#types out the most incomprehensible batshit thing ever and posts it: haha you get what i mean?

[theotherrichardpapen]

AU where Josh manages to grab onto Nigel’s hand at the last moment that night on the train and both of them fall out. AU where Nigel has been dead the entire time but Alex Forbes doesn’t know that; where the trauma of watching his friend fall to his death combined with the realisation he was complicit in the death of another causes his mind to fracture.

He doesn’t remember making it back to his dorm room that night, only remembers waking up to the news that Josh and Nigel were was dead. All of Nigel’s things have been moved to another room, of course they have, because Nigel was gone, dead, all his fault, his fault trouble.

AU where Alex takes the train one night to the Colbie house because Nigel asks him to, because he feels this innate and intense need to try and better understand this boy he got killed; where he finds the card and the books and Nigel’s red bible, and begins to understand.

AU where the body of Susan turns up one morning, and the police question Alex about it, but there’s no way it was him, because he was late; he was late, and by the time he showed up at the cinema, she was waiting for him still, sweet Susan, with her kind eyes and kinder heart, she had waited for him and she didn’t even suspect anything until the very second before he struck gone.

AU where Alex finds the letter he wrote Nigel wrote, inviting him to his house that night, where Alex sees the Colbies arguing through the window; where he wrestles the gun from John and shoots him to kill him because he read the journals, knows that this man has been hurting Nigel his whole life and he wanted him dead protect Nigel.

AU where Nigel confronts Alex at the train yard that night, where he forces Alex to remember everything he did, everything Alex did; where he forces Alex to pull the trigger and kill off the version of Nigel he’s been carrying around in his mind, where Alex dies that night right along with him and Jack is born instead.

#types out the most incomprehensible batshit thing ever and posts it: haha you get what i mean? #this would've been a fic but i know i don't have the motivation to commit to that right now and it would've ended up abandoned #anyway . blame the crowded room for inspiring this . and then the dynamic between the narrator and tyler from fight club #and joe and rhys from s4 of you for driving it #does this actually even make sense ? to anyone that is not currently sharing the braincell with me ? #who knows #like minds #murderous intent #nigel colbie #alex forbes #doing some serious handwaving as to how this au would work for like . 60% of the movie. youd have to scrap the sally interview basically #also doing some serious handwaving as to whether josh's death is enough of a stressor to trigger a dissociative episode #especially one that results in development of DID #dont look at this post directly . only from a side angle . corner of your eye. thank you

[dontgofarfromme]

hey! you post a lot of realm of the elderlings, would you recommend it? i’m a fantasy die hard but have heard that the back half of the series is a bit iffy so i’m hesitant to dive into this one haha, would love your opinion on the books!!

Hey! Sooooo my answer to this is the same as my answer to this question for a lot of extremely long fantasy series which is: are you prepared to read 16 entire books that are significantly flawed in order to experience the absolute brilliance they simultaneously house.

There's absolutely no wrong answer, this series is so goddamn long and for some people getting through the sometimes incomprehensible plots and weird changes in story direction and Robin Hobb's thesis on gender and sexuality (the bad one, involving "why women need to keep their legs closed or die in childbirth," "men always fight over women to have sex with them this is the way of nature" and honest to god the stupidest love triangles i have read about in years) aren't worth the effort. However if you do manage it you get to experience some of the best, most life-like characters I've ever read, lovely and awful arcs about how trauma and parenting and social standing and shame and love shape and change who a person is, and Robin Hobb's (accidental?) thesis on gender and sexuality (the good one, involving forbidden magic as an extremely apt allegory for sexuality, a character whose gender was self described as something along the lines of "why do you care," and honest to god one of the most batshit and beautiful queer love stories I have read in my life).

I would put out a baseline warning that these books get pretty dark. If you're not doing well mentally right now and feel that reading more depressing shit might drop your mood rather than being cathartic, I'd consider foregoing them until you're in a better place. (Otoh, if youre looking for something cathartic, this might be the series for you). The first time I tried to read these books I finished the first series feeling hollow and angry that I had been left where I was, and looking for spoilers about the rest of the series only worsened that. When I read them the second time, having a baseline understanding of how sad they could get (and also being in a completely different situation, looking for a different type of experience) allowed me to appreciate the range these books actually do have--it isn't all down, there's a lot of happy and funny moments as well. And the sad/bad moments are done incredibly well and are frequently some of my favorite parts of the series. But if you wouldn't consider yourself at least somewhat of a tragedy-enjoyer I would tread cautiously, as while they are not wholly tragic these are also not books where everything is always guaranteed to work out happily.

Personally my favorite series is the second Fitz trilogy, which is both beautiful and gut-wrenching and is imo the strongest subseries all the way thru. When i reread i did it with the intent of getting to and reading this subseries bc of things i had heard about it, and god was it worth it. The last trilogy does have a somewhat divisive ending that I will not go into in detail on. There are elements of it that I don't like, but at the same time, for me i found reading the entire series to be worth the parts i was unsatisfied with. I don't think that it would be worth it for everyone, though. Ultimately I'd say to consider what you're getting yourself into (it's SIXTEEN books), and if you do decide to read it remember that you're not obligated to finish it (or to read every single book--skip shit if u feel like it!). Good luck in ur decision and potential reading endeavors!!

#realm of the elderlings #rote #almost signed this like a fucking note at work my brain is FRIED rn but this series is always fun to talk abt