart.

Question 10: How many scouts were there in Pat’s troupe during the archery scene?

Answer: 5

Question 11: Where is the circus that Mr Cheese allegedly owns?

Answer: Bavaria

Question 12: According to Kitty, what are the colours of the rainbow?

Answer: Red, Orange, Yellow, Grey, Blue, Indigo, Very light blue (a rainbow).

Question 13: What does the Captain do while waiting to hear the King’s Queen’s speech on the wireless?

a. He paces across the room

b. He waits silently and patiently

c. He hums a little tune

d. He repeatedly bounces his leg

Answer: c

Question 14: What does Mike eat in Bump In The Night?

Answer: Trifle before falling asleep despite the very spooky circumstances.

Question 15: What is noteworthy about the final scene of Free Pass?

a. Toby Nightingale pays for reparations to the house to prevent any further accidents

b. All the ghosts watch Mamma Mia

c. The sleeve of Thomas’s shirt appears to be wet

d. Thomas’s breath is visible

Answer: d

Question 16: What film do they all watch at the end of Redding Weddy?

a. Top Gun

b. The Notebook

c. Space Odyssey

d. Ghostbusters for the irony

Answer: c. In the end they all watch Space Odyssey (although The Captain appears to be distracted)

Question 17: Who plays the ghostly doctor?

Answer: Paul Cawley

Question 18: According to Mathew Baynton, which modern musical artist would Thomas be a fan of?

Answer: Taylor Swift

Question 19: Which of the following did NOT occur in BBC Ghosts:

a. Fanny and Humphrey’s body have a romantic subplot involving cherry blossoms and Pat and Mary find it rather sweet

b. Robin doubts the existence of gravity until Florence inadvertently debunks the conspiracy

c. Thomas convincingly sells pleasing cheeses on Button FM

d. Kitty organises a sleepover and makes The Captain patrol the grounds in case Freddy Kruger is there

Answer: d. The others, despite being preposterous, have genuinely occurred.

Question 20: Which characters does Pat have nicknames for?

Answer: The Captain (Cap), Fanny (Lady B), and Maddocks (Mads).

Question 21: Which football game does Julian spoil for pat?

Answer: The Quarter Final between Argentina and England at the 1986 World Cup.

Question 22: Part 1: In “the hardest word” what does Fanny compare the sorry song rehearsal to?

Part 11: how does Humphrey reply?”

Answer Part 1: Battersea Dogs Home

Answer Part 2: “ Really? Was there a fire? “

Question 23: How far did Mike say he was going to run?

Answer: At least 10km

Question 24: What species is the large tree houseplant in Mike and Alison’s room?

Answer:

Madagascan dragon tree (Dracaena marginata). I think. I once had a Madagascan dragon tree called Gerald and Gerald looked very similar.

Question 25: What names does Alison call Robin when she’s shouting at the ghosts in Guerilla War?

Answer: Captain cave-prick and budget Tarzan

Question 26: What is the name of the self-help book that Alison reads?

Answer: Finding Sanity in the Insanity

Question 27: What was the name of Kitty’s teddy bear?

Answer: Bunty Bear. I like to think she named the bear that Alison gifted her Bunty.

Question 28: Why can Kylie Minogue see ghosts?

Answer: She fell and hit her head during the rollerskating montage scene in the music video for Spinning Around.

Question 29: The poster in Mike and Alison’s bedroom depicts what:

a. Diagrams of various British wildflowers

b. Dancing ghosts

c. A poster for a fictional band

d. Dancing skeletons

Answer: d

Question 30: In Something to Share, Mike is convinced that he can now see ghosts due to a peculiar concoction and a misunderstanding. He’s very excited by this and exclaims “I’m going to see a caveman” Does this ever happen in the series and how?

Answer: Yes, in a way. When Robin conducts the lightning in “Not again” his silhouette becomes visible.

[wandering-wolf23]

5). To Be a Queen (Middle Grade Lion fiction)?

To Be a Queen is basically my love letter to early 2010s Lion King fanfic. Especially all the fan prides made and RP sites that ended in ".webs.com". I don't think that Webs is really a thing anymore - IIRC, it's basically been deleted. There's a lot of lost media from those that would make for interesting reading if anyone ever finds it. TBaQ is my take on Simba's story, but Simba is a girl (Jasiri) and her pride has been invaded by an outside force. Baya, who is basically an older, slightly healthier Nuka, winds up finding her and helps her get her pride back. Along the way, they fall in love.

The snippet (actually half of Ch 4):

Jasiri dragged herself into another crevice, grimacing as she did so. She hadn’t realized she was so hurt until a few days after the fact. Aches and pains stabbed all over her body, from the tip of her tail to the cuts on her paw pads. Even her mouth tasted like copper. Jasiri coughed and wiped her muzzle on her fur. Then she lay down again, her golden gaze focused on the sky. Unease rippled across her. It buried itself deep in her fur and bit her skin like a wood ant.

She didn’t like being alone. A lioness in a pride was never left to herself. There was always at least one other with her. Sometimes they might be an aunt, a sister, a friend, or even a low-ranking male assigned to guard them. At the time, Jasiri hated it. Even now, the thought of that suffocating closeness made her growl. Jasiri swallowed it back. She forced a neutral look on her face as she watched the grasslands. Baya and Dani had to get back soon, right? They wouldn’t just leave her here, not after all the trouble they took to get her over here.

“Baya?” a new voice called. “Baya!”

Jasiri tensed. She pressed her belly to the stone and slowly extended her claws.

Footsteps came closer to her. She could barely see a cat, prowling on the other side of the rock. It was too small to be a lion (maybe it was a marozi? Jasiri thought they were all dead, though) and the flashes of fur she saw were cream and red rather than brown.

“Oh, confound it all!” the intruder said. They sighed. “Where is that lion? I’ll even settle for Dani at this point!”

Jasiri kept quiet. She dragged herself up so she sat on her haunches and waited. Seconds dragged by like hours. A few flies buzzed around her, their annoying sound nearly drowning out anything else. Jasiri stayed quiet. She waited, her ears trembling, for the intruder to come near her. If it was a marozi, Jasiri intended to pounce first and ask questions never. She bared her teeth in anticipation, even as her heart pounded. Exhaustion threatened to drag her back to the ground. Jasiri fought it off and steeled herself for the coming fight.

The intruder walked around the rock, saw her, and froze. Jasiri stared back. The red leopard’s mouth dropped open and his tail fell straight down.

“Baya has a girlfriend?” he asked. “I thought he and Dani were a thing.”

“Who are you?” Jasiri asked.

“Touko.” Touko sat down and licked his chest. “I, uh, was looking for my friend.”

“Yeah, I heard.” Jasiri didn’t sit and bared her fangs. “Now what do you want?”

“Uh, I want to know where Baya is?” Touko asked. His tail gestured wildly as he spoke. “We were supposed to go fishing. But he’s nowhere to be found and I really don’t want to go swimming without a backup, you know?”

“No, I don’t know,” Jasiri hissed. “Next time, be careful. I thought you were a marozi.”

Touko stared at her, confusion in his golden eyes. “A what now?”

“Marozi.” Jasiri grimaced. “They’re not very nice. It’s like a nasty lion had a baby with a nastier leopardess.”

Touko nodded like he understood. “Right… I’ll just wait up here, I guess. I am not walking back to the river. Not in this heat.”

[unpopularghostwrites]

Book Review 1-4: The Lunar Chronicles, by Merissa Meyer

This is my book review for the books Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Winter, Fairest, and Stars Above; all by Merissa Meyer. I’ll be reviewing the books below, posting some of my favorite fan art from creators about these characters, and talking about the pros and cons of it. So buckle up for a super long post, I doubt many will read this but hey, might as well make it anyways. I will put a rating list below after the review! **Overall rating of the series: 3.5/5**  Cinder - 4.5/5 Scarlet - 3/5 Cress - 3.5/5 Winter - 3/5 Fairest - 3.5/5 Stars Above - 3/5

**You would like this book series if:** - You like science fiction and fantasy - You like twisted fairy tales - You like strong female leads (that are not sexist stereotypes of “strong female leads” - You like a feel good story - You like team oriented story lines - You like rotating points of view **Media that is similar to the Lunar Chronicles** - Percy Jackson, by Rick Riordan - Once Upon a Time, TV show on HBO Max - Merissa Meyer’s other books - The Red Queen series

**The series**

I really liked reading this series. I combined the audiobooks and the ebooks, so I could get through the series extremely quickly. It isn’t very advanced writing wise, so I can easily see a teenager or an adult reading this for the characters and story. Problems with the series are lack of LGBT representation, and inconsistent pacing - Past that, I have very little negative comments about the series. What pleased me was the racial diversity, as nearly all the main characters come from different countries and ethnicities.

I think that the Lunar Chronicles came out at the best time and worst time, as it would be a bit too cliche if it was published now, but it wasn’t nearly as popular as other book series that were coming out around this time. People were more likely to read the Percy Jackson books or the Hunger Games than they were to dive into the Lunar chronicles.

Because of the lack of clout that this series got, there is very little fan art to gush over. This is my personal favorite depiction of the main lover interests. I like that the prince is Asian, as an Asian American I don’t see nearly enough representation in books. He’s considered the most eligible heart throb in the world in this series, which is such a refreshing change of pace.

The artist for this work I couldn’t find. I got this off of pinterest.

Going into the books themselves -

This book cover was the first I ever saw for Cinder, and is incredibly inaccurate to any theme or aspect of the story. If you read it, you’ll get it.

This is a much better version of the book cover. I love the aesthetic and that it doesn’t look like a ripped off version of Twilight!

Cinder as a book is very long, there are a lot of moving parts to it but it follows the track of Cinderella very closely. You can predict what will happen, but it’s great that there are cyborg and science fiction elements like a global pandemic and moon queens to deal with.

It’s good for the world building and to introduce us to the concept of cyborg moon princesses.

But again, we’re going to notice a theme of the new covers being wonderful and the original covers being on the nose and “Twilight” like.

This book was great for 13 year old me, obsessed with wolves and quotev. The memories and nostalgia make this book a 4.5/5, if I had read it now and rated it I’d have given it a 3/5. It’s just, spit fire red head falls in love with Alpha man who is heart throbby. If you want a version of this that is more centered on a dynamic like this, I’d tell you to read A Court of Thorns and Roses (NOT that I’ve read it, but that the witty heroine and alpha man being protective trope is a bit deep fried at this point). They are cute enough and Cinder and Thorn as characters make up for this.

SPEAKING OF THORN.

Thorn grew on me as a character in this! Cress being a vapid little dizzy girl was cute in this story, maybe because Rebecca Solare is that good of a narrator. This dynamic and story line was much more interesting to me than the one in Scarlet now as an adult. As a kiddo reading this series, I got halfway through Cress before I stopped reading it. It’s only now as a 21 year old I was able to power through all of the series. The character interactions in this were great! Some of the downsides of Cress are that it becomes a bit Looney Tunes at times with all the characters separated, Scarlet and Wolf become the annoying characters to read about, and the character Jacin is the human embodiment of “my mom made me come to your birthday party, this is lame”.

Please accept this fanart as a token of my anguish:

So chugging along. Here we have:

I think that the way they fake Snow White’s death is lame. I think that this book ties all the others well but the ending fight scene is so odd. I liked this was the end of the series, I liked the idea of a childhood romance, I found Winter to be annoying. I think this idea of someone being naturally so beautiful, that her scars make her even more gorgeous to be irksome. Pretty privilege is a thing, but to have her main characteristic be that she’s beautiful is playing into the theme of Snow White a bit too much. The Evil Queen becomes much more interesting than most of our main characters. It’s weird that Scarlet and Wolf are even somewhat relevant in this book, and the end feels leaves you feeling happy but also wishing we could have had more of a central story that isn’t Cinder giving motivational empty speeches.

Levana is a very toxic person. She thinks that possession and coercion is legitimate feelings of romance. I think that her husband is an odd ball, and the entire relationship she has with him makes me feel very icky. I feel sad for her, but not enough to think she’s misunderstood or innocent. I think that this would have been great included in Winter, as it would have had more depth of character. The author herself says that this is a good book to read before picking up Winter.

Stars Above was an okay read. I don’t think that it added much, but it was a cute concept. I think that some of the stories were completely skippable, when I think back on all of the stories I honestly cannot remember many of them. 

I think that this series is very similar to many young adult series: the first book is great, the second is not as good, the third makes you question how many more are left, the last is just relief the series is over and you can go find the next one to obsess over.

BUT. DESPITE ALL THE NEGATIVITY?

I did really like having a book to read again. I felt like a little kid, and each book was a juicy apple to bite into. There were some meal-y parts but overall? Very pleasant and fun! :) I highly recommend you read these books, there are flaws but the characters are worth knowing and the story is worth being told.

How I rate books: 0 - Could not finish

Could not finish due to various reasons. Be it it’s too boring, or that it was highly offensive or poorly written.

1 - No.

Absolutely detested, will not read again, could not believe some people read this and enjoy it. What were they thinking?

2 - Eh.

Not my cup of tea, but I can see why someone would like this. Wouldn’t read again but not a complete waste of time. 

3 - Huh.

Welp. This book is very mid tier. I’m okay that I read it, might read it again if I am bored or forget it. This is an okay read and I’m okay I read it.

4 - Hm.

Hm. I don’t know if I really like this book but it made me feel something. I liked it and would read it again, I don’t know when I’d read it again but I’d confidently tell someone about this book and recommend this book.

5 - WOW! I love this book. I am this book. Read this book. 1000000000000000000000000000000/5 - Self explanatory

If I give a book this rating, assume it is now my personality and I am going to force you to read it in front of me.

**All art is not made by me, it is a google search and not my art. If it is my art, I will say so. Assume all art is not mine. Ty**

[omniversalobservations]

Spider-Man: The Gathering of the Sinister Six (1999)

The Machiavelli Club, mentioned on pages 34-35 of Gathering of the Sinister Six, as well as pages 162-163 of Revenge of the Sinister Six, was founded by Professor James Moriarty, from the Sherlock Holmes stories "The Final Problem," "The Adventure of the Empty House," and the novel The Valley of Fear.  Its members include various rogues from comic books, movies, prose fiction, and so forth:

* The waiter at the Macchiavelli Club is Henry from Asimov's BLACK WIDOWER stories. * Wilson Fisk (The Kingpin) * Obadiah Stane (The Iron Monger) from Iron Man. * Gruber brothers: Anton Gruber first appeared in the prose novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp (a sequel to his homosexual murder mystery The Detective).  Anton Gruber was basically a Baader-Meinof/Red Army Faction-style terrorist.  He was renamed Franz Gruber for the film Die Hard, while his brother Simon appeared in Die Hard With a Vengeance. * Doctor Fu Manchu is obviously "the long-lived oriental gentleman" that the Gentleman refers to.  (Although later on it is said that the Gentleman harbors prejudice against the Chinese, he makes no snide remarks about Doctor Fu Manchu.)  The Gentleman believes that Doctor Fu Manchu is dead due to the events of Master of Kung Fu #118, though he showed up alive and well in Marvel Knights I #4.  Marvel currently refers to him as the Ghost, due to licensing issues. * Auric is Auric Goldfinger, from the Ian Fleming novel.  Auric is derived from the Latin word for gold, from which its elemental symbol, Au, is derived. * Lex is Lex Luthor. * Justin Hammer is an Iron Man villain. * "The German Herr Taubman."  An alias used by a recurring villain called "The Deaf Man" in "The 87th Precinct" novels by Ed McBain.  Great novels BTW.  (Taubman is German for deaf man as I recall.)  Here's a clip from a fan site. * The Wrightsville Diedrich Van Horn is from the Ellery Queen novel Ten Day's Wonder, written by Ellery Queen.  (Ellery Queen was a sleuth created by two cousins who adopted his name as their pen name.  He went to a town called Wrightsville for vacations.  In the movies, Ralph Bellamy played Ellery Queen-Bellamy also appeared in two Eddie Murphy movies as one of the Duke brothers.) * Ras is Ra's Al Ghul, from the Distinguished Competition. * Soze is from the film The Usual Suspects. * Hannibal is Hannibal Lecter, from the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, and later Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. * Carmen is Carmen San Diego from the computer game and cartoon show. * Mr. Glass is from the film Unbreakable, as played by Samuel Jackson. * Napier refers to the Jack Napier, the Joker, from the 1989 Batman film. * Ernst is Ernst Blofeld from the Ian Fleming novel Thunderball. * Randolph and Mortimer Duke are from two Eddie Murphy films, Trading Places and Coming to America.  While in both these films Randolph and Mortimer Duke, insider traders, were played by the same actors (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy), Eddie Murphy was not playing the same person in these films, which were otherwise unrelated.

Although not mentioned as a member of the Machiavelli Club, Caspar Gutman worked with the Gentleman in the past, per page 166 of Secret of the Sinister Six. Casper Gutman comes from the Dashiell Hammett novel The Maltese Falcon, published in 1929.

Source: Marvel Universe Appendix

Carmen Sandiego is part of the Machiavelli Club, along with Jack Napier, Hannibal Lecter and Mr. Glass. Among others. Moriarty was a founding member, and the Gruber Brothers and a villain from an Ellery Queen novel have been members. The Gentleman briefly converses with two brothers, Randolph and Mortimer, who made their money on the futures exchange, and wonders how they earned a place at the club as they are no more 'evil' than standard stockbrokers.

Though not mentioned by name, Clint Eastwood, Robert Downey Jr. and Sylvester Stallone are all heavily implied to be attending Brick Johnson's funeral.

The cast from Scooby-Doo shows up at the end of the final book.

The 27th Precinct's Detective Briscoe takes statements.

Dr. Christian Szell is an old associate of The Gentleman.

Quentin Beck passes Cassady and Jesse.

In the third book, the Gentleman credits the inspiration for his overall Evil Plan to be a late associate of his named Auric.

One of the police officers in the third book is implied to be the son of Marge Gunderson.

Source: TV Tropes

(image via Amazon)

[monarch-maelstrom]

⚠️Warning Swearing, blood, death, and traumatic events⚠️

This is the first chapter of the fan fiction I’m writing and I hope you guys like it. And btw if anyone has ideas for a cover or a title please tell me :)

Chapter 1

Next>>

When Shadowmoth is defeated things take a twist for Ladybug and Chat noir. Ladybug goes to new worlds when she learns new things about her past. Dragging Chat noir along with her. And back on Earth the world is rewired to have one person rule it all, King Félix Fathom. And on top of all that a new villain rises, Signora Farfalla. With new worlds, rulers, villains and even feelings who knows what mysteries are in the stars.

=-+ Note’s +-=

This is an AU where the events of season 4 aand the ending of season 3 did not happen. Ladybug still has the miraculouses, Rena Rouge is still active and Felix was never given a miraculous. The only events that did happen are that Rena Rouge knows Ladybug is Marinette and Ivan, Sabrina, Marc and Nathanael were given miraculouses. Ladybug has also let all of the miraculous holders keep their miraculouses and Alix and Chloé have a miraculous. And more mysteries are yet to be solved.

This story is inspired by The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Mayer. If you like this story you’ll enjoy The Lunar Chronicles. It is an amazing series about a teenage cyborg girl and her journey defeating an evil queen. There’s 4 books: Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter. Each book is inspired by a different fairytale. Cinder - Cinderella, Scarlet - Little red riding hood, Cress - Rapunzel and Winter - Snow White. It is one of the best book series I’ve ever read and I recommend it so much.

Chapter 1- The beginning siblings

Shadowmoth shoved Chat noir into a wall with his cataclysm activated. The brown and black destruction scaling up the wall like a disease. Consuming the white and orange of his bedroom. Chat noir backed away from it. Thick red blood dripping down the front of his suit. Chat noir looked behind him. Shadowmoth had left. He looked back at the wall. If he remembered correctly that wall was a VERY important support wall. The wall crumbled into a pile of ashes. And the basketball hoop crashed down onto the floor cracking the wood. Almost crushing him. Chat noir backed away even farther. Then he started running. He sprinted as fast as he could searching desperately for Ladybug. “LADYBUG! LADYBUG WE NEED TO GO! LADYBUG!” He ran through the house that he grew up in. His feet slamming against the cracked tile. He didn’t care where the hell Shadowmoth went, he just needed to find Ladybug. He slid down the rail of the stairs and sprinted through the foyer.

Everyone had been evacuated out of the building except for Ladybug, Him and Shadowmoth. Chat kicked open the door to his fathers office. The gigantic door falling onto the tile. He jumped into the empty hole where the elevator to the secret basement used to be. He crashed onto the platform, shaking it entirely. He quickly ran down the platform still shaking it. He searched the platform, looking through every crook and cranny he could find. In the middle of the platform? No. In the life support machine thingy with his mothers corpse? Definitely not. In the greenery? NO. Chat noir was getting nervous. He didn’t know where the hell Ladybug was and time was running out. This whole building was gonna collapse.

Then a thought occurred to him. What if she’s in the water? What if Shadowmoth threw her in? Chat ran to the railing searching desperately for anything. Her hand, her yo-yo, some hair. Chat launched himself off the platform. If she’s not in the water then he didn’t know where she was.

…………………..

Ladybug remembers being pushed off the platform. By someone she didn’t know was there. Ladybug remembers crashing into the surface of the water, knocking the wind out of her. Ladybug remembers sinking, and sinking, and sinking. Trying to save every last droplet of air. Ladybug remembers air bursting out of her lungs quickly being replaced by water. And then black.

…………………..

Chat crashed into the surface of the water. Creating the biggest splash he’d ever seen. Not that he’d seen that many. He swam to the bottom. Searching and searching desperately, oh so desperately. He felt like his eyes were gonna burst with tears. If he couldn’t find Ladybug or if he did find her and she was dead, He would be so lost. He felt so helpless. He was gonna die. Shadowmoth was gonna die. Ladybug was dead or was gonna die.

He was about to compact into a tiny ball and cry until the building collapsed. But then he saw a flash of red. He swam as fast as he could. Sure enough there she was. Really beat up from the fight but she looked okay. Her hair ties had been cut in the fight so her hair was down and flowing all around her. Damn, she’s really pretty with her hair down. Chat noir shook his head. Not the time. He couldn’t tell if she was dead or unconscious but either way he needed to get her out of here. He grabbed her by the waist and looked around. He couldn’t swim to the surface because he couldn’t get back on the platform. He couldn’t use his stick to go up because he lost that in the fight with Shadowmoth. Well if he was gonna die at least he was with his lady.

He looked around one more time. And found a drain. It was clogged though. If he unclogged it he and Ladybug could probably fit through it and go wherever it ended. Probably the sewers. The only problem was he might be a little claustrophobic. Heh claw-strophobic. Ok he actually needed to focus. He was running out of air. He started pulling out the stuff clogging the drain. It was mostly leaves with some butterfly cocoons. And occasionally machinery. He unclogged the drain and that AWFUL sound was gone. It sounded like someone continuing to try and drink their drink when there was only air and ice left.

The drain started to pull them in. Chat noir held on tight to Ladybug and they went down. It was like a water slide. Except faster. Water was going crazy crashing against the sides and splashing. There were vines and leaves hanging from the ceiling. There was algae and mold on the sides and Chat thought he was gonna puke. But at least there was sort of air again. And Chat noir was completely right. He felt so claustrophobic. He started hyperventilating. Chat’s hold on Ladybug started to slip so he held onto her tighter. Eventually she slipped out of his grip and went down the drain. Now he was even more worried. She was out of his sight and he didn’t know where the drain went. He tried to sit up and crawl down the drain but he hit his head. He rubbed his head. His ring started beeping. “Not the time Plagg.” He hissed. He got on his stomach and swam down the drain. It really was like a water slide. He couldn’t help but say “weeeeeeee!” down the drain.

The drain came to an end. There was a drop down. Where did it lead to? Had Ladybug already gone down? He went down. It was like a waterfall. He hair was so wet by now. He could feel it matted to his forehead. He looked down and saw Ladybug falling. He made it so he went down faster and he grabbed onto Ladybug. He could feel her gasping for air. Oh thank goodness she wasn’t dead. He saw the floor coming fast. He held onto Ladybug acting like a shield for her. He flipped over so his back would hit the ground. It seemed like it was taking a while for the ground to hit. He turned his head to look at the ground and slammed into the concrete. He groaned in pain. He also rubbed his nose. Should’ve seen that one coming.

Next to him Ladybug lay there on her side. He started to panic. How long had she been underwater? Chat rolled Ladybug onto her back and laced his hands together. He pushed hard on her chest. Nothing. He put his mouth to hers. Nothing. On TV the most romantic things were the hero saving the damsel in distress from drowning. But in real life this was the most stressful thing EVER. Chat didn’t know much about CPR but hopefully it was better than nothing.

…………………..

Chat was kissing her. Wait no. He was probably performing CPR. Hopefully. He wasn’t doing it that well so it felt more like a really passionate kiss. But because she was awake it did the job. It really didn’t matter if he was performing CPR or not but either way she was blushing like hell. Which hopefully he didn’t notice. But she wasn’t concerned about him noticing her blushing. No. She was more concerned with the fact that he was crying. Which was concerning because she had never seen him cry.

Suddenly water flooded her mouth. Chat noir must've noticed because he pulled away. She sat up and started coughing up water. When she stopped she started breathing again. Which, she never knew she could miss air so much. Chat was sitting next to her, staring at her. Then he started crying even harder than he already was. “Oh Chat! Why are you crying? Are you okay?” Ladybug asked, concerned.

There was blood dripping from his nose. And on his cheek. And all down the front of his suit. His hair was matted with water and he was soaking wet. Ladybug reached over and wiped the little bit of blood on his cheek off. He reached up and held her hand there. And leaned into her hand. Ladybug pulled him into a hug. He started sobbing so hard. And he held on to her like he was never letting go. He was shaking and getting blood on her suit but she didn’t mind. “I… I…” he started. He sniffed. “I was… so… so scared.” Ladybug nuzzled her head into his hair. Damn, even after everything his hair still smells so good. She closed her eyes and sat with him for a while.

After Chat stopped crying and was comforted. They looked for a way back up to the mansion. Chat really didn’t want to go back but they needed to collect the miraculouses. Ladybug looked at the curved wall of the sewer tunnel. There was a short ladder that Ladybug assumed led to a manhole cover. Ladybug stood up and tried to help Chat up. But as soon as he stood and she let go he collapsed again.

Ladybug was assuming that because he was swimming so much in the thick and strong water and that he was carrying her that his legs had just given up. Ladybug was impressed that he had gotten this far though. Ladybug had two ideas. Either he stays here while she quickly grabs the miraculouses that way because he’s hurt he’s also safe, but he'll probably be a little upset. Or she’ll carry him which will be a pain but after all he did she’ll do it, and she’s a little worried she might hurt him but he’ll be happy.

Chat looked at her with full eyes. She really didn’t want to leave him here but it was safest. But then again he probably won’t allow her to leave him here. “You want to leave me here don’t you?” Chat said sadly.

Ladybug stood there. “I don’t want to… but I’m worried you’re gonna get more hurt than you already are.” Ladybug smiled sadly. “But if you want to come I’ll allow it.” He pondered this for a moment and looked at the ground.

“I… I’ll stay here…” Chat says studying the ground. “But promise you’ll come back as soon as you're done.” He said looking at Ladybug. He smiled sadly, responding to her sad smile.

“I’ll be quick. I promise.”

…………………..

Ladybug left Chat in the sewers. It was damp and it smelled musty. The rocks on the ground were flooded with water. Some of the water tinted red from his blood. Chat had been so focused on saving Ladybug that he hadn’t even noticed the pain. But now it was all flooding back.

He assumed he had probably broken his nose being shoved into the wall. And hitting the concrete. Chat crawled over to the wall and leaned against it to support him. “Claws in.” The green lightning sparks covered his body and got rid of his suit. Turning into Plagg.

Plagg landed and curled up in Adrien’s lap. This was the first time Adrien had ever seen Plagg so tired after a fight. Adrien grabbed some cheese from his jacket. The cheese was wet but he didn’t think Plagg would mind. Plagg lifted his head up and sniffed the cheese. Then he slowly ate it. Adrien laid his head against the wall. The wall was cool and it felt nice. “Do you think Shadowmoth is dead, Plagg?”

“I don’t know. And I don't care right now.” Plagg said his words slurred.

“But what if Ladybug has to fight him by herself.”

“Then she’ll fight him. She’s strong Adrien, she'll be fine.” Plagg said, his words were more defined. Adrien sighed. Adrien didn’t know what he would feel if Shadowmoth was dead. Maybe relief? Sadness? Anger? He didn’t know, he just hoped he would be okay

…………………..

Ladybug arrived at the mansion. It was a pile of rubble and dust. She recognized some things. Like some of Adrien’s cd’s. His trophies. A destroyed grimoire. She picked it up. You couldn’t read anything. All of the pages were destroyed and torn. The cover was scratched up and missing chunks. Ladybug sighed. And dropped it. She looked around some more.

She saw a hand underneath some rubble. She hauled the rubble off of the body and sure enough there was Gabriel Agreste. She guessed he wasn’t quick enough to get out. Ladybug grabbed the broches. The peacock and butterfly miraculouses. They’d won. Ladybug looked down and noticed a letter. It had Adrien’s name on it. Oh Adrien he’s probably going to be devastated. She picked it up and noticed it had a little bit of weight to it. She felt around inside it and it felt like there was a… ring? Ladybug shoved it in her belt and started walking back to the manhole.

Then something grabbed her foot. She looked down and there grabbing her foot was Lila Rossi. “Oh geez Lila. Are you okay? Why are you here?” Ladybug helped Lila up. And Lila coughed up some blood.

“Shadowmoth took me captive and I was still inside when the building collapsed.” Lila said her words sort of slurred. Lila bent down and fixed her boot.

“Oh no I’m so sorry we didn’t see you! Do you want me to take you home?”

“No, I'm fine.” Lila smiled a devious smile and Ladybug realized this was a big mistake. Lila pulled a knife out of her sleeve and launched herself at Ladybug. Ladybug flipped backwards. And pulled out her Yo-Yo. She started swinging it in a circle forming a shield. Lila threw the knife at Ladybug. Ladybug dodged. She looked behind her at the knife. Then back at Lila. “Looks like you lost your weapon Lila.” Lila just started laughing.

The knife came flying back to Lila. And Ladybug didn’t notice. Well at least it didn’t hit me. Lila launched herself at Ladybug and Ladybug wasn’t prepared. The knife cut her cheek. But otherwise she was fine. Ladybug wrapped her yo-yo around Lila. But Lila cut it. “H…how…. My yo-yo is indestructible!” Lila just laughed again. Ladybug was getting tired of that answer.

Ladybug patted her belt to make sure she had everything. Ladybug patted again. Something was missing. The miraculouses… She looked around desperately. While she was distracted. Lila took action. She sprinted towards Ladybug. And before Ladybug could notice. It was too late. A searing pain spread through her stomach. She looked down. And there the knife was. Stabbed. She had been stabbed in the stomach. Ladybug collapsed to her knees.

Lila took out the knife. And smiled. “If you were looking for these, don't worry, they're safe.” Lila held up the miraculouses. And walked away

…………………..

It had at least been 20 minutes since Ladybug had left. Chat noir started getting worried… and lonely. Chat heard the manhole cover open and Ladybug slowly came down then fell down the ladder. Chat quickly crawled over. “LADYBUG?! OH GEEZ ARE YOU OKAY?” A puddle of blood started to expand under her. He scanned her down to find the wound. And there it was a big gaping hole in her stomach. Someone had stabbed her. Chat started to panic. She was dieing. She was dieing. SHE WAS DIEING.

“I… I’m fine… it’s just a… a little cut.” Ladybug said, her words slurred in pain.

“HOW THE HELL IS THAT JUST A LITTLE CUT?” Chat said angrily and panicked. “WHAT MOTHERFUCKER DID THIS?!”

“Mmm… I’m fine.” Ladybug said, rolling over.

“Who made this Ladybug?” Chat said pressing his forehead to hers

“L…Lila.” Ladybug responds clearly in pain and dieing.

“Lila…” Chat noir said with a snarl, pulling away from Ladybug. Chat noticed that the wound was already healing. Which is unusual. Even for them superheroes. And the tips of her hair were turning a lighter blue than her hair color. Was that normal? Was it a new hairstyle? Chat brought Ladybug into his lap and she leaned her head on his chest. She was in so much pain and he didn’t know what to do. Then he realizes something. “Ladybug… where’s the miraculouses?” Ladybug starts sobbing. He tries to wipe away the tears. “Lila took them didn’t she…” Chat says calmly. Ladybug sobs even harder. Getting his suit wet again.

“I… I’m… S… S… Sorry.” Ladybug says, nuzzling her face into the crook between his neck and shoulder. Chat starts rubbing her hair with his hand. He nuzzles his face into her hair.

“It’s not your fault milady. You tried your hardest.” Chat says trying to comfort her. She sobs even harder into his shoulder. She starts shaking from either pain or crying. He wipes some of the tears off her cheek and pulls her closer. She starts sniffing.

“How… how can you even put up with me?” She whispers. “I always fail and mess up.”

“Milady, you make mistakes like everyone else. If you didn’t make mistakes then you wouldn’t be human. And it’s okay we’ve defeated Shadowmoth before and we’ll do it again.” Ladybug looked him in the eye. “It’ll be okay.” He smiled. She smiled sadly. Then rested her head back where it was before.

“Thank you, Chat.”

…………………..

Marinette got home and the wound was almost fully healed. Which was useful and unusual. Because she wouldn’t have to lie to her parents and it wasn’t natural to heal that fast. She honestly should’ve been dead. She was slouching a little and her stomach was sore but at least she wasn’t dead. She walked up the stairs and collapsed into bed.

Tikki floated by her. Pounding her with questions like. “Where’s Nooroo and Duusu?” “What happened?” “Are you okay?” “Do you know who Chat noir is?” The reveal… She forgot about the damn reveal! Could they still do it? Even if there’s probably gonna be a new shadowmoth? Even if they didn’t have the peacock and butterfly miraculouses?

She heard pounding on the roof. Could it be Chat noir? Or Rena rouge? Or one of the other superheroes? Either way she wasn’t really in the mood to talk. She opened the hatch. Looking around. It was not Chat noir or Rena rouge or one of the superheroes. It was master Su-Han. He looked mad and very stern. “I want a full report of what happened. And if you got the miraculouses or not.” Marinette stood there. She didn’t want to talk about this right now. But she didn’t have a choice.

“I… I didn’t get the miraculouses.” Marinette looked at Tikki. Tikki frowned sadly.

“Explain.”

“We found out who Shadowmoth was and defeated him. But when I went to collect the miraculouses…. I was stabbed and someone took them.”

“Do you know who took them?” Marinette was a little upset that he wasn’t worried about the fact that SHE HAD BEEN STABBED.

“Y…yes Lila Rossi.” Master Su-Han stared at her. He must’ve known there was more. Like how she almost drowned. Or how the building collapsed. Or how Shadowmoth is dead. Or how her and Chat noir were cuddling… a lot… her heart fluttered just at the thought of it. Marinette shook her head. No, not the time. When she looked over at Su-Han he was mad. “I… I’m really sorry.”

Su-Han didn’t say anything. He just left. Which she was fine with because she had places to be.

…………………..

Adrien sat on Nino’s bed processing everything. Nino was in the other room eating dinner with his family. Nino’s mom had come in multiple times asking if he wanted dinner. He just didn’t have an appetite. He sat there for a while. He kind of wished Ladybug knew who he was so he could talk to her about everything.

The silence was soon broken by something knocking on the window. Adrien walked over and opened the window. There, hanging was Ladybug. “Hey, Adrien…” Ladybug said nervously. Her yo-yo slipped and she screamed. Adrien grabbed her and pulled her inside. “Heh thanks” she said with that awkward smile he loved. Then she straightened up. And her face was serious again.

“Are you giving me another miraculous? Because remember what happened last time?” Ladybug shuddered.

“No, don't worry I’m not here to give you a miraculous.” Then she looked at the ground sadly. “I’m sorry about your father… and house.”

“Ah… um… it’s fine. I’m okay.” Ladybug looked sadly at him. Adrien was trying to contain himself from just launching himself into her arms. Or grabbing her face and kissing her. Or just something that wouldn’t make sense to her.

“Um well anyways I have something to give to you.” She pulled out her yo-yo and opened it. She pulled out a letter and handed it to him. It had his name on it and it was in his father’s handwriting. Oh god I don’t know if i’m ready for this.

“I uh thank you.” Adrien said sadly.

“I’ve got to go but I’m sorry for your loss.” Ladybug said. Then she took off out the window. Adrien looked at the letter in his hand. He decided he needed time to process everything before he read it.

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review: MaXXXine (2024)

MaXXXine (2024)

Rated R for strong violence, gore, sexual content, graphic nudity, language and drug use

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2024/07/review-maxxxine-2024.html>

Score: 4 out of 5

Ti West's recent trilogy of retro horror flicks that began with X and continued with its prequel Pearl has already cemented itself as a series of modern classics, some of the best horror films of this young decade, a series that has made West a household name among horror fans and made their leading lady Mia Goth into a scream queen. Not without reason, either, as those two films really are as good as everybody says, X an excellent and brutal throwback slasher that had a lot to say about the entertainment industry and Pearl a chilling, technicolor psychological horror film about a woman's descent into madness. And just as X ended with a tease of Pearl, so too did Pearl end with a tease of the trilogy closer: MaXXXine, a film that would follow X's protagonist Maxine Minx in Hollywood circa 1985.

While the trailers promised a return to the slasher throwback well of X, this time in the city rather than on a dusty farm, what West has actually made here is a throwback to a different kind of horror flick: the giallo, a kind of lurid murder mystery that the Italian film industry in the '60s and '70s specialized in and churned out by the dozens ("giallo" being the Italian word for yellow, the name coming from an Italian publisher of pulp literature famous for using yellow covers), and which is often seen as a prototype for the slasher genre that combined it with hardboiled detective fiction and served as a bridge between them. (Note how many early slashers like Prom Night, Black Christmas, and to an extent even Halloween have subplots about the police searching for the killer.) I would not say that MaXXXine is as good a film as the greatest of its giallo inspirations, nor does it quite reach the heights of the preceding films in the trilogy. The villain's identity was both fairly easy to figure out and something that seemed to come out of left field, and the plot went all over the place in a way that only kind of came together by the end. It succeeded most in its non-horror moments when it focused on Maxine's trials and tribulations in Hollywood, her grappling with the trauma in her past, and exploring the blurry boundaries between "adult entertainment" and mainstream cinema, and fortunately, this was where most of the film's attention seemed to lay, with it being focused on fleshing out its title character as much as Pearl was focused on its own. As a conclusion to a great horror trilogy, it's undoubtedly the weakest of the three films, but it still stands on its feet as an effective character piece and a conclusion to Maxine's story.

The film picks up six years after the end of X, with Maxine Minx living the dream in Hollywood as a successful porn star who drives a nice Mercedes convertible with a vanity license plate. That said, she knows that, as a 32-year-old woman who's not getting any younger, her days in porn are numbered, and her only shot at continued success is to transition to "mainstream" film, which she finds when she lands a leading role in the slasher sequel The Puritan II. All this takes place against the backdrop of the Night Stalker murders that gripped Los Angeles in the mid-'80s, with Maxine getting drawn into them after her friends and colleagues start turning up dead. What's more, the killer knows about what went down at that Texas farm back in 1979, leaving the porno tape recovered from the murder scene at Maxine's door. Even as she "goes legit" in a film that will be released in theaters beyond America's red light districts, it seems that Maxine can't quite escape her sordid past.

The supporting cast here is stacked with names big and small, a mix of veteran character actors, rising stars, and non-actor celebrities who, given what was undoubtedly a fairly small budget, seemingly all jumped at the chance to show up in the finale of the X trilogy. Giancarlo Esposito plays Maxine's agent in his typical fashion (i.e. a smooth, classy guy who you nonetheless just know is willing to get up to some dirty business to get his way) and does it well, Elizabeth Debicki makes her filmmaker character feel like somebody who has more superficial class than Maxine but is still just as ruthless in getting her way, Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale play a pair of police detectives who serve as comic relief (Cannavale's character in particular being a failed actor who still has a flair for the dramatic), Kevin Bacon makes for an utter sleazeball of a private detective trying to track Maxine down and dredge up her past for his mysterious employer, Lily Collins and Sophie Thatcher play Maxine's co-workers on the set of the slasher flick she's working on (Collins as her co-star and Thatcher as a special effects artist), and the pop singer Halsey plays one of Maxine's friends and fellow porn stars, and while many of them don't get more than a couple of scenes, each and every one of them threw themselves into their respective parts and made for a welcome presence on screen.

However, the main focus of the film is its title character, and once again, Mia Goth has come to play. She's undoubtedly been traumatized by her experience, but at the same time, she's also a woman of dubious morals who's driven to succeed, refuses to let anything stand in her way, and doesn't particularly care who she has to tread over in order to get there, her most famous quote in both this film and X being "I will not accept a life I do not deserve." She's never been the most traditional final girl, feeling almost like a parody of the concept in how she violates every rule of slasher movie survival and yet serves as the hero anyway, and that's what makes her such a compelling character, helped along by Goth's outstanding performance that easily lets us imagine the journey she's taken to get where she is now. She still has some shades of the church girl she was as a kid, but she's even more clearly somebody who simultaneously rebelled against her upbringing and perhaps internalized the one moral lesson her father never intended to teach her. Even with the rest of the film having its ups and downs, Goth served as its central anchor throughout, once more delivering an actor's showcase that will likely mark her as a generational talent.

The film's writing was undoubtedly its weakest point. There are multiple plot and thematic threads here, including the murders, Bacon's private eye, the events of X continuing to haunt Maxine, the similarities between the porn industry and Hollywood, the manner in which the horror genre is looked down upon as just one step above porn (hence how it's the genre that Maxine winds up working in), and the rise of the Christian Right and the Satanic Panic in the '80s, and the film does attempt to tie all of this together during the climax. The problem is that I don't think it managed to pull it off. The plot frequently meanders, jumping from plot point to plot point, and while most individual scenes worked very well on their own, they didn't quite gel together even knowing how they were supposed to. A big part of the problem comes down to the killer, who turns out to be a character who was barely in the film before the reveal, and while they'd been heavily alluded to before then such that it was easy to figure out who it was, they still weren't much of a presence in the movie until that pivotal scene, instead spending the film cloaked in shadow and identified by an admittedly menacing trench coat and black leather gloves. It was the same problem that the original Friday the 13th had of the big reveal both coming out of nowhere and being very predictable after a certain point, salvaged only by a capable performance from the actor playing the killer.

That said, while West fumbled with the writing, his work as a director was still on point. He capably recreates the sleazy side of the '80s in his recreation of retro Hollywood, while at the same time making a film that's a bit more chaste than X, a move that felt symbolic of Maxine "going legit" (notably, this time Goth doesn't have any nude scenes that aren't lifted straight from X; those all come from other actresses this time) and probably helped the film avoid getting an NC-17 rating even if it meant softening its bite. There's little gore, but what we do get is suitably grisly, from a convincing-looking severed head movie prop to a shot that probably ensures that no man will ever tell Goth to "step on me mommy." There aren't many big scares, but West does a great job building a tense atmosphere as Maxine feels both the killer and her past constantly haunting her, before ending it on a shootout as Maxine and the police confront the villain. Even when the story goes all over the place, West still makes this film a very compelling one to sit down and watch.

The Bottom Line

A flawed but still worthy conclusion to a great modern horror trilogy, MaXXXine is at its best when it sets out to capture a mood and showcase another great performance by Mia Goth, which is fortunately most of the important parts of the movie. If you liked the previous films, I'd happily recommend this one.

[katherinejblackwell]

Katherine's Tea Party 1- My Winter TBR

Also read on my website!

Photo by Anastasia Kostyleva

Hello and welcome to the very first blog post on my brand-new website! I'm very excited to have my own pretty little spot on the internet to talk about the things I'm most passionate about. Hopefully a few people decide to join in on the fun along the way, but for now, I'm perfectly content to be yelling into the void. So without any further delay, allow me to share some of the books I've put on my Winter TBR and why.

Number 1- The Secret History and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Amidst my semi-recent foray into the dark academia aesthetic, these seem like no-brainers. I started reading The Secret History about two years ago, but final exams made it difficult for me to find the time to read it. Now that things have slowed down again, I've picked it back up from the beginning, and I'm really enjoying it. The descriptions are what I've found most interesting--even when we're reading descriptions of beauty, there's a constant creepy, haunting undertone in Tartt's words. As for The Goldfinch, I admittedly know very little about it aside from reading the blurb a few weeks ago, but I think the fact that it's by Donna Tartt and is a Pulitzer Prize winner is more than enough encouragement to add it to the list.

Number 2- The Hunger Games trilogy and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games is, and I think will always be, one of my absolute favorite book series. I find myself coming back to it again and again, and I was recently re-infected with the need to read the trilogy amongst the hype surrounding the new movie coming out this month. I'm the type of person who has to read the book before watching the movie, which is why I added The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes to the list as well. It's just come in on hold for me at the library, so it'll be briefly interrupting my reading of The Secret History. I'm very eager to dive back into one of my favorite fictional worlds, despite the mixed feelings I've seen from other Hunger Games fans regarding Songbirds and Snakes​.

Number 3- Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

I picked this duology up for myself many moons ago and have yet to read it. I unintentionally took a break from fantasy for a while, but as we approach Winter, I keep imagining myself on the couch devouring fantasy novels with a warm drink by my side. So, most of the rest of this list is fantasy books. I think these two will be some of the first I pick up when snow starts hitting the ground here because I have heard nothing but good about Leigh Bardugo's books and I'm eager to finally venture into her world.

Number 4- The Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard

I've read the first two books in this series two or three times each because I was dead set on owning a complete set of the gorgeous collector's editions of these books for the longest time. Red Queen was the very first collector's edition I bought for myself when I was in middle school and I was utterly entranced by every detail of it. I have since seen reason and (mostly) given up on the idea of the collector's editions for the final two books ever coming out, so for now, I'll be checking the next two books out from the library this Winter and crossing my fingers that one day my dream will come true.

Number 5- Set Fire to the Gods by Kristen Simmons and Sara Raasch

This is another title that I started and never finished about two or three years ago. In my defense, I started it as my second book in a 24-hour readathon, and I was absolutely delirious by the time I got to it. I'd actually read a decent chunk of the book during the readathon--I believe half or more--but I could never gather up the motivation to finish it. I could barely remember what I had read in my sleep-deprived state anyway, so eventually it seemed better to just start over altogether. This book has an absolutely gorgeous cover and a very pretty purple map on the inside, so if nothing else I'm excited to stare at it for hours.

Number 6- Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

This one I bought for myself a while back amidst the craze on Booktok, and I never got around to reading it due to my aforementioned break from fantasy. I don't remember much about the synopsis of this book, and I think I'll keep it that way so it's a bit of a surprise going in. Things are often popular for a reason, and I wouldn't have bought it if I wasn't sure at the time that I would enjoy it, so I have high hopes for it. I think I've also heard that a sequel of some sort came out recently, so if I enjoy Iron Widow maybe I'll add that to my list too.

Number 7- Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Once again, I bought this title for myself a while ago and never got around to it during my fantasy break. The cover alone is enough to make me want to read it, but I've also heard that there is some amount of dark academia vibes in this novel, so it will absolutely be right up my alley. I am very excited to read it and I'm expecting it to be one of my favorites from this list. I think this will be a good one to read in my initial transition from Donna Tartt's novels to my fantasy picks for the season.

Number 8- The Devil and the Dark Water ​by Stuart Turton

Transitioning out of fantasy-land, we have a handful of mystery novels joining the fray. I was recently reminded of this book while shelving at work last week and added it to my list ASAP. I read Turton's The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle a while ago and absolutely LOVED it. It was a creative, incredibly compelling read that I just could not put down, and if The Devil and the Dark Water is anything like Seven and a Half Deaths, sign me up a million times over. ​

Number 9- The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

I initially resisted adding The Paris Apartment to any sort of TBR, I think because I kept seeing it in emails from B&N. But I have since warmed up to it, and after reading the description of it by the book drop at work, I became intrigued enough to add it to the list. I do not often read mystery (aside from Turton's first novel), so hopefully, this will be a good book to bring me more into the genre.

Number 10- Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manasala

This is another one I discovered while working at the library, and I was highly tempted to sneakily check it out to myself right then and there. I thought the title was a little humorous, and that combined with the cover art caught my eye right away (and mention of a Dachshund named Longanisa in the blurb only added to the appeal). I'm not sure when I'll be finishing my fantasy craze and getting to the few mysteries I have on this list, but I'm very much looking forward to this book when I do.

Number 11- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Another mystery and another book that has been very popular on the internet. I didn't originally have specific plans to read this book, but I saw a few posts about it floating around at about the same time I was putting my list together, and I thought maybe it was time to see what all the hype was about. The plot certainly sounds interesting, and I'll be looking forward to this one as I work my way through the list.

Number 12- Vanishing Girls ​by Lauren Oliver

This is one I inherited from my sister when she was cleaning out her own collection of books, and it's been sitting on my shelf for years now, constantly getting pushed back in the TBR by newer titles. I've read a handful of Lauren Oliver books and enjoyed most of them, and since it's been sitting on my shelf so long and I'm hoping to read a few other mysteries this season, I think it's time to finally give this one a shot. 

Number 13- The Surrender Theory by Caitlin Conlon

These last few are a bit of a mix. This first one, a collection of poems, was an absolutely adventure to track down recently. I don't remember how exactly I stumbled upon it in the first place, but I ended up reading the preview on Google Books sometime around Winter or Spring last year. Not only was it some of the most engaging poetry I've ever read, it had a poem related to The Great Gastby, which absolutely sent it over the edge for me because I am OBSESSED with The Great Gatsby. A month or so ago, I decided I wanted to read it again, but it had been lost in my mess of tabs and automatically cleared from my history. I only found it again by chance when looking through the Favorites album in my gallery and, lo and behold, there was a screenshot of the Gatsby poem with the title of the book at the top. Now I am very happy to say that I will be reading it as soon as possible. Though that as soon as possible may be some time, seeing as none of the libraries in my system have this particular book as of yet. Perhaps I'll have to buy it as a little treat to myself for surviving the holiday season. ​

Number 14- Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by Anna-Marie McLemore

This feels appropriate to put next after just having mentioned my ardent love for Gatsby. I was beyond excited when The Great Gatsby came into public domain a few years ago and all of the retellings started to appear. My eyes were wide with possibility and my heart full of joy because it truly is my favorite classic and one of my favorite books period. There are a few other adaptations besides this one that I'd like to read later on, including The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo and Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor, but this one is at the top of my list for now, and so has made it onto my Winter TBR. ​

Number 15- Since We Last Spoke by Brenda Rufener

I can't remember now if I saw this book at the library or in a YouTube video, but either way it's the last one on my list! I tried (and failed) to find proof without getting spoilers, but at least from the cover, this novel seems like it takes place in Winter, which is a big reason why I added it to this list. I'm very much the kind of person who likes to match the vibe of a book to the season I'm in. Sometimes the vibe I imagine a book has makes real, logical sense, and sometimes it is utterly nonsensical, but I believe this one is grounded in logic. If I need a break from all of the fantasy or something to transition me back into realistic fiction after I've finished the fantasy frenzy, I'm sure I'll reach for this one.

Book Rec and Drink of the Month

Photo by lil artsy

For my very first monthly book rec, I'd like to recommend The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins. I wasn't originally going to recommend anything from the list, especially something I hadn't actually read yet, but I just adore The Hunger Games so much, and I have such high hopes for both the book and the movie. Additionally, I've always found Collins' writing style and storytelling to be so compelling, and as I've grown older I've come to appreciate the messages and themes within the text more, so I feel I can recommend the book in good conscious despite never have cracked open the cover.

As for my drink this month, I've been really enjoying the white hot chocolate from Starbucks. I'm not exactly a coffee gal, so I'm also not exactly a Starbucks gal, but I've been a few times recently, and the white hot chocolate is just amazing. I remember liking it as a kid and it still holds up today. I think it's a perfect cozy Winter beverage to sip while enjoying some books.

Thus concludes my first ever blog post! I certainly enjoyed writing it, and I hope I continue to enjoy writing them. If this reaches any eyes, I encourage you to leave a comment with some of your own Winter TBR books, book recs, or favorite cozy drinks. I'll be back in about a month with something new. Until then, stay safe and healthy and may the book gods bless thee with ample time to read and plenty of beverages to sip. 

[ihavehyperfixationsanditshows]

oh wow. i have no idea what to do jesus christ. i have so many fictional male crushes that this could possibly be the hardest thing i’ll ever do in my life, but oh well here we go.

1. lan zhan/lan wangji/hanguang-jun: because as much as i love and always will love hua cheng and luo binghe, they could never have first place, bc mdzs was the first danmei novel i EVER read, and wangxian continues to be my favorite ship to this day. lwj is just the standard for me and i love him. like, the 33 whip lashes??? the 13/16 years of mourning??? raising a-yuan??? enough said.

2. hua cheng: do i even need to explain myself? come on, the 800 years of waiting and searching and longing, the 33 heavenly officials, the 3000 lanterns, “what matters is you, not the state of you”, and many other things all say enough.

3. chuuya nakahara: if you see him, you’ll know what i’m talking about. red hair and blue eyes are already a winning factor, but the fcat that he’s a martial artist and has that little tiny waist of his???

4. show cannon!aemond targaryen: (show cannon bc books have unreliable narrators) he’s a devoted, filial mama’s boy who would do anything for alicent bc he knows she deserves the best and no one else is up to give her just what she deserves. such a tragic and doomed little child who got his eye took out in a fight of 4 vs 1 that didn’t even make sense to begin with (you can’t fucking steal a dragon, after all, just tame it and if it LETS YOU, even), and then didn’t even received a “sorry after it”, and had to watch his mom be humiliated in front of the entire court bc of his older sister. i have so many thoughts on aemond, and i just love him so much <3.

5. show cannon!criston cole: (once again, tagging show cannon bc the books have unreliable narrators and all that) the most interesting and controversial choice out of all of my list, i know, but bare it with me, alright? i’m a devotion girlie, if you didn’t already notice. it’s the thing that attracts me the most in absolutely anyone, including fictional characters, and waht is criston cole if not a devotee to queen alicent hightower, whom he sees as his saviour for keeping his secret for more then a decade and taking him out of his lowest moment, when he was about to kill himself? he would and does anything for her, no matter how sick and twisted (like murdering an old man, r.i.p lurd beesburg or whatever his name was) or how much alicent does not want him to do those things. and no matter hwo much team black supporters try to paint him as a mysoginist and an incel, it just doesn’t fit, especially considering his “all women are the image of the mother and should be treated as such” mind-set; y’all just mad that he doesn’t like rhaenyra even tho she quite literally forced herself upon him and then discarted him like he was a piece of trash, we all know that if the genders were reversed (femlae!criston and male!rhaenyra) you would all be calling rhaenyra a rapist and abuser. double standards much? 🤨

honorable mentions in no particular order go to: wei ying/wei wuxian, luo binghe, shen yuan/shen qinqiu, mobei-jun, elijah mikaelson, shoto todoroki, izuku midoriya, ash lynx, tanjiro kamado, alex clearemont-diaz, henry fox-something-something-windsor, percy jackson, frank zhang, leo valdez, and many many more that just don’t come to mind now!

anyways, got a bit carried away with my rants about aemond and criston (i am a die hard team green fan and i have Thoughts™, ok?) but this it it. passing along the message of no pressure to these people:

@henriettadreaming, @dirtytransmasc, @kingsanddragonsandgods, @bsd-headcanons-and-shit, @cherryysundae

fictional men

are so fucking fine so whos ur top 5?

me, no order cus i love them all ;

aaron warner

grayson hawthorne

roma montagov

kaz brekker

atlas corrigan

npt ; @reminiscentreader @sunnieshineeeee @catastrxblues @bookish-phile @booksovertherapy @obbsessedfan @darlingod [ id safely bet that youd put cardan from 1 to 5 ] @novas2cool4u @bookish-swiftie13 @f4iry-bell @herondalesbooklover and anyone else !!

[evangelineartemiasamos]

Red Queen Fan Fiction Blood Curse part 2

Find this on wattpad

chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5

chapter 6

chapter 7

chapter 8

chapter 9

chapter 10

chapter 11

chapter 12

chapter 13

chapter 14

chapter 15

chapter 16

chapter 17

chapter 18

chapter 19

chapter 20

chapter 21

chapter 22

chapter 23

chapter 24

chapter 25

chapter 26

chapter 27

chapter 28

chapter 29

Final chapter

A/N: The narrator is my original character and there is an awful lot of words explaining her family situation, sorry if that gets confusing. 

Cassandra POV

The queen glides into the throne room, moving with a quick pace that leaves her retinue of three so far behind her that you can barely call them such. They are an unusual retinue to begin with, as they aren’t high-born ladies-in-waiting in ostentatious, gem-studded gowns, but two secretaries, a man and a woman, and the Lady Ambassador of the Lakelands.

I turn my head away from them to watch the queen reaching the dais and taking her seat on the throne. As she sits down, the whole court present – 120 people – rise from their kneeling positions. I stand in second line, behind Larissa of House Welle, my future sister-in-law, and I’m flanked by two other sentinels. Thirty of us were in the throne room and while there is no evidence to expect another assault on the Whitefire, due to the dire situation of Norta’s king caused by the Scarlet Guard and the separatists from the Rift, a demonstration of security seems appropriate.

The queen betrays no discomfort by sitting on the throne made of Silent Stone, just like the king didn’t. Before he went to Corvium to deal with the Red occupying force, the queen took the consort’s throne, as had the witch queen before her death. But Iris Cygnet isn’t going to leave leadership in the hands of the fickle, instable boy king. She is our regent and she emitts the dignity of three-hunded years of absolutism exerted by her royal forebears. She’s more regal than any Calore king I’ve ever encountered.

My boyfriend Sorata reported to my mother and me on the queen’s reception by the commoners – and the Reds as well. Admiration is too strong a word, but Iris is liked well enough as the princess who has ended the war. The Scarlet Guard’s didn’t choose the best timing when they crashed the wedding of peace. As if the Reds aren’t already instigated against them and needed further reason to mistrust the rebels. You can’t have everything. Red Nortan soldiers will fight the Guard, just as Maven intends, to my chagrin.

With a wave of the queen’s hand, her retinue take their places alongside her on the dais, still standing. Iris observes her nobles while the master of ceremonies, Richard Provos, summarizes the schedule for this audience. Of course it’s hilarious. I doubt anything of this is news to the queen while her courtiers must have heard rumours before.

Corvium wasn’t reconquered and a quarter of the Silver Nortan forces were killed in action by the united forces of the rebel army made of Newbloods and the traitorous Samos allies. The Lakelander king, our new queen’s own father, was murdered by an Iral separatist while King Maven got away with his life and if the queen is relieved or unnerved by this is impossible to tell. While her gown is, indeed, coloured in the dark shades of mourning, she’s dressed in no way ceremonial, apart from the delicate crown of silver, sapphires and rubies circling her brow. She wears leather, as she does often, and her skirt is divided to reveal her crossed legs clad in leather pants and flat, knee-high boots.

At least the foreigner queen has a more tasteful sense for fashion than the Nortan courtiers in their gem-studded tents. I know it’s superficial to judge people by their clothing, but I can’t let go of my impression. I wish I could see who these people surrounding me are beneath their house colours.

As if my own relations are any better at revealing their true motives. While my family’s first and foremost loyalty is devoted to our own, we chose the path of taking no side apart from obedience to the throne. If that includes working for the usurper Maven and the foreigner queen in front of me, so be it. It’s not easy for us. My mother Charlotte is a Haven, a family supporting King Volo of the Rift, yet she plays her own dangerous game here, expecting to remain standing whoever wins in the end. With Maven as the victor, she expects to be named the Lady of House Haven as the only one remaining loyal, yet at the same time, she acts as a contact person to her house, with each faction believing her to be their double agent.

The victorious and vindictive monarch – whoever they will be – isn’t going to behead the whole of the court if all they have done has been following royal orders, Mother claims, especially if said courtier is someone as effective as her, the boss of the secret service.

I’m not sure that the same applies to me. I, Cassandra Griffey, the bastard telky, have chosen a hazardous position myself by becoming Maven’s executioner and assassin who kills and arrests his Silver adversaries.

Vengeance might await me at every turn and the king knows that. While he appreciates my prowess, he assumes that no one will miss the commoner sentinel if she is caught in a crossfire. And if my closer family does decide to avenge me, it isn’t like I’d gain anything by that. I would just be another scion of House Haven – in all but name and ability, I have to admit – waiting to see if we are truly claimed by Lisa Corvin, our disembodied ancestress, or if my family’s faith in the aethereal realm of ghosts is misplaced.

The situation doesn’t become any easier as my half-brothers are Eagries through their father’s side, a House remaining staunchly loyal to King Maven, while their grandmother is a coat-turning Iral. We are like the textbook example of the family torn apart by a civil war. Right now, there are more Eagries in the Whitefire than I’ve ever seen before, apart from my brother Roman and his aunt Aude, a general who fought at the Corvium siege and who has to be frothing with frustration about the second defeat.

The queen is the opposite. She’s as calm as the lakes of her home country, but I don’t doubt she can be as relentless as the sea. I’ve seen her fighting when the Scarlet Guard crashed her wedding and for the first time, I’ve been in awe of another Silver. She can probably drown me in my own tears if she feels like it.

Dignity is the only expression she shows and the slight moves of her fingers on the armrests remind me less of nervousness and more of Mother’s own twitching to control shadows. I wonder, does Queen Iris try to control water despite the Silent Stone on her chair, or is it just her way to cope with the heaviness and nausea emanating from the throne?

I understand well enough either way. The power of kings isolates you, it is the same for all rulers. They have to choose the throne and nothing else. Be it Maven, the old king or the young woman from the former enemy country. She isn’t allowed to show grief or insecurities. Love and friendship are luxuries no monarch can rely on.

“The traitor Samos in the Rift has declared for Tiberias VII, the murderous prince who collaborates with the Red terrorists,” the master of ceremonies declares eventually and tears me from my contemplations. Courageous – or very stupid – to say this in front of the congregation of the High Houses. Who knows who else might defect because of this news?

The queen’s stormy eyes darken and stop Provos from continuing, like saying which houses back the claim of the traitor prince. Though any noble with sense would have left Archeon already if they intended to turn their coats. For whatever reason, the people gathered here chose to support Maven – until he would lose, of course. Opportunism and repression rule the world and all of them would be begging the victor to be allowed to pledge another oath of allegiance.

Larissa Welle turns her head to give me a questioning gaze. I can only shrug, cursing my damned helmet for the umpteenth time. We’re friends, Larissa and I, as she is betrothed to my brother Hagen. Apparently, she isn’t bothered by his blindness. Maybe he’s lucky that he doesn’t have to see her hilarious dresses with a whole meadow of tulle and satin flowers sewed on her huge skirts. Even if I wasn’t limited to my sentinel uniforms, I wouldn’t wear anything like that, but in a way, it fits her, the affable greenwarden. Indeed, the real cornflowers braided into her dark brown hair are quite beautiful and in a colour as intense as blue fire. And she dresses Hagen impeccably as well. As much as it angers me, making him at least look like a proper noble is a necessity for him to serve in the Whitefire.

The Provos master of ceremonies regains his topic and starts to report on the fragile alliance between the Scarlet Guard, the Rift, Piedmont and the Republic of Monfort, which are still dangerous grounds. Many courtiers gasp as they imagine a nation governed by Reds, actually a bunch of Newbloods, to make it even worse.

I don’t believe that any of this is news to the queen. She has to have set up this audience to inform her court of their enemies, to make us realize how much we need our tense unity and her rule and her Lakelands backing. But this play makes her look more like a young girl than a schemer. Maybe that’s exactly what she wants.

Iris stops the report with a raised hand. She looks almost amused beneath her serious bearing.

“My good subjects,” Iris begins, “we shall not forget that we are Norta. We have the technology, the resources and the power which the Rift may only claim in parts. The Samos kingdom will not last for long while we stand together! Four traitorous High Houses and volatile Reds cannot break what the House Calore has built up in centuries, a nation rightfully proud of its progresses and strength.

"One long war had ended, and here I stand as the herald of the unity Norta and the Lakelands have finally found. What has divided us shall now be our greatest advantage – our differences and rivalries have made us reach our greatest selves and this is the time to demonstrate what we can accomplish together. The king and I will not stand to see this era of peace sullied by a secession caused by some obstinate, presumptuous and greedy House lords who think they can rule their own states by nothing but rebellion. They are defectors who forgot the importance of loyalty, traitors who threw in their lots with wretched terrorists. They are insurgents need to be reined in again and to meet punishment for their crimes.

"I trust you to defeat them. I trust you to win, for Norta, for peace, and for yourselves.

"And I’ll fight with you. I will slay Norta’s enemy as relentless as the sea. For power and strength!”

I blink when the queen uses the words I have attributed to her just moments before. They have to be an obvious simile, I think, as the throne room drowns in cries of power and strength and thunderous applause. I squeeze Larissa’s hand as she moves to leave with the other nobles, dismissed by the queen once she’s delivered her rousing speech. I almost admire how easily she’s brushed over the fact that Maven’s forces were defeated. I start to follow along with the rest of the security personnel not on duty for guarding the queen as Iris raises her voice once more.

“The sentinels and security officers shall stay.”

My feet stop immediately, accustomed to obey a royal order. I line up with the rest in front of the queen and take the chance to look directly at the group on the dais. The queen has regained her seat on the throne, sitting straight and comfortably, seemingly still unperturbed by its compound. Her attendants’ faces are blank, as if focusing on the soldiers in front of them, but the Lady Ambassador grins wickedly.

Never trust a diplomat, was one of my mother’s lessons, and yet it is strange for the lady to show her derision so openly. The queen should rein her in as well, if she wants to maintain her pageant of the peace harbinger. But this is not the time as Iris wants to speak to her Nortan guards for now.

“I’m inclined to trust you with the protection of my life,” she begins, her regal bearing changing from pleading figurehead to haughtiness in an instant. “But I would rather not see another infiltration of the Whitefire and in my opinion, these disguises you wear are like an invitation we shouldn’t continue to use. Remove them.”

I can’t hide the smirk on my face as I take off the damned helmet. The queen rises and leaves the dais to walk down the line of her bodyguards, going on prattling about her expectations. She stops in front of me.

Up close, I see that Iris is athletic and muscular like me, but 10 cm taller. “My Queen?” I ask, maintaining my composure.

She chuckles. “You’ve heard that, Isabella?” she exclaims to the ambassador. “She calls me ‘my Queen’, as if she is truly loyal to me.”

For a born-and-bred princess who knows about the importance of flashing her image, she is quite open about her mistrust. She sidles closer to me and her hand almost touches my chin – or my throat. There is honest curiosity in her eyes, a feeling I’ve noticed from her before, even on the first time we’ve met years ago.

The corners of her mouth twitch and she moves back a step. “We’ve seen each other before, Sentinel Griffey. You have visited me in Detraeon once.”

I supress the urge to blink and nod. “Yes, my Queen.” Visited me isn’t exactly right as I didn’t come for the Second Princess Iris five years ago. I assume the two different colours of my eyes – black and grey – make me so memorable, as I didn’t have my tattoos back then. The queen inclines her head, waves the ambassador to her and goes on. I remain the only one she’s talked to. As Iris walks, drops of water gather around her, swirling in alternating patterns. As she turns to go back to the dais, she hesitates. She faces us instead and the waters change shape to surround us like fetters. I hold my breath at the queen’s subtle control of her element.

Iris barks out four names and the swirls point to the corresponding persons. I am among them.

“I promote you to my personal bodyguards,” the queen announces.

Ah shit.

“Allyson and Henryk,” - her secretaries, apparently - “will coordinate your new tasks and schedules. I expect nothing but excellence from you.” Her smile reveals pretty, small teeth. “I’ve heard only the best about you, and I remember your efforts from my wedding and before.”

I’m not sure if my performance of the royal wedding is a recommendation. Whatever Queen Iris has seen of me, she couldn’t have noticed what I’ve really been doing, dodging attacks and bullets aimed at the infiltrators. Guiding my fellow sentinels away from areas where they’ve been needed. Opening the rooms in which the recruited Newblood soldiers were locked in.

I’m a very good sleeper agent for the Scarlet Guard.

The queen beckons her chosen four, two men and a woman I all know well enough. The queen’s smile sends a shiver down my spine. This is a formidable woman I’ll have to outwit, even though I’m flattered by her recognition. But that can’t have a matter in my coming tasks. I’m the daughter, sister and lover of spies and I’m becoming one as well. The young queen of peace has selected a traitor to protect her.

Commentary:

Tell me if Cassandra fangirls Iris too much ;-)

Tell me if you don’t get Cassandra’s character. She appeared in my former fic Black Storm but maybe not everyone read that one too. But I couldn’t let go my precious murder baby, fight me …

And yes, Cassie judges people’s sense for fashion because it’s a common thing to do. It doesn’t mean that she hates them just for that.

 @queenmareena @lilyharvord @redqueenfandom @universegamer @tiygreen37

[theyraylovehate]

Wheel of Fan Fiction Masterlist

Smut 🔥

Fluff 🌸

Angst 💧

*This is like brand new so most of the characters won't have anything just yet*

•Stranger things

-Billy Hargrove

-Steve Harrington

-Eddie Munson

-Robin Buckley (Fem/NB only)

-Argyle

-Johnathan Byers

-Nancy Wheeler

-Jim Hopper

-Joyce Byers

-001/Henry

-Will Byers (No smut)

-Mike Wheeler (No smut)

-Max Mayfield (No smut)

Hateful Cuddling - Female reader 🌸

-Dustin Henderson (No smut)

-Lucas Sinclair (No smut)

-Eleven (Jane) Hopper (No smut)

•Marvel

-Iron Man/Tony Stark

-Captian America/Steve Rogers

-Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff

-Hawkeye/Clint Barton

-Hulk/Bruce Banner

-Thor

-Loki

-Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes

-Black Panther/T'challa

-Doctor Strange/Steven Strange

-Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff

-Quicksilver/Pietro Maximoff

-Starlord/Peter Quill

-Gamora

-Spiderman/Peter Parker

-Falcon/Sam Wilson

-War Machine/James Rhodes

-Valkyrie (Fem/NB only)

•X-Men

-Professor X/Charles Xavier

-Magneto/Erik Lensherr

-Wolverine/James Howlett

-Quicksilver/Peter Maximoff

-Rogue

-Jean Grey

-Storm/Ororo Munroe

-Cyclops/Scott Summers

-Mystique/Raven

-Beast/Henry "Hank" McCoy

-Nightcrawler/Kurt Wagner

-Havok/Alexander Summers

•DC/Young Justice

-Batman/Bruce Wayne

-Superman/Clark Kent

-The Flash/Barry Allen

-Aquaman/Authur Curry

-Cyborg/Victor Stone

-Joker/Jack Oswald White

-Harley Quinn/Harleen Quinzel

-Wonder Woman/Diana Prince

-DeadShot/Floyd Lawton

-Kid Flash/Wally West

-Nightwing (Robin #1)/ Dick Grayson

-Red Hood (Robin #2)/ Jason Todd

-Robin (#3)/ Tim Drake

-Beast Boy/Garfield Logan

-Superboy/Johnathan "Jon" Kent

-Artemis/Artemis Crock

-Red Arrow/Roy Harper

-Green Arrow/Oliver Queen

-Black Canary/Dinah Lance

-Miss Martian/Megan Morse

-Aqualad/Kaldur'ahm

•Umbrella Academy

-Luther Hargreeves (#1)

-Diego Hargreeves (#2)

-Allison Hargreeves (#3)

-Klaus Hargreeves (#4)

-Five Hargreeves (#5)

-Ben Hargreeves (#6)

-Viktor Hargreeves (#7)

-Marcus Hargreeves (#1)

-Fei Hargreeves (#3)

-Alphonso Hargreeves (#4)

-Sloan Hargreeves (#5)

-Jayme Hargreeves (#6)

-Lila Aryu

-The Handler

•Harry Potter

-Harry Potter

-Ron Weasley

-Hermione Granger

-Fred Weasley

-George Weasley

-Ginny Weasley

-Draco Malfoy

-Sirius Black (Older)

-Cedric Diggory

-Oliver Wood

-Neville Longbottom

-Luna Lovegood

-Remus Lupin (Older)

-Nymphadora Tonks

-Lucious Malfoy (Older)

-Narcissa Malfoy (Older)

-Severus Snape (Older)

-Bill Weasley

-Charlie Weasley

•Marauders

-James Potter

Friendly Love - Male reader 🌸

-Lily Evans

-Sirius Black

-Remus Lupin

-Severus Snape

-Regulus Black

-Lusious Malfoy

-Narcissa Black

-Peter Pettigrew

•Greek Mythology

-Zeus

-Hades

-Posideon

-Apollo

-Hera

-Persephone

-Ares

-Athena

-Demeter

-Aphrodite

-Artemis

-Dionysus

-Hermes

•Divergent

-Beatrice "Tris" Prior

-Caleb Prior

-Eric

-Peter

-Christina

-Will

-Tobias "Four"

-Zeke

Zip line of Love - Nonbinary Reader (Requested) 🌸

-Uriah

•Star Wars

-Anakin Skywalker

-Luke Skywalker

-Leia Organa

-Han Solo

-Obi-Wan Kenobi

-Kylo Ren

•Supernatural

-Dean Winchester

-Sam Winchester

-Castiel

-Crowley

-Lucifer

-Rowena MacLeod

-Gabriel

-Charlie Bradbury (Fem/NB only)

-Chuck Shurley

-Jody Mills

-Ellen Harvelle

-Kevin Tran

•The Walking Dead

-Rick Grimes

-Daryl Dixon

-Glenn Rhee

-Carl Grimes

-Maggie Greene

-Negan

-Michonne

-Shane Walsh

-Rosita Espinosa

-Carol Peletier

-Paul "Jesus" Monroe

-Abraham Ford

‐Tara Chambler (Fem/NB only)

-Enid

-Ezekiel

-Aaron (Masc/NB only)

•The Walking Dead Game

-Clementine

-Lee

-Kenny

-Luke

-Javier

-Gabriel

-Kate

-Louis

-Omar

-Ruby

-Mitch

-Marlon

-Violet (Fem/NB only)

IT (2017)

-Richie Tozier

-Beverly Marsh

-Eddie Kaspbrak

-Bill Denbrough

-Stanley Uris

-Ben Hanscom

-Henry Bowers

-Mike Hanlon

-Patrick Hockstetter

-Victor Criss

-Belch Huggins

•Desendants

-Mal

-Evie

-Ben

-Jay

-Jane

-Chad

-Doug

-Lonnie

-Carlos

-Uma

-Harry Hook

-Gil

•Maze Runner

-Newt

-Minho

-Gally

-Teresa

-Alby

-Chuck

-Brenda

-Aris

-Thomas

-Frypan

-Jorge

[soundsfaebutokay]

Scarlet Scarlet and The Blue Furious Boy

This is something that I recently talked about with a relatively new The Amazing Devil fan (hi @spoonietimelordy!), and it occured to me that those who discovered the band just recently may not know this part of TAD history.

So in 2016 when The Amazing Devil came out with Love Run, they all used aliases for their gigs and press releases. The whole band had alternate personas, and Madeleine Hyland went by Scarlet Scarlet while Joey Batey was known as The Blue Furious Boy.

I've compiled various instances of them talking about it. If they've talked about it elsewhere please feel free to add those quotes.

These are from the band's official Instagram:

CAPTION 1 (under a detail of an abstract blue, black, and white painting showing a stylized figure of a woman):

Introducing the Band #4 SCARLET SCARLET or Captain Scarlet Scarlet if you will, the red lettered unfettered red herringbone unlone wolf ruffling up trouble and stirring up the chant of the unheard, unblurring the retouched, touchstone of the raw crimson and bleeding truth, swinging between the gutter and the stars, calling out in wonder, unhumbling her gums and stomping through the ball in fuckoff boots, queen on fire, liar liar

CAPTION 2 (another detail from the same painting showing a man):

Introducing the Band #5 THE BLUE FURIOUS BOY the open nerve, unswerving but ever-turning, burning blue as forgetmenots, as the whole life cycle of a fierce and fighting star, by the black hole of the end he'll pull you into a new universe where the rules are his and the game is chiselled and sizzling, you'll smash it all up and begin all again, as he always wanted, but now you're better and stronger and he still can't sleep for all the dreams and streams they all piled him with, but he eyes up the map of the beat and the magic words to keep herding this way and that, and the angry cats still at the strings of his lyre, lyre, and his crooked crown of shells and bottle tops whistles and whispers and roars in his ears as the storm and the story come rocking and rolling and rollicking in

On Dec. 22, 2016, they talked about it on Soho Radio (timestamp 5:35-7:08):

HOST: Madeleine, you're also known within the band, the press release, you're Scarlet Scarlet. So each person has their own persona with them, or their own kind of fictional character, is that right?

MH: Yeah.

JB: Yeah. It's quite a performative and theatrical show, I would say. [...] And the album in its own right is not necessarily a strict narrative to it, but there are clear-cut versions of characters that seem to go along, and it didn't seem right to kind of attach our names to stories and characters that weren't inherently ourselves, but aspects of ourselves.

MH: Yeah, and it just gives you more freedom, doesn't it?

JB: Yeah, you can play a lot more. And Scarlet Scarlet is a lot flirtier and braver and sexier than Madeleine Hyland, I would say.

MH: (laughs with Joey)

HOST: So it gives you that freedom to be something, or to take on a different kind of um....

MH: Yeah. Sometimes I'm always bit scared that she won't show up, you know. But she pretty much always has, yeah. There's a sort of a moment building up to every gig where I'm like I just, I literally don't know.

JB: I can't find her.

MH: I can't find her and I don't know if she's gonna...if she's gonna come. And sometimes Joey sort of summons The Blue Furious Boy, so he summons me onto the stage and literally until that point I don't know if that barrier's gonna be crossed. But it's fun not to know.

And this is from Madeleine Hyland's interview on the podcast With a Side of Knowledge on Nov. 29, 2018 (timestamp 28:49-29:59):

MH: And it was a very intense experience to go in and make this album, which was kind of, it has a sort of narrative to it. But yes, I suppose Scarlet Scarlet and The Blue Furious Boy—which are, so Joey is the other co- front person, so—and the whole album is full of duets. And yeah, I suppose when we’re doing it, I suppose initially, as well—because I’d done a lot of singing before, I’d done jazz singing and had this whole thing with Dexys—but I felt like there was a sort of persona that was coming out in me when I was singing these songs live. And so we started to give her a name, which was Scarlet Scarlet, and it kind of just, it enabled me to then go a lot further. As we’ve gone on, I feel like those boundaries getting a little more blurry now. So we’re not necessarily playing the characters to such an extent, but we may do again, you know, we may. It’s also just really fun. I mean, there’s no denying that we’re both actors, and it’s very much a sort of an actor’s raging against the world kind of album, you know? (laughs)

I don't know if they're keeping those personas up, since they haven't performed live in a while (for obvious reasons) or mentioned them when they released ruin. But @spoonietimelordy and I were talking about it in the context of analyzing their songs as stories, not as autobiographies (which I think is really important to keep in mind). And it's a fun thing to know in any case!

I love Scarlet Scarlet and The Blue Furious Boy. I love that they gave Madeleine Hyland and Joey Batey the freedom to be so incredibly vulnerable and raw when creating and sharing their music. And I love that by keeping a separation between the performers and the people, we can pick apart their stories and interpret their songs without crossing the line of assuming things about their private lives that they haven't made public. I think that gives us a kind of freedom, too.