#thomile

[sandersstimboards]

Thomile Stimboard with pink stims

[ssuahgx]

when the book has no fandom so you gotta make one yourself💕

sciona and thomil my babies😭😭😭

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Blood Over Bright Haven

high fantasy set in a walled city that protects its citizens from the deadly Blight outside

a woman who’s become the first ever female highmage in a sexist environment, is competing with her new peers to discover a way to source a spell allowing them to extend the border walls

she’s mocked and given only a janitor as an assistant - a man from the nomadic indigenous groups outside the walls, who came to the city as a last resort and lives as a second class citizen

when they discover the horrifying secret behind what powers their magic, she’s forced to question everything she knows, and put aside her own goals in pursuit of the truth

a magic system like programming

[thematicparallel]

still currently reading Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang. it's so on-the-nose with its interrogation of the themes that it doesn't leave the reader with more dirt to dig around in, which i guess is fine with me. i prefer it more than plotty books that say absolutely nothing. i'm around chapter 9 & i really like how Sciona is so fucking unlikable & so callous with her worldviews & so unfathomably blinded by her ambition that she doesn't pause to consider how her success means she will eventually hurt, possibly kill(?) tons of people. or even if her dynamic with Thomil gives her pause, it doesn't necessarily influence her to change her course because she can't see past her own prejudices, & into the bigger picture. i also like how Thomil is able to challenge & shift her so directly, that you then start to question what it says about the responsibility of someone in a marginalized position to educate people on their privilege. in this case, it's because he has no choice but to continue working with her, because quitting will likely lead to capital punishment if Sciona chooses to inflict it on him. then you also get flashes of Sciona viewing Thomil in this romantic lens, which might definitely pull some ao3 trope enjoyers in, but it's so insidious when you think about the power imbalance between them. like get a grip girl just because he's the first man to listen & talk to you without insulting you doesn't mean you can fawn over him. it's soooo interesting. the "utopian" society they live in is called Tiran, btw. yeah, like Tyranny. crazy!!!!!!

[remotelyvague]

[yarrowleef-babbles]

I'm reading Blood Over Bright Haven and I have been really into it, heavy-handedness aside, but I have to say I am so incredibly Not On Board with the idea of this becoming a romance, and unless something completely crazy happens i am REALLY struggling to imagine how any amount of Sciona Redmption Arc-ing is going to make it feel better. And I already felt that way BEFORE the big twist reveal about magic.

The narrative has been doing that ""chemistry hinting"" thing since they met and i have never been excited about it. Thomil has only had two POV chapters and I really am struggling to click with how/when/why he would have started to fall for her in that way when she had never successfully gone a week without some reminding him how she couldn't help view him as inherently lesser. like. you notice her racism all the time. bro. how are you like "I made the mistake of trusting her :(" like, how tho.

I think Sciona is a great character and I think they should be allies but god please just let them both accept that this relationship cannot and should not be salvaged into a romance

[imjustheretomooch]

It just occurred to me that Thomil might not have left Sciona’s side that first day after running into the other mages because he knew Renthorn’s reputation with women.

[markrosewater]

Hi Mark! May I please request Worzel and Thomil: Magic's first planeswalkers from all the way back in Magic's first story in the Magic: The Gathering Pocket Player's Guide in Modern Horizons 4 (if there is one)?

We’ve talked about them getting cards.

[tick-cannibal]

how many times do you think sciona received a sturdy "fuck you" whenever she said "love you" to thomil?

[books-to-add-to-your-tbr]

Title: Blood Over Bright Haven

Author: M.L. Wang

Series or standalone: standalone

Publication year: 2024

Genres: fiction, fantasy, science fiction

Blurb: An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fuelled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant. What neither Sciona nor her peers realise is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran's magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family...but working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power. Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever...if it doesn't get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilisation in the balance?

[booksfromthevoid]

Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang

The old saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover!" doesn't seem to apply to actual books. At least, not in my opinion. I do frequently judge books by their covers --guilty as charged, it is how I pick out books I'm interested in. Blood Over Bright Haven is no different. The initial glance of the cover, with the typewriter and flames, immediately caught my eye. Upon further review, it was clear that this was definitely a book up my alley.

I started Blood Over Bright Haven on January 1st and couldn't put it down --given it's Winter Break for me, I was able to finish it within 24 hours. A combination of religious and racial commentary as well as feminist prose, M.L. Wang combines three of the most controversial topics for a book to create a dark academic piece that builds lore around treatment of the Kwen people as well as women.

A little preachy at some points, and more academic than fantasy in others, Blood Over Bright Haven is pretty good. It could be better, though you'll be hard pressed to find The Perfect Book™️the second day of the year. The main character, Sciona, is a brilliant, if not a bit rude and stand-offish, mage whose goal is to become the first ever woman archmage in her city (truthfully, the entire time, I was picturing Elphaba while I read it but Sciona is not green so I don't know why). The whole basis of the first quarter of the book is dedicated to Sciona proving she is absolutely the best magic user amongst the men she works with. All while teaching a Kwen man --Thomil --about magic because her colleague thought it would be funny to make the janitor her assistant. If you're hoping for romance, don't get your hopes up too high, though.

The Kwen very obviously represent a minority group, often being insulted and called savages, monsters, heathens, etc. throughout the story, even by Sciona. Thomil is introduced in the start of the book and he's an important part of the narrative, though he mostly just calls Sciona out on her comments and unintentional racism. However, he's also introduced as the opposite to Sciona's hyper-intelligent, "believes in another deity so we may not get along" love interest. Sciona has interalized bias, being raised to believe that the Kwen people are less than those of Tiran --the city in which they live, founded by God who sent tablets to the founding mage then told him to create the utopia they live in.

Does that sound familiar? God, stone tablets that gave all the rules and commandments, utopias and the tablets disappearing again? If you also thought, "Mormons?" then you and I shared the same thought process. From then on, I read the book as a woman losing her religion and learning that just because she was taught it was okay doesn't actually means its okay.

While it's not my favorite book, it is still a solid read. I do recommend it, if you're interested in religious trauma and feminism with a side of being called out on casual racism.

[wonkyreads]

Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang

3 spellographs out of 5 🔮

M. L. Wang has created such an interesting world and magic system in Blood Over Bright Haven - it had me hooked instantly. It was honestly insanely difficult to put this book down. I wanted to know more about Thomil and I wanted to watch Sciona’s discoveries unfold on the page. I got both of those things as well as an incredibly rich and unsubtle commentary on our own world (and when I say unsubtle I mean it positively like Kuang’s Babel).

I think Wang made some really smart decisions when crafting this book that helped get her message across in incredibly frustrating ways. There were so many times while reading this that I got mad at the characters and their choices and their prejudices and that’s kind of the point of putting us in Sciona’s head in the first place. You get to feel every slow stride she takes towards understanding where perhaps her viewpoint on the Kwen and her fellow mages, her world and her magic, are wrong. It takes a long time to get her there, but it’s so nice to watch it happen.

I fully thought this was going to be an easy five-star read for me, but at some point it starts to unravel a little. The narration itself felt almost young adult in nature in a way I fully didn’t expect. The characters don’t act like teenagers, really, but the cadence and flow of the writing felt like it was catering to a younger audience. It also swayed between entirely in-world language that wouldn’t make sense until a second read (or in retrospect) and assuming the reader is a little stupid and over-explaining simple things. While I don’t think either of those things make this a bad book, they did bother me personally while I was reading it.

I also think the relationship that forms between Sciona and Thomil feels a little off. Between the power dynamics and the way that Sciona views not only him but his people for a large portion of this book leaves their relationship in an odd place that was a little uncomfortable to read at times. I don’t know, but I think too much pressure was put on this side plot when it didn’t need to be there in the way that it was at all.

The mix of magic and women in STEM and fighting institutional racism all in a dark academia-esque setting felt like this book was built of off buzzwords catered directly towards me and what I’ve been enjoying lately. And to be fully transparent, I really enjoyed reading this most of the time. It was fun. It just also fell a little short of what it could have been.

Huge thanks to Random House and NetGalley for this eARC given in exchange for an honest review.