#except the star wars novels because let's be real

[lowdowndandy]

oh yeah I forgot to tell y'all but when me and the roommates watched the D&D movie and during the opening showing a Siberian ass looking place I jokingly said "haha icewindale" and then it popped up and I realized I had no life as a teenager

#i read like every RA Salvatore book that had been published #except the star wars novels because let's be real #if you know you know #txt #vibrating into eternity

[estherdedlock]

Of course, now I can’t stop thinking about where the remains of our Greek class would be today.

The trouble with this exercise is that we’re not sure how old they’d be, because we don’t really know when the events of The Secret History take place. Donna Tartt does a good job of giving us almost no chronological milestones to ground the book in a particular year. Richard is narrating from nine years after Bunny’s death: since TSH was published in 1992, that would put the story’s setting in 1983. But references to certain things in the book would suggest a later time. Richard goes to see a Vietnam War movie starring Charlie Sheen with the fictitious name of Fields of Shame: its real-life counterpart, Platoon, was released in December 1986. Later in the novel, we find mentions of compact discs and laptop computers, which would place the story in the late 1980s or even the early 1990s (part of me thinks that these were editor’s suggestions to make the book feel more up-to-date).

Since Donna Tartt attended Bennington from 1982 to 1986, she would have started her junior year in 1984. Richard transfers to Hampden at the start of his junior year, so I’m going to use that as my benchmark and say that the action of TSH takes place between the fall of 1984 and the spring of 1985. Francis is 21, so he would now be 58. Richard and the Macaulays would be 57.

Francis is the easy one, because Donna Tartt herself told us what became of him. In The Goldfinch, he makes a brief appearance as one of Hobie’s wealthy New York friends/clients. There’s no mention of “Mr. Abernathy” having a wife or children, so we can assume that Priscilla has been out of the picture for quite some time. Francis appears to have a reasonably good life, even if, as Theo Decker says, he seems to have “some ill-articulated scandal or disgrace in his past.” (Such a tease, that Donna Tartt!) This is what Francis was up to in 2013, at least---unless he got very sick or started a relationship with someone, there isn’t any reason to believe that he’d be doing anything different by now. 

Richard, I think, predicted his own future when he was speculating about Henry’s: “I had always pictured Henry teaching Greek, in some forlorn but excellent college out in the Midwest.”

(I’ll briefly pause so we can all recover from the terrifying prospect of having Henry Winter as a college professor.)

Whew, okay. Moving on...

I can’t imagine that Richard would have stayed in California, not when he hated it so much. And yet, I can’t see him returning to New England, or anywhere in the Northeast: too many memories. The Midwest would be a perfect place for Richard to have landed...and for some inexplicable reason, I’m specifically thinking Wisconsin. Of course he’s a professor: his education hasn’t really trained him for anything except academia. But not Greek---English literature. He’s rumpled and tweedy and still rather boyishly good-looking. At least a quarter of his class has a crush on him. He may have been married at some point, but no longer. He doesn’t have any children.

I’m probably getting too Sebastian Flyte-ish with Charles, but I’m sorry to say that I think he’d be dead by now. I think he may have committed suicide, or just let himself decline so far into alcoholism and eventual drug addiction that it was basically a slow suicide. Or it may have been the sort of accident that plagues troubled people: a car wreck, a house fire, a bad fall down the stairs. But then again, you never know. If Charles somehow managed to pull himself back from the brink, I think he’d only have been able to do it with the help of some kind of religion---not because of his substance abuse issues, but because of his guilty conscience. I don’t see him getting deep into Christianity, though, maybe something like Buddhism. Perhaps he’s up in the Himalayas, with a shaved head and orange robes. And there we’ll leave him.

Camilla is a novelist. She would have needed to make money somehow, but I don’t see her doing blue-collar work or embarking on a corporate career (for which she would have had to go back to school, anyway). When we last saw her in TSH, she seemed to have committed herself to taking care of her grandmother and eking out a living on whatever was left of the family money (so Southern Gothic!). That would have given her ample time to write.

Funny thing is, I see her being financially successful but not the sort of writer who’s a  darling of the critics or a household name (she doesn’t write under her own name at all). Maybe she’s had a career like Andrew Neiderman, who’s been writing as “V.C. Andrews” since the real Andrews died more than 30 years ago. Or maybe she reliably churns out cozy mysteries and romances, the kind that you buy at the drugstore, read at the beach, and then leave for someone else at the laundromat. This is by choice: Camilla doesn’t want to be famous. She wants to be comfortable, and left alone. She still owns the family home in Virginia, which she’s beautifully restored, although she doesn’t spend much time there. Mostly, she lives at the beach, where her well-appointed bungalow is peak Coastal Grandmother aesthetic.

She’s not a grandmother, though, or a mother, and has never been anyone’s wife. She is as solitary in her habits as she ever was...no, more so. She takes long walks on the beach, alone. She goes to mass every Sunday and holy day, but never receives Communion. She reads Greek in the evenings, listening to the waves roll in.

She has never stopped loving Henry. 

#the secret history #donna tartt #dark academia #francis abernathy #richard papen #charles macaulay #camilla macaulay #henry winter

[raayllum]

So I say quite often that TDP is a deeply thematic series, but what does that mean, exactly?

So let’s talk about it

How TDP Constructs Itself From Theme

First off, what is theme? Theme is the question/idea (often times a message) that an artistic artwork (literature / visual media outside of literal art) chooses to explore or posit for. Sometimes this can be very obvious, like the core themes of Family and Faith in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, chronicling the adventures of four siblings as they undergo a Christ allegory with the lion, Aslan. Other times, works can feature many different over arching themes, such as ATLA’s examination of war, cultural grief, destiny, family, and the importance of balance, etc etc. 

Sometimes (and I’m sure I have too) theme and narrative can be used interchangeably, even if they are different things. So what’s the difference between Theme and Narrative? A Narrative is how a story fits over its themes, almost like the bricks over scaffolding for a house. For example, Hadestown takes the narrative of Orpheus and Eurydice and employs a cyclical structure in order to explore themes of futility vs hope woven in with the cycle of the seasons from its secondary mythic structure in Hades and Persephone. 

Thus, TDP is a Narrative ultimately about Breaking Cycle(s) and then explores that thematically through just about every character and dynamic in the show, with only very tiny side character exceptions (occasionally, and even then, it’s very minimal). What role does Power (Viren) have to play, or Sacrifice (Rayla)? How do we ensure we’re breaking the Cycle in the right way (Soren), that we’re striving for true Justice (Ezran)? What can we justify for the sake of our families (Claudia, Harrow) and can we not (Karim)? 

This is also why, while every character is important, particularly into the trio, if I had to pick just one character that is undeniably the Main Character of the Show™ it’s Callum, because Freedom from the Cycle is the most important theme of the show with everything else operating along the spectrum or axis of “total freedom” to “no freedom”. Breaking the Cycle - breaking the Chain - is freedom, and requires having agency to make those choices, whether it is gifted or grabbed desperately with both hands, or even accidental. It’s also why Aaravos, a villain of the Stars and Destiny, is our main villain for the series itself. It’s also why little mister Freedom Boy is our central mage figure, rather than a warrior or having Freedom given to another one of the kids, because the hinge on which the Cycle spins has always been magic (normally Dark, but not always) and thus Callum being a human connecting to a primal source is the Great Undoing of the wheel. 

But why write so thematically, and why do I think TDP primarily writes from theme (as opposed to character or anything else) when it came to constructing itself as a series, especially when characters are typically the main draw of a show and certainly of this one in so many ways? Well

Fantasy is Inherently Thematic

In contemporary / realistic fiction novels, you have to contend with real lived history. That either means writing historical divergence fiction and acknowledging the divergence (as much as you can, although ramifications can be hard to fathom never mind explore realistically), or being revisionist, or picking and choosing your setting very carefully. There is so much you have to contend with, and it can be noticeable if you don’t. If a character feels like they can only go to school in USA or Canada and not another country, a reader from another country will likely notice. 

All of this to say is that Fantasy (and sci fi) in general lets you strip away all the extra crap and, in the case of crafting a secondary world, lets you include literally only what needs to be included, removing that “what about everyone else globally” schtick when a magical crisis is happening in one part of a world that has a global network to begin with. In the case of TDP, this means crafting just one continent, literally splitting it in two, and not having to contend with any other sort of continent. This would not work in a realistic fiction novel because our world isn’t constructed that way, but a second fantasy world actually can, because all that matters is what the story needs.

Which was nice to get confirmation on regarding the team’s worldbuilding process in the latest Q&A answers: 

The characters and their journey dictated what worldbuilding details we needed to focus on up front: If Callum and Ezran are from a human kingdom called Katolis, what is Katolis like? If Rayla is an elf, what does that mean? Are there multiple kinds of elves? What kind is Rayla?  What does it mean that she’s an assassin? The dragon egg will hatch a very powerful dragon—what kind, and what does that mean for the dragon’s parents/lineage? We filled in what needed filling, but left a great deal of Xadia open-ended. In fact, none of the other human kingdoms had names until Season 2, when the direction of the story (specifically, Viren’s interaction with the Pentarchy) demanded that we give them more attention and thought. This has helped us avoid writing ourselves into too many corners by laying out too many “rules” for the universe in advance.

Rayla can have a Scottish accent without being wholly and culturally Scottish. Ezran and Harrow can exist in a world as Black royalty without racism. What this means, then, is that characters are grounded in their symbolic and thematic underpinnings. 

So let’s talk about it!

Consistent Symbolism

I could’ve sworn I’ve talked about it before for writing advice in general but I can’t find it now, but one of the easiest ways to make fantasy characters that are also thematic are to given them a symbolic cornerstone / underpinning. Think Katara from ATLA being the overflowing nurturer and icy rage of the sea; Aang, gentle and torrential power of the air; Aaravos, mysterious and playing the long game like the stars.

This is best seen perhaps through Callum, Janai, and Rayla - and TDP definitely leans into it harder for arcanum-connected characters, for sure, where their magic reflects their personalities and themes. We’ve already talked about Callum with his wings and his breath/mouth motif, so we can move on there. 

Terry is steady, patient, and growth oriented, just like the earth. Aaravos is cruel and therefore literally heartless. The Moon changes faces and hides itself, rarely revealing its full / true nature, yet is also light in the darkness, just like Rayla.

Janai is illuminative and compassionate, bright and a strong leader, eventually surefooted in the steps she’s taking to lead her people. But like her primal, she can blinded to the truth (such as how far her brother has fallen). 

This is also why so much in the series is circular. A decent amount of the symbols of primal sources, Harrow’s crown being a literal broken circle, the chains of history / handcuffs, Rayla’s moon opal pendant, the mirror, Rayla’s binding, Callum’s primal stone, Zym’s egg, the Cycle itself, with the angular cube as one of the few exceptions. Callum and Ezran themselves being the literally uneven towers of Katolis; Claudia’s black-and-white hair symbolism paired with the fact Rayla is a dual wielder. Viren likewise having duality of his normal and corrupted form. The butterflies. Viren’s eye motif, poisoning his own vision to Aaravos weaving a web over one eye to Viren’s eyes being clear when he is resurrected. Rayla’s hand on her heart motion, etc etc. 

It’s why when Soren and Claudia visit their father in prison in S3, Viren is in the light, and they are the ones who are framed like they are behind bars.

Symbols when repeated often enough become motifs. The theme is what dictates both large and small plot points. But to talk about that at length, we have to talk about what TDP loves to do most of all, which is

Irony

There are many different forms of irony. The most well known one is dramatic irony, common in horror films and tragedies, in which the audience knows something the characters do not. TDP does employ this from time to time, such is in early S2 when we know Claudia and Soren are up to no good but the boys don’t, or in early S4 when Ezran says that “This will be the start of a great era of peace,” but we already know Aaravos has put things in motion, culminating in Ibis’ murder and death later that same episode. 

However, TDP also enjoys a broader sense of irony, in which contradictory elements are layered on top of one another and then fused together. 

This is true for both characters - Rayla being sworn to kill the princes then becoming their protector; Soren being sworn to protect the princes and then trying to kill them; each culminating in S3 with falsely killing Viren, the wrong king of Katolis for Rayla, and Soren’s own father - and plot lines, such as Ezran’s abdication plot line in S3 that spans close to a third of the season. 

Harrow says that “A child is freer than a king,” emphasizing the series’ Main Theme of Freedom as well as the importance of youth and looking to the youth to break the cycles dictating their lives. So what does S3 do? It has Ezran remove his metaphorical chain he inherited from his father - the crown - to take on real chains. They turn him into a child king (two layers of irony) and then put the child king jail (three) and upon abdication (four). 

We see this directly in S4, even if we do not have the full context for it, with Viren being turned to stone in the same manner he brought down Avizandum: a king-father felled by dark magic (sound familiar) and ripped away from his child(ren). 

What does this all mean? (Conclusion)

Great, so TDP is written pretty thematically. What does it mean? Well, if you’re like me and you like to analyze or theorize about the series, it’s a pretty good place to start. There’s a lot riding on Book Five: Ocean for Rayla with it in mind, as well as hints that the Key of Aaravos will be revealed that season as well. It can be a useful bedrock for making predictions or seeing where characters may go, based on where they already have (re: my analysis of the show’s light and darkness motif that I thought would be small, and then ended up being quite a big deal in S4, and will presumably continue to be). It’s also one of the reasons TDP feels so cohesive because while things can go in unexpected directions, the thematic graces and symbolism of the series stay completely intact, if not continually reaffirmed.

It’s a story that’s weaving a beautiful tapestry, and it really really shows.

#tdp #the dragon prince #the english major strikes again #analysis series #analysis

[ariainstars]

What Makes a Story Satisfying?

This is of course only my own point of view, but it’s an idea that came to me recently. Like: why are some stories so satisfying that we love to read, hear or watch them over and over, and others aren’t?

A good, if not perfect way to make a story satisfying is a plot twist. In order to work, it must fulfil these prerequisites:

happen towards the end of the story

be wholly surprising, even better if “magical” (supernatural)

be connected with love / affection

lead to happiness / fulfilment

Good examples

In Beauty and the Beast, the magical moment takes place because Belle is wholly unaware of the nature of the spell that is being lifted. She is stunned and in awe when everything changes, and so are we.

In Snow White, the dwarfs and the prince do not know that the heroine is not dead but under a spell. Much of the happiness of the finale comes from the fact that her reawakening is a total, wondrous surprise for everybody involved.

In Cinderella, nobody was expecting that the heroine would have the second glass slipper at hand which would identify her as the right girl.

In The Little Mermaid, we do not expect that Ariel’s father will relent at last, much less that he has the power to give her a human form.

In Moon Knight, in Episode 4 Marc finds his alter ego Steven, and despite their earlier bickering they form a strong bond and, in the last two episodes, resolve Marc’s internal trauma together.

In the first classic Star Wars film, Han Solo comes back at the last moment to save his friend Luke. In The Empire Strikes Back, Leia can feel where Luke is so that they can rescue him. In Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader unexpectedly chooses to save his son in the end at the cost of his own life.

In The Last Jedi, Kylo / Ben kills Snoke in the throne room scene instead of Rey. This leads to a dramatic scene in which both young people fight the Imperial Guards together, effectively showing that together, Light Side and Dark Side are invincible.

The first season of The Mandalorian ends with the redemption of Greef Karga, the shady leader of the bounty hunter’s guild, after the mysterious child has healed his deadly wound with the aid of the Force.

The Book of Boba Fett ends with Mando’s unexpected rescue through Grogu, who stops the rancor’s aggression by influencing his mind through the Force.

I am also a huge fan of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, among other things because its episodes kept surprising the viewer with unexpected, often sudden plot turns. Other Star Trek shows are much more predictable, which is why I usually can’t enjoy them.

The Netflix show Sex Education has some surprising developments and some satisfying ones, but I can’t think of a single one that is both.

The novel (and musical) The Phantom of the Opera ends with the bad guy / protagonist unexpectedly having compassion with the heroine and letting her go after she showed compassion to him in the first place, something he had never known before.

Bad examples

The awakening of Sleeping Beauty is not a surprise for the characters, again leaving the story without the surprise effect.

One of the reasons why I am not a big fan of the Star Wars prequel trilogy is its lack of surprises.

In The Phantom Menace we learn that the handmaiden Padmé is in truth the Queen Amidala of Naboo, but this is not a supernatural turn of events. Qui Gon is killed by Maul, without an explanation except for what we can make of it: young Anakin will be trained by the less experienced and mature Obi-Wan. This is never said anywhere however.

Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith (although I find the latter a small masterpiece) also do not offer real surprises. As fans of the saga, we knew what would happen - Anakin would sire children, then turn to the Dark Side and Palpatine would take over the power over the galaxy.

Rogue One also does not offer any development or plot turn which we would not have already known or expected, and the end is depressing.

In The Clone Wars, the only unexpected development is Ahsoka leaving the Jedi temple; which is only sad and further emphasizes the moral decline of the Jedi Order.

In Ahsoka, Sabine does manage to master the Force in the end, but it leads to an open end.

Ben Solo’s ultimate redemption in The Rise of Skywalker, the only positive aspect to this atrocious movie, is not a plot twist. It happens step by step, not suddenly, and all except but the most dense of viewers already knew or highly suspected that it would happen.

In the tv show Obi-Wan Kenobi, we have Reva’s final decision to not hurt Luke after all: but since this comes out of nowhere, it falls flat.

The Mandalorian season 2 leaves a bitter aftertaste: Luke coming to Mando’s and his friend’s rescue is cool to look at, but it leads to the worst end possible - he separates Mando from Grogu, when the show made it clear from the very first episodes that these two belong together.

And now we come to the really boring part.

The Star Wars sequels, Loki, The Bad Batch, Ahsoka… all these stories offer no twist and no resolution. They introduce characters which we get attached to, and then don’t seem to know how to finish their arc.

Which leads me, in turn, to interpret why most of the latest Disney Star Wars stories suck.

They lead to no end.

There may be some surprise here and there, but it doesn’t have that twist that leaves you with that “Wow” feeling. The heroes are not saved by magic and love and they don’t find fulfilment. All these stories want is for us to continue watching, hoping that some further development will finally give the characters we have grown to love closure.

The problem is that - we don’t live forever, dear Disney studios. Neither do you.

#storytelling #sw #star wars #disney #lucasfilm #skywalker saga #the mandalorian #loki #the bad batch #ahsoka tano #grogu #beauty and the beast #snow white #cinderella #sleeping beauty #obi-wan kenobi #rogue one #the little mermaid #the book of boba fett #moon knight #star trek #the clone wars #the phantom of the opera #netflix #sex education

[ya-world-challenge]

Book Review - The Cat I Never Named (🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina)

[image 1: book cover - a red haired girl in a yellow sleeveless shirt hugs a calico cat against her chest. The backdrop is a bombed city with a topped mosque spire; image 2: a map showing Bosnia and Herzegovina just east of Italy across the Adriatic Sea; image 3: a street in modern Bihać - colorful red and yellow buildings line a street; source: wikimedia]

The Cat I Never Named

Author: Amra Sabic-El-Rayess with Laura L. Sullivan

YA World Challenge read for 🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina

Review

This was powerful and emotional. This is a beautiful story that brings the emotions of surviving in a besieged city - the horror, the mundane, the joy somehow - into a very vivid picture.

It is the true story of Amra Šabić's teen years growing up in the city of Bihać, Bosnia, while Serbs intent on genocide pummeled her neighborhood with bombs. The story is written in a novelized style, and the impact of the writing is amazing. All the very real ups and downs of emotion throughout 5 years - from her strong façade to bouts of depression to furious rage - these really made the book compelling to me. Mixed in with such mundane horrors of living through war - like siblings walking to school on different sides of the road to spare their parents from both children being killed by a bomb together. It is also the story of Maci (meaning Cat in Bosnian), the guardian angel cat that adopted their family and even saved them many times.

What is also powerful about this book is its statement on the nature of hate. As the author says in the afterward, "...hate is a product of its perpetrators rather [than] a reflection of its victims. ... There is nothing that victims can do to ameliorate that hate except to educate by telling our stories..." Bosnian Muslims are secular, white Europeans. They speak the same language and share the same culture as their Serb neighbors. But they can never not be Muslims in the eyes of the Serbs. They are hated for who they are born as and no change on the victim's part changes the mind of those intent on genocide.

What's sad about this book is that I can't even say, "Wow, this was only in the 90s", because this same scenario is happening in Palestine right now.

I appreciate that Šabić-el-Rayess had the courage to tell her story and to claim her right to be a proud Bosnian Muslim despite hate. If you weren't alive when the Bosnian War happened and don't know much about it, I highly recommend this book as it is something that shouldn't be forgotten. Both the genocide, and the fact that other countries stood by and knowingly let it happen.

★  ★  ★ ★ ★    5 stars

Other reps: #muslim #m/f

Genres: #memoir #war #family #historical 20th century

Content note: Amra is trapped inside a besieged city and doesn't directly see the brunt of the genocide, though there are rumors of the rape camps and other brutalities. There are deaths and injuries from bombs that fall, but overall is written with a teen audience in mind.

Spoiler if you want to be sure the cat is okay:

The cat is gone, fate unknown, at the end of the book after the war, but nothing directly happens to the cat that we know of.

#book review #ya world challenge #booklr #bosnia #bosnia and herzegovina #genocide #memoir #war #family #historical 20th century #muslim #m/f #europe #eastern europe

[ironheartedfae]

Timing: Current Location: Deersprings Feat: @lithium-argon-wo-l-f & @ironheartedfae Warnings: mild gore tw Summary: Ren is so small she steps in a puddle and it looks like she dove in the deep end.

Night had fallen, and with it the temperatures. Few folks roamed the streets at this hour, fewer in a place like Deersprings. Not where the respectable citizens of Wicked’s Rest made their homes. Where less things went wrong. Or at least less than everywhere else in this accursed place. Cozy streetlamps hummed with electricity. The few houses with inhabitants still awake lit up with their warm orange glow. Dispelling the gloom of the rain outside. Even the more built up areas of the neighborhood seemed to have a hush pulled over them. The streets themselves appeared to glisten with the dancing droplets of rain. Lulling everyone and everything into a false sense of security and comfort.  

It would have been a picture perfect depiction of a cozy town in rural Maine, except– Except this was Wicked’s Rest. And nothing was ever as it seemed. 

The silence broke like a brick through glass. A splash (far too big for the puddle it came from) erupted out of the nestled little pothole it sat in. Seemingly pouring out a pool's worth of liquid that did not want to stop. A scrawny arm braced itself on the ‘edge’ of the puddle, and tried in vain to pull itself from the depths. Something just underneath the surface was thrashing and trying its very best to keep whoever’s arm that belonged to from doing its job. 

With as much grace as a turtle trying to right itself from its back, a second arm and a head appeared above the water. With one final push against something the tiny redhead was able to dive out of the water. 

Ren gasped for air, greedily taking in anything her hoarse throat would allow. Anger was perhaps the only thing keeping her going, because it sure as hell wasn’t preparedness or well-restedness. Did she really ever stop to take care of herself? No. Did it matter? No. Of course it didn’t. She had a job to do, even if she wasn’t getting paid. If she wasn’t going to take care of the monstrous puddles and the disgusting creatures they housed, who would? 

Another head…thing… bobbled up from the puddle. An ugly moss covered maw, hungry and wildeyed. Clearly just as displeased with the situation as the nymph. Though it was more on the ‘get this iron knife out of my side, and let me eat you’ side. Ren whipped around and screamed at the thing, not quite ready for another plunge into the frigid waters that still soaked her through to the bone. Maybe if she could just entice it out of the water, then she could do some real damage. 

Rainy. It was certainly more wet here than Gael supposed he expected from a place in Maine which seemed kind of obvious the more he thought about it. Granted, it’s not as though he wasn’t used to rain; indeed, he remembered the knee-high mud of the wet seasons. Unlike then, however, he was thankful that he had his own place this time, located in the rather nice neighborhood of Deersprings - a normal place for a normal guy like him. It was evening now, and instead of frequenting one of the many bars in town or having a preexisting engagement with one of the many unique individuals he had met online, Gael was at home, curled up on an old couch in his highly minimalist (and only half-unpacked) living room, a lamp on the small table next to the arm as his only source of light. In his hands was a tattered old copy of one of the Star Wars books from the extended universe and a pair of reading glasses that he didn’t realize he hadn’t needed in several months rested on the bridge of his nose. Setting down his hot tea, steaming from a wide mug with a chemical equation pun on it, he started to turn another page of his book when his head turned so sharply it made his neck pop and he dropped the novel, where it landed on the hardwood floor with a papery smack. Gael, eyes wide, didn’t think twice as he leapt off the couch with unexpected agility, flying across the room and wrenching open the door as he heard a female scream pierce through the rain, through his walls, through his concentration. Out he stumbled into the chilled night air in a black t-shirt and gray sweatpants, quickly glancing around for the source of that noise. It didn’t come from a neighbor’s noisy movie, he was sure he would’ve been able to tell… Then he spotted something. At the far end of the stretch of road was what appeared to be the silhouette of a figure on the ground. Gael broke into a sprint, splashing in the puddles and blinking back the raindrops that caught in his eyes as he kept them on the figure on the ground. “Hey!” He called to the figure before clumsily coming to a skidding stop near what seemed to be a young adult and he dropped to a crouch. “Hey, are you okay?” He asked urgently, placing a hand on her shoulder. She was frigid to the touch but he didn’t recoil, though he did immediately notice it and put a pin in that. “Did someone hurt you?” He asked, before turning his head to regard the…. “What is THAT?”

Waterlogged and far too cold to function, Ren barely noticed the man racing up to her side. Instinct, and a stark lack of comforting gestures in her life still worked though, as she jumped when his hand found her shoulder. Scrambling to the side for a split second getting stupidly close to the puddle once again. The nymph didn’t respond. She didn’t have time to. The creature saw the opportunity just as plainly as the stranger had seen it. 

A sturdy set of jaws opened wide, yawning hungrily as it came down on Ren’s leg. Grabbing just above the ankle and pulling. The vodnik could have just as easily snapped the limb right off, right then. It wasn’t like the bug was hard to break. It wanted to bring her back to the depths. Back underwater where she couldn’t breathe, could barely see, and it had all the advantage. 

Wide eyes frantically searched for anything that would slow her descent into the frigid pool. One hand was able to use her remaining knife, drive it as far into a crack in the concrete as she could. The other reached out, a rare and desperate call for help. Even if her voice betrayed her, even if she couldn’t vocalize how scared she was. How she didn’t think she’d be able to really survive another plunge. And how she didn’t want this to be where her story ended. Ren’s terrified gaze shot up to the stranger. 

Please. Please be able to do something. 

The girl flinched, which Gael supposed was to be expected - she was shaken, frighteningly cold, and they were both staring down some… mutated snapping turtle or something that poked its ugly head out of the water. He had never seen anything like it and for a moment, he was frozen himself, tensing up as what was happening before him happened. She moved away and the creature took an opportunity to snap at her, ensnaring her ankle and starting to drag her into the murk of what he thought was a normal, shallow puddle. A knife went into the concrete and her hand reached out to him. Move. Her expression shredded through his animal fear and without a second thought, Gael pushed himself onto all fours for a second before one arm extended down the length of hers, wrapping his hand around her upper arm and starting to pull her towards him or, specifically, away from the puddle. Leaning forward on his knees, he reached forward, past her and attempted to grasp a handful of the slimy substance that was on the turtle-salamander thing. With a heave, he started to pull IT up too, with the shaken understanding that if he got both of them out of the water they could try to get it off her. “It’ll be okay,” He assured her, his voice urgent but strong and while Gael couldn’t be sure if that was true, he wasn’t about to let whatever this was go. “C’mon, you ugly–”

Just like that, the touch she’d run away from had become a lifeline. The stranger was pulling Ren away from the puddle. Using her as an anchor, he was able to wrench the vodnik from its watery den. He probably had no idea how good of an idea that was. Or maybe he did. Either way, the nymph wasted exactly no time to use the distraction (and the leverage) to add a little oomph to her kick. The beast’s jaws were still tight around her other leg, but now that it was out of the depths she could see her other knife. Still buried between a mound of rock like flesh, and algae coated shell. A flash of excitement washed over her. The tides had turned. 

Cold as she was, the next few movements were quick. Far more so than anyone in her situation should have been, but slower than she’d like. Ren twisted, wrenching the bite in further, but giving herself access to more of the creature. The previously concrete-bound knife found its way into the thing’s jaw. It roared in pain, which gave the nymph a split second to remove her leg. 

The moment she was free she was on top of the thing. Knives blurry, hitting any and every target that wasn’t completely sheltered by the creature’s thick moss covered carapace. Adrenaline was doing most of the work. If she slowed up, even for a moment, it would fight back. The pain in her leg would get to her. The frigid temperature shift would slow her to a crawl. Ren had to keep going. For both their sake. This stranger who pulled her from certain death didn’t deserve to follow her into that fate because she made a mistake. No. She’d keep going until the job was done. Possibly well after. It wasn’t like she was thinking clearly after all. 

As Gael pulled the two of them further from the puddle, he noticed that she also thought quickly, much quicker than he would’ve if he was on the other side of his scenario. He felt her weight against him, using him as a support point as he was using hers to heave the monster. She kicked the creature and around the time he acknowledged that there was a knife lodged in the monster, she had pulled her other knife from the concrete and plunged it into the mass of moss, flesh and teeth. The creature cried in pain (or was it rage), Gael fell back with a splash as the sound reverberated in his ears and the girl, who was moments ago in the jaws of the mutant, now took her knives to it in a flurry of attacks, visceral stabbing sounds, blood being pulled from the body with the metal of the blades. And for a few moments he sat there wondering if maybe he– he definitely hadn’t made a mistake but from the way she moved, the way she had bitten back as soon as she was able, the man knew that he didn’t just help out a random stranger; she was trained, though he couldn’t be sure in what. But, despite her being a stranger and an efficient weapon-user, she still seemed so young. She persisted after the pained grunts of the mutant turtle-salamander stopped, effectively dead (or so he thought) and again, without thinking about the long-term, Gael reached for her and, placing his strong hands on her icy upper arms, started to pull her away from the monster. He wasn’t sure how she would react and he was ready to take a knife to the arm himself but he figured she was in fight-or-flight mode. He was familiar with the adrenaline pumping through him - he had to be pulled away from fights sometimes too. To feel someone else, to pull him up from the edge he’d stumbled from. “It’s okay,” He said, making himself heard clearly through the rain that fell on them. His tone was loud enough but carried a calm, even if he was still afraid about the situation, about what she could do to him. “It’s okay.” He repeated.

A rush of air was all Ren felt as she was pulled from the beast. Now still, dead as a doorknob, blood pooling around it as the wake of destruction and fury subsided. Its powers now gone, the puddle was just a puddle. And the kid was just a kid. Scared and frantic, being pulled off of the vodnik and into someone’s arms. Her mind was moving too quickly to process. Too panicked to stop and think about the reason she’d been so aggressive towards the creature was at least, in part, because of the stranger. Because she wasn’t the only one there, the only one who’d lose if she failed. 

“Let me GO you stupid–” Her heartbeat was still raging against her chest. “–stupid turtle!!”    Each thump grew a little more distant though, as the cold caught up with her. Ren’s struggles against the arms that held her were less like a trained soldier trying to escape, and more and more like a tired toddler vehemently disagreeing with bed time. That, and the puncture wounds in her legs. Draining life down into the sewers with the rest of the rain. 

It took more than a few moments for the nymph to really tell what was going on. That the creature before her was already gone, and the only danger she was still in was from blood loss. Harsh ragged breaths slowed and calmed to a steady and even keel. Ren’s unblinking stare relented as she relaxed, if only a little. She turned, cocking her head to the side so she could see exactly who she was dealing with. Surprised that the face wasn’t as unfamiliar as she might expect. Gael. From the internet. The kind man who asked– 

“Gre–eeen.” A strange first word to say, definitely not a thank you. And followed quickly by a slumping. As adrenaline crashed, shock came. Ren passed out. 

Her pulse pounded in his ears, her low body temperature clashing with his, her thrashing against him was reminiscent of a child but at least she didn’t take her knives to him. Gael remained as sturdy as he could, the rock against her crashing waves of fear and primal response to survive and as she slowed down, no doubt because of both whatever hypothermic episode her body was going through coupled with the open puncture wounds in her leg freely flowing down into the gutter, he pulled her a little farther away from the corpse of the monster, a little closer to him. She didn’t want to hurt him, that much Gael was able to gather both from how she actually didn’t attack him and how her brain still raced with thoughts of the monster that lay in its blood before them. Her heart rate lowered, as did his and when she turned her head, he tilted his in kind, wanting to make eye contact with her, show her that he was there right now. ‘Green’. That was all she said before she fell unconscious and he adjusted quickly, catching her before she could hit the pavement. It didn’t take long for him to connect the dots. “I have you, little fern,” He said quietly, getting to his feet, cradling her close to him to share his body heat with her and, with one last look to the mossy abomination at the edge of the puddle, he turned and carried her to his house as fast as he could.

* * *

He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but in the span of it, Gael had taken the girl home, wrung out as much of her as possible, dried her the rest of the way and used one of his at-home kits to patch her up. He wasn’t sure how to fix her alarmingly-low body heat so he did what only made sense to him - he started a fire in his previously-unused fireplace and cranked up the heat. She was on his floor in front of the fireplace on a pallet of blankets, underneath his thickest comforter. Near her was a spare change of clothes - they would’ve been too big for her but dry clothes were better than none, or so he figured. Gael sat next to her on the floor, close to her, having since picked his book back up though he made sure to be positioned in a way that he could see and tend to her the second she responded. He checked her heart rate periodically - slow, but there.

In the time between falling and waking, there was a sense of peace that Ren didn’t often get to experience. Dreamless sleep, however short it stayed for, however it came to be, was preferable to the litany of nightmares and anxious imaginings of a troubled mind. Eventually, Ren’s eyes fluttered open. The crackling of a fire almost had her believing she was back at camp, but her camp had never been this warm. Not quite enough time had passed that she’d been able to fully heat through to her core, but the blankets on blankets on blankets did a number for her skin. For the strange tingling in her leg that still didn’t quite feel like it was there. A blessing in disguise, surely. If she could feel it, she’d feel the pain that came with. 

Everything was like a foggy daydream. The kind of comfort that only existed in stories and only for princesses and those who were pure of heart. Ren wasn’t that. She couldn’t ever be. The nymph was only ever doing her best to be something she wasn’t. Doing her best to not be a monster like the vodnik outside. Memories filtered in like falling snow. Bits and pieces here, slowly coating everything and uniting into one big picture. 

She had been hunting down the creatures. Reports of puddles, and people falling into them, had tipped her off to the possibility of the hulking fae puddle jackers. Ren followed her senses to one, and promptly started a battle she had no real hope of winning alone. Bitterly, she also remembered Emilio’s words. Ones that almost stung as much as the bruises and bumps that now littered her body. Even the poorly healed wound on her side had something to say about this endeavor. Opening up slightly, and weeping blood and fluid into the flannel that still stuck to her skin with the rain and sweat. 

Clothes sat beside her. And beyond them, Gael. A concerned gaze drifted around the room, until she finally got the energy to speak up. “This is… your house?” 

She stirred and after a brief coin toss in his mind, Gael opted to tilt his head from his book, regarding the girl with a gentle expression though he couldn’t keep the relief he held inside from tumbling out in a sigh. “It is,” He smiled softly. “It’s good to meet you in person,” He said, setting the book aside and starting to get to his feet, the bones in his knees and back popping like a symphony of twigs being snapped. “Ah, I’m getting too old to sit on the floor,” He scoffed lightly. “Stay there, let me get you some tea.” He made his way into the kitchen where he had a fresh kettle brewed, one of his mugs set aside. “I’m pleased that you’re awake,” He called briefly, pouring the tea and bringing it back before stooping to put it on the ground next to her. “I closed you up on your leg,” He explained. “But I didn’t change your clothes or force-feed you any medicine.” He assured before realizing that she might not even remember what happened before this moment in time. Or even if she knew his name. Gael supposed he was just… he wasn’t sure if it was his ability to quickly move on from events or the inevitability of what might happen if he lingered too much in the past but he needed to remember that she was attacked by some… mutated turtle, they were both in the rain, she killed it with such anger that he had to pull her off of the corpse. It was a lot and while he didn’t want to dredge the topic, he felt like maybe he needed to. “I’m not going to ask what that thing was out there,” Gael started slowly. “So instead I’ll ask if there’s anything else I can do to help you right now.” He gave her an earnest expression, not sitting down yet in case she did need something, whether it was painkillers, a bandage for that wound on her side that he didn’t dress or address, or an anchor to pull herself up so she could stand herself.

Coming in to a place she didn’t recognize would’ve been a lot more startling if she hadn’t talked to this not-quite-stranger for so long. The internet was odd. And Ren couldn’t fully understand most of what she saw there, but on the ‘social media’ thing, there were a few folks who’s steady influx of advice and dare she say friendship kept her going. Kept her focused enough to do her job. And maybe even helped her be better at it. Even if that wasn’t something she was ever going to share. 

She should have been more nervous. Maybe blood loss and the chill that still bit at her bones kept her calmer than normal. Like a beehive in smoke, or any other bug during winter. Instead, the nymph took the time to take in her surroundings. Mentally writing things down so she could chart them later. Gael hadn’t made it to a file yet. After this though? Probably would earn more than a few pages. Silently, Ren thanked whatever divine force saw fit to inspire her to leave the journal at home for this particular hunt. If she had brought more than her knives, they either would have been lost to the dizzying abyss that the creature made out of the puddle, or they would have been soggy and useless. 

A bit like she was feeling now. “You are very kind to do these things.” Ren tucked her legs up, strained as it was to do so, it felt better. Safer. Curled up in a tight ball with the blankets still surrounding her. “I should just go.” The house seemed bare, empty. Like he hadn’t been there very long. But it was warm and inviting all the same. Not to mention huge. Like one of the bigger buildings back at the compound, but most of them were brimming with activity. “Do you live here alone?” 

“I’m happy that I heard you,” Gael responded before realizing what he said and he cleared his throat. “I mean, I’m not happy that… whatever happened happened but I’m glad that– Well…” He furrowed his brow as he thought about what he wanted to say that didn’t make it seem like this was a positive encounter. Granted, it probably would’ve gone worse had he NOT had his… strangely sensitive hearing. That wasn’t a conversation for now though and instead, he faltered for a moment before nodding at her first statement. “It’s no problem.” He settled on saying. The second one rolled around and the professor wanted to protest - she was still injured, chilled and the rain hadn’t subsided yet, which he didn’t think he wanted her out in. Not that she was Gael’s child, but his fatherly tendencies, the ones that admittedly sometimes misfired due to his inability to have children of his own, activated the second he saw her and it hadn’t subsided yet; he wouldn’t tell her but he found himself protective after their interaction online and what had just transpired. “I used to; recently I got a roommate and he’ll be moving in soon,” He explained, opting to sit next to her once more, slowly lowering himself with a grunt as he made sure not to move too quickly as she seemed like the type to be put on edge easily. Once he was on the floor again, he used the back of a knuckle to scoot the mug of tea closer to her, if only to let her know that it was okay for her to drink. As though to prove to her that it was safe, he gathered his own mug from the table behind him and held it up, propping his elbows on his knees as his legs were loosely crossed at the ankle. “And… I can’t tell you what to do but it’d give me peace of mind if I could at least drive you to wherever you live,” Gael added softly, taking a sip of the tea - ginger and lemon, one of his favorite combinations. “I also have a spare room if you don’t want to do that and you can wait until the rain is gone.” He offered, nodding behind him to the darkened hallway. “You can change your clothes, it’s on the ground floor so you can see the door.” He wanted to ask where she did live, if there was someone he could or should call to help her but he didn’t want to move too fast - she was the one in an unfamiliar environment after killing a monster, she was the one who had to adjust to a new location. She reminded him of his eldest sister. “What’s your name?”

Happy he heard…? Oh. The scream. A moment of anguish too loud to keep inside. Ren didn’t have the time to feel guilty about it then, but now? Well there was a list starting to compile. Was this what Emilio meant? Worrying about people you barely know. With Gael, even less than the detective. Only a few conversations, not even in person. Ren could see use in herself with the way she walked Perro for Emilio, but it wasn’t like she’d ever done anything for Gael. Nothing but be a stubborn little shit online. Slowly coming to senses on things she never really knew how to interact with. 

She was an arrow, when she wasn’t pointed at a target, what good was she? Ren’s gaze flicked down to the cup. To yet another source of radiant heat. Why were people always trying to give her food, drinks, clothes, and a place to stay? Her mind tried to wrap itself around the mug and what it meant just as her hands physically did. As they curled around the warm ceramic her fingers actually started to come back to life. Breath was still an effort, but each rush of air that wasn’t icy cold was nothing short of miraculous. 

The nymph was quiet. But that wasn’t surprising for her. She was always one who was better at listening than any hope she ever had at being a conversationalist. He wanted her to stay or at least wait out the rain. But Ren already felt like she was an imposition. Walking the line between grateful for the help, and still somehow feeling wrong for accepting it. The two conflicting feelings swirled in her stomach like a stormfront. All she could do was focus on what sensations surrounded her right then and there. Emotions and their ilk would have to come later. Would have to sit and fester for just a bit longer. Waiting out the rain didn’t seem like such a bad idea. 

Each bit of speech came with another set of notations. The door, the clothes, the way the rain continued to beat against the windows. How every once in a while she heard a fat drop sizzle on the fire, having made its way down through the chimney. She noted boxes, either the new roommates or maybe from whenever Gael had made this place his own. There was the kitchen, a set of stairs, a couch with a strangely sparkling side, that seemed to drip down to the floor below. Dizzying and dazzling in the firelight. Ren hadn’t hit her head or anything like that, but she was still reeling from her unconscious stint. Still seeing long trails to every source of light. Almost made her want to kick back to the other kind of vision, mapping things out by heat rather than visible light. However, she wasn’t sure she had the energy for that effort. 

“Til the rain ends.” Ren agreed. Though, it’d been raining the last few days. Maybe it’d rain forever. Maybe she could sit in this dreamlike fantasy and pretend it was normal. Pretend she was human. Pretend she could have family. Then when the rain washed away, dried up and opened the skies once again, she could vanish. Back to normal. To hunting and protecting. To learning and living on her own. 

“You… you can call me Ren.” 

She was quiet. Gael was also able to gather that online - English wasn’t her first language and if she was as similar to his sister as she seemed, it probably took her a while to compile her thoughts into sentence structures that were considered ‘passable’ to outsiders. So when she did speak, he made sure to pay close attention to the things she considered important enough to say. To his relief, she agreed on waiting for the rain to pass and he smiled, taking another sip as he noticed that she held the mug if only to get some of her lost body heat back. “‘Til the rain ends, you got it.” Things had calmed down, and now that the two of them weren’t actually in the cold, ceaseless rain, hearing it on the windows and roof brought a sense of peace with it. Although… should Gael have gone back out there to dispose of the body? Would it even still be there? Surely he could send it to the biology department or one of the labs in town, right? Maybe Dr. Kavanagh would like it– no, she dealt with people though she DID like taxidermy. What… what was he going on about. A thing was dead on the street, the girl had signs of hypothermia and Gael was just sitting on his floor like a fool thinking about whether or not a doctor would like to taxidermy it. “It’s nice to know your name, Ren.” He pulled himself out of his silly thoughts and gave her a smile. “I wish we met under better circumstances but that was clever, reminding me of your favorite color.” He gazed at the fire now. “You don’t… have to answer if you don’t want to but what are you doing out here? Do you live around here?” He was expecting her not to answer; she seemed like a private person, after all, and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable by prying. Maybe he should’ve asked if she was hungry. “Ah, never mind. Are you hungry?” He asked instead. “I can make you some–” What did he have available. “Sandwiches.”

It was a toss up. Ren wasn’t even sure if she was going to answer. It was perhaps the least he deserved. Most people didn’t take it super well when you told them you were there to hunt creatures like that down. Unless they were also a hunter, which… Between the cozy environment of the less-than-filled house, the gentle nature, and the constant emotional support… Gael was probably not one of them. It was something she wasn’t sure what to make of. Be honest, open to conversation, as it were. 

Silence won. For now. The concern that laced her brows together showed off the war going on inside. The nymph simply shook her head. “I cannot speak of this. Just… I am trained for it. Keep people from being hurt.” A compromise. Somewhere between honest and safe. “Creature was called Vodnik.” There were more in the area, that part was better to share. The more information Gael had, the less likely he was to fall into a deep puddle and never come out. “Makes small puddles big. Angry, territorial. Many arrive because of rain.” Didn’t really account for the cold though. Maybe the deepened water was just naturally chillier than what would have been seasonal. That didn’t fully explain why it felt almost icy. Magic never really made a whole lot of sense though did it?  

“You are Gaheel, yes?” Not at all pronounced correctly, but Ren had only ever seen the name online. It didn’t fit on her tongue super well. Didn’t mix well into the strange accent she carried all her diction with. “I– It is– nice. To meet you in person too. You have many words, all of them are well thought out.” Strange, how someone who spoke so eloquently could pull that out of someone else, almost like he pulled her from that puddle. Around someone like Emilio it was easy to remain the quiet wallflower. Just watching and giving what amounted to a little more than grunts and affirmations every once in a while. With Gael, she felt like she had to give something back. Like it was unbalanced, somehow. With her quiet nature. 

“Sandwiches…” It wasn’t unfamiliar. Ren had plenty of sandwiches before. Carbs, protein, it was a good way to keep herself going. Easy to make, and sometimes she could even find partial loaves of mostly not-moldy bread in the dumpster. If she was lucky, she even got to them before the mice did. “...Why are you doing all of this?” 

Another pause. Gael took a drink of his warm tea, though he was starting to feel the effects of his heater turned up as well as the fire, combined with the fact that he chose sweatpants. It was fine, so long as she was comfortable, or rather less uncomfortable. When she started speaking, again, he took her words and put them into a mental notebook of his own - she wasn’t just studying flora and fauna, she was a hunter of beasts, which in his mind was compartmentalized of “mutations, possibly having escaped from a lab”. ‘Vodnik’, in his mind, was either a corrupted version of lizard or snapping turtle as it carried qualities of both. Then again, it was coated in so much moss and slime that it was hard to get a distinct shape of the creature, save its flapping maw and sharp teeth. Possibly a young alligator? As for the puddles, he was sure that the rain was just getting in his eyes and Gael was falling into the illusion that the puddle was deeper than it actually was. None of this was verbalized, and instead he shook his head with comprehension. “Okay. You’re a protector, and you heard about this… vodnik, so you came here to keep it from hurting anyone.” He summarized her explanation, keeping a note to mention that she was the important part of it, not the mutant. He didn’t want to think about what sort of nightmare camp she might’ve trained at - he knew people who were hunters, but she gave him the impression that hers was less of a familial hobby and more of… child soldier stuff. She then said his name and Gael recognized it even if it wasn’t correct, tilting his head ever-so-slightly. “I appreciate the compliment, Ren,” He bowed his head respectfully at her though he couldn’t keep himself from smiling slightly sheepishly. “I imagine a lot of people think I talk too much about too little so it’s nice to hear that sometimes maybe that’s not the case.” He raised one of his eyebrows and set the mug down. Sandwiches floated through the air, as did his recollection of what all he had in the house for her to eat, when she asked him a new question and brought him back down. “Well,” Gael reached up and tapped on his shadowed chin in thought. “I heard someone call for help, I went out there and saw someone getting attacked by a creature.” He walked through the series of events. “You said you keep people from getting hurt but you got hurt.” The chemist spoke mildly, keeping his tone from getting serious or dramatic. “So I couldn’t protect you from getting hurt but I can do my best to help any way that I can now.” He leaned forward slightly, giving her a soft expression. “I’ve had my share of accidents, my share of getting hurt on my own and sometimes I wished someone would be there to lend me a hand; so I lead by example. I wasn’t about to leave you outside, in the rain, injured and dying from exposure regardless of who you were or why you were here.” He shrugged. “I guess I just like helping people.”

All of this was a lot to consider. And considering her lack of practice in the act, it was a play on more than just words. Ren shifted, trying to find a better position to sit in. One where she could keep her head on a swivel, even if she didn’t need to right now. The open concept (though that wouldn’t be what Ren would call it) house was actually quite good for her state of mind. Being able to see almost all the doors and windows from one central point, whoever designed it must have been quite smart. Or so the nymph thought. Ren had a tendency of thinking most  people were a lot more intelligent than her. 

Gael was definitely among the top. Right up there with Nora and Emilio, though each possessed a different kind of intelligence. Emilio knew a lot about a plethora of supernatural things. Nora knew a lot about modern things, social media and other things teens and young adults would like. And Gael, well, it seemed he knew a whole lot about the heart. Cared more than maybe anyone Ren had ever met. Or at least, cared in a much softer way than most. In a way, the wounds covering her body were far more familiar than this shared comfort. Than soft voices and careful explanations. 

She could tell (or at least thought she could) that he was being far more cautious around her than he might have been if it was someone else. Maybe that was a good thing. Ren knew well enough from the argument with the detective that going around and telling people who’ve already made the dumb decision to care about her that she was something worth derision more than gentleness, it didn’t really go over too well. 

But he liked helping people. That’s what he said. Emilio couldn’t really verbalize it more than just the fact that Ren was a kid. An infuriating statement the nymph tried her best not to take poorly. It wasn’t untrue. And maybe that’s what made her more mad. Just like everything else, it was one more thing she was trying to pretend she wasn’t. Like she wasn’t a monster, she was a hunter. She wasn’t fae, she was human. She wasn’t a burden, she was accepting help. She wasn’t a kid, she was just…  She didn’t know the alternative. Adult? Sure, but that carried weight she didn’t know if she could properly carry. Not alone. 

“I try to protect people.” There was a long drawn pause. A breath and a release. Both the air in her lungs and the weight keeping her shoulders held up and tight. “I am beginning to think I am… not as good as I should be at it.” Not good at picking out right from wrong, not good at fighting things by herself. And where did that leave the fae hunter of fae? Ren didn’t know how to be a person. Not really. “It was–” Another pause. A risk. “Thank you for helping me. I did need it. I do not know what would have become of me or beast if not for intervention.” 

“All any of us can do is try,” Gael replied gently after the newest pause; he wondered what she was thinking, what all was going on under the surface. He often wondered that about Ariana too but he had long since grown accustomed to waiting for answers, if they came at all. He also had gotten used to sometimes not receiving any. “Helping others is one of the most fulfilling things you can do, whether you’ve been trained for it or not.” He said mildly. “You protected me. Your knowledge and intuition, your skills and tenacity kept that… vodnik-thing from hurting anyone else here.” He gestured in the direction of the neighborhood. “These people, including me, had no idea there was anything out there. “You’re young and very skilled.” He continued. “I’ve been doing my job for 20 years and I still learn things, wish I did things differently.” The professor glanced at Ren. “But all we can do is try to be better, improve ourselves.” Gael licked his lower lip, picking up his mug and taking another drink of tea. As he did, Ren thanked him and his brow raised in evident surprise - he recalled when they last talked and she vehemently told him not to, to take it back and he heard from other people not to do that. She must’ve considered it at length if after the way she responded the first time, she thanked him now. It caught Gael off-guard but only for a moment before he shook his head. “Keep it; you don’t owe me anything.” He waved lightly. “I’d do it again.” He smiled before starting to stand again. “Now! You want a sandwich?” He asked, deciding to try to let her know with his actions and way of conversing that he wasn’t thinking hard on this, debating, judging her. She was here, he was here right now.

Ren hadn’t needed more proof of Gael’s kindness, but he kept supplying it all the same. Not accepting the thank you in the way that she learned was enough to release her. For the first time since she picked it up, the nymph sipped on her tea. Let the hot liquid soothe her frayed mind. Reminded her of the days Darya would bring soup to the shack in winter. Ren missed those days. When all that was expected of her was to survive the cold so she could learn more in the spring. Cons of bringing a bug into your family. Ren wasn’t much good to anyone when she was this chilled. 

In her mind, the acts displayed were not even. Gael said he’d do it again. Said she was skilled and that she kept the neighborhood safe. But that was what Ren was supposed to do. To the not-warden warden, this was just like… breathing. It was a struggle sometimes, sure, but it was a part of her life. It was what gave her purpose. Patching people you barely knew up, after pulling them from the jaws of certain death?? That wasn’t his. It felt mismatched. Like she did still owe him something. 

“Try to be better.” She repeated, quietly this time. More to herself than anything else. Settling into the phrase in more ways than one. Ren nodded and took another sip. Food would be welcome, might even make her start feeling more like herself. The clothes would probably do wonders too. One of her hands fell to the pile, while her eyes flicked over to the door that Gael had mentioned. 

“I– will get these on. If you do not need help in the kitchen.” 

After more creaking of his bones and a hand resting on his back for a moment, Gael had made it to his feet again and he shook his head. “No no, you can go wherever and do whatever; sandwiches are very easy to make.” Her muttering about ‘try to be better’ didn’t go by him unnoticed but he let it go as he tended to do that, as well. “Take your time.. And the bathroom is right next door in the hall.” He spoke clearly and pointed to let her know, not that he wanted her to stay in the parameters that he set but rather so she didn’t get mixed up or The professor headed into the kitchen as he assumed the young protector was going to change her clothes and he opened the fridge, holding it open for several long moments before realizing that he didn’t know what she’d want to eat. Instead of asking her, however, he just got a few different options out and he’d put them on a plate for her to pick for herself. Ham, turkey, a half loaf of bread… Cheese. Gael only had one type of cheese. He figured she wouldn’t be picky but still. He gathered all the ingredients, leaving the condiments put away for now - if she wanted them, he could get them. He got a serving platter and placed all the different options on it in a rather “By the way, I appreciate your help,” Gael called as he made the platter look as special as it possibly could considering it was a bunch of packages of processed meat and cheese. “It takes a special person to go out of their way to protect other people.” When it looked serviceable enough, he gathered the plate and made his way back into the living room.

With Gael in the kitchen, she had a little space. Enough room to decide that standing on her own was a good idea, even when it really really wasn’t. The weight on the limb, not all together that much but enough, sent a shiver of pain right through her whole body. The couch was enough of a crutch, the most Ren would accept right then at least. As if to mark her for being weak the strange scratchy and shimmery substance that coated the arm of the chair stuck to her still sweat-damp skin. Wouldn’t come off, even when she shook it vigorously. Her mouth opened to ask, but caught a piece of the plastic on her tongue instead.  

“Ah- aaugck.” What followed was a bit of a dance. Uncoordinated and extra clumsy with the added injuries, but something to behold all the same. Ren rattled her head like a dog that had just licked a lemon, just as surprised and just as disgusted. The plague of glitter only spread, leaving almost a cloud about the girl like she’d just been sprinkled in fairy dust. Irony at its best. “Gaheel what– Why does your couch attack with glimmery dandruff??” 

The man was already returning, a plate of something in his hands while hers were still battling with the tiny shards of plastic. Just the right amount of ridiculous, all things considered. Ren had gone toe to toe with the creature in the streets and yet a bit of glitter managed to throw her so far off her game she was acting like a puppy or a kitten testing out its new limbs. Afraid to touch anything, lest it spread more. It was remembering the vodnik though, that brought something out of her. A bark of laughter as the girl imagined what it would have looked like, dealing with the same predicament. Instead of moss, a thick coating of shiny…whatever this was. The laugh multiplied, as a spell of silliness slipped through the delirious state her mind was in.  

It wasn’t often she was able to just be a kid, but something about this place felt comfortable enough to try. 

Gael was on his way back, somehow not having seen her when he heard her call his name in her unique way of saying it and he glanced over to find her in a sporadic pseudo-dance, fine particles of– uh oh. Hurriedly placing the platter on the counter, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing as she did - it was a new sound, hearing her emote in such a positive manner. It was uplifting and even though he hated that damned glitter, he internally thanked it for creating this particular scenario which seemed like something she needed after the stiffness, the closed-off behavior, the frenzied stabbing of the monster. “Gah, I’m sor–” He cut himself off with a laugh, approaching her, braving the puffs of glitter once more to rescue her and Gael offered out an arm for her to take as support. “I forgot about your ankle!” He tried to sound worried but instead, he just kept smiling and it grew wider. He waved the glitter out of the air but of course the stupid stuff was so fine that he couldn’t keep himself from breathing more of it in and his laughter became mixed up with coughing. “It gets everywhere - you’ll be seeing it in your dreams,” He coughed out another laugh, gently leading her away from the couch where he gently tried to pat some of it off of her. 

“Sorry, little fern,” Gael used the nickname without even realizing that he had, though he DID notice that she was warmer than before - still cold but it was more manageable than when he first found her. “It’s very… sensitive–” He barely finished his sentence before turning sharply, dipping into the shoulder opposite her to sneeze. “Aaagh it got up my nose again.” He still smiled though and regarded the girl who now shimmered in the light of the fire. “You can take a shower - most of it will come off. If you don’t want to do that, it won’t be the end of the world,” He shrugged casually, taking a step towards the room. “Would you like some assistance?” He asked once he got his own breathing under control though he stuck his tongue out, feeling the particles in his mouth - a curse. That’s what it was. But also somehow a blessing right now.

Just like that, they were both caught in a storm of shimmer. Of much needed levity to dispel the gloom. The rain had brought her here, for that she had to thank fate. Even if to do so meant stepping more towards the way the fae would think of things. That’s what they did, right? Listen to fate and nature as if they were the divine words the world turned by? If it meant moments like this, Ren could see how one might fall to its siren song. 

Each time she tried to compose herself, more glitter got stuck. Either on herself, or on Gael. In a way that only made the fit of laughter worse. It was a breaking point, for better or worse. Everything that had happened up until then, everything that Wicked’s Rest had thrown her way, Ren had weathered. More or less. She had learned so much, almost none of which was what Darya had wanted her to. With each new day, each new face she greeted, each that she allowed to see her as a person, she was starting to feel a little more like one. 

The dizzy smile faded back to the stoic stare, but maybe just maybe it was lighter. Warmer. Not just in temperature (thanks to the professor and his quick thinking) but like her soul had lifted something off of it. Like laughter was the medicine she had needed all along. It wasn’t a crime to smile. She didn’t have to feel guilt for finding glimmers of joy in moments of anguish. Ren did her job that night and she was able to be a person after. Didn’t have to be one or the other. It’d take some practice, but this town was pulling her in a new direction. Only time could say where it would lead next. 

#wickedswriting #lithium argon wo l f #ironheartedfae #mild gore tw

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 5/5

Book Blurb: What’s the harm in a pseudonym? Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American—in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author R. F. Kuang in the vein of White Ivy and The Other Black Girl. Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface takes on questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation not only in the publishing industry but the persistent erasure of Asian-American voices and history by Western white society. R. F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.

Review:

What would you do if you found yourself with a manuscript to a book that you know would be an absolute gem... and you could... say it was yours... would you take it? Juniper Hayward is an author who wrote one book but never really made it, but the thing about her is that she is best friends with the best selling and talented Asian American author Athena Liu. Athena and Juniper have an interesting relationship, they both went to Yale at the same time, they had the same debut year, but they both went on completely different paths with Athena becoming a star and Juniper remaining a nobody. Athena doesn’t have any real friends except for Juniper... but Juniper is steeped in her jealousy. So when a night of celebrating Athena’s newest deal with Netflix and Juniper ends up reading some of Athena’s newest unpublished book, a masterpiece experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during WWI.... but then Athena dies in a freak accident and Juniper impulsively steals her manuscript. She takes it home, edits it, and sends it to her agent as her own work, because technically she did edit it and make it hers... right? Next thing she knows she is being rebranded as Juniper Song, a new name to make her seem more racially correct... along with an equally racially ambiguous ethnic author photo. Juniper is now leaning into the success, but someone knows something is wrong and there is evidence that threatens to bring down June’s stolen success. June is being haunted by Athena, she can’t escape her, and the accusations are mounting. How far will June go to claim what she thinks she deserves, how much will she justify? This was such a thrilling read, it kept me completely engrossed and absolutely at the edge of my seat as what was going to happen. Everyone in this story was morally grey, June, Athena, and the entire industry. Juniper and Athena were both complex and had a complicated relationship, the things they did to each other, the friendship they maintained despite being so different, the way they hurt one another. It truly had me captivated and I definitely enjoyed reading this one. I love the way R.F. Kuang writes and this one definitely was a fun one to read. 

*Thanks Netgalley. and William Morrow for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

#book review #bookish #babel by r f kuang #yellowface by r f kuang

[mystery-moose]

Books - 5, 10, 11?

book asks!

Answered 5!

10: do you have a guilty fav?

Yeah, I got two particular flavors. The first is what I call "airport books," those potboiler doorstops that are usually about some Hard Dude doing Cool Things and being Right All The Time. In my mind these are like, the Jack Reacher genre. I don't read them often, though! Been a long time since I've been in an airport, y'know? But I do enjoy Dan Simmons' Hard Case series, or what I've read of them.

The other flavor, the one I indulge in more often, is licensed novels! Love me some licensed novels. I've read my fair share of Star Wars books, and I'll stand up for some of those Timothy Zahn and Matthew Stover books as having some genuinely great writing, but most of them are some kind of trash or another. I've read a few Star Trek novels, including some by the very good @dduane that I thought fit perfectly into the TNG episode mold (I really liked the one that included the dolphin scientist!) but frankly her work cannot touch the perfection that is the Star Trek/X-Men crossover novel, Planet X.

Look at it. Gaze upon its majesty.

...honestly I remember very little about it except that Worf and Wolverine were fight buds, and also I think there was a fun moment where they acknowledged that Picard and Xavier looked extremely similar? This was prior to the movies, too! Good stuff.

I've also got a list of Aliens novels that I intend to check out at some point, and I've started the dark journey of reading some Halo books as well, so y'know. I love me some trashy military sci-fi schlock as well. That's probably my "guiltiest" pleasure, given my feelings on the military as an institution? But hey, what're ya gonna do.

Let's be real, though. The first thing that always, always springs to my mind when someone asks me about a guilty pleasure should be obvious.

I love these fuckin' things, man. I can't help it! They're too cool!

Warhammer 40k is the biggest, dumbest, silliest universe that somehow creates this incredible cross-section of original-flavor grimdark, straight-faced absurdist parody, catholic-tinged deathmetal aesthetic, and genuinely compelling fantasy-adjacent space opera worldbuilding. At its absolute best, it's all of these things at once, managing to be evocative, interesting, and Totally Badical at the same time. That's rare! But it does happen!

Admittedly I've stuck pretty closely to the ones authored by Dan Abnett, who I genuinely believe to be a skilled author (and who is composed of forty percent Warhammer novels by volume) but even the ones he didn't write are usually entertaining in some way, shape, or form. One of these days I'm going to crack open my Kindle and dig right into the Eisenhorn trilogy and then get into Ravenor's whole thing, and slowly work my way through the Gaunt's Ghosts books, and then maybe at some point they'll eventually arrive at the big moment at the end of the Siege of Terra and I'll probably read that too.

Oh and also I hope Roboute Guilliman actually gets the Imperium's shit together. Moving the plot forward? An incredible development!

11: what non-fiction books do you like if any?

Non-fiction isn't really my thing, despite being a huge history nerd, so I don't dig into it as often as I should! Which is extra strange because I'm way into documentaries, too. Weird!

Of the ones I've read? I really enjoy the audiobook of The Lost City of Z, by David Grann, and Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein. I know there's at least some amount of conversation as to the technical accuracy of both of these, but they are both a ton of fun to read/listen to! (Maybe avoid the audiobook for Vice, Adelstein is a very compelling writer but a public speaker he is not.)

#ask stuff #books #thanks for ask! #honestly i don't feel that much guilt over some of those #it's mostly the warhammer and the military stuff #does it make me a hypocrite? possibly! #will i stop reading them? absolutely not

[kitewithfish]

Wednesday Reading Meme - 11/2/2022

What I've Read

Their Bounty by K A Merikan - M/M/M/M reverse harem romance. A little too goofy to be really dark to me, a densely packed set of fantasies around a young man rescued from melodramatic human trafficking by a set of anti-heroic gay mercenaries. A much more enjoyable execution of concept than last week's hetero reverse harem romance.  If you read Hannibal fic, then this is probably fluffy for you, but uh, the warnings are not for nothing. 

Thrawn: Treason by Timothy Zhan A Star Wars canonical novel that re-writes Thrawn to work with Disneyfied Star Wars era - not quite for me, but I am glad I finished it. I find that I mostly liked the first book of this series because Thrawn the viewpoint on Thrawn was tight enough that his tactical brilliance seemed like a something we could witness in real time thru the eyes of Eli Vanto. This Thrawn is less approachable and I missed watching him and Eli bounce off each other. If I wasn't hoping for more Eli/Thrawn, I might have liked this book more. It did suffer slightly from franchise-itis, that the ending had to set up elements of the Star Wars Rebels cartoon (which I have not started to watch, because no clones). I find a greater affinity for the pre-Disney Star Wars stuff, for the most part, but not without exceptions A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland (book club re-read) The book club adored this book (minus our one Token Straight Man who is also our Token Hard Sci-Fi Defender, who had never read a romance novel and could not accept the genre conventions) and I found the re-read allowed me to slow down and just bask in the writing in the places where it really deserved to be basked in.  What I'm Reading 

Supernatural Reading is back! We're doing Westerns: Making the Man in Fiction and Film by Lee Clark Mitchell

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson - Book club pick! I am literally one page in, and I have to get halfway thru by twos week hence. Doable!

I'm stalled on Hunting Towards Heartstill by Blackkat - I'm gonna let myself skip forward a little bit, I think....

I haven't opened Stay with Me, Go Places by Cacodaemonia at all, too busy, which is foolish, because I am in love with her Waxer and Boil. 

What I'll Read Next: I need to pick something from this list and just throw myself at it. 

I need to pick of Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir from the library when I get a chance. 

Library books in the house

Maul: Lockdown - Joe Schreiber 

The Whale Rider -Witi Ihimaera 

Tiger's Daughter - K Arsenault Rivera 

Riot Baby - Rochi Onyeuchi

The Silence of the Wilting Skin - Tlotlo Tsamaase 

An Unkindness of Ghosts - Rivers Solomon

But I will probably instead read one of the new novels I have purchased! NK Jemisin's The World We Make, Frey Marske's A Restless Truth, and Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell! November 1 is a good day!

#star wars #thrawn #alex rowland writes good books #books #reading meme

[billconrad]

Powerful Villains

   I believe most people on this beautiful planet are good. We go about our daily lives while trying to do the right thing, help people, and take the blame for our actions. Yet, a few people are less than ideal, and an even smaller number are truly evil. Some examples would be The WWII Axis leaders Ivan the Terrible, Saddam Hussain, the North Korean Kim dynasty, serial killer Jeffery Dahmer, and cult leader David Koresh.

    How do the bad people feel about their actions? Let’s examine an aggressive driver that constantly places others in danger. There would be incidents, and their mind would develop a defense mechanism. “The rest of my life is great; this is my one escape.” Complete denial, “Everybody drives bad. I’m no exception.” A deflection, “I’m a skilled driver. Nobody else can drive.” A defensive argument, “I’m protecting myself from other drivers.” Or a deferral, “The rest of my life is great, and this is my one escape.”

  Fictional villains are in a different class because their purpose is to entertain. Several examples come to mind: the crazy book fan in Stephen King novel Misery, Darth Vader from Star Wars, Joker from Batman, Hans Gruber from Die Hard, and Agent Smith from The Matrix.

  Writers add villains to give the moral character a reason to fight, add tension, advance the plot, or make the excellent character look even better. These characters span the range from slightly annoying to beyond contempt. Selfish motives, anger, aggression, laziness, a love of inflicting pain and a lack of empathy define them.

    There is a big difference between a fictional villain and a real-life person. They must have a clearly defined motivation. Readers need to know why a person is the way they are, or they will be confused. The backstory can be a simple “he had an awful childhood” or an entire chapter dedicated to their history with the other characters.

    In my first book, Interviewing Immortality. My villain appears as a dominatrix serial killer. Later, I reveal that she is not truly evil (at least in her mind). Her level of violence is far above average, and her attitude contains a thin sliver of compassion. By the end of the book, the reader is not fully convinced that she is a good person, but they clearly understand her motives.

    What about crazy people? My advice is to use the characters sparingly. For example, in my fifth book, Kim and Gabe Thrive (now in the writing phase), my main character is pumping gas when a random jerk insults her. She insults the person back and drives away with no further interaction.

    In this brief encounter, I used this villain to show the main character is strong, specifically as a mother who does not accept insults, which would be an excellent example to her daughter. It would be necessary to provide a full background if there was a need for further interaction.

    What about a supernatural story where characters are mean all the time? Say a dystopian reality. The author would have to lay a different foundation for this type of story. In crazy world, everybody is a jerk.

    What about a supervillain like the type that James Bond would encounter? There must be logic behind the villain’s actions (usually money). In this extreme case, the reader does not necessarily relate to the villain, but they respect their logic, even if it is vastly flawed. In my humble writings, I try to stay from super/extreme characters because I have never interacted with such people, which makes it difficult to imagine such a character.

    What about a real-life supervillain, Saddam Hussain, or Jeffery Dahmer. Reality can be muddy, and readers need clarity. James Bond would go after the supervillain in a fictional story, but the media would have over-the-top coverage until the world’s armies stopped Saddam Hussain or Jeffery Dahmer.

    Some villains do not fit the traditional mold, like the anti-hero. Or the super nice person who makes us feel terrible. Characters like this are in their class, and their motivations are complex. In such a chase, it is essential to have an entire backstory, or the reader will put down the book.

    Where does this all lead us? A good villain must have a clear foundation, a rational motive, and be relatable. The writer needs an obvious goal for the villain to move the plot along. By the end of the story, the reader should have fully understood their motives, which will allow them to tolerate their awful actions.

    What about me? Am I a villain? I try hard to live a good life, treat people respectfully, and help where possible. However, I have room to grow and know of several colossal failures. If I were to be honest with myself, I am a B+.

   Wait a minute. I write books that contain stories about bad people. They torture, kill, and are not productive members of society. Does that mean I am in denial of my true self? Denial is the most significant trait of a villain. Hmm. Something to think about.

    You’re the best -Bill

    August 27, 2023

    Hey book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:

    Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

    Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

    Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

    Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.

    These books are available in soft-cover on Amazon and eBook format everywhere.

#writing #books #villain #character analysis

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

Kingdom of Spies by Bevan G. Roberts

 Dark, deep, deadly, and thought provoking look at what being a spy might entail. I tend to avoid books with religion of any kind, but this story called to me for several reasons. That the location is in the Malay Archipelago near where an expat friend lives, that it involves spies and the goal they are pursuing for their country, wanting to see how Islam-political Islam-is portrayed in this book since I have lived in a few countries where Islam is the predominant religion, and I enjoy reading new-to-me authors that might be worth supporting and then reading again.

 What I liked:

* The topic, writing, plot, location, and pacing

* Carter: Indonesia-Australian, intelligence officer, dedicated to his job, intriguing, charismatic, manipulative, weaver of intricate webs, and human – would love to read more about him and wonder if this is a one-and-done- or the introduction to a series

* Ana: journalist, has history that pushes her to prove herself, willing to do what it takes to get the story, grows a lot in the story, would like to see more of her in the future

* The look into intelligence work and thinking about what it must require

* Seeing Carter with the men he works with…not always easy to read, though

* That the story made me think and care and feel I was there

* Feeling the emotions along with the characters, good and evil, as they experienced various situations

* Realizing, again, that government employees work for the interests of their own country and that doesn’t always mean they are there for the citizens in countries they work in.

* The real feel of the story

* That it was dark and grim, but that torture and death were not graphically shared with the reader but instead left to the imagination…mostly

* The twists and turns

* Wondering how close the backstop team for spies is and how able they are to assist when their personnel or assets are threatened

* That I could relate to so much in the story

* Being glad that I live my life but can escape into books to experience the lives of others

* All of it really except…

 What I didn’t like:

* Who and what I was meant not to like

* Knowing that this book is all too real in more than one country in the world

 Did I enjoy this book? Yes

Would I read more by this author? Yes

 Thank you to NetGalley and Aussie Spooks Press for the ARC – This is my honest review.

 5 Stars

    BLURB

 ‘Few novels engage convincingly with the grit and grime of intelligence work in Asia. This one does, and it’s a real page turner. Why? Because it pulls you into a secret world to grapple with issues few comprehend, like what happens when a spy’s professional conviction exceeds their designated role – and all hell breaks loose.’

—WARREN REED, MI6-trained former Australian Secret Intelligence Service officer with ten years active service across Asia and the Middle East Spies, lies and retribution amongst the cramped alleys, jungle hinterlands and simmering sectarianism of remote Indonesia. An ambush on Australian intelligence officer Jordan Carter signals a warning: Operation ANVIL, the Indonesian-Australian campaign of subversion against the Islamists of North Maluku, has failed. As the intelligence services point the finger of blame, Carter ruthlessly hunts down a new enemy. His recklessness draws the attention of Ana Kovacevic, the journalist who has revealed the spiralling violence to the world. To confront a spy that will stop at nothing, she must venture into the heart of Indonesia’s extremist underworld, a labyrinth of deceit and violence where the most powerful weapon, and the greatest sacrifice, will be truth. ‘A novel of labyrinthian morality … packed with intrigue, spectacular action, and the hard decisions intelligence agents face when the country they’re sworn to protect chooses saving face over saving lives.’ —MATT CRICCHIO, author of Security Day ‘Collars readers and pulls them into the neglected byways of Southeast Asia’s War on Terror, never letting go until the final page. Roberts’ unrivalled sense of place makes the streets of Indonesia’s cities and villages come to vibrant life, and his grasp of the geopolitics involved in the struggle to manage Australia’s near abroad suffuses his storytelling with intricate, easily understandable detail.’ —STEPHEN ENGLAND, author of the bestselling Shadow Warriors series "[Roberts’] descriptions of tradecraft and diplomatic interactions between two countries fighting a common enemy show the author’s experience and deliver an extra measure of authenticity to his writing and leave the reader wanting more." —JAMES STEJSKAL, former CIA Case Officer & Special Forces Soldier, Author of The Snake Eater Chronicles

     ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bevan Geoffrey Roberts grew up in Canberra, Australia surrounded by technology, the military, and government. During a career in and around the departments of defence and foreign affairs, Bevan worked for a time at the Australian embassy in Indonesia, an experience that opened his eyes to Asia and inspired his first novel, Kingdom of Spies.

Bevan lives in Brisbane, Australia, with his wife and two amazing boys.

Visit www.bevangroberts.com.au

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BevanGRoberts

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bevan.roberts.7359

#Bevan G. Roberts #NetGalley #Aussie Spooks Press #Malaysia #Spies #Australian Intelligence Thriller #Espionage #Fiction

[paso-liati]

Finished Series 1 Episode 9 of Disco...

Ancient S1 Spoilers below the cut

For a first season of a Star Trek show it's remarkably not bad? If you're on my blog for a hot min you'll know I LOVE DS9 (and really all Trek), but got damn most of the ST series had rough first seasons, and my great love, DS9, started with episodes that felt like auto-parody and some were near unwatchable. By S3, DS9 really hit it's stride.

I'm not saying Disco is perfect and I doubt I'll love it more than DS9 but only time will tell. It feels a little disjointed and characters die off way too fast. T'Kuvma didn't feel like he was around long enough to gain the kind of clout that would elevate his death to martyrdom. We're repeatedly told he's the second coming of Kahless, but we are not shown it. For Georgiou's death to feel as tragic as we're told it is, she would have needed to be captain for at least as Lorca has been. So much telling, so little showing. Showing takes time. It means letting the story breathe. And this is paced just slightly under how literally cartoonishly frenetic LD is!

Not sure it's a criticism or just a fact: I can't tell if the writers meant for Disco to be arc-driven like DS9 or if they intend loosely connected episodes organised around the theme of Burnham's experiences in the Klingon war. If there's a main plot, at 9 hours in, I have no inkling of what it might be.

It's odd for a Star Trek to follow one character (Burnham). Haven't seen that before so I have no opinion except that I like it when writers try new things. Even if it ends up not working as well as the usual jumping around the crew, it's nice that they're at least trying something novel.

E9 pretty well confirmed my suspicions that Lorca is mirror verse. So, "damn it four times around the carpark and back in again for another dammit," he'll be dead or gone in a hot minute. Unfortunately I don't think he's defecting. I was hoping maybe they'd go that route because it would be complicated in a lot of ways and also interesting bc so far I don't think we've seen anyone from mirror just up and say, "fuck this place it sucks I'm outty 5k." I have this vague memory of a TOS novel where (I think) mirror Kirk defects to the universe we usually see. And why not? Why is everyone in mirror-verse sexed-up devils when everyone on the Federation side aren't chaste angels? I hope Disco does something more interesting with mirror verse than "the government is full of fascist terrorists" because, I mean, [gestures broadly at everything], we've got that well covered on this side and in the real world.

Bummed now about this. I never totally trusted Tyler. "No one survives 7 months of Klingon toture." I wondered if maybe he was a mirror cross-over too, but now I think he might be eat up with Stockholm syndrome or have some brain implant or something to make him loyal to L'Rell.

I still love Seaweed and Toadstool and I'm really happy they both got some time in these two episodes. Even if mirror verse is handled terribly, I'm kind of glad they're there for a while because it means Stamets can't just go to pasture or whatever they were threatening to do with him.

#Star Trek disco #Star Trek disc #season 1 #up to e9 now #long post #rambling about star trek

[maxwell-grant]

What are your thoughts on Jekyll/Hyde and his archetype of the human periodically changing into a monster ?

Jekyll & Hyde was the 2nd horror story I read following Frankenstein, I got it off the same library and it always stuck very strongly with me even before I got into horror in general. I even dressed up as Jekyll/Hyde as a kid for a school fair by shredding a lab coat on one side and asking my sister to make-up claw gashes on my exposed arm and paint half of my face, although in hindsight I think I ended up looking more like Doctor Two-Face than Jekyll/Hyde, but I was 12 and didn't have any Victorian clothing to use so I had to make do. The first film project I tried doing at film school was intended to be a modern take on Jekyll & Hyde, and I didn't get much farther than a couple of discarded scripts

Much like Frankenstein, Mr Hyde as a character and a story is something that's kind of baked into everything I do artistically. And it's not just me, as even in pop culture itself, none of us can escape Mr Hyde. I would go so far as to argue Mr Hyde may be the single most significant character created by victorian fiction, if only by the sheer impact and legacy the character's had.

(Fan-art by guilhermefranco)

Part of what makes Mr Hyde such a powerful and lasting icon of pop culture is that the very premise of the book invites a personal reading that's gonna vary from person to person. Because everyone's familiar with the basic twist of the story, that it's a conflict of duality, of the good and evil sides, but everyone has a more personal idea of what those entail. Some people make the story more about class. A lot of readings laser-focus on sex and lust as the driving force, and there's also a lot of readings of Mr Hyde that tackle it to explore a more gendered perspective, and so forth.

I don't particularly take much notice of the Jekyll & Hyde adaptations partially because the novel's premise and themes have become baked so throughly into pop culture and explored in so many different and interesting ways, that I'm not particularly starving for good Jekyll & Hyde adaptations the way I am for Dracula and Frankenstein. The Fredric March film in particular is one that orbits my head less because of the film itself (although I do recommend it), but because of one specific scene, and that's when Jekyll first transforms into Hyde on screen.

Out of all the things they could have shown him doing right that second, they instead took the time to show him enjoying the rain.

Just Hyde taking off his hat and letting it all cascade on his face with this sheer enthusiasm like he's never been to the rain before, never enjoyed it before, and now that he's free from being Jekyll, he gets to enjoy life like he never has before. It's such an oddly humanizing moment to put amidst a horror movie, in the scene where you're ostensibly introducing the monster to the audience, and it makes such a stark contrast to the rest of the film where Hyde is completely irredeemable, but I think it's that contrast that makes the film's take on Hyde work so well even with it's diverging from the source material, even if I don't particularly like in general interpretations of Hyde that are focused on a sexual aspect.

Because one, it understands that Jekyll was fundamentally a self-serving coward and not a paragon of goodness, and two, it also understands one of the things that makes Hyde scary: He wants what all of us want, to live and be happy. He's happy when he leaves the lab and dances around in the rain like a giddy child, he's happy when he goes to places Jekyll couldn't dream of showing up, he's happy as a showgirl-abusing sexual predator. Hyde is all wants, all the time, and there's not that much difference between his wants, his domineering possessiveness, and the likes exhibited by Muriel's father and Jekyll's own within the very same film, which also works to emphasize one of the other ideas of the original story, that Edward Hyde doesn't come from nowhere. That no monster is closer to humanity than Mr Hyde, because he is us. He is the thing that Jekyll refused to take responsability for until it was too late.

(Art by LorenzoMastroianni)

While many of the ideas that defined Mr Hyde had already been explored in pop culture beforehand, Hyde popularized and redefined many of them in particular by modernizing the idea. He was the werewolf, the doppelganger, The Player On The Other Side, except he came from within. He was not transformed by circumstance, he made himself that way, and the elixir merely brought out something already inside his soul. To acknowledge that he's there is to acknowledge that he is you, and to not do that is to either lose to him, or perish. Hyde was there to address both the rot settling in Victorian society as well as grappling concerns over Darwinian heritage, of the realization that man has always had the beast inside of him (it's no accident that Hyde's main method of murder is by clubbing people to death with his cane like a caveman).

I've already argued on my post about Tarzan that the Wild Man archetype, beginning with Enkidu of The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the in-between man and beast, between superhero and monster, and that Mr Hyde is an essential component of the superhero's trajectory, as the creature split in between. That stories about dual personalities, doppelgangers, the duality of the soul, the hero with a day job and an after dark career, you can pinpoint Hyde as a turning point in how all of these solidified gradually in pop culture. And I've argued otherwise that The Punisher, for all that his image and narrative points otherwise, is ultimately just as much of a superhero as the rest of them, even if no one wants to admit it, drawing a parallel between The Punisher and Mr Hyde. And he's far from the only modern character that can invite this kind of parallel.

The idea of a regular person periodically or permanently transforming into, or revealing itself to be, something extraordinary and fantastic and scary, grappling with the divide it causes in their soul, and questions whether it's a new development or merely the truest parts of themselves coming to light at last, and the effects this transformation has for good and bad alike. The idea of a potent, dangerous, unpredictable enemy who ultimately is you, or at least a facet of you and what you can do. That these are bound to destroy each other if not reconciled with or overcome.

You know what are my thoughts on the archetype of "human periodically changing into a monster" are? Look around you and you're gonna see the myriad ways The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde's themes have manifested in the century and a half since the story's release. Why it shouldn't be any surprise whatsoever that Mr Hyde has become such an integral part of pop culture, in it's heroes and monsters alike. Why we can never escape Mr Hyde, just as Jekyll never could.

It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde.

He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close… - Hunter S. Thompson

There is a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction that explains almost every terrible thing happening in the news today. And it's not the scene where Ving Rhames shoots that guy's dick off. It's the part where the hit man played by John Travolta is talking about how somebody vandalized his car, and says this:

"Boy, I wish I could've caught him doing it. I'd have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It'd been worth him doing it, just so I could've caught him doing it."

That last sentence is something everyone should understand about mankind. After all, the statement is completely illogical -- revenge is supposed to be about righting a wrong. But he wants to be wronged, specifically so he'll have an excuse to get revenge. We all do.

Why else would we love a good revenge movie? We sit in a theater and watch Liam Neeson's daughter get kidnapped. We're not sad about it, because we know he's a badass and he finally has permission to be awesome. Not a single person in that theater was rooting for it to all be an innocent misunderstanding. We wanted Liam to be wronged, because we wanted to see him kick ass. It's why so many people walk around with vigilante fantasies in their heads.

Long, long ago, the people in charge figured out that the easiest and most reliable way to bind a society together was by controlling and channeling our hate addiction. That's the reason why seeing hurricane wreckage on the news makes us mumble "That's sad" and maybe donate a few bucks to the Red Cross hurricane fund, while 9/11 sends us into a decade-long trillion-dollar rage that leaves the Middle East in flames.

The former was caused by wind; the latter was caused by monsters. The former makes us kind of bummed out; the latter gets us high.

It's easy to blame the news media for pumping us full of stories of mass shootings and kidnapped children, but that's stopping one step short of the answer: The media just gives us what we want. And what we want is to think we're beset on all sides by monsters.

The really popular stories will always feature monsters that are as different from us as possible. Think about Star Wars -- what real shithead has ever referred to himself as being on "the dark side"? In Harry Potter and countless fantasy universes, you have wizards working in "black magic" and the "dark arts." Can you imagine a scientist developing some technology for chemical weapons or invasive advertising openly thinking of what he does as "dark science"? Can you imagine a real world leader naming his headquarters "The Death Star" or "Mount Doom"?

Of course not. But we need to believe that evil people know they're evil, or else that would open the door to the fact that we might be evil without knowing it. I mean, sure, maybe we've bought chocolate that was made using child slaves or driven cars that poisoned the air, but we didn't do it to be evil -- we were simply doing whatever we felt like and ignoring the consequences. Not like Hitler and the bankers who ruined the economy and those people who burned the kittens -- they wake up every day intentionally dreaming up new evils to create. It's not like Hitler actually thought he was saving the world.

So no matter how many times you vote to cut food stamps and then use the money to buy a boat, you could still be way worse. You could, after all, be one of those murdering / lazy / ignorant / greedy / oppressive monsters that you know the world is full of, and that only your awesome moral code prevents you from turning into at any moment. And those monsters are out there.

They have to be. Because otherwise, we're the monsters - 5 Reasons Humanity Desperately Wants Monsters To Be Real, by Jason Pargin

(Two-Face sequence comes from the end of Batman Annual #14: Eye of the Beholder)

For good or bad, Hyde has become omnipresent. He's a part of our superheroes, he's a part of our supervillains, he's in our monsters. He lives and prattles in our ears, sometimes we need him to survive, and sometimes we become Hyde even when we don't need to, because our survival instincts or base cruelties or desperation brings out the worst in us. Sometimes we can beat him, and sometimes he's not that bad. Sometimes we do need to appease him and listen to what he says, about us and the world around us. And sometimes we need to do so specifically to prove him wrong and beat him again.

But he never, ever goes away, as he so accurately declares in the musical

Do you really think That I would ever let you go...

Do you think I'd ever set you free?

If you do, I'm sad to say It simply isn't so

You will never get away FROM MEEEEEE

(Art by Akreon on Artstation)

#tw: injury #tw: blood #tw: disfigurement #replies tag #dr jekyll and mr hyde #the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #robert louis stevenson #two-face #batman #monster tag #universal monsters #horror tag

[scott-mccall-the-hot-girl]

theodore raeken: missing persons

( okay so i kinda had an idea ,, and then went through the whole teen wolf timeline to see if it would work ,, so here it is !!

theo’s backstory !! it started off way more messy headcannon format & then it got kinda a real story vibe ,, def thinking about making it an ao3 one shot eventually )

-

TW: very sad & hurt my feelings

don't imagine:

eight year old theo raeken...

who sleeps at his best friend scott mccall's house almost every single night, stiles is almost always there too.

theo and his friends where they all watch movies together until ungodly hours of the morning. stiles loved star wars, theo will never forget that. they had gone as luke, han and chewy for halloween that previous year. melissa went as leia. scott has always been more of a indiana jones fan himself. theo would watch either, anywhere where harrison ford was theo didn't mind being.

in this little trio, who were all raised in the mccall house, where they were given eveything they needed. sometimes when theo thought about her, when he needed to remember the good things in life. he never quite knew how she managed. expecially with scott's dad who floated in and out of the picture.

yet, it always was melissa who gave scott extra lunches to take to school because theo and his sister, who were often forgotten by their parents usually were left to fend for themselves and a fourteen year old girl rarely had the funds or mind to give a growing boy a nutritious lunch. these packed lunches always with the crust off because that's the way theo liked it. melissa always remembered.

theo had three favorite places: scott's bedroom, the corner next to his bed where theo's blow up mattress was. the bridge in which tara and he crossed everyday on their way back to raekens from school. his final place was actually beacon hills elementary.

theo always liked school. theo was good at school. he didn't realize this until mellisa had pointed out an exceptional report card. he didn't think it was much of anything to be proud of.

he liked recognizing big words from english class and novels that would help him when his mom watched jeopardy. she would watch the show every night. sitting in a daze in the raekens dark living room. not paying much mine to the eight year old, until he started blurting out the answers to her favorite show. she beamed at him. he loved his mother's smile, she had the same dimples as tara.

so yeah, when a seventeen year old theo raeken spent months filing the names of anyone ever involved in the mccall pack, current members, deceased and ones that just fell out of beacon hills. he remebered some names.

theo raeken grew up in beacon hills, and beacon hill wasn't to big of a town.

theo rembered issac lahey a quiet boy who had been in his thrid grade class, jackson whittemore who was a grade older than them and everyone knew him because he was was offered a spot on the middle school lacross team, he knew erica reyes who he rembered for her epilepsy and it made him hate himself a little less for being the king of the heart condition, he even remebered names like derek hale- who was in the same grade as tara. theo even rembered the name malia tate as she was small girl who did go to beacon hills elementary, who was always startled and always walked a bit faster than everyone else through the halls. or even lydia martin, a girl stiles had a crush on. she talked to theo a lot, lydia used to call him teddy, he didn't know when it started but he let her do it purely to spite the fact that lydia gave theo a nickname and never bothered to acknowledge stiles.

theo rembered all of them, i mean for years of his life all he had to rely on was his memory to make sure it was real.

though during the line memories turned bitter and he was left with the sour taste of resentment.

so it was weird to think despite it all, that year was one of theo's best. he never felt like he belonged. sure he had scott and stiles before but gaining friendship & being labeled as an "inseparable trio" by the sheriff station deputies, whenever they rang havoc through their office made theo's mouth crack a toothy grin. he felt like he had a family.

that was until the air started getting colder in beacon hills. theo started hearing the voices. though, even so much later in life he never could quite pin point how it started, like his brain couldn't truly decipher what was going on. some of it felt like dream, though the dreams and the thoughts. sometimes they didn't feel like his own and made him so scared he would leave the day feeling nauseous.

though this all came in spurts. his birthday was that november, and that was magical. he spent the weekend with stiles and scott, theo's mom actually made the point to bring the three of them bowling. the boys pitched in on buying theo a big millennium falcon lego set because he was always doing things with his hands, something he picked up not being so most athletic of the bunch. they also got him big poster of han solo just to spite him. he blushed and yelled at them for stupid gifts but they knew by the smile on his face he loved them.

he loved so much because despite the fact that they were poking fun at him ever so lightly, they were good natured and they held thought. they really thought about theo enough to know what he liked. he never had that before.

so the voices started getting louder again around christmas time. it was weird for theo, the happiest time of the year filled him with such excessive dread. it didn't feel right. theo's life changed that month.

then one day scott and stiles get sit down because something tragic happened. tara raeken is dead. the details are fuzzy and they don't really understand how, seeing as these boys are just in fourth grade. they are horrified, it's one of the only other times they've experienced death besides with stiles mom. though claudia stilinksi was sick, sometimes sick people die. learning about tara left a bad taste in their mouth. she was young.

they try and call, bike past is his house. they don't hear from him. they go to her funeral, scott and stiles, high on anxiety attached to their parents just trying to sneak a peak of where their best friends may be. he's gone, that's the conclusion they come to, he's gone. they don't know how it could have happened, they just know that he isn't there. why wouldn't he be there?

they try and talk to the raekens but haunted by their daughters death, they paid less attention to theo than before. they barley give them a straight answer, melissa explains what grief can do to a family and not to blame them but is equally suspicious.

just take a minute to think, while scott and stiles are scared and searching for their best friend, theo raeken, barley nine years old is given a heart transplant. alone in a dark and cold sewer hidden deep under beacon hills, horrified and a failure, that's what the dread doctors tell him. a boy who keeps quiet, does what needs to be done and has to survive. doing absolutely everything he can to be kept around, the second he heals (which theo recognizes is abnormally fast) the doctors are straight out of beacon hills.

the doctors eventually find his parents too, who leave beacon hills, he doesn't exactly know what happened to them. he doesn't everything he can not to think about the possibilities. he hopes he has a chance, survival instincts flourish but the ideal of living isn't quite the same as surviving.

one day, the doctors inform him he has absolutely nothing to go back to, he figured this he just be didn't think they would actually tell him. they never told him much.

they are far away from beacon hills- much farther than he assumed. he has no sister, and his parents are gone.

he is alone, and he is finding out that now, he has one more secret to hide. the poor boy has claw and fangs and often thinks about using them to rip himself apart, i mean he deserves it right? he just watched his sister die, to go down with the last living part of her, his own heart.

while theo is expecting his fate, stiles and scott and stuck in months of confusion. missing posters of the boys face are strung up everywhere they can reach, once his parents are gone. they know they need to do everything they can.

mellisa feels like she's been punched in the gut, so she helps her boys. she calls every hospital in the county, and then she starts reaching out to some of the bigger hospitals in the state. spreading word of a missing nine year old like wildfire. she spends nights after her shift arguing with noah stilinksi, he has been looking to. he tries to bargain logic with her.

"yeah it's strange he never said goodbye, he wasnt at the funeral- it's weird, yes, but his parents left too. their daughter just died melissa. maybe they didn't want to stay."

melissa knows, yeah that makes sense. theo had to of just moved with the raekens but something about it doesn't feel like it makes sense.

he would have said goodbye to her. she knows it.

other people in beacon hills were actually thinking the same thing, something wasn’t quite making sense.

those other people being some who can sense unrest in supernatural frequencies. a family who makes it their business to monitor the supernatural. the hales.

though, talia hales supernatural concerns didn't often revolve around fourteen year old girls who drown, shes curious. the girl, was in dereks grade. the mother in her falters but it doesn't get strange until the police reports reveal the fact that the girls heart was gone, she was found. gaping chest wound, lying in the river.

so she starts to suspect somethings wrong. she's seen the raekens case, something about it doesn't make sense. sure, the death of a teenage girl is overwhelmingly tragic but there isn't much to investigate. though talk of the raekens is getting loud, she comes to find out this is because of the raekens youngest, who was nowhere to be seen days before the funeral.

she knows the hunters are back in beacon hills. so wonders if the two correlate. so she starts asking questions.

talia, with her daughter in tow see two boys standing outside the sheriffs station, stopping people when they walk in to show they a poster. it's theo raekens missing poster, though there isn't much official about it. it seems like the sheriffs department couldn't issue anything official, so as she walks up to the boys seemed to have made dozens of copies themselves. there information seems formal enough.

she catches their anxiety heighten as talia hands the poster over to laura who stands behind her.

the taller one raises a brow, "have you seen him anywhere miss?"

she smiles, "miss hale- you can call me talia though. this is my daughter laura. we haven't seen your friend but we'd like to help..."

the taller boy nods, "well, i'm scott. that's stiles. how could you help?"

talia hale lies easily, "i've heard about what happened to the raekens and it sparked my concern. i have a friend, local sheriffs station who is awfully good with the police dogs. if you have anything that your friend owned i might be able to call i'm a favor."

a few days later, stiles had found her in the same spot as last time with a small black sweater. she smiled and told him she would do her best to help these two boys. not sure if her intrest in the case was supernatural based or because she didn't want these boys, who smelled like anxiety and exhaustion to fall down the hole of loss themselves. she wasn't sure where investigating theo’s disappearance themselves would leave them, she didn't want them getting caught up in the supernatural spiderweb of beacon hills.

though, talia hale looses scent and momentum on the case. literally and metaphorically. she finds herself near some suspicious tunnels, leading right under beacon hills but scent falls short. she's frustrated, and the time since his disappearance is lengthening but her families needs become increasingly concerning.

she's listens, she likes to know what's going on. so when she hears her sixteen year old whispering a bit more with her kid brother she raises suspicion. she doesn't trust peter like she used to, not after getting involved with the desert wolf.

paige dies months after that, dereks heartbroken and talia is trying to put together pieces of a story that turned her babies eyes blue. to young. beacon hills doesn't quite understand how another student is dead, with no previous medical history. this, the death of paige she knows is supernatural.

kate argent moves to town and in months, the hale house is burned to the ground. inside, theo raekens black sweater. tucked away in a room, where news clippings and missing posters caught fire the fastest.

so with no surprise, another tragedy is unleashed and it's the talk of the town. memory of theo starts to fade, like most things do in beacon hills. it's not anybodies fault but it still stings. though, theo million miles away hasn't felt much of anything latley.

it's been a little over a year. he hasn't cried in the past three months. he won't let himself. nobody is going to find him. he isn't going to het out. so he puts up his walls, as many as he can. he just has to stay alive a little bit longer. make something worth taras sacrifice. they had started to kill off more of the chimeras, more of their science experiments. he can't get killed, he can't do that to tara.

theo was always a fast learner. theo always liked school. theo was good at school. this wasnt exactly the same as math class at beacon hills elementary but he was picking up skills quickly. theo didn't quite recognize himself after that year. he wasn't that same boy, and that had to suite him just fine. he never had much of a choice in this. he just chose to try and keep her heart beating for as long as he could.

so theo raeken adjusted, he had to.

#theo raeken: missing persons #this hurts ahahhaha #i’m crying #theo raeken #theodore raeken #theo raeken headcannon #headcannon #teen wolf headcannon #scott mccall #stiles stilinksi #melissa mccall #sheriff stilinski #tara raeken #beacon hills #hale pack #talia hale #derek hale #peter hale #talia hale is a badass #i love scott so much #i love theo so much it hurts #chimera #fuck the dread doctors

[littlemisspascal]

Ezra’s Journal Entries #1-3

Fandom: Prospect / Pedro Pascal

Pairing: Ezra x Female!Reader

Word Count: 1,269

Summary: You and I were made from the same star, you said with such conviction it stole the breath from my lungs, bound to each other for eternity by the Currents of the universe. 

Warnings: angsty fluff, Ezra’s dealing with the aftermath of the Green, language, 1st person POV (Ezra), dialogue in italics because that’s just how I chose to do it, no beta so all mistakes are mine

Author Note: I know I said Death and Angel would come out next, but I got such a inspiration high and the words came out so quickly I just told myself screw it and decided to share what I have. If anyone thinks this is a series worth pursuing, let me know. If you don’t, well, just be gentle please 💖

Cross-posted on AO3

Entries #4-6

Look for additional notes at the bottom.

My name is Ezra. 

I have my mama to thank for that. Time has erased her face from my memory, but her voice is ingrained into the tissue of my brain the same way these words are inked on this parchment. She was a bonafide believer that the meaning of a child’s name influenced the course of their destiny. When I was no taller than the height of her waist I learned my own name’s denotation: help.

It’s just a tick too ironic, isn’t it? To be destined to help others when I can’t help my own self. I gave the Green far too little credit. It didn’t just pilfer my arm to satisfy its ravenousness, it greedily stole my sense of purpose too. 

Every night I thank the deities you didn’t accompany me there. If the Green had taken you...

I know how worried you are about me, little love of mine. When I look at you, I find you already looking back, a sweet smile gracing your lips even as concern burns in your eyes as an eternal flame. From day one you’ve always been looking at me, seeing every disgraced flaw and scar—even the invisible ones carved into the darkest edges of my soul. Kevva knows I’ve never been capable of concealing anything from you, but fuck if I don’t wish I could sometimes.

You’re asleep now as I write this, tucked against my side in the vacant space my arm once occupied, drooling on my shirt. I love you so much it hurts. A black hole in my chest perpetually aching to be filled by your presence. And as we venture once more into the starry sea, our ship gliding past the imaginary wings of Noctua, I find myself recalling a theory you once told me many cycles ago about humans being made in the womb with stardust infused in their bones, linking them to the universe. You and I were made from the same star, you said with such conviction it stole the breath from my lungs, bound to each other for eternity by the Currents of the universe. 

And it’s undoubtedly selfish, but all I could think of in that tender moment beyond kissing you was how I didn’t want an eternity spent together with our cosmic bodies intertwined. 

I want longer.

Soon after we awoke and each consumed a slice of bush bread bought during our recent docking at Kamrea, you fiddled with the channels on the ship’s radio, hoping to hear news from your homeworld but cursing when you only heard static. Then, without an ounce of forewarning, music burst out with an almighty scream through the speakers at full volume, flooding the whole compartment with a woman’s warbling. It was the same crusted Vayok song that merc Inumon blared in my ears during my last night on the Green, every note an individual needle piercing my skull, impossible to ignore.

Reality deserted me, leaving me to sink to the depths of the abyss within my mind where all I could see was Cee’s pale, disturbed expression as she looked to me for guidance. I remembered how my tongue felt clumsy in my mouth as I tried my damnedest to negotiate our transport, thinking if I could just piece together the right sequence of words, if I could just get their lingering eyes off of her, then maybe, maybe we’d have a chance at salvation. 

The memories coalesced, overlapping and blurring and mixing out of order. Each one was drenched in spilt blood.

Then your pinky wrapped around mine. The touch was soft yet firm, the action childlike in its innocence. It was such a jarring contradiction to my mind’s violent narrative, my consciousness was hurtled back into the living quarters of our ship as a result. You didn’t say anything when you saw I returned to you. Instead, you swallowed down the questions lodged in your throat and led me by our entwined fingers back to our bed.

There’s a plant back home called a dandelion, you told me with my head resting in your lap, a far better comfort than any pillow could provide me. It’s the only plant in the galaxy you can see the sun, the moon and the stars when you look at it. That’s not why it’s my favorite though.

I asked how it had won your heart’s favor if not due to its resemblance to the celestial bodies, then immediately found myself mesmerized by the smile that lit up your face as you peered down at me. My chest cavity tightened as I was filled with the profound longing to be able to suspend time, if only so I could stretch this moment to match the length of our separation, if only so I could erase the old and replace it with the beautiful new.

Dandelions grant wishes, babe. Anything you wish for with your whole heart, it will be yours to have.

I told you I wouldn’t wish for anything—nothing else in the galaxy could compare to the prettiest, wisest soul I’d ever encountered in all my years traversing it. You saw right through that lie with the same confident ease you see through all my masks and diversions, but—for the second time in the span of an hour—you held your tongue.

This journal’s as good a place as any to admit the honest truth. So here it is: I wish with the entirety of my bloody, beating heart I could be the man you deserve, little love of mine. 

When you read, whether it be a book or the flight manual, you have the precious habit of mouthing the words. I don’t think you have the faintest notion you’re even doing it, which makes it all the more endearing to watch.

My brother had a similar habit, always nose deep in the yellowing pages of classic literature, except he had a proclivity to spoil the plot when he talked in his sleep. I remember there was one particular novel he returned to often, sometimes reading from beginning to end, other times seeking out specific segments he’d underlined in bold, black pen. It was a rather dreary tale about war and rivalry and the process of determining one’s own identity. I became so exasperated with my brother’s obsession I considered shredding it on more than one occasion, only to immediately hate myself for entertaining the thought.

It was only after his death—twelve whole cycles, in fact—that I summoned up the will to open the front cover. Seeing his name scribbled in the corner, cursive and neat and so utterly him, nearly had me tearing the book in half, overcome with a vicious rage I had never known prior nor have I encountered since. But by the almighty grace of Kevva I reigned it in, chaining it to the agony and fear imprisoned within the confines of my rib cage, and turned the page.

There was one segment underlined not once, but three times, nearly bleeding ink onto the page behind it. When I close my eyes, the words are tattooed on the backs of my eyelids, as haunting as they are comforting.

So the more things remained the same, the more they changed after all. Nothing endures. Not love, not a tree, not even a death by violence.

The author lived and died centuries before my brother’s inception, that is an inarguable fact. 

But I know those words were written for him all the same. 

Notes: 

There is an actual theory humans are made of stardust ✨

The Sater within Prospect mention the Currents as being responsible for bringing Ezra and Cee to them, so I imagine them as similar to the Fates/Moirai in Greek mythology.

Noctua is a real life, extinct constellation that is Latin for owl. I thought within this Prospect universe it could exist as a type of landmark or coordinate. Plus I love owls 🦉

Crusted is a term from Prospect Ezra uses. Equivalent of damn. I think there’s something funny about how they use creamy as a positive adjective and crusted as negative.

Vayok is the alien language Inumon speaks within the movie, so I decided to write the song she blares as being sung in the same language

Bush bread is referenced in a deleted scene by Ezra, but a google search revealed to me it’s also a real life type of bread too

In the same deleted scene Ezra references that he has a brother. I haven’t decided his name yet/if he will have one

The book and quote Ezra refers to in #3 is John Knowles’ A Separate Peace. One of the few required reading books I liked back in high school.

The quote about dandelions being the sun, moon and stars is based on the legend of how dandelions came into existence. I always thought it was beautiful.

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[accio-victuuri]

Hi can you provide the link to read manhuas you prefer?

Hello Anon! OMG Manhua/Manhwa Rec! Here we go! I’ve only been reading for 2-3 months (consistently), so this will be pretty limited. I will link to the legit sites. A google search will direct you to others.

Most of these are WIPs and some, sadly, are discontinued. I won’t add TGCF or MDZS here cause those are already a given. 👇🏼

• Body Electric by Dong Ye ( completed, supernatural, lots of trigger warnings and plotty )

Ba Song is the hotshot cop who’s been handed an open-and-shut case: the suicide of a young woman. Except… who commits suicide by stabbing their own body and strangling themself? There's only one man who can help him with this mystery — Bo Shan, the renowned forensic pathologist with a severe and cold personality. What's more, his body produces bioelectricity, allowing him to acutely sense bodily injury with his touch. There's an electric current between them, and each touch sizzles with energy

If you like crime dramas and stories where they solve mysterious cases then this is for you. The romance is subtle, and their relationship is not insta-love. strangers to colleagues to friends to lovers trope. This also discusses alot of issues the society has that will make you stop and think. Ba Song is really the honorable MC in here who always wants to help people and do good. While Bo Shan is the reluctant one but deep inside, he wants to make a difference too. I wish they would make a donghua or live action out of this.

• 30 year old by S-Monkey - ( ongoing, age difference, blind dates, slice of life)

Charlie Wei is a single and handsome executive. He’s also a closeted gay guy who’s been on way too many bad blind dates with women. Charlie’s still hung up on his ex-boyfriend James and is… gasp, 30! Charlie’s family thinks he’s straight and too old to be without a wife! During another bad blind date, Charlie meets the flirty Ethan, who both annoys and intrigues him. Can Charlie finally come out and find true love with Ethan or will he continue on his streak of bad blind dates?

The cover looks melodramatic but it’s really not. This is so funny! I read this because people were saying it reminded them of BoXiao. And yes, there are moments here that remind me of them, but it’s more like an AU of BoXiao. I stayed up late trying to get caught up in the chapters and you won’t realize it cause it’s just that good. I love seeing the older MC loosening up and being more of himself. and the younger one being more responsible in his career. They just become better versions of themselves because of each other. It’s so sweet!

• I ship me and my Rival - by Pepa ( ongoing, comedy, reads like a meta )

This follows the adventures of Wei Yanzi, a third-rate actor in the Chinese entertainment industry, stumbles onto a shipping fandom for himself and another actor (Gu Yiliang) while trying to escape from the flame wars and negativity. He's so taken with this group of fans who actually see him as a good guy instead of an enemy/rival of Gu Yiliang that he falls head-first into fandom and becomes actively involved in trying to provide shipping fuel and the fans' daily dose of fluff.

IF THERE IS ONE thing you will read here, let it be this. It is hilarious. If you are a CP fan you will relate so much and it’s a good time. It just shows how people who think are rivals can actually be really good friends in real life. What we see is not always what it seems. and people will interpret things based on their bias. The MC here is so dramatic! how his inner feelings/reactions were drawn will make you laugh.

• Path to You - by Sinran (completed, slice of life, age gap fluff and comedy )

When almost college dropout Jensen attempts to drink away his problems, unemployed Nathaniel suddenly pukes on him and ruins his night. As an apology, Nathaniel offers to help Jensen with his studies. Despite Jensen's difficulties in getting along with people, the two become friends and something deeper begins to grow between them

The story is so soft. If you want something with mild angst/misunderstandings— then pick this. I love the progression of their relationship and how they take care of each other. There are other themes showed here other than the romance.

• Red Candy - by Hanse (completed season one with a cliffhanger, explicit scenes, assassins )

Shihyeon, aka “Red Candy,” is a secret agent whose code name comes from bathing in the blood of his marks on dangerous missions. Shihyeon’s tasked with seducing and obtaining intel from Hajun, a hot college professor. Shihyeon can disarm enemies, but didn’t expect to be disarmed himself by Hajun’s own tight body. Now Shihyeon’s caught between loyalty to his spy agency and Hajun. Can Red Candy survive the incoming wave of enemies and still indulge in the sweet ecstasy of Hajun’s embrace?

THIS STRESSED ME OUT MAAAN. Wow. I loved this. That season one cliffhanger. It’s definitely up there as my favorite. If you think about it, the tropes are really not original. An assassin is sent to shadow a person and they develop a relationship. That simple. But NOOOOO! There are so many things going on. The Main mystery plot, Their relationship, their shared past plus you have other sketchy secondary characters. And did i mention explicit scenes? Lots of them. I want this two to have a happy ending!!!

• Lone Swan - by Chu Man (discontinued, cultivation, star crossed lovers)

After losing his memory, Yiqiu Shen, a disciple from the decent sect meets a very special man named Luofeng Yan, who is the leader of the evil Divine Wind Cult. When escaping and conflicting with Yan, Shen gradually finds his original self as well as his previous love back. Together they rip off the facade of the martial world and reveal the hidden true

I didn’t want to add a discontinued story here, with no novel as a source material but this one made an impact on me. so. yeah. THE ART. breathtaking. The plot = layered. There are times I don’t even know who is telling the truth. It had so much potential and i hope it will get picked up again at some point. People rec this to those who enjoyed TGCF and MDZS, and they are right. 👍🏼

• Dragon in Distress by Si Wang Wen Hua - ( ongoing, dragons, past life, lost power, fantasy )

This is a story about a little Eastern green dragon and a little Western black dragon playing together.

The synopsis is pretty simple if you look at it but this one is pretty interesting. and surprisingly funny. tinie AoAo is so cute! 🤍 the other MC has tsundere tendencies tho. Lots of lore and more truths to uncover as the story progresses. I’m not giving it enough justice with how i’m reccing it, but if you like dragons and fantasy — give this a go.

• Breaking through the clouds 2: Swallow the Sea - Huaishang (ongoing, based on a novel, crime, drama, cases)

Wu Yu, a newcomer of the Public Security Bureau, is gentle and frail. He doesn’t care about the difficulties posed by Bu ZhongHua, his strict boss, and only wants to stay in the background to be paid on time with enough for food. However, no one knows that this young man’s head is targeted by top drug traffickers for a large bounty or that this courageous young man has once slaughtered the dragon of the abyss. With a chain of interlocking cases, a series of troubles come one after another. Can the two people work together to survive through the difficulties?

Do you see a pattern with me? lol. I like crime themes. This one is the same and by the looks of it, the cases they solve will take longer to unravel. I haven’t read the novel it’s based on yet so i’m just going with how the manhua is progressing. I like it when Wu Yu turns full on action-mode and when ZH takes care of him. Plus it helps that they are both gorgeous. I’ll get back this with a proper link.

• Where the Wind Stays - by Yusa (completed season one, curses, demons, possession, timeskip, explicit scenes)

To break an ancient curse that plagues the royal bloodline, young Prince Tasara is destined to be sacrificed in death. Nara is enlisted as a palace servant to carry out the prince’s execution when the time comes. But he develops a soft spot for the cursed prince, and after committing an atrocious and unforgivable act against Tasara, Nara is desperate to right his wrongs. Soon, their lascivious relationship that had been kept under wraps tests his resolve. Will Nara be tempted away from his original mission? There’s no telling how far he would go to earn Tasara’s forgiveness.

This story broke my brain, in a good way. I don’t wanna say much cause it will spoil the story. It’s the type that you gave to see and suffer through yourself. I am excited for what happens in season II!!!

Honorable Mentions:

I’m placing these here cause I have only read a few chapters and tho I liked them, I wanna read more before reccing it in full. 👍🏼

• I accidentally saved the Jinghu’s enemy

• Global Examination

• Monster entertainment

• Demon Apartment

And that’s it! Hope enjoy Anon! 😊

#ask response #rec #manhua rec #manhwa rec