#vampire Gatsby novel

[vampire-himbos-of-santa-perdita]

The Hell Witch’s WIPs (2023)

Heaven’s Tiny Daggers- After watching her teen idol die onstage in a freak accident, Finn Begby starts a girl punk band to cope with her grief. As her band, Heaven’s Tiny Daggers rises to fame, they gain the attention of folk rock legend, Helene Saturnine, who invites them to a retreat at her mansion in New Orleans to work on their next album. Joined by fellow up and comers in the emo rock scene, Heaven’s Tiny Daggers discover that they have been lured to La Bellemort Mansion for more than just their artistic potential. Helene intends to use them in a ritual sacrifice to raise her long lost lover from the dead. But in doing so, La Bellemort’s residents unleash far more dangerous demons who feed off their every nightmare...

MCR meets Haunting of Hill House meets Daisy Jones and the Six meets Gideon the Ninth

Status: QUERYING!

~

The Vampires of Santa Perdita- Marnie Marsette is a lone wolf vigilante who protects the streets of her small southern California town, Santa Perdita by night. When she finds herself first on the scene of a murder on the set of popular teen drama, Lula Slays the World, Marnie is certain Lula’s hedonistic leading man, Ollie van Statten and his entourage are the culprits. Trailing them from party to party, she finds Ollie and his best friend, Casey Booker (from rival teen sleuth show, Jupiter June) really do seem solely interested in having a good time. That doesn’t stop her from uncovering their far more surprising secret: they’re vampires, and possibly the dumbest vampires in existence at that. While Marnie tries to solve the mystery of who keeps killing young blonde girls in her hometown, she has to face a hard truth about herself: does she really want to find the killer, or is she just desperate to make friends?

Bill & Ted meets The Lost Boys meets Heathers meets Scream

Status: First bare bones draft written

~

Haunt Your Murderers- Millie Marsette has a penchant for taking young protegees under her wing. Melusine Cutpurse was her first, a drag queen whom she trained up to become kingpin to London’s underworld of thieves. Her second is Andrina Calder, an aerialist plucked from her family’s traveling circus to inherit the legendary title of Steamboat Annie, a fearsome pirate who has been the subject of tall tales for a century. When a mad doctor begins luring prostitutes off the streets and paying body-snatchers to dig up fresh bodies for his experiments, Millie brings Andrina and Melusine together in a scheme to bring his plans to an end. But his bodies have started to reanimate, posing a far greater problem not just for Millie’s protegees, but for Victorian London at large...

Frankenstein meets Pirates of the Caribbean meets Rocky Horror meets Fingersmith

Status: First draft written

~

Bloody Nights & Green-lit Days- Young Hollywood hopeful, Lena Harlow was killed in a hit and run the night she arrived in LA. Her assailants, Jory and Cecily bring her body back to their sprawling mansion. When she wakes up, she’s no longer human. The magnetic couple help her adapt to her new life as a vampire, in amongst their raucous parties they use as their personal hunting grounds. While Lena explores the grounds of her new home, she meets Jory and Cecily’s son, August, who is the only person who can see the mansion’s many ghosts. Lena’s about to become the second. Coddled inside the mansion, August is never allowed to leave, until Lena sneaks him out to show him the outside world. Meanwhile, his parents spent their days on Hollywood back-lots, frustrated by the lack of support for the folks behind the scenes. Tired of inaction, Cecily and Jory, combine their creative talents of costume and set design to take matters into their own hands. Rumours of a curse on the production studio take a life of their own as freak accidents keep happening on various movie sets... It won’t be long before Lena gets sucked into Jory and Cecily’s nefarious schemes and she has to choose whether to use her new powers for good or evil...

Great Gatsby meets American Horror Story: Hotel

Status: TBA

[physalian]

On Writing Theme (Or, Make it a Question)

An element of story so superficially understood and yet is the backbone of what your work is trying to say. Theme is my favorite element to design and implement and the easiest way to do that? Make it a question.

A solid theme takes an okay action movie and propels it into blockbuster infamy, like Curse of the Black Pearl. It turns yet another Batman adaptation into an endlessly rewatchable masterpiece, seeing the same characters reinvented yet again and still seeing something new, in The Dark Knight. It’s the spiraling drain at the bottom of classic tragedies, pulling its characters inevitably down to their dooms, like in The Great Gatsby.

Theme is more than just “dark and light” or “good and evil”. Those are elements that your story explores, but your theme is what your story *says* with those elements. 

For example: Star Wars takes “dark vs light” incredibly literally (ignoring the Sequels). Dark vs Light is what the movies pit against each other. How the selfish, corrupted, short-sighted nature of the Dark Side inevitably leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom—that’s what the story is about.

A story can have more than one theme, more than one statement it wants to make and more than one question to answer. Star Wars is also about the inevitable triumph of unity and ‘goodness’ over division and ‘evil’.

Part of why I love fantasy is how allegorical it can be. Yes I’m writing a story with vampires, but my questions to my characters are, “What makes a monster? Why is it a monster?” My characters’ arcs are the answer to my theme question.

Black Pearl is a movie that dabbles in the dichotomy between law-abiding soldiers and citizens, and the lawless pirates who elude them. Black Pearl’s theme is that one can be a pirate and also a good man, and that neither side is perfect or mutually exclusive, and that strictly adhering to either extreme will lead you to tragedy.

Implementing your theme means, in my opinion, staging your theme like a question and answering it with as many characters and plot beats as possible. In practice?

Q: Can a pirate be a good man? A: Jack is. Will is. Elizabeth is. Barbossa is selfish and short-sighted, and he loses. Norrington is too focused on propriety and selfless duty, and he loses.

Or, in Gatsby.

Q: Is life fulfilled by living in the past? A: Mr. Buchanan clings to his old-money ways and is a sour lout with no respect for anyone or himself. Daisy clings to a marriage that failed long ago, to retain an image and security she thinks she needs. Myrtle chases a man she can’t ever have. Her husband lusts after a wife who’s no longer his. Gatsby… well we all know what happens to him.

The more characters and plot beats you have to answer your theme’s question, the more cohesive a message you’ll send. It can be a statment the story backs up as well, as seen below, questions just naturally invite answers.

—

Do you need a theme?

Not technically, no. Plenty of stories get by on their other solid elements and leave the audience to draw their own conclusions and take their own meaning and messages. Your average romance novel probably isn’t written with a moral. Neither are your 80s/90s action thrillers. Neither are many horror movies. Theme is usually reserved for dramas, and usually in dramatic fantasy and sci-fi, where the setting tends to be an allegory for whatever message the author is trying to send. That, and kids movies.

Sometimes you just want to tell a funny story and you don’t set out with any goals of espousing morals and lessons you want your readers to learn and that is perfectly okay. I still think saying *something* will make the funny funnier or the drama more dramatic or the romance more romantic, but that’s just me and what I like to read.

When it is there, it’s right in front of your face way more often than you might think. Here’s some direct quotes succinctly capturing the main theses of a couple famous works:

“He’s a good man.” / “No, he’s a pirate.” - Curse of the Black Pearl

“What are we holding onto, Sam?” / “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.” - LotR, Two Towers

“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.” - LotR, Fellowship of the Ring

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.” - Horton Hears a Who

“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” - The Dark Knight

“Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!” - The Great Gatsby

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” & “Life finds a way.” - Jurassic Park

"Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind." - Lilo & Stitch

“But… I’m supposed to be beautiful.” / “You are beautiful.” - Shrek

“I didn’t kill him because he looked as scared as I was. I looked at him, and I saw myself.” - How to Train Your Dragon

“There are no accidents.” & “There is no secret ingredient.” & “You might wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.” - Kung Fu Panda

*If any of those are wrong, I did them entirely from memory, sue me.

Some of the best scenes in these stories are where the theme synthesizes in direct dialogue. There’s this moment of catharsis where you, the audience, knew what the story has been saying, but now you get to hear it put into words.

Or, these are the lines that stick in your head as you watch the tragedy unfold around the characters and all they didn’t learn when they had the chance.

When it comes to stories that have a very strong moral and never feel like they’re preaching to you, look no further than classic Pixar movies.

“Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.” - Ratatouille

“I’m not strong enough.” / “If we work together, you don’t have to be.” - The Incredibles

“Just keep swimming!” - Finding Nemo

Ellie’s adventure book, to live your own adventure, even if it’s not the one you thought it would be - Up

The Wheel Well montage, to slow down every once in a while, because in a flash, it’ll be gone - Cars

The entire first dialogue-less section of Wall-E, to stop our endless consumption or else

The real monsters are corporate consumption - Monsters Inc

One cannot fully appreciate happiness without a little sadness - Inside Out

With enough loud voices, the common man can overthrow The Man - A Bug’s Life

A person’s worth is not determined by their value to other people - Toy Story

These are the themes that I, personally, took from these movies as a kid and later in life. If I remembered the scripts any better I could probably pull some direct dialogue to support them, but, sadly, I do not have the entire Pixar catalog memorized.

—

After you’ve suffered through rigorous literary analysis classes for years on end, the “lit analyst” hat kind of never comes off. Sometimes you try to find a theme where none exists, coming up with your own. Sometimes you can very easily see the skeleton attempt at having a theme and a message that came out half-baked, and all the missed opportunities to polish it.

Whatever the case, while theme isn’t *necessary*, having that through line, an axis around which your entire story revolves, can be a fantastic way to examine which elements of your WIP aren’t meshing with the rest, why a character is or isn’t clicking, how you want to end it, or, even, how you want to approach a sequel.

Unfortunately, very, very often, a movie, book, or season of TV has a fantastic execution of a theme in its first run, and the ensuing sequels forget all about it.

No one here is going to defend Michael Bay’s Transformers movies as cinematic masterpieces, however, the first movie did actually have a thematic through line: “No sacrifice, no victory.” They didn’t stick the landing but, you know, the attempt was made. Where is that theme at all in the sequels? Nonexistent. They could have even explored a different theme and they abandoned it altogether.

Black Pearl’s thematic efforts fell away to lore and worldbuilding in its two sequels. Not that they’re bad! I love Dead Man’s Chest, but to those who don’t like the sequels, that missing element may be part of why.

Shrek and Shrek 2 both centered on their theme of beauty being how you define it and no one else. Fiona finds true love in her “true” form, then strengthens that message in the sequel when she has the chance to be “normal” and conventionally attractive, and still chooses to be an ogre, to be with Shrek. Shrek 3’s theme is…? 

When it was never there, that theme is missing isn’t so obvious. When it used to be there and got left behind, it leaves a crater in its wake everyone notices, even if they can’t pinpoint why.

—

TLDR: Theme is more than just vague nouns and dichotomies. Good, evil, dark, light, selfishness, altruism, beauty, ugliness, riches, poverty, etc are what your story uses. Your theme is what your story has to say with those elements, using as many characters and plot points as possible to reinforce its message. Is it necessary? No. Is it helpful and does it lead to a richer experience? Yes.

[starl1tsky]

ok so. boston gatsby musical. overall? i enjoyed it, had a great time watching it, etc.... HOWEVER. cons first then pros. and then stuff i had mixed feelings on.

a) they took gatsby's teeth out. he was wayyy too nice. also not charismatic enough. like i feel like a gatsby should suck the air out of a room bc you're too busy staring at him. like those gayass vampires from the vampire show. anyway he was dorky and like sweet and shit and im like that is NOT jay gatsby!!!! that is a musical theater mfa.

b) daisy was also a yass queen white feminist instead of like. the ideal that gatsby obsesses over which like ok, fleshing out female characters, wtver, but daisy SUCKS SO HARD like she killed that girl. did daisy buchanan successfully utilize girl power when she vehicular manslaughtered her husband's mistress. also they were leaning so hard into the class thing that it might've been better to like uh idk TALK ABOUT CLASS??? BC DAISY IS ALL ABOUT CLASS SHE IS LITERALLY THE REPRESENTATION OF THE UPPER CLASS?????

b part 2) they also changed it so that daisy actually totally did want to marry gatsby and her mom forced her to marry tom which imo removes a lot of nuance from the story like??? its not a fucking love story????!!! daisy was NOT about to marry gatsby when he was poor like. let's not try to make daisy something she isn't.

c) ok so they basically made it so gatsby was Native American and like pretending to be white and that in and of itself is NOT a con, i think that's an interesting way to deal with the whole new money/reinvention thing. HOWEVER it felt very shoehorned in bc it was literally only mentioned in the last song when gatsby's dad came to bury him. and then the finale was like #landback which is all well and good but again let's maybe try and have one cohesive theme (class tensions) before we try to add things into the final two songs. because that is not the place to add themes.

d) this isn't so much a con as a ???? but jordan??? what the fuck was she doing there. she like was an exposition drop for nick like twice and then she just stood there and had a verse in like two songs and made out with people. the actress was very hot so it was okay but like. what was she doingggggg.

e) i LOVE florence + the machine however. the music was GOOD, objectively speaking but i would have appreciated a little more variety. the tap number was great tho, 10/10. also loved the damage that you do, that was a good one. "what of love and what of god" felt like, a good florence + the machine song but a heavy handed musical theater song like. giving dust and ashes. great song, but jesus christ josh groban calm the fuck down.

PROS:

a) ok i know i said gatsby wasn't charismatic enough BUT. in the meyer wolfsheim number, he was tap dancing and it was INCREDIBLE. so what i think is that they just should have had him dance more, bc the actor was an INCREDIBLE dancer and that would've given him the gatsby charisma and magnetism. so that's a directing/staging issue not an actor issue. like as far as i remember he only properly danced in that one song.

b) i did appreciate how they fleshed out myrtle and her husband, it was very well done and added significantly to the class tension themes of the original novel

b part 2) HOLY SHIT SOLEA PFEIFFER THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE. also the husband ATE. the two of them were really extraordinary, standout performances.

c) nick was very charming, they did fourth wall break/monologue type things and it worked quite well i thought. he had a great voice, would've loved it if they gave him more to do but...

d) i mentioned this before but GOOD LORD the meyer wolfsheim tap number was fantastic. best part of the whole show imo

e) honestly the tom was very good. like detestable and i wanted to punch him in his face the whole time but. he was quite good. and i said it before but the damage that you do ATE.

f) very sexy. lots of hot people dancing and making out with each other.

ok now things im unsure about.

a) look. nick carraway is a homosexual. you know this; i know this, however, i don't think he's aware enough to be like "yeah i'm fucking gay and in love with gatsby" like he is gay, he is in love with gatsby but like i do not think he knows that. he idolizes gatsby because he doesn't have the vocabulary or the self knowledge to know that he's in love with him. also babe if you know you're gay and you know you'r ein love with gatsby and gatsby is trying to get with you for his first song and a half, WHY ARE YOU HELPING HIM GET WITH THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE WHO HAPPENS TO BE YOUR COUSIN???? make it make sense. but yea i think making nick gay is the right choice and even having him make out with dudes is the right choice and yea maybe he even knows he's gay but i really don't think he knows he's in love with gatsby. and also nick didn't narrate quite enough and when he did he wasn't quite unreliable enough.

basically i just LOVe the great gatsby and while i did enjoy this musical i just didn't like it as much as the book. so i guess my expectations were too high. also i found it ironic and depressing that in a musical where the adapters added so much about modern politics and tried so hard to modernize the politics of the original novel, the ushers STILL managed to be racist to my mother. yay a.r.t!!!!!

[kylermalloy]

for the book asks:

2, 6, 25

!!!

2. Did you reread anything? What?

Yes! I love rereading stuff. I listened to some books I hadn’t read since high school English—A Separate Peace, The Great Gatsby. It’s amazing what you pick up from a book when you’re not 15 years old anymore.

Also infinitely more embarrassing but I am currently rereading SM’s The Host and getting just as into it as I was at age 17. Maybe more. So…yay?

6. Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

Sort of! I meant to do some of Jane Austen’s novels, since I’ve only read one (Pride and Prejudice) but ended up doing the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice instead. What a tradeoff! Oh well. There’s always next year!

25. What reading goals do you have for next year?

No concrete goals per se, but I want to finish the Queen’s Thief series. I’ve only read the first two, and my library doesn’t have them in audiobook format. So I have to resort to…other means ;)

Book asks!

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

I'm intrigued by your comparison of tsh, the great gatsby, and heathers, would you care to share some points?

Golly gee! I’m glad you asked, Anon!

(Obvious major spoilers for the three of these things. Also, I’m using the 1988 film for Heathers. I like the musical, but I like the movie a bit more, and it better suits my points here. There are a few differences in tone between film and musical especially regarding J.D.)

(This talks about triggering topics seen in each of these stories.)

/Opening/

All three of these stories provide critical looks at certain communities, and all of them focus on at least one character whose goal is to reach a particular worldly ideal, to achieve a certain aesthetic lifestyle. Gatsby goes about this in a very reflective and melancholy way. Heathers uses humor and satire. The Secret History uses elements of both.

I really like Joseph Campbell and Thomas C. Foster who analyze character archetypes and tropes. Their points are not that this is necessarily copying or unoriginal but that human storytellers often get attracted to the same concerns, ideals, and concepts— we end up revisiting frameworks such as the hero’s journey or the “vampire” archetype for characters. But what is enriching is the author’s own way of commenting on these things. If we look at, say, Henry, Gatsby, and J.D, they are all wildly different people but the same character type. So let’s go though how the stories are all saying the same thing but exploring it differently.

/Great Gatsby vs Secret History/

Let’s start with TGG and TSH. Richard mentions early on that he identifies with Gatsby, and that this is his favorite novel. I’ve seen a few people question this because Richard is much closer to Nick Carraway. And, from a POV perspective, he is. They’re both outsiders attracted to the mystique of another character. And they’re just neutral enough that different characters can approach them about things. But Richard seeing himself as Jay Gatsby is also accurate, because Gatsby has a similar internal struggle to Richard himself. Richard’s flaws and goals are exactly Gatsby’s. Both men resent the lives they were born into, viewing them as dull and not a reflection of how they see their own identities. They take matters into their own hands to achieve their ideal regardless of the methods. They both become liars who slowly work at making their lies more truthful. Richard finds himself attracted to the Greek class, and particularly awestruck by Henry, because Henry is a Gatsby-type too. And it’s more Henry who functions as Gatsby in a POV way. Henry does what he must to achieve his desired Hellenistic lifestyle, just as Gatsby chases after the American dream.

The stories also make similar points about the effect of this behavior on other people, particularly women. A big reoccurring topic of TGG is carelessness. It’s seen through the symbolism of cars. The characters are reckless with their vehicles. Cars are stylish and exciting, but also linked to violence. We see this general concept with Julian who is careless with his teaching methods. Him leaving at the end, with dead and broken people in his dust, reminds me of Daisy and Tom at the end of Gatsby, and Nick saying: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up people and things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…” Julian does something similar.

Obviously, Camilla and Daisy fill similar roles. They’re women who aesthetically match the lifestyle the male characters want. Daisy is a stunning American socialite. Camilla is a pretty classics student who plays the roles of big name Greek ladies (notably Clytemnestra) in the class’s readings. Gatsby, Henry, and Richard seem to have varying levels of love for these women. But the idea is the same: “In order to fully complete my own self-transformation, I need to have a woman emblematic of my ideals.” Even Charles fits into this because his views of Camilla get twisted by his toxic and Romanesque concept of what it means to be a male head of household. Both Camilla and Daisy are aware of their own lack of agency. Daisy’s famous line saying the best thing a girl can be is “a pretty little fool” isn’t meant to be taken as the author’s own opinion, it’s Daisy saying she wishes her daughter will be too stupid to realize what an awful situation she’s been born into due to her gender. Camilla and Daisy know that they eventually just need make a plan and go with the man that will make their life easiest. For Daisy, that ends up being Tom. For Camilla, it’s Henry.

As a side note, I saw someone drawing Gatsby comparisons from TSH, mentioning that Charles is Tom. I do understand the connection made here (Charles becomes an antagonistic figure for Henry, and they fight over a woman), but it seemed slightly off to me, and I realized it’s because I view Charles way more like George Wilson. Wilson is incredibly impacted by the immorality going on around him, and views the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg as a constant reminder that God is watching them all. In the end, he has a mental breakdown, victimizes his wife Myrtle and then loses her. Wilson and Charles come to the same conclusion at the end: which is to attack and kill Gatsby/Henry with a firearm. There are obvious differences. For example, Wilson is wrong that Gatbsy killed Myrtle (that was Daisy) and wrong that Gatsby cheated with her (that was Tom). But the backbone is there: a man is haunted by the existence of objective morality. He then concludes that he must violently seize control and kill the one he sees as responsible for his misfortunes.

/Heathers vs. Secret History/

While Gatsby focuses on a desire to be part of an American upper class and TSH focuses on a desire to be part of an erudite class, Heathers focuses on what I’m going to call teenage politics. Jocks, mean girls, bad boys, etc. The cliques of high school. Veronica is a member of the popular girl group at school and is mistreated by her clique. What she craves is to be part of what J.D. represents. He’s a mysterious outsider who is intimidating but also recites poetry and likes Bach. The way he’s introduced is very “Hey look at this guy. He’s not shallow like the Heathers, Kurt, and Ram. He’s layered.” Veronica very much falls into the trap of believing a damaged, edgy boy is somehow deeper than everyone else. She wants to be dangerous and above the other high school cliques. Veronica is exactly like Richard because she knows J.D. is excessively violent the day she meets him when he threatens the football players with a gun, but she believes there’s something cool and beautiful in that. She sees that his opinions are more cultured than her friends, but doesn’t stop to analyze what kind of person would fire blanks at people during school. Well, surprise, it turns out the bad boy is… well, literally just an awful person. There’s no hidden heart of gold like in the movies. Heather Chandler was terrible, but her death shows that people like J.D. are worse.

The situation with Bunny and Henry is similar. Both protagonists go along with the killing (I say this because Veronica was kind of sucked into it more than a premeditated accomplice like Richard), because they were abused by the victim and want to avoid jail time. But it’s also noteworthy that that victim represents a type of person who is opposite of the protagonist’s ideal. Bunny is an uncultured slob; Richard wants sleek intellectualism. Heather Chandler is a shallow mean girl; Veronica wants cool people of substance. Both protagonists eventually realize that the person they’ve partnered with is the bigger threat.

Heathers and TSH also unfold similarly. Both the Hampden and the Sherwood (Westerburg) communities react to the murder in a way that is absurdly off-the-mark. The Sherwood community mistakes Heather’s death as a suicide then proceeds to project deep feelings onto her and rationalize her rude behavior (sometimes in hysterical ways), because tortured souls are deep. They hold all these suicide prevention spectacles that the viewer can see are not really about preventing suicide at all. They’re about showing that people are feeling things; they paint Westerburg High as a place full of psychologically complex people. Bunny’s death gets mistaken as drug usage and similar circuses ensue. There are people projecting onto Bunny because he died young. The whole section in TSH where they do the national drug trivia competition to raise awareness, and Hampden College dominated was HILARIOUS in its irony, and I though, “This is so the tone of Heathers” when I read it.

The way the stories handle the “idealism” character is similar too. Henry and J.D. come across as so wise and above worldly nonsense at the start. You’re distracted by their language and finer tastes. Then, you see that they’re clever when they are able to get away with murder. But the story starts to show you that they’re actually quite one-note in ways. Henry and J.D. both become almost embarrassing to watch, because you start to see how horribly unaware they are. Henry is focused on what book to bring to his FBI meeting—as if that matters—and he seriously thinks the psychic lady might catch them. J.D. starts to come across as so silly because you see how often he speaks in trite little poetic statements that are stupid in context, but that he clearly thinks sound good (“People will look at Westerburg and say there’s a school that self destructed not because society didn’t care, but because that school WAS society. Pretty deep, huh?”). Both Henry and J.D. meet their downfalls because they’re after random, insubstantial “profound” things. Henry goes out with a suicide tied to a tender kiss with a woman, to prove that he could become the perfect Hellenistic figure Julian wasn’t. J.D.’s suicide was a similar thing: a message to Veronica about how complex and world-rejecting he is. (This is a part that differs in the musical. J.D. is actually self sacrificial there. I respect that the musical had to make J.D. softer to accommodate his songs, but the film character’s actions stick more firmly to the point of the story).

Heathers is more of a comedy than TSH is, but they both poke fun then take steps back. Bunny’s funeral is a complete clown show, but there are moments of genuine sadness. Richard acknowledges how evil the thing he did was. There’s a funeral in Heathers where Veronica and J.D. are giggling because they know the things being said about their victim are stupid. Then Veronica catches sight of a crying little girl and stops, shocked by the sudden reality of what she’s done.

Both stories also comment on group mentality. The Hampden community and Westerburg community are prone to ridiculous conclusions and nonsensical actions because of how quickly stupid ideas get latched onto. The Greek class murders Bunny because they’re all downplaying each others’ best traits and drawing out the worst. I listened to an interview with Tartt where she points this out and states that nobody in the class would have become a murder on his or her own. There’s a well-written scene in Heathers where Heather McNamara attempts suicide because she’s depressed but also influenced by what she thinks were her friends’ suicide. Veronica stops her and says “If everybody jumped off a bridge, would you do it?” McNamara gives a very honest and defeated, “Probably.” Both stories explore how people can and often do go against rational judgment due to the infields of the group.

/Tying it all together/

At their core, these stories are all doing the same thing: they’re showing how easily humans can be influenced by romantic ideals, and how easily they lose control of their moral judgment. The works all show that people can so dearly love the aesthetic of a person and what he or she represents that they create an illusion that masks the person’s flaws. Gatsby goes about this in a very respectful, dignified way. Heathers is full of dark humor and moments that are meant to be shocking and hilarious rather than realistic. The Secret History does a bit of both. It’s not as formal as Gatsby but not as outwardly making fun of itself and all is characters as Heathers is. It’s also partially satire but not at the level of Heathers. Heathers is literally making fun of its own genre (teen romance films). It presents itself as a cliche movie then just swerves violently into insanity and a tone that mocks all its character archetypes. TSH and Gatsby are both much more up front. As a result, there are some scenes in TSH that strike me as very Gatsby (scenes where Richard is being more reflective and philosophical) but there are also scenes that are so wild they seem to be working how moments from Heathers did.

Back to archetypes and tropes: While these stories have the same skeleton (a character facing reality after being caught up in romantic ideals), they explore things differently due to different social constructs and narrators of different backgrounds. We have an 30-year-old upper class man whom everyone treats as a secret-keeper. We have a new adult who desperately wants to put his lackluster and abusive childhood behind him. Then we have a teen girl who lacks a perspective outside the drama of high school. These narrators have personality differences and varying levels of culpability in the violence, with Richard having the most since he was a knowing participant in a murder. Veronica is next because she was part of a murder. She stuck with J.D. longer than she should have, and she covered things up, but she was also repeatedly tricked into killing when she didn’t want to. Nick rocked the boat but wasn’t a direct part of any death. It’s Veronica whotakes back the most control at the end. She lights her cigarette on the explosion that killed J.D. (which, wow, metal). She tells J.D. she wants “cool guys” out of her life then goes to get new friends and move past what happened, as arguably unrealistic as that is. Richard ends up with the least control, because he CAN’T move on; the events of the story have permanently damaged his psyche. These endings lean into different concepts: Heathers lets the protagonist triumph and embrace her lesson. TSH focuses on how immorality has lasting effects on the soul. TGG ends by showing pity for people like Gatsby.

This is the same for J.D., Gatsby, and Henry. They’re very different kinds of people which provides variation to the concept they represent. TGG doesn’t present Gatsby as evil, just tragic and wrong. He did hurt others with his shady dealings, but he’s painted as a man who still has his soul. J.D. and Henry actually have pretty intense evil in them and a clear lack of concern for human life. Nick and Richard still hold love for Gatsby and Henry, even after all that happened. Veronica completely denounces J.D.

I mentioned this in the previous post, but I just love stories like this. I love characters who get these kinds of reality checks, and I love characters who have such strong passions that they have to struggle with. All three of these stories are sharply crafted and oh so clever. They’re each so unique in the presentation of these similar ideas that none of them feel like a discount version of another. Their methods of story-telling are different, and their focuses, allusions, settings, tones, and motifs vary as well.

Wow, this is not even all I had to talk about. I could genuinely write a 40 page paper on this.

[ciaossu-imagines]

Rosen Crantz Headcanons

Crantz insists on using really good quality hair products. He’s very vain when it comes to his hair – he has a dedicated hairdresser and when he’s out of the country and cannot go to his preferred hairdresser, he calls up his hairdresser and asks for recommendations as to any hairdressers they might know in that country. He gets regular trims and he’ll only use the products recommended by the professionals he works with. He has very thin, fine hair, so all of the products he uses are either smoothing products or thickening/volume products.

Crantz has his physical insecurities – he thinks he has a weird looking bellybutton and his nose is a little crooked, with a slight bump on it from when it was broken in a childhood accident. It’s one of his least favourite parts of himself.

Crantz tends to notice other people’s smiles first off when meeting them. A wide, friendly smile and good teeth tend to make him view other’s more favourably, while tight-mouthed, small smiles or weird teeth tend to make him a little less receptive to people. He doesn’t even realize his unconscious and unfair bias there.

Crantz wears a silk bonnet when he sleeps, as often as he can. It was recommended to him by an old partner, who wore it for their curly hair.

Crantz has always loved classical music. He tried playing both piano and violin in his childhood. He wasn’t horrible with the violin, but he could never get the hang of the piano. He can play, but it’s nowhere close to the beauty of Licht’s playing, which is now what Crantz measures all other musician’s against.

Crantz actually considers Licht one of his closest friends.

However, Gil tends to be the one that Crantz confides in most often.

Crantz hated all things Shakespeare in school. He didn’t like it until he reread it as an adult, again, inspired to do so by a partner who loved the plays.

He loves romantic poetry, with Pablo Neruda, Rilke, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning being some of his favourites.

Crantz has a secret guilty pleasure for horror movies, particularly vampire themed horror movies. He watched a lot of them with his brother while they were growing up.

He was always more of a mommy’s boy and struggled to connect with his father, while his brother was closer to their father.

He worked for a little bit taking care of children in an after-school program during high-school in order to get a credit needed for graduation.

He wants to learn to speak Mandarin.

He loves getting the chance to dress up and good clothes is one of the other areas he’s willing to splurge.

He is an expert at packing a suitcase. He could make video guides on how to do so and would have tons of hits and likes.

The Great Gatsby is one of his favourite novels.

He wants to visit Macchu Picchu and the Forbidden City.

He would be very active on social media and he spends a lot of time and effort curating his social media for his followers.

[botanikos]

(Hmmm, fiction. And YA would be okay. And romance, historical, thriller, mystery, fantasy, horror, are all okay. As for tropes, like scenarios? I'm not that picky.)

I will always suggest anything written by S.T. Gibson, namely and especially, A Dowry of Blood. It's a retelling / account of Dracula's brides as told from the perspective of Constanta, the first in the novella. The formatting gives people pause, but I always urge anyone who might be interested to give it a worthy shot! I personally like that it's written in such a way that it's like reading a letter or journal. It is written in 1st person POV, by that nature, but it flows so perfectly. It is also one of few in which the Audiobook sounds INCREDIBLE and fits the narration style. I have yet to finish it because I fell into a reading slump but one of Saint's newest releases is Evocation - which is truly AMAZING!

DOWRY = Gothic fiction / Horror fiction / Fantasy fiction / Vampire fiction / Romantic fantasy. EVOCATION = Fantasy fiction / Urban fantasy / Gothic fiction / Paranormal fiction / Contemporary fantasy.

Kit Mayquist wrote an exquisite novel titled Tripping Arcadia with eat-the-rich vibes! It's brimming with drama, hidden secrets, and questions of modern class and status. It's considered Gothic fiction as well as being categorized under suspense and thriller. It's got Great Gatsby vibes, but like, darker!

Weep, Woman, Weep : Ancestral hauntings anyone? This is a gothic fairytale surrounding a young woman seeking freedom from curses, trauma, and grief. The story takes place in a small town in New Mexico, and if you haven't guessed it already, heavily follows / includes La Llorona's haunting(s). It is categorized as Horror fiction / Metaphysical fiction / Fantasy fiction / and a few others.

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein : This novel follows Elizabeth Lavenza and the harrowing journey and complicated ties she holds to the Frankenstein family, specifically, to Victor himself. They become nearly inseparable. . . but all things come at a price. This story is categorized as Young adult / horror / supernatural horror / psychological thriller / historical fiction retellings.

Honorable mentions for: If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio, Vicious by V.E. Schwab, Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente, The Folk of the Air series by Holly Black, A Darker Shade of Magic series by V.E. Schwab, and These Violent Delights [ the dark, gay, adult one, not the YA one ]. I would be here forever if I kept going, however, so! We will stop here. . .

NOTE: PLEASE READ THESE STORIES AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND BE SURE TO CHECK CONTENT / TRIGGER WARNINGS ACCORDINGLY!! Most of these are DARK. . .

[dawnstar137]

I have a bunch of books that arent in good enough condition to donate to the library so i thought if ya'll are willing to pay the shipping you guys could have them if u want. Most are paperback unless specifies by the (HD) I'll post pics of conditions but at the moment there is :

Sophie's world

Soldier boys by dean hughs

The amazing maurice and his educated rodents by terry pratchett

Several star wars books

House of night novels : Tempted, Hunted (HD), Burned

Maze runner

City of bones

Night rising vampire babylon

Leonardo davinci in his own words by william wray

The great gatsby by fitzgerald

InkHeart

InkSpell

[deadguydeathmatch]

The Dead Guy Death Match Bracket Is Here!

Round 1 will be split into 4 waves of 16 24 hour polls and each wave will be posted 24 hours after the previous. The first wave will start on Tuesday the 18th of April at 3pm BST

The matchups are listed under the readmore and will be hyperlinked to the polls when they go up.

The matchups were all randomised although I did make minor adjustments if I thought one was much too unfair.

Also tagging @tournamentdirectory as I haven't already

Wave 1:

Charles Foster Kane (Citizen Kane) Vs Gavroche Thenardier (Les Miserables)

Leif (Bug Fables) Vs Queen Serenity (Sailor Moon)

L (Death Note) Vs Jonny D'Ville (The Mechanisms)

Noah Czerny (The Raven Cycle) Vs Lee Everett (The Walking Dead)

Pat Butcher (BBC Ghosts) Vs Xerxes Break (Pandora Hearts)

Captain Orimar Vale (Skyjacks Campaign Podcast) Vs Laura Palmer (Twin Peaks)

Diallos Hoslow (Elden Ring) Vs Rachel Amber (Life Is Strange)

Andrei Grandier (Rose Of Versailles) Vs Constance Blackwood (Ride The Cyclone)

Spock (Star Trek) Vs Maria Robotnik (Sonic The Hedgehog)

Kravitz (The Adventure Zone) Vs Sal Fisher (Sally Face)

Mari (Omori) Vs Ianto Jones (Torchwood)

Nate (Leverage) Vs Max (Sam and Max)

Owen Carvour (Spies Are Forever) Vs Vylad Ro'Meave (Minecraft Diaries)

Neil Perry (Dead Poet's Society) Vs Sayaka Miki (Madoka Magica)

Flapjack (The Owl House) Vs Maes Hughes (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Loki (Marvel) Vs Adam Faulkner Stanheight (Saw)

Wave 2:

Obi Wan Kenobi (Star Wars) Vs Diggory Graves (Hello From The Hallowoods)

Hugo Oak (Kipo And The Age Of Wonderbeasts) Vs Leonardo Hamato (Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie)

Chara (Undertale) Vs Magnus Chase (Magnus Chase)

River Song (Doctor Who) Vs Micheal Afton (Five Nights At Freddy's)

Catherine Earnshaw (Wurthering Heights) Vs Tara Maclay (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)

Laudna (Critical Role) Vs Aerith Gainsborough (Final Fantasy)

Mia Fey (Ace Attorney) Vs Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby)

Meiko 'Menma' Honma (The Flower We Saw That Day) Vs Claire Foley (Professor Layton)

Grelle Sutcliff (Black Butler) Vs Skelly (Hades)

Ethan Winters (Resident Evil) Vs Portgas D Ace (One Piece)

Polly Geist (Monster Prom) Vs Hua Cheng (Heaven's Official Blessing)

Avatar Kyoshi (Avatar The Last Airbender) Vs Galivar Kholin (Stormlight Archive)

Pink/Orchid (Animation Vs Animator/Minecraft) Vs Lewis Pepper (Mystery Skulls Animated)

Gideon Nav (The Locked Tomb) Vs Stoick The Vast (How To Train Your Dragon)

Evelyn Hooper (Less is Morgue) Vs Manny Calavera (Grim Fandango)

Kokichi Oma (Danganronpa) Vs Silco (Arcane)

Wave 3:

Eurydice (Greek Mythology) Vs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead)

Jack Twist (Brokeback Mountain) Vs Charles Vane (Black Sails)

Howard Hamlin (Better Call Saul) Vs Jason Grace (Riordanverse)

Nora Hildegard (The Vampire Diaries) Vs Gerard Keay (The Magnus Archives)

Manny (Swiss Army Man) Vs Matoro (Bionicle)

Wen Ning (Mo Dao Zu Shi) Vs Kikyo (Inuyasha)

Yuri Nakamura (Angel Beats) Vs Simon Kain (Pathologic)

Deep Throat (The X Files) Vs La Signora (Genshin Impact)

Esmeralda (The Hunchback Of Notre Dame Novel) Vs Ursula Zandt/Silhouette (Watchmen Comics)

Nageki Fujishiro (Hatoful Boyfriend) Vs Tuba (Infinity Train)

Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice) Vs Arthur Morgan (Red Dead Redemption)

Oda Sakunoske (Bungou Stray Dogs) Vs Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)

Duncan (Dragon Age) Vs Junpei Yoshino (Jujitsu Kaisen)

Quincey Morris (Dracula) Vs Connor Murphy (Dear Evan Hansen)

Deadman (DC Comics) Vs Breakdown (Transformers)

Draal The Deadly (Troll Hunters) Vs Castiel (Supernatural)

Wave 4:

Matsuri Kanroji (Demon Slayer) Vs Midori (Your Turn To Die)

Kelsier (Mistborn) Vs Peter 'Parker' Yang (Malevolent Podcast)

Tadashi Hamada (Big Hero 6) Vs Noriaki Kakyoin (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure)

Erik (The Phantom Of The Opera) Vs Matthias Helvar (Six Of Crows)

Tigerstar (Warrior Cats) Vs Boromir (The Lord Of The Rings)

Joel Miller (The Last Of Us) Vs Pedro Madrigal (Encanto)

Rufus Emeterio (They Both Die At The End) Vs King Arthur (King Arthur)

Bunny Corcoran (The Secret History) Vs Lenore (Nevermore Webtoon)

Sliver Of Straw (Rain World) Vs Bow (Inanimate Insanity)

Chidi Anagonye (The Good Place) Vs Nicholas D Wolfwood (Trigun)

Tiso (Hollow Knight) Vs Okudera (Yakuza 5)

Koki Kariya (The World Ends With You) Vs Horst Cabal (Johannes Cabal)

Mr Boddy (Clue) Vs Garret Jacob Hobbs (Hannibal)

Eddie Kaspbrak (IT) Vs Emily (Corpse Bride)

Ash Lynx (Banana Fish) Vs Ophelia (Hamlet)

Eddie Munson (Stranger Things) Vs Kili (The Hobbit)

[thelonecalzone]

At long last, here is the official reading list for There'll Be Some Changes Made, and a few recommendations from some of the readers! It's long, so hopefully there's a little something for everyone.

Thank you again to the wonderful readers, both for your encouragement, and for helping me compile this list <3

Recommendations (Named Throughout TBSCM)

The Pearl - John Steinbeck The House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde Upon the Blue Couch - Laurie Kolp In the Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith Paradise Rot - Jenny Hval Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters Fingersmith - Sarah Waters Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson Rubyfruit Jungle - Rita Mae Brown Under the Udala Trees - Chinelo Okparanta In at the Deep End - Kate Davies Some Girls Do - Jennifer Dugan This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone  The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid Lavender House - Lev AC Rosen My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe - Fannie Flagg Straight Jacket Winter - Esther DuQuette and Gilles Poulin-Denis

Source Books (Referenced, but not named)

The Odyssey - Homer The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Glass Menagerie - Tennessee Williams Hamlet - William Shakespeare The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald Come Along with Me - Shirley Jackson (unfinished novel) We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson A Certain Hunger - Chelsea G. Summers The Poison Garden - AJ Banner

Honorable Mentions:

The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson Different Class - Joanne Harris The Lost Girls of Ireland (Book 1) - Susanne O’Leary The Girl Next Door - Jack Ketchum The Broken Girls - Simone St. James Dear Fahrenheit 451 - Annie Spence The Canterville Ghost - Oscar Wilde One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston Ash - Malinda Lo Everything Leads to You - Nina LaCour Camp Slaughter - Sergio Gomez The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka A Slow Fire Burning - Paula Hawkins The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory The Miseducation of Cameron Post - Emily M. Danforth Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

Banished (Under the Coffee Table) Books - DO NOT READ:

Ulysses - James Joyce Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley My Sister’s Keeper - Jodi Picoult The Book Thief - Markus Zusak In the Darkroom - Susan Faludi Marley & Me - John Grogan

Recs from Fellow Readers

Things We Lost in the Fire - Marina Enriquez Her Body and Other Parties - Carmen Maria Machado The Well of Loneliness - Radclyffe Hall Stone Butch Blues - Leslie Feinberg Mouthful of Birds - Samantha Schweblin  The Safety of Objects - A.M. Homes Crush - Richard Siken The Taming of the Shrew - Shakespeare I’ve Got a Time Bomb - Sybil Lamb The Thing Around Your Neck - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Last Night at the Telegraph Club - Malinda Lo Sadie - Courtney Summers The Messy Lives of Book People - Phaedra Patrick The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix The Final Girl Support Group - Grady Hendrix The Lying Lives of Adults - Elena Ferrante They Were Here Before Us - Eric LaRocca The Patience Stone - Atiq Rahimi Agamemnon - Aeschylus Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's poetry - (start with "You Foolish Men") The poems of Sappho - (“Anactoria”, the book of fragments, and “Goatherd” specifically)

[scandcls]

            “ i thought it'd be rude not to say ' hello ' before you help get me run over by a car. ” the blonde stood by the trailer door overhang, a mess of unfinished makeup and ginger wig that gave her reservations at the mere thought of what she might appear like. but to be a woman so infatuated with a man married off, as myrtle wilson was never to be complete without pin curls and a  string of pearls  to be as symbolic as the novel. “ are you method acting right now, gatsby? no invite, just anyone can walk in? ” still, not a step was taken over the threshold, like a vampire awaiting an invitation inside she remained, arms crossed and a habitual need to bite the inside of her cheek.

featuring　julian calvary  ( @stardcwn )

[seiya-starsniper]

Rules: 10 (non-ancient) books for people to get to know you better, or that you just really like.

Tagged by @wintersmitth and @bluesundaycake, thank you both for thinking of me!!! I definitely saw a few books on both your lists I'll be adding to my to-read goals for this year :)

This was a bit of a challenge as I was a very avid reader of novels as a teenager, then just…stopped for about a decade. I still read, but I transitioned over to graphic novels and Japanese manga, developed a massive fanfic addiction…and then read 77 books in 2022 LOL. But these are the books that have left a mark on me over the years.

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice - I first read this in 2003 when I was far too young to be reading it but well…what can you do hah. This novel single handedly jump started not only my vampire obsession, but my obsession with the supernatural genre and supernatural romance in general. I am pretty sure I have a monsterfucker fixation because of Anne Rice ahahaha. I’ve reread this novel many times over the years so it is very near and dear to my heart.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Teenage me and adult me LOVED the hell out of this book. The imagery, the loneliness, the prose, I could read Gatsby over and over again and fall in love with some new piece of it. When the copyright expired last year, I went ham on reading as many spinoff novels as I could. I still have one in my queue of things to read actually. 

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess - My first foray into psychological horror. Goodness I absolutely devoured this book, and I know it’s controversial for a variety of different reasons (mostly the ending change), but it was the first time I had really read a book with a protagonist that was just absolutely unhinged and unapologetic about it. That being said, I personally prefer the original ending to the Kubrick film ending, I don’t care what my fellow Americans say, it made perfect sense to me.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - Was I 100% the target demographic for this book series when it was being published? Absolutely. Did I go completely feral when each book and movie came out like a basic young adult? Yes indeedy. Are its overarching themes still relevant today and plenty of people, including people involved with the movie, seem to miss entirely? YOU BET. I have a very soft spot for this series, and I’ve been on the fence about reading the prequel. If anyone has any thoughts, I’d love to hear them!

World War Z by Max Brooks - Max Brooks my beloved. Zombie Survival Guide was my first exposure to him as an author, but World War Z really made me think about how people would react to a zombie virus, or any virus that affects the world. It was unfortunately rather prophetic when Covid rolled around :/ But I think that is partially the brilliance of it. I have a signed copy of the book that I hold very near and dear to my heart. I still read passages from the book from time to time and highly recommend it.

Fullmetal Alchemist - As I mentioned at the beginning, I tapered off novels and moved into graphic novels/manga, but in all honesty, none have left nearly as lasting an impact on me as Fullmetal Alchemist has. It is by far one of the best series I have ever read in my life. Do you want philosophy on the value and meaning of life? A realistic depiction on the horrors of war and genocide? Well written female characters that are not tropes? Endless short people jokes? This series is for you!  

Wolfsong/Green Creek Series by TJ Klune - I know TJ Klune is more well known for his YA books, and they are fun, but generally not for me. But this. This book series is what got to me. Still gets to me! If you want queer romance + found family + werewolves with none of the squick of omegaverse tropes, this series is absolutely for you. I had initially read the series for @lyriclorelei because she had heard the third book in the series featured an ace character, and that particular character is in fact, my blorbo. I love him. I cried throughout his entire book because I love him so much. 

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall - I credit this book with jump starting my reading binge in 2022. I knew from reading Green Creek that there was a lot more queer fiction out there, but this was the first time I had ever seen fake dating outside of fanfic and well…I got hooked! At my core, I am a romance reader at heart, and I was pleasantly surprised to find all the ways the genre had evolved since I stopped reading. Truly a fun introduction to get back into reading for me.

A Marvellous Light/The Last Binding series by Freya Marske  - MY. HEART. Do you want queer wizards? A unique magical system that has not been done before? A murder mystery tied to a curse? Enemies to lovers? Queer self-awakening? This book and series has all of the above! It is absolutely fantastic and I am SO EXCITED for the final book to be published at the end of this year. Just cannot say enough good things about it.

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy - In addition to romance, I found myself binging celebrity memoirs in 2022, and Jennette McCurdy’s was the best. She’s an incredibly witty writer, and I found myself laughing and crying in equal parts throughout the book. It is, in fact, a rather triggering book considering what she went through, I definitely found myself triggered a few times, but, it was a really eye-opening thing to read, and I absolutely recommend consuming it via the audiobook because her delivery is just fantastic. 

Tagging: @valeriianz @sans--seraph @the-cloudy-dreamer @rooftopwreck @historyandqueershenanigans @introvertbibliophile @mallory-x @quellawrites @aquilathefighter and whoever else wants to do this! A few of you tagged me in the other ask game, and since I already did that one, I'm tagging you in this one :3

[geekycamimh]

*As previously stated, this whole challenge is of my own creation - including the requirements, the novels chosen, etc. It was my way of doing a history challenge with a twist (the novel basis).  Generation 4: Jekyll and Hyde Requirements -Both sons (Jekyll and Hyde) are significant to the generation, while Jekyll is the heir (in so much as he will carry on the family line), Hyde is a temporary co-heir  -Jekyll must be Good while Hyde must be Evil -Hyde must become a vampire and has the master vampire aspiration  -Jekyll is a scientist. As a teen his aspiration is Archeology Scholar (optional) and as a YA his aspiration is Curator -Lot challenge: Off the Grid -Jekyll must max Vampire Lore and Logic skills -Jekyll is intent on curing his brother and must focus on creating the vampire cure (and succeeds) -Jekyll has a first love which Hyde uses as a food source until he kills her -Hyde is now too far gone to be cured and must be killed, by Jekyll’s hand -Jekyll cannot marry until after Hyde’s death, he must marry a loyal sim (she loves him in spite of his guilt and darkness) -They can have however many children they want - but at least should be a boy (Gatsby) for the next generation

[tears-of-amber]

To-Do List 2/16/2023

📎Daily Practice ✔️

📎Work On Art/Drawing

📎Work On Fanfic/Novel

📎Do A Spell For Self-Love

📎Read “Witch Please”

📎Brush Teeth

📎Freshen Up

📎Annotate “The Great Gatsby”

📎Play Minecraft ✔️

📎Play Fire Emblem ✔️

📎Watch Bungou Stray Dogs

📎Watch Death Note

📎Watch The Vampire Diaries

📎Study Hel’s Myths

📎Write A Poem/Prayer To Hel

📎Meditate With A Crystal ✔️

📎Post Next Part Of Lottie Fic

📎Work On Book Of Shadows ✔️

Song of the Day:

[marinaslibrary]

Potential August to be read list

This isnt what I'm set to stone to read nor a goal just options that interest me right now :)

- my grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry by Frederick Backman (because after having read the Britt Marie book by him in a previous vacation he has been promoted to a beach read author)

- Of mice and men (started before vacation but I didn't wanna bring it with me since its not exactly fitting the wholesome light vibes I'm going for, but it's such a short and easy classic and I keep thinking about it)

- as good as dead (always good to finish a new favourite trilogy :) heard the main character gets completely unhinged on this one so I'm so hyped)

- something classic. I'm not sure what yet, probably the great Gatsby? After months of reading fantasies, graphic novels and contemporaries I think I yearn for a classic again. I'd like to finally dip toes in Jane Austen tho so pride and prejudice in particularly is in my horizon.

- Interview with a vampire by Anne Rice. Ive tried to read before via audiobook and I liked it quite much just left it aside cause I suddenly switched moods to something more fast paced. I have a physical copy of it now so it'll probably hold my attention more

- a reread of something. The Spellshop, Beach Read, a poirot anything, or even percy Jackson