#I wrote another book

[linmeiwei]

A new Jane Austen variation… COMING SOON

I know it’s been a while but… my new book will be coming out soon!

In it, Darcy and Elizabeth are at Netherfield together: she’s on a mission to extract her ailing sister and he is on a mission to stop crushing on her already.

But here to spoil both their plans are the ghosts of Netherfield Park...

I’ll share more in the coming weeks but for now… a quick glimpse at my new cover, which I’m genuinely obsessed with.

#jane austen #historical fashion #pride and prejudice #I wrote another book #Jane Austen variation #Jane Austen fan fiction

[hajimedics]

welcome home persona AU, aka mostly an excuse for me to draw my human designs in classy children’s fairytale-inspired outfits

#welcome home #welcome home restoration project #whrp persona AU #wally darling #eddie dear #frank frankly #sally starlet #julie joyful #senjart #senja when he has a hyperfixation: crossover it with ANOTHER hyperfixation #already wrote down their arcanas and persona names THIS HYPERFIX STUFF IS SERIOUS #they are named mostly from books and opera ….. giving it more of a fairytale feeling #I think the AU’s main themes and storyline is about the strings of fate and deciding your own life….. like maruki’s dreamworld #their persona awakenings are basically them being bound by strings/chains/vines/etc and they break out and yell their persona names!!!! #BECAUSE THEYRE TRAPPED…. PUPPETS IN A STRING…… BOUND BY FATE…. YANNOW YANNOWWWWWWWW #AND THEN THEY GOT THEIR OUTFIT AND THE SICK P5 GUITAR RIFF PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND #’’yes we’re forced to come into terms that our reality and the cope of our imagination has been limited but at least we got these outfits’’ #(sally voice) DON QUIXOTE! AGIDYNE!!!!! #also Home is the navi. it speaks as a disembodied voice that’s creaks and bangs to outsiders and coherent voices for persona users

[shima-draws]

One Piece where everything’s the same except Cora doesn’t die but Law’s still determined to absolutely beat the shit out of Doflamingo anyway. Cut to post Dressrosa where Law gets a VERY frantic phone call from Cora who’s like what the actual FUCK I saw the newspaper this morning you went up against Doffy all by yourself?? You promised me we would do this together you little SHIT do you have any idea how fucking scared out of my MIND I was when I saw the headline and I thought something happened to you, Law I swear to god, and Law’s like yes Cora I went up against him by myself, like HELL I was going to let him lay a single finger on you. And Cora’s like THAT’S MY LINE!!! You’re MY kid and I should be the one protecting YOU!! And Law’s like what with your shitty devil fruit powers? What could you have done? You would have fallen on your ass and gotten hurt or shot or worse and I’d be too fucking worried about you to focus on anything else. And Cora’s like this conversation is NOT over but I’m so so glad you’re okay. And he starts crying and he’s like oh my GOD Law you know how insane Doffy is I could have lost you. And I wouldn’t have even known until after the fact. And Law goes all quiet and he’s like I know I’m sorry but I could have lost YOU and I couldn’t handle that. I couldn’t. And Cora’s sobbing and he’s like I love you so much Law and Law’s like yeah. I love you too 🥺

Meanwhile the Strawhats witnessed this entire conversation and they’re like. Wow okay that was a lot to unpack. Law’s got a dad and they’re very protective of each other and apparently his dad is Doflamingo’s brother?? And Law literally dismantled Doflamingo’s entire criminal organization and DIDN’T bother telling his dad about it?? No wonder he’s pissed. And they’re also like awwwww we’ve never seen Law so soft and vulnerable before 💕 and Law looks at them and he’s like. You repeat ANY of what you just heard and I WILL kill you. And they’re like ‘Mhmm okay yup we hear you loud and clear. Btw what’s your dad like’ with the BIGGEST shit eating grins and Law’s like Okay! Killing you now!! And proceeds to chase them with his katana

#Sorry I just wrote an entire fic on my post. Coughs anyway #Law keeping Cora in the dark about taking down Doflamingo is SUCH a funny concept to me #Bc well. It’s CORA’S brother. If anybody should take him down it would be him yeha #*yeah #But nope Law’s also an overprotective little shit so he’s like I’m going to do this and NOT tell Cora about it. #And when Cora sees the newspaper he proceeds to have a heart attack #Cora: WHAT THE ACTUAL F U C K #Cora: IS MY KID OKAY. #Robin: It’s lovely that you have a father that cares for you so much Torao-kun ^^ #Law blushing furiously: Not another WORD Nico-ya #Meanwhile Cora is hopping on a boat and BOOKING it to Dressrosa #Cora: HAVE YOU SEEN MY SON #Luffy: Hehe your dad’s funny Torao! I like him ^^ #Cora: Is that your boyfriend #Law: NO?????? #OKAY I’M SORRY I’LL STOP LMAO #One Piece #Corazon #Trafalgar Law #Donquixote Rocinante #Shima speaks

[bonefall]

it is healing to come onto this blog and see basic respect for diasbility after being in other corners of the fandom and reading the words “snowkit could never be a warrior because he wouldnt know what anything is. he wouldnt even know what a clan is because nobody could explain it to him” said in full seriousness

Im..... That statement is so ableist I cannot even imagine the worldview you'd need to have in order to come up with that.

They really think the only way anyone learns anything is through verbal-speaking-words-noises? No one has ever observed something before? Not even once?

This is beyond touching grass, this person just fell out of the fucking Jurassic Period when all they had was ferns and stegosaurs.

I just...

OH YES. I remember my first day of Society Lessons as a hearing person, where the everything was explained to me. Via Audiobook. FIRST they spoke and said, "you are standing on the ground." It was a life changing revelation, and the world began to spin.

But it did not stop.

THEN they said, "there are fingers on your hands." The sensation of flesh and bone crackling into existence is indescribable, but I did not yet know pain, until they told me, "that hurts." I began screaming immediately.

And yet... it continued.

They explained so much. Chairs. Tables. Walls. The sky. Frogs. Ionizing radiation. Breathing. I was told all of it, in one sitting, and only then did I understand. Only when my ears were bursting with normal hearing knowledges, did they begin... my final test.

A strange wall-chair-finger emerged from the sky-of-the-wall, stood on the ground several times, until it was in front of me. A second one came behind it, this one slimmer. The audiobook gave these things names;

Human. Father. Mother. Door. Walking. It was completely impossible to know what these things were until that very moment.

I watch a human dip a hook into water and produce a fish, and I recall my Society Lessons where they called that "fishing." I am decked in the face by a nefarious hooligan, and I have only the audiobook to thank when I know I have been "punched" by a "bad guy." It was only the magic of verbal-speaking-words-noise that made me understand that there are "other people" and that they "do stuff."

Sometimes, even, in "groups."

Before the Society Lessons Audiobook, I knew nothing. I was pure, innocent, uncorrupted by concepts such as "parents" and "door." I am grateful every day that there is no such concept as "being shown things" or "simple logical reasoning" or "looking."

Blessed be those amongst us who escape the horrors of the Society Lessons Audiobook. I pray that you never learn what anything is. Be free! Free as a bird, which also knows nothing and famously cannot learn. 🤗

DEAF/HOH FOLLOWERS I'm losing my mind do you want me to bump a 'Hearing Disabilities Herb Guide' to the top of my priorities? Something you can use to bludgeon whackadoodles like that. This is ridiculous

Obviously not a MEDICINE guide but like; common causes of hearing disability in clan cats. Accommodations for hearing loss vs congenital deafness. Actual difficulties of not having that sense Clan-by-Clan. Debunking of misconceptions like... not being able to learn APPARENTLY.

#bone babble #Fennelposting #Obviously the answer is 'theyre incapable of THINKING' but like... they do know snow has a line right #In the book. He figured out. A word. Through observation. #He says 's'all right' because he knows it calms ppl down #He did not need to hear the magic words 'You can make noises at others to influence them' #Like a fucking tutorial tip #Im going to start keeping a JOURNAL of ''times people have been weird about snowkit specifically'' #Ableism #cw ableism #I could also link to the pawspeak thing so it's all in one place #I wrote this last night and put it in the queue and I laid awake thinking of this... #What do they think happens when someone goes to another country where things aren't written/spoken in a language they know? #Do they think they wouldn't be able to figure out anything? Do they think the tourist would just perish #Would they collapse in the streets of Berlin sobbing? #Happened to me. Went to England and they called it a Car Boot Sale instead of a Flea Market and I died to death #AND if I did make that guide please tell me if there's any other weird misconceptions you need to see in it #I know that ONE of them is going to have to be that. like. deaf people make noise. #theyre actually quite loud because they don't know they're making noise #and people with hearing loss do not suddenly forget how to speak. #and people born deaf dont talk like cavemen #cw body horror #tw body horror #EDIT: OOPS sorry I have such an astonishingly tolerance for body horror I did not realize that counted as body horror

[babybells123]

(ASOS, Sansa II)

(ASOS, Jon XII)

#jonsa #jon x sansa #sansa stark #jon snow #don’t tell me they mean nothing to each other when they have such glaring parallels #it’s the way no one else in the series has this exact dream to restore Winterfell and have a little starkling family #in the same book mind you !! #the way Robb is the missing piece to Sansa’s fantasy <33 #and Jon and Sansa don’t mention each other because they’ll be parents #oh the feelings I have #sometimes there was even a girl who looked like arya #and arya is known to resemble Jon really closely #implying that Sansa wants to marry someone of the north with stark features #which makes so much sense for her character arc to BE with someone born and raised in the north #not another random lord to exploit her claim and power #see this is why I wrote a 40 paged meta analysis and compiled it into a PowerPoint #and then presented it to my mother thus converting her into a Jonsa truther #WITHOUT OBJECTION #on a side note I find it so interesting when you talk to someone who’s neutral on ships and is willing to listen to whatever theory #as objectively possible #because as soon as I pointed all the evidence out to my mum she was like woahhh you’re smart analysis and you’re so correct

[primrosepollen]

i'm reading "dostoevskij and parricide" by freud because unfortunately it's in my brothers karamazov edition and i must say, if based on what i studied in high school about him i thought he was just a person who was trying to find some logic about the topic of the human psyche but unfortunately arrived to some deeply unpleasant conclusions that were subsequently disproven (kind of a la greek philosophy), now i have the unwavering opinion that he was a callous man, and not even a very intelligent one.

one of the themes of brothers karamazov is that people are complex, they contain both the abyss of abjection and the highs of virtue at the same time. that doesn't make you either a virtuous person or a evil one. and yet freud opens this essay (essay written for an edition of brothers karamazov) by stating that since dostoevskij wrote about "people with violent tendencies" then he himself must have been a evil individual, and therefore all the (documented) love he had for other people must be fake and simulated, and of course, "symptom of neurosis".

another theme of the book is how doctors don't really know what they're doing at best, or at worst make everything worse by ignoring facts that disprove their preconceived diagnosis. and what does freud do? he talks about dostoevskij's epilepsy (which to me is extremely absurd because how are you even trying to diagnose a person you don't know 50 years after he died), which is promptly described as another symptom of neurosis because it doesn't follow the "official symptomatology", so it's not physiological but hysterical, and it must derive from some sort of altered sexual flux (because OF COURSE it does). it doesn't matter to freud that biographical data disproves his theory of "dostoevskij's illness only relapsed during periods of emotional stress", and it doesn't even occur to him that maybe dostoevskij had an atypical epilepsy, or that freud's "symptomatology" was incorrect or lacking, or that maybe he had a totally different illness but there still wasn't a name for it so he went for the closest one. no, all this doesn't even cross this guy's mind, because he's right and the patient is always wrong. he actively dismisses everything that contradicts his premade theory with a "the patient is neurotic and can't be trusted with anything he says. also people with mental disorders are always idiots and dostoevskij wasn't an idiot so he must be hysterical".

what's really laughable (read: tragic) about this is that dostoevskij wrote a WHOLE chapter about how you can't trust psychiatrists because they will diagnose you with kookoocrazy disorder just because you looked the wrong way in their opinion, not to mention all the other ways doctors outright don't care about patients, not to mention the absolutely respectful and loving way he talked about mentally ill people, and freud wrote a whole ass essay about taking pride in acting in that same reprehensible way. an essay that was meant to be published with the book. unbelievable. tone deaf, arrogant, callous and extremely stupid too.

#sigmund freud #fëdor dostoevskij #brothers karamazov #i won't talk about my own experience of being a psych/neuro patient #i won't talk about the countless ways psychiatry was and is just a tool to victimize the weak and undesirable #people smarter than me have said it #i'm not reading another word of what that poor excuse of a person wrote about one of the most beautiful and loving books ever written

[cerise-on-top]

Hank with an Eldritch Horror Reader

Here's another thing I wrote two years back! It was an interesting concept which I really liked, so I actually really enjoyed writing this request!

Hank J Wimbleton was a grunt of many things, but not one to be scared unless he had a good reason to be. There were many things in this world he did not understand, you were one of them. Upon meeting you, his first instinct would have been to either fight or run away - who could blame him, it was all he knew. No matter how many times you reassured him that the very last thing you wanted to do was to harm him, he’d draw his weapon, uncertain of whether or not he should believe your words.

Once you show no resistance towards him whatsoever and simply restrain him using your powers or other methods, that’s when, thrashing around as much as he could, he would start listening. You may or may not have seen a grunt up close, but this was your chance to finally examine one. As you scrutinise him from every possible angle Hank realises that you were simply curious about his being and finally lowers weapon.

Your voice would likely hurt his head and freeze the blood in his veins, so you might have to resort to telepathy or speak through a marionette, if you can find one. Though, once Hank’s interest in you has been piqued, he’d be more than happy to find you one. A lot of people in Nevada seem to be redundant in the first place. Regarding telepathy: You will be able to have a two-way conversation with Hank like that, but, for the most part, he doesn’t think in words. Still, he can do so, if needed.

If you’re on the rather small side, he will make an effort to pick you up, or hold you, and bring you back to base. Depending on whether you can float or not, this might be rather difficult, but he’ll try. If you’re large, however, then he will simply “tell” you to follow him. As an eldritch being you could likely either change your form or scare away anyone in your path in the first place, so he doesn’t particularly worry about anyone being stupid enough to attack you.

Spend time with him, he’ll get used to you more and more and, eventually, grow a bond with you. Proud, he’ll show you to Doc so he can figure out what you are, but do not be fooled. Hank wants to know what you are to some degree too. Once comfortable with you and certain you won’t harm him, he’ll start observing you, touching you to some degree. See how you react, how you feel, how you are.

Despite your conversations being, for the most part, one-sided, Hank will ask you directly what you are and if you’re some form of eldritch deity. Since you’re an amicable creature he can’t exactly wrap his head around, it’s worth a try.

Although he would like to do so to some degree, he won’t take you with him on missions. It’s his way of saying “I care a great deal about you, I don’t want you to die or worse even if you are capable of defending yourself.” If you really insist on aiding him, he will let you, begrudgingly. But beware that he will have your back. In fact, having you around will give him a greater reason to fight and improve his overall performance. Though, it will also be a major stress factor to him if something were to happen to you, so choose wisely.

#madness combat #madness combat x reader #hank j wimbleton #hank j wimbleton x reader #I've been into eldritch horrors and stuff ever since I was a teenager #although I don't condone his beliefs in the slightest I really like Lovecraft's writing style #at one point it influenced how I wrote as well since he was rather descriptive in a pleasant to read way #I have an anthology at home that I might wanna reread again at some point #celephais was always my favorite story and I think it may be one of my favorite stories of all time #I know it interests no one but my favorite book is No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai #and yes I did get into classic literature because of a certain anime I don't wanna tag in this post #but another book I really enjoyed reading was Clockwork Orange I read it with someone I used to be close to and it was a really good read #it gave me nightmares but I really enjoyed it! gave me something to talk about with my father as well #Hier kommt Alex by Die Toten Hosen is also a really good song! as is 1000 Gründe by the same band! #those songs are based on Clockwork Orange actually! #I never watched the movie and I don't think I ever will because eye gore disturbs me but the book was good! I read it bc of tboi! #I have quite a few classic at home! but I think I wanna finish reading Paradise Lost! That's also a really interesting story so far! #reading and writing are some of my favorite hobbies! #I'd also love to finishe the price of salt at some point as well! Because I have to all things considered! #I just wish I could juggle all of my hobbies a bit better! I wish I had a bit more time for everything! but oh well it be like that!

[hadescabin]

TW// GROOMING, MANIPULATION breaking down tigerheartstar and dovewing and why i think its awful ik I said that I dont really like warrior cats anymore but recently i've been thinking about some stuff regarding the series and its fandom and there's one thing that's been particularly bothering me. dovewing and tigerheart. it's just crazy to see the shift of support for tigerdove considering early 2010s warriors fandom seemed mixed on them. now there seems to be this equivocal support for them, probably because most of the fandom's exposure to the couple has been the recent books which frames them as man who loves his wife x burnt out prophecy kid who will do anything for her malewife. which theres nothing wrong with that dynamic, i think it's cute, but people really seem to forget about how tigerheart straight up groomed and treated dovewing awfully throughout oots and even in tigerheart's shadow. it seems to be a forgotten fact that tigerheart was a full grown warrior by the time he was pursuing dovepaw, who was a newly made apprentice. for perspective, this was a 6-7 moon teenager with someone almost the age of her mentor (a little younger). people try to use the excuse "oh but they're cats" and "the age gap isnt that bad" but even the recent books acknowledge with frostpaw and splashtail, that a warrior and apprentice dating is WEIRD. tbf oots was released in the early 2000s, but the fact that canonically speaking the age gap is seen as a teenager and adult relationship gives me the ick. it really puzzles me to see people get on ships like dustfern and bramblesquirrel (both of which i hate btw) for their age gaps but come up with every excuse in the books to defend tigerdove. its not even just the age gap too, again, their relationship has consisted of tigerheart manipulating and grooming dovepaw to do what he wants. in the first two books (esp the second book of oots) dovepaw is presented as someone who got attached to the cats from the journey and doesnt necessarily understand why they must act like they shouldnt exist anymore due to the borders. this is something that tigerheart LEARNS and actively takes advantage of when dovepaw questions why hes at their borders (tldr its dark forest stuff). he shifts the topic and then goes on about the journey and how he felt that they almost became friends, and that if they were in the same clan things would be easier. this may not seem like a big deal, but this goes on for the rest of their interactions whenever tiger needs to pressure her to do something she doesnt want (meeting up, trusting him, etc.) He realizes that the subject of different borders resonates with her and uses it to his advantage whenever he wants something out of her. This can especially be seen in the next book, “Night Whispers”, which kickstarted their relationship. Dovepaw accidentally ran into ShadowClan territory while hunting, and Tigerheart happens to find her there. Once again, he gives her a speech about borders being meaningless, before asking her to meet up with him before the ShadowClan patrol catches them. There’s also other examples in later books where he coerces her into meeting up or trusting him since “that’s what friends are for” or even later in that book, where he manipulates her into using Ivypaw as a captive for herbs. 

When you take this into account, plus him as a full grown warrior, starting a romantic relationship with a barely apprenticed Dovepaw who is shown as having a childish/ immature perception on romance/mates (such as her argument with Ivypaw and claiming that she should “find her own mate”), Tigerdove feels very much like grooming to me. According to the dictionary definition grooming is, “the action of attempting to form a relationship with a child or young person, with the intention of sexually assaulting them”. Of course, in this case, since it’s a young adult book, it’s to form a romantic relationship, which could also be another goal of grooming. Groomers tend to display manipulative behaviors towards the victims in order to coerce them into trusting them more. Whether that be through compliments, gifts, trying to resonate with them or make them feel special. They tend to try to get them to keep and “share” secrets, which is another tactic they utilize both to isolate the victim and to get them to feel more comfortable. 

A lot of behaviors that Tigerheart displays towards Dovepaw falls under this, including the examples I mentioned. There are a couple of other comments that he makes which come off as creepy such as Dovepaw “being his favorite sister”, which as I established, is something a groomer would say in order to make the victim feel as though they’re special and garner their trust. Which is especially the case when you note that he makes that comment in reference to Dovepaw asking about his ties to Ivypaw, which he actively lies about, and quickly reassures her that there’s nothing going on. 

This tactic of manipulation, where he either makes her feel special, or even love bombs and dissuade her from standing up for herself, doesn’t stop when she’s an apprentice. It continues when she’s a warrior, and is constantly used throughout OOTS and “Tigerheart’s Shadow”. At one point in the series, Dovewing and Tigerheart get into an argument about Dawnpelt wrongfully accusing Jayfeather of murder. When Tigerheart defends his sister, Dovewing stands up for Jayfeather, which prompts Tigerheart to try and manipulate her out of the conversation. He jumps straight to talking about how much he loved and missed her, and guilts her by asking why they had to argue like this, and why they couldn’t just “meet like before”. As for Tigerheart's Shadow, he actively goes against what she wants (to raise her kits outside the clan) and actively pressures and guilts her into coming back, before she finally relents. He doesn't care about what SHE wants, it's always about him. Whether it be secretly meeting up, or in The Last Hope, he tries to pressure her to date him again (which she FINALLY refuses and scolds him for thinking about his own needs when they're right before a final battle. as she should). It's especially upsetting in the newest book that tigerheart seems to be the only think at the center of her character. when she argues with ivypool, it's less about the two sister's interpersonal conflicts and more about her and tigerheart's relationship. which...feels like a lot of missed potential to me? i want them to argue, i want dovewing to stand up to herself against ivypool, but why does the entire conflict have to revolve around him? why can't dovewing have her own thoughts and feelings without it tying back to her awful husband?

#☕.txt #txt #some of these are snippets of my essay i wrote on the two in a fit of rage after seeing tigerheartstar fans attack harestar fans #i might share it with the world if i care to one day #dove revolving her character around tiger is unfortunately why i dont care for her canon character because it feels mostly shallow #however it isnt the poor girl's fault just the erins' incapability of writing women but thats a talk for another day #if i were to rewrite the books (which i have some ideas on) i would definitely get rid of this god awful relationship #warriors #warrior cats #tigerheart #dovewing #tigerheartstar #tigerstar #tigerdove #warior cats

[add1ctedt0you]

Jin Ling, protecting his uncles

#I was searching for the quote where jl says to wwx to stay away from both his uncles. But I didn't find it #jl is so brave! #He is always protecting his uncles! #And jl is scared of lwj but he will fight him if it means protecting his uncles! #Best boy!! #Anyway wwx really takes jl as his punchbag lol he is always hitting him #Anyway I love jl and his relationship with jc and jgy #If mxtx wrote another book about them and their weird family I would read it! #jin ling and his jiujiu #jin ling and his xiao-shushu #mar reading mdzs

[villainanders]

there's a video essay that lives inside of me whose thesis is that game of thrones made jaime and cersei's relationship about sexuality when in asoiaf its about gender

#honestly i think d&d just like. didnt really get how to write incest and wrote a narrative about incest that basically made incest the same #thing as being gay. in the way people talk about it and the way it fits into society and the way they had jaime try to be 'normal' and then #go back to his lover and die like some hayes code era gay man #and in the books the incest is about identity under an oppressive gender binary that manifests in the most toxic way bc they have no tools #of understanding it. which could so easily be sooooosooo bad but then ISNT bc redemption comes along with brienne and another way of living #outside of the gender binary

[autumngracy]

Not me creeping up to the wordcount of the fourth longest book ever written

#A Reflection of Starlight #AROS #valvert #fanfic #writing #Hey I switched back to LibreOffice again after setting up my new computer #(RIP my old computer's installation of MS Office 2009) #And also my old computer in general as it is now giving me the blue screen of death upon boot #but ANYWAY #does anybody know how to make LibreOffice stop highlighting formatted areas? BC with Dark Mode it's highlighting white text #which makes it impossible to read my footnote and page numbers #Also I CANNOT believe this program was coded to be so that 'Ignore' and 'Ignore All' options only do so for the CURRENT SESSION ONLY #Like what in god's name??? #I spent 3-4 hours reformatting AROS after converting it only to learn that all the 'errors' I told it to ignore just popped back #the second I reopened the document like jesus christ #Why even offer those options if it doesn't do it permanently for that document file #HHHHHHHhhhhhhHHHHHH #I then spent another several hours being forced to change the language formatting to French for all the French bits #JUST so it would stop underlining all of them in red #And there's no way for me to get rid of the underlining on things like cut off bits of dialogue #bc they are NOT proper words and I refuse to add them to my Dictionary (thus polluting it) just to get rid of them #Ugh #So anyway remember years ago how I joked about what if I accidentally wrote a fanfic longer than the source material itself #That being one of the longest books ever written (technically THE longest book ever written #if we're counting the FRENCH version of it and not the English translation #And yeah I know I technically split AROS into 3 books but that was only for reader convenience #It's still one book in my heart #And also because I think it would be REALLY funny to surpass Hugo's wordcount #Which is entirely plausible bc in English it was only about 531k so I only a little over 100k off and I think I can easily make that #with the material I have left to write but is already mostly plotted out

[mumms-the-word]

The Twenty-First Night

A bit of 1001 Nights-inspired poetry that I wish was in The Art of the Night to make it more than just a spicy yoga manual or a spellbook. This is part of the longer scene I wrote, but I wanted to share it separately too, because I've been inspired by other BG3 poets. I'm not really a poet, but I did my best <3

~*~*~

That night, the king met his beloved once more in their chambers.

"Dearest one," said he,  "Gold I have given thee,  and jewels from my store;  chains for thy neck  and bands for thy wrists;  and still, thine eyes shine more brilliantly  than any treasure in my kingdom. 

"What gem in all the realms  can be more precious than thy gaze?  What more can I give to you,  my beloved, so that you may know  the ardent depths of my heart?  What more, when thine eyes alone  make all riches seem as dull iron?"

"Tender-hearted king," said the queen,  "I need neither gold nor gems;  my love is not so cheaply bought  nor so willingly sold.  And yet, already thou possess  that which I long for most.  Thy steady gaze, my love,  and thy faithful hand are all I ask.

"Come, take my hand,  and look beyond this simple visage. I will bare my soul to thee, this night,  and gaze boldly at thine. For more than bone and blood are we, but spirits merely housed in flesh.’"

~*~*~

#cue the astral sex #bg3 #bg3 fic #my fic #gale #gale dekarios #might delete later but idk idk #when gale picked up this book i immediately was like #tell me the romance gale #tell me the 1001 nights romance between this king and queen #what poems did they whisper to one another #what philosophies did they share #but alas the game just made it a spellbook #so yeah i wrote this #also why 21? no idea I just picked an early number

[tuff-ponyboy]

adding on to the idea that dal's room at buck's would become an urban legend, I think the same would happen for the park where bob was killed at. the swings go crazy every night just after 2 am......the fountain water supposedly turns to blood every year on the anniversary of bob's death.....parents tell their children to be home for curfew or else an old greaser ghost will get you...

#my paranoid crazy ass most definitely would do this shit #do you guys have any urban legends about your town? the high school here has an underground bunker that kids in the 70s would go down to #and do 'santanic rituals' which sounds like some satanic panic shit but it was real! #there was a book made about it....and then another book made about it... #one kid killed himself and his house burned down but a pic of him survived the fire #his friend was on Main Street and got hit in the head by a car and then another had the same thing happen in Vegas #they all had something happen to the left side of their face. like homeboy shot himself on the left side and they all got hit on the left #his grave at my city cemetery is destroyed :( which is so sad but so fucking creepy #so I'm terrified about this my whole life right? like I can't sleep bc he's gonna get me and then i read the book when I'm 19 and it was #the most edgelord ass shit I have ever read. shit pissed me off cuz everyone in town says how terrifying it is but it wasn't at all #anyway if you have read this far and want the book name it is written by the same author who wrote go ask Alice #the outsiders #the outsiders 1983 #dallas winston #johnny cade #bob sheldon #ponyboy curtis #i just be saying shit #the outsiders headcanons #my headcanons #I guess another legend is how this kid got whacked by his mom in the 80s with a hammer and died but that was very much real and tragic #I just say it's a legend cuz I grew up near the house and had to walk past it every day from school! #my mom was across the street when it happened and she saw the body bag and then my aunt asked my grandparents if they were going to kill #her and her sisters! okay wait fjdjdjdj the mom also had a hit list which was full of people in the ward (church..Mormons live here) #I love that fact tbh like it's so fucking tragic but the fact she had beef with church people and wanted them dead.....Yeah

[kindaorangey]

maybe it's a bit of an L for alice if we headcanon jimmy as alloaro after we already headcanon fereshteh as aroace and tori as ace and arospec but then again it's not our fault she's so good at coding her narrators as aspec

#iwbft #thunder rambles #like idk if i wrote 3 books while i was fiuring out my identity and 3/4 of the narrators ended up being headcanoned #as at least one aspect of the identity i end up using #id be PISSED #like man ANOTHER ONE?? CMON

[queenlucythevaliant]

Northern Lights

.

I heard a voice that cried, “Balder the Beautiful is dead, is dead!” 

.

Who knows what to call the lonely exhilaration of gazing out into a bright Northern sky? Who can name it? 

Jill could.

It was the same feeling that came to her at the teetering edge of a cliff at the end of the world. The same feeling as when she said her goodbyes to Puddleglum and Scrubb before they freed the prince. It was the same feeling that engulfed her now, sitting in the professor’s library with a volume of poetry before her. 

.

The wild northern wastes were well named: utterly wild, perfectly desolate, and terribly Northern. 

It was lonely there and often cold, but the sky was an endless whorl of gales and gray clouds. The stones were indigo under the pale winter sunlight, and at sunset they glowed a soft gold, as though lit from within. The gorges and moors lay before her, and Jill loved them for their vastness and their distance. Little grew in that country, but that which did was full of vigor. The grass was short and coarse. Every tree was victorious. 

On a still, deep breathing winter night, Jill lay on her back beneath a covering sky. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it until her tears began to blind her. Yet even then, she still couldn’t look away.

She felt bigger here in the wastes, like the landscape. Stronger, wider. The further she walked, the more she felt herself stretch out. One of these days, maybe, she would catch hold of herself at the edge and tug, and Jill Pole would open up clear as the Northern sky. 

.

And through the misty air passed the mournful cry of sunward sailing cranes.

.

The thing that surprised Jill most about the battle with the serpent was this: there wasn’t any yelling. Always, it seemed, whenever she read stories about people fighting with swords, the combatants would let loose some guttural yell before their blows fell. They would scream and writhe in pain as they died. They would shout instructions to their fellows, “Look out!” or “Hit him there!” But the whole affair with the serpent passed with very little noise. 

The poison-green coil constricted around the prince; he raised his arms and got clear, struck the serpent hard, and then Scrubb and Puddleglum dispatched the creature with heavy, hacking blows. The monster died writhing, but not screaming. And then it was over. 

The thing that surprised Jill most about the moments before battle was, of course, the noise. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears. She couldn’t stop listening to her own breathing. Every footstep rang out like a gong, and any words exchanged rang with a kind of finality that made them sound louder than anything. 

“You are of high courage,” Rilian told her when it was over. 

Yet the thing in Jill’s chest just then didn’t feel like courage. It was a deep breath, a plunge, and a release. It was loud and quiet all at once, till she was standing, blinking in the night air as snowballs whizzed round her, and maybe that was something like courage after all. 

.

And now, there was a stirring in her chest as she reread the words on the page. Sing no more / O ye bards of the North / Of Vikings and of Jarls! / Of the days of the Eld / preserve the freedom only / nor the deeds of blood! 

She thought of grief. Of freedom. 

The lonely ache in her belly grew stronger. She felt herself uplifted into the huge regions of sky that were just beyond those cliffs, weightless as the breath beneath her buoyed her up, further, further…

.

When she saw Caspian up close, Jill thought that he looked like the sort of person who was meant to live in a castle. A silly thought, perhaps, since she knew he was a king– only she wasn’t thinking of Cair Paravel. No, Jill was picturing the ruins of an old British castle she’d visited once on holiday. She still remembered how the stonework had loomed over her, all towering arches and crumbling walls. That was where Caspian seemed to belong. He had an air of ancient tragedy about him. 

When Rilian disappeared, all things had wept but one. The serpent coiled beneath the earth and flicked its forked tongue, spewing poison. 

Now, the king half rose to bless his son. He whispered a few words as he caressed Rilian’s cheek, words meant only for those beloved ears. Jill saw Caspian’s lips move and wondered what a man like that could possibly say, when time ran so short. 

.

They laid him in his ship, with horse and harness, as on a funeral pyre. Odin placed a ring upon his finger, and whispered in his ear.

.

Jill furtively took Myths of the Northmen and held it up to the professor with a question in her eyes. She was still shy around him and Miss Plummer, though she wished she wasn’t. 

“Would you like to take that with you?”

“...Please.”

.

It takes a certain kind of person to be exhilarated by the heights. You’ve got to love vastness more than you fear falling. 

.

They walked to the train station with an autumn wind blowing hard, and though Jill couldn’t fathom why, she turned and saw Lucy grinning, fierce and joyful– grinning and reaching a hand out towards her friend.

Jill reached back and grabbed it. “What will you do, once we’re back in Narnia?” she asked. 

The wind blew harder. The feeling of anticipation grew and grew, until it felt so big that she couldn’t dream of containing it. And there was Lucy, holding Jill’s hand and laughing like it was easy.

.

Preserve the freedom only, not the deeds of blood!

.

The second time Jill went to Narnia, she found herself not at its edge, but at its end. 

The thing about the Norse apocalypse is: it feels believable. It doesn’t reach beyond earth’s horizon to pull down hope beyond hope. It’s only the kind of courage that hopeless humans have: you are going to die, so you might as well die bravely. 

They found the last king of Narnia bound to a tree. His eyes were faintly red from crying, and his wrists and ankles red from the coarseness of his fetters. 

In the Norse myths, Loki broke free of his fetters at the end of the world. He escaped to the helm of a ship made from the fingernails of the dead.

The last king of Narnia fell forward onto the ground when Eustace cut his bonds. Jill crouched down beside him and watched as he rubbed feeling back into his legs. He wasn’t so much older than her, she thought. Jill was sixteen years old; the last king of Narnia could not be older than twenty-two. 

In the myths, the gods were ancient, hewn from the bodies of giants old as the earth. 

Jill put out a hand and helped the last king of Narnia to his feet. Not for the last time, she shivered. Something deep inside her (deeper than her chest, than her heart, than the marrow of her bones, deep as her soul, deeper) was singing an elegy and she didn’t know why, or how, or where it had come from. The king clutching her hand, who could have been her older brother, would have no heir.

Yet when he asked, “Will you come with me?” Jill could only smile. 

“Of course,” she said. “It’s you we’ve come to help.”

.

And the voice forever cried, "Balder the Beautiful is dead, is dead!"

.

“This really is Narnia at last,” murmured Jill. The springtime wood had little in common with the wintry lands she had traveled the last time she was here– but it awakened the same feelings of Northernness in her chest. 

Their party may as well have been the only people in the world, for how isolated their little wooden path seemed. Yet it wasn’t lonely, really, cocooned in all that green with the wind in the leaves and the primroses nodding and blue of the sky peeking through above. 

Jewel told stories about what ordinary life was like when there was peace here. As he spoke, Jill could almost hear the trees' voices speaking out of the living past, whispering, stay, stay. She was caught up to a great height, looking down across a rich, lovely plain full of woods and waters and cornfields, which spread away and away till it got thin and misty from distance. 

“Oh Jewel–” Jill said with a dreamy sigh, “wouldn’t it be lovely if Narnia just went on and on– like what you say it has been?”

She needn’t be a queen, as Susan and Lucy had been, but Jill would’ve liked to stay. She would've liked it all to stay, if it could. She might have been a woodmaid in a place like this: with the turn of the seasons, the swaying trees, swords into plowshares. Oh, if only she could stay!

Ahead, the last king of Narnia was softly singing a marching song. Jill tilted her head back and let warm shafts of sun caress her face. 

.

I saw the pallid corpse of the dead sun borne through the Northern sky.

.

“So,” said the last king of Narnia, “Narnia is no more.”

He tried to send them back. Jill shook her head. It was very loud and very quiet. “No, no, no, we won’t. I don’t care what you say. We’re going to stick by you whatever happens, aren’t we Eustace?”

They couldn’t go back anyway. Neither would they flee, not south across the mountains nor North into the great wide wastes. No, they would stay. They slept in a holly grove on the edge of ruin, waiting for the bonfires to light.

Jill slept fitfully, but in between she dreamed. She was high up in the air, buffeted by clouds and pierced by shafts of silver sunlight. 

.

They all died, in the myths. Jill knew that. It seemed beautiful and brave when she read it in her book, tucked away safe in the Professor’s library. It was terrifying now– and yet it was beautiful and brave still.

The dogs came bounding up, every one of them, running up to the king and his men with their tails wagging. One of them leapt at Jill and licked her face, tongue roughly lapping up the sweat and tears that had dried on her cheeks. 

“Show us how to help, show us how, how, how!” the dogs were barking, almost ebullient in their enthusiasm. Jill bit back a sob. How lovely, she thought. How terribly beautiful. How dreadfully brave. 

.

So perish the old Gods!

.

The white rock gleamed like a moon in the darkness when Jill finally reached it. She ran back to it alone, her hands shaking, while her friends stayed forward with their gleaming swords and Jewel’s indigo horn.

The while rock gleamed like the moon. Jill’s first shot flew wide and landed in the soft grass. But she had another arrow on her string the next instant. It was speed that mattered, not aim. Speed, and turning aside when she cried, so as not to drip tears on her bowstring.

The white rock gleamed. In the myths, a wolf devoured the moon. Peter’s wolf, slain many thousand years ago in this world, opened his jaw wide and darkness fell over everything.

Her next arrow found its mark. After that, she lost track. She pulled, and she prayed that her hands kept still another minute. 

The unique thing–maybe the appealing thing–about the Norse myths, was that they told men to serve gods who were admittedly fighting with their backs to the wall and would certainly be defeated in the end. Jill let loose another arrow, felt the white rock at her back, and she knew that the clawing fear–beauty–bravery deep in her gut was the same feeling that she felt on the heights. The same feeling, but a different face. You’ve got to love vastness more than you fear falling. 

.

“I feel in my bones,” said Poggin, “that we shall all, one by one, pass through that dark door before morning. I can think of a hundred deaths that I would rather have died.”

“It is indeed a grim door,” said Tirian. “It is more like a mouth.” 

“Oh, can’t we do anything to stop it,” said Jill. Better to be dashed to the ground than it was to be devoured. 

“Nay, fair friend,” said Jewel. “It may be for us the door to Aslan’s country and we sup at his table tonight.”

A hand tangled itself in her hair and started to pull. Jill braced herself hard, for a moment, until her strength gave out. She was standing on the edge of a high, Northern cliff. She took another step, and fell.

.

Perhaps when the moment comes, our bite will prove better than our howls. If not, we shall have to confess that two millennia of Christianity have not yet brought us to the level of the Stoics and Vikings. For the worst (according to the flesh) that a Christian need face is to die in Christ and rise in Christ; some were content to die, and not to rise, with Father Odin.

.

The world inside the stable was beautiful. It made Jill’s chest ache in all the loveliest ways. 

.

Build it again, O ye bards, fairer than before!

#okayyyy so #i've been down the tolkien/lewis/norse mythology rabbit hole lately #it's a lot #but i've been picking at this piece in my head for a while now #which is more a rhapsody than anything else #but another for my narnia/classic lit sequence of pieces #the quotes are mostly pulled from Longfellow's Tegners Drapa translation #which Jack discusses in Surprised by Joy as one of the works that inspired feelings of joy and 'Northernness' in his boyhood #there's also a Weight of Glory quote in there #(paraphrased) #and one from the intro to Joy Gresham's book on the 10 Commandments that Jack wrote #(that's that last passage in italics) #i'm not really sure i was trying to make a point with this so much as just. explore that feeling of northernness #bc really northernness is two things #it's joy and exhileration brought on by beauty #and it's that beautiful hopeless courage when faced with unwinnable battles #and i love how intertwined those two things are for lewis #and let's be honest for me too #so that's what this is #hope it holds together okay #narnia #chapter one #night under narnia #dying of thirst #pontifications and creations #leah stories

[death-himself]

just finished episode 3 here are my thoughts

also i wrote this first part at the end of my review, but I'm gonna move it here to the top because it got a bit long and I feel like it's more important to state than my review

overall, i feel like the issues i have with the show are more of a me issue. i feel like I (and a lot of us book fans honestly) were hyping up the show to be one-to-one with the book when it's been said by rick and a lot of people working on the show that it was more of a new rendition rather than an exact book-to-screen adaptation

i know that when i watched the first two episodes with my friends, they didn't see any of those issues because they hadn't read the books at all, or at least not in a long time

one example, the issue everyone has with gabe's characterization is one my friend didn't pick up on, she recognized from the start that gabe was abusive and said something like "I'm scared what he'll do to sally if she doesn't get that car back to him"

those of us who live and breathe the books recognize that he's "not as abusive" or that it's a different kind of abuse in the books, so the characterization threw us all off in a way that it didn't for people who haven't read the books

so going forward, i'm probably going to keep that more in mind with the series and reviewing it. i think from a plot standpoint, it still manages to stay true to the book in the ways that really matter, and even emphasizes a lot of the key themes of the book more clearly, while still being extremely different, and I honestly think that's pretty cool

with that being said, bullet point review under the cut (reminder I wrote this before writing the above section and don't plan on changing it)

to begin with, I'm gonna be honest, I feel like they're changing a lot more than I would prefer with the plot. I'm still enjoying the series a bunch, but the differences are very striking to me

now going in chronological order with the episode, percy's reaction to the oracle was pretty funny

the whole thing of gabe being the one to tell him the prophecy looked stupid, but I feel like there was no way to translate it from the book without it looking stupid. i feel like when he's told the prophecy in the book, the creepy description is what makes it feel serious and the weight of the prophecy makes you forget how it's being told, and I don't really think that translates very well to film

also in the book the words are very clearly not words that gabe would say, but I feel like the way the lines were delivered in the episode was a bit off, like it just sounded like gabe with nothing creepy about it

percy choosing annabeth instead of annabeth pretty much forcing herself into the quest is an interesting choice that I'm not sure if I like or hate yet

it feels like they're turning percy and annabeth more into enemies-to-lovers than it actually is in the books

I love grover so fuckin much, grover's never been one of my favorite characters, but disney series-wise, he's definitely my favorite so far

i don't know why, but the little pool in the center of the poseidon cabin is my favorite thing ever, it just feels right

percy and luke's talk in his cabin is just <3

also the way luke went "it's a gift...from my dad" i just felt the WEIGHT of that, everything that it meant

also looking back on that, i love how both annabeth's hat and luke's shoes show the different ways they react to a gift from their parents. the hat is annabeth's prized possession that she doesn't want to give up, while the first time we see luke's shoes he gives them away and clearly doesn't appreciate them as a gift

i loved it since we saw it in the trailer, but thalia's tree is so fuckin cool, i love that it straight up just looks like a person standing guard

also the way they're pronouncing thalia's name is giving me life, my brother made fun of me for pronouncing it that way as a kid and i started calling her talia but to know 10 year old me was RIGHT, incredible

grover's little song had me dying, and percy using that song later at aunty em's was hilarious

ANNABETH IN THE GAS STATION, she was so adorable, that scene owns my heart now. her just grabbing every flavor of that candy was so damn precious

I'm sad we didn't get to see the bus blown up, they could've made it such a funny scene. have the trio run to the woods like "wow I'm glad we got out of there alive" then they look over at the bus and it just explodes. that could've been peak comedy there

the whole talk between alecto and Annabeth was interesting, it does make sense for them to have some sort of history considering what happened with thalia, so i think that's a good change, makes things more interesting

the way they got to aunty em's kind of annoyed me, i feel like they could have easily shown a passage of time and had them get there in the same way as the books. idk, i really liked how they ended up there in the books because they were just hungry kids that wanted burgers

also alecto being there felt a bit weird to me

when i heard they were taking a more sympathetic approach to medusa, i honestly got really nervous for how that would turn out, but i think they handled it as well as they could have. i feel like they said it in a way where the story could have gone either way; one way where medusa was poseidon's girlfriend, and another way where she was tricked and raped by him

she also goes on to both call him a monster and say that they loved each other, so again, i feel like it could still go either way with those lines, though it probably leans more towards the girlfriend perspective (even though I'm pretty sure that's the less myth-accurate perspective, but when has pjo been myth-accurate)

the way they killed medusa TERRIFIED ME, like annabeth my girl, you realize how badly that could have turned out right, having an invisible medusa

also how did that help percy in the slightest, he was still attacking something he couldn't look at so...how did that help

I'm hoping alecto being petrified isn't permanent, hades had better bring her back, i liked alecto. also isn't she important to some part of the plot in a later book? she's the only fury i remember the name of so she has to be important right?

their argument in the basement was an interesting change, i feel like to me it kind of just felt like conflict for conflict's sake. i don't think they felt super in-character in that section. their friendship dynamic feels a bit off through most of this episode honestly, but i think their dynamic's gonna be perfect going forward now that they've gotten past that conflict

percy saying the "i am impertinent" line perfectly. that whole exchange felt like it was ripped right out of the book, i loved that

i know everyone's been shitting on lin manuel miranda being in the show, but i still love the man, and that end scene was incredible

him in the elevator was so funny, and you just know he loved percy shipping medusa's head to olympus, he thought that shit was hilarious

#percy jackson #percy jackson spoilers #pjo #pjo spoilers #pjo disney+ #pjo disney+ spoilers #percy jackson and the olympians #i have no idea what spoilers tag we're using someone help #really interested to see people's thoughts on medusa specifically #if i remember right rick accidentally wrote her using both conflicting stories at different parts of the series #like in tlt she was poseidon's lover while in another book she was said to have been born a gorgon