#book 2 of the inheritance cycle

[phoenixofthegreenwood]

I’m currently reading Eldest (Inheritance Cycle Book 2) and I’ve got to say, the constant random name dropping of random background characters is REALLY jarring.

Like, why are these 6 random dwarves that I assumes will only be in the book for 4 chapters all getting names and being called by their names like I remember who’s who? Or when they’re in the main characters hometown and the author goes, “Bobbie, son of Bobert,” like, who the hell is BOBERT?!

Just a small gripe, but it’s really effecting the enjoyment for me personally.

[wizardnaturalist]

much as I empathize with their situation and understand their very real fear of reaching out, murtagh and thorn's stategy of "simply avoid all triggers for our ptsd and we'll be fine" is notttt going to work lmao. you are two codependent people with the same trauma and no coping mechanisms, this is not going to get better on its own. they Need to accept the help of a support network and outside perspectives if they want to be able to grow past this.

and not only for their own health, but it is also their responsibility to do so. thorn levelled a half dozen buildings and injured who knows how many people because of a moment of blind panic. they have no way of knowing when they might be triggered in the future, and while they may not be able to control their actions in the midst of it, they are absolutely in control of how they might prepare for the future

[nejackdaw]

Man... I love the concept of Eragon's spellcasting so much. Usually spells draw on some sort of mana pool, in books and games, and if there's not enough left you simply cannot cast the spell you want to cast until there is.

Magic in Eragon doesn't care if you have enough "mana" left. Spellcasting in Eragon says "you invoked something ancient, and it is going to draw off your life in order to do what you asked, even if it kills you." You cannot stop once you start. Spellcasting is incredibly dangerous and takes a ton of training to (1) know your limits and what will go beyond them and (2) slowly, slowly increase that limit.

If your endurance and constitution are high enough, you can cast a complicated spell and come out of it feeling exhausted and kinda like shit, but it's done now. If they're not high enough, all you can do is sit there and slowly die knowing you made the wrong choice.

Idk I had a dream last night that used Eragon style magic and it was like WOAH

[imaginedreamwrite]

Love The Hell Out Of You

Part 2: Two Sides

It was a small and quaint village that was the source of your departure from the cabin in the forest. With a heavy list of things scrawled onto cheap yellow notepaper that was shoved into your pocket, and a series of things you needed to accomplish, you had no choice but to leave the home you'd inherited and face the new world around you.

It was a debilitating risk that made your heart feel tightly bound in wire within your chest, and you had placed your emotional cycle briefly on pause. 

But even the smallest attempt to keep it under control was stymied by the threat of your emotional state climbing the guardrails you nailed in place. It was inevitable, the hormones from your pregnancy could only be held back for so long, and you were bound to cry again for the loss of an alpha who never really cared, and the little life that was depending on you.

It wasn’t a choice anymore, you didn’t have the luxury of being able to decide whether this was something you wanted to do, or something you had to do. This was a necessity, if you couldn’t get the wood furnace working to heat the rest of the home, it wouldn’t amount to anything good once winter would hit.

You could count on the fireplace in the living room however that would only produce so much heat, and you would have to actively be aware of the fire throughout the night. 

At least with the wood burning furnace, once you had a large enough piece of wood to slowly burn, you could be able to maintain a steady heat throughout the cabin. However, there was something wrong with one of the sensors, or one of the panels, and you would have to find someone to fix it. You wouldn’t be able to fix it on your own even if you had the tools and the parts, the furnace was well built but everything was written in German, and your little and basic understanding wouldn’t get you anywhere. 

All in all, the venture into the village was as life dependent as it was a chance to show your face and get to know people. This was going to be your home for a considerable future, and you would have to make people aware that you were there. You were pregnant, you would be making trips into the village for supplies for yourself and your baby, socializing with people you might have to rely on was vital. 

The first stop you had made into the village was a multipurposed hardware store that had offered repairs services on the side. You had parked your vehicle on the side street by the public parking rows and made your way down the pavement toward the front door of the white stone and wooden building. The handcrafted wooden sign hanging above the door was the indication that you were in the right place, and you had climbed the three small steps to get to the door. 

You inhaled slowly, building up nerves to cross the threshold and attempt to put your limited German to use to try and seek help. The moment your hands had rested on the door handle, and you pushed, you were almost immediately tripped by an orange cat with one ear that went flying by you. The furry creature darted into the hardware store before you, jumping effortlessly onto a long wooden counter with a register nearest the door. Once you had entered the store and closed the door behind you, the cat had perched on the desk and meowled at you, tilting its head as if to demand a greeting. 

You balanced the English German translation book you had brought with you under your arm in order to give the cat a scratch behind its remaining ear, rubbing its head after it so loudly demanded you to. While you were looking around the store at the shelves that were organized in long rows with aisles that led to a series of two desks set up near the back of the store, likely a place where someone could hire contractors or order bulk supplies. 

“Guten morgan.” A woman had stepped out from one of the shelves, setting a plastic basket full of packages screws and nails down on the desk, her greying brown hair pulled back into a low ponytail that was draped over her shoulder. “Brauchen Sie etwas?” 

You looked at the woman with a slightly uneased expression, trying to detect and pick apart any words that you could have easily detected in German. From the tone of voice, you could surmise that she was asking you if you needed help, and you had grabbed your English German book and flipped open the pages, stumbling over the pronunciation. 

“Guten morgan.” You finally spoke, getting the greeting down without a struggle, however it was the rest that had caught you off guard. “Ich muss einen...” 

Your thumbed through the translation book in your hands, your stomach felt like it was twisting with anxiety when you felt the woman’s staring you down. “Ofen reparieren-” 

“Englisch?” The woman had cut you off before you could truly finish, moving closer toward you and the register you were standing nearby. “You are English, ja?” 

“My German is terrible, I’m really sorry.” You closed the book with a sigh, and that guard you had on your emotions was quickly starting to crumble as you spoke. “I just moved into a cabin out of the village and the wood furnace isn’t working. I don’t know if it’s the senor or if it’s something else but-” 

“Ah you need a fix.” The woman had sensed your nervousness, how could she not when you were stumbling over your words while actively looking as if you were about to cry. To your emotional state, she had tilted her head and looked you over before her attention flit toward the desks near the back. “Come with me.” 

You turned away from the door and followed the woman away from the register, taking the same path as she had through the long aisles of tools, big and small, toward the set of desks in the back. As you walked the orange cat with one ear followed you, its tail sticking straight up in the air, swishing occasionally as if it were the real tour guide and not this woman. 

“Sit here.” She was direct in her order for you to sit on the desk at the left, and you took a seat where she instructed, setting your book in front of you while the notepad of your other tasks remained in your pocket.  Your knee bounced beneath the desk, a nervous tick that you’d always seemed to have, while the reminder of what you were doing here was hinging on your success. There was little you could do and accomplish if you didn’t get this furnace fixed before the temperatures started dipping. 

Not to mention you would need a doctor, or at the very least find a walk-in clinic, someplace that could look after you during your pregnancy. Or at the very least, try and find a midwife to help you. 

You waited for the woman for fifteen minutes before she had walked back out from the back offices and had taken a seat in front of you. With a requisition form requesting information about your repairs, she was quick to inform you in English that there was a wait period for someone to come and look at what was wrong with your furnace. It was her husband and her son who did the repairs, not just for the people and businesses in the village, but for others who lived on the outskirts like yourself. 

You took the form and the pen she had given you to fill out the requisition form, and while it wasn’t ideal, it was your only option. You couldn’t do this yourself; you couldn’t have possibly understood the process of fixing a wood furnace even if everything was written in English and the parts were there for you. You would have to wait; you would have to bide your time and do what you could on your own merit and on your own time. 

With no immediate remedy available, you had given the woman your thanks and handed the form off before you stood. You took your translation book with you and started heading out toward the front door, once again almost getting taken down by that same cat. You sighed just as you had before, giving the orange furry ball a pet goodbye before you left. 

************************************** 

He had no idea what drew him to the little cafe on the main street, the one that was located between the flower shop and the general store on the other side. It wasn’t as if the imposing alpha, well known in the Austrian village, was a stranger to anyone within the small, populated town. And the cafe that he found himself steadily walking toward was one that he had frequented often when he had to leave his property for supplies, however there was something in his bones that felt different. 

It was as if he was being drawn toward the bakery and cafe, pulled there by some invisible force that had taken possession of the old colonel. Whether that be an order that he was given by some unforeseen force, or one of his alpha instincts, it was a directive he could not turn down. König walked with a rushed gait toward the front entrance, his large hand yanking opens the door to step foot inside the traditional Austrian bakery with no reasonable excuse to be here. And once inside, he had taken a long and studious look around the cafe, trying to pinpoint the causality that registered as so fucking urgent in his mind. 

It seemed as if nothing was out of the ordinary in this cafe, nothing that would have withhold his bodily autonomy from turning around and leaving. There were tasks that the beast of an alpha had to accomplish before he could enjoy being on a few weeks leave from the KorTac base. A distraction that had blindsided him was neither easily accepted or understood, and the patience he held for himself was deliberately thin. 

Of the catalysts that could have spurred this great invisible hand that forced him to enter the cafe like there was a fire lit under his ass, he knew it had nothing to do with the locals. It was neither the owner of the cafe and bakery nor the patrons that had all come to know him as a PMC soldier, that had been the tugging force that brought him here. And the further he had cast his attention around the counter where he would place his order, and the main sitting area, the closer he had come to the conclusion that he was wrong. 

That this was all some grave mistake, a symptom of being tired from the constant long hours and the missions that took him through hell while he was deployed. There was no cognitive to the urgency that he felt upon approaching the front door. 

He had almost turned and left, the alpha with an exhaustion weighing heavily on his shoulders had almost said to hell with this invisible force that had inhibited its own desires upon his autonomy. König was already shifting on his heels to turn and leave, giving up on the fool’s errand when he had caught the glimmer of someone in the corner of his eyes. 

Why he hadn’t seen this omega when he first walked into the building was almost as confounding as why he was brought here to begin with. He would have walked right past you, twice, without noticing you were there. But now that he had seen you, sitting huddled at a table near the back corner by a window, he felt that same familiar tug as before. 

Fate. An unforeseen force. Whatever fucked up alpha instinct had told him that he needed to see this particular omega, it didn’t matter in the end what the cause was. 

He was here now, and the further he was drawn toward you, the clearer it had become that something had intervened. And the further he got to this omega sitting by herself, the clearer your scent was able to be picked up amongst the mix of smells that filled the cafe. 

Your scent was soft and airy, clean and refreshing. Vanilla that was trailing lilac, and the smell of something sweet like strawberries that reminded König of the strawberry patch his mother grew back at his childhood home. Your scent was beckoning to him like a siren’s call, like you were a phantom voice that had spoken to him through the thick hedges of darkness, a light that he had never seen before but desperately wanted to touch. 

It was improbable, a fight that was building within himself over the rationality that he was just a man that had just seen a pretty girl, and the deeper part of himself that knew he was an alpha who caught hold of a scent that had spoken to him. Not that he was the kind of alpha or man who thought fate had a hand in his future, in deciding who or what was the best combination of attributes for a mate. 

But it was no accident; he had to at least admit that. 

There was something that made him come here, something that had brought him to this very spot where an omega, a young pretty omega, who he had never seen before, was sitting. And it didn’t take a genius to understand that the rumors he had heard, about a new omega moving to this small village, was one and the same now. 

König had heard the millings, the whispering conversations of a pregnant omega who was abandoned by an alpha who didn’t want her. That was you, he surmised, and given the velocity of the rumors and how they had spread, you had only been here for days. 

He had scrambled to dig into his mind for the rest of the gossip he had heard since he had been back to the village. One, of course, was that you were pregnant and single—the alpha who got you pregnant was long gone—and that you were living in the cabin that was only a few miles from his own. 

But there was more wasn’t there? What else had he heard? 

That your furnace was broken, the same kind of wood furnace that had in his own cabin, and that the list of people waiting for repair services was long. Of course, your name was on the list, but you were pregnant, and you couldn’t wait forever. 

That same urgency that led him to the cafe had also directed him toward your table, and the approach of this massive alpha in front of you had certainly taken you by surprise. Hellfire could come and consume him in the moment, swallowing him whole and burning flesh from bone and König still wouldn’t have passed—because the moment your eyes land on his, and he sees those big anxious eyes, he fucking breaks. 

He's a beast, he’s a damn monster on the battlefield who has gone after terrorists, had been shot at and hunted down. He's a colonel, a battering ram an insertion specialist, he’s handled hostage deals and has earned a reputation within korTac. 

But you, a teary-eyed omega who’s pregnant and abandoned, staring at him with those eyes, and he feels as if his heart and soul are being ripped out of his body. 

It’s almost too reminiscent of his own life, with a mother who raised a little boy on her own when his father abandoned them both. And his mother raised König with all she had, providing her big boy with everything she had to offer him, even if it meant she worked tirelessly and to the bone. 

“I’m sorry, did you want to sit here?” Your things were slightly scattered on the table, an English German translation book, pregnancy tests spilling out of your bag, a phone that was lying face up on the table, a copy of the requisition form for the repairs. A list of other things that needed to be done was written on an old yellow notepad, slipping out of your bag like the pregnancy tests, and with a sense of urgency you were trying to pick up your things. 

“You are new here.” König pulled out the chair opposite of you and sat down, his hands folded in front of him. It was comical in a series of ways, this hulking and great giant alpha sitting across from an omega that he could very well squish in body height and mass. This alpha who was a soldier from the time he was 17 or 18, looking at a younger omega with red rimmed eyes and slightly puffy cheeks from crying, pregnant and vulnerable. 

“Was it the bad German?” You were attempting to make light of the situation, either that or you were avoiding the obvious question he might have asked next, like why you were crying.  

“I haven’t heard you speak German.” Instead, his response was blunt, and he had still avoided telling you how he knew you weren’t a local. Not that it was hard to tell, you were only here a few days and people had already known your life story, or what you had told anyway. 

“You have the cabin in disrepair,” he continued speaking in a matter-of-fact tone, drawing your attention away from grabbing your things, giving him time to focus on your scent as it had started working its way under his flesh. “You need a furnace fixed.” 

“How did you..?” you were caught off guard, the surprise replacing the threat of tears that were almost ready to spill down your cheeks again.  

“I’m your neighbor, I live a few miles from you.” König had inhaled your scent, subtly trying to get more and more of it, as it seemed to want to be intertwined with his own. The older alpha had never been so drawn, so enraptured with an omega or her scent like this, and he was scrambling to come to terms with it. “I have the same wood furnace I can help fix it for you.” 

It was that same force that drove him into this place that made him speak so freely. He was no longer in control of his mind, of his tongue or his inhibitions to deny a pretty omega when she needed help. It was an urgency; it was instincts, and he was following them blindly. 

“I... what?” You were puzzled, at the very least, as your eyebrows had become furrowed and knit together on your forehead. You were staring at him with a natural cautionary glance, likely so emotionally complexed by your previous alpha that you were unsure of what to say or do around him. 

“I will fix it for you. Tomorrow.” König was out of his element and yet he still approached the problem like a leader he was. The colonel, who was used to taking matters into his own hands and commanding orders to his soldiers, was now taking charge of the situation while being led by instincts he still didn’t quite understand. “You are pregnant, you cannot have a house with no heat. I’ll fix it tomorrow.” 

He pushed his chair back and stood up from the table, giving a curt nod without waiting for confirmation or any response from you beyond the squeak of an omega. König was clear, he was going to fix this for you, despite not even knowing you, because there was a portion of himself that would not rest otherwise. 

And he was following instincts. The same instincts or invisible force, that led him here so randomly, was pushing him to help his new neighbor. By some madness or twist of fate that he might not have even believed in, he agreed anyway. 

And he would be damned if he didn’t feel weak for a little omega who reminded him of his own mother, who struggled on her own to raise him when he was a child.

[cosmic-ghost-hermit]

Pick a Card: Who's been thinking about you? Why are you on their mind?

Take what resonates and leave the rest behind, baby. But always be open to new experiences. Decks used are the necronomicon tarot, alchemy oracle, wizard tarot and the crystallary oracle.

🌊Tip your Reader🐋

PILE ONE

Astrology: Taurus, Libra, Leo

Song: Taking What's Not Yours by TV Girl

Vibes: Blue, green, yellow, orange, overactive third eye, prophetic dreams, gold jewelry, masks, vulnerability, candles, 555, 7777, swings, volcano, picture books, Hephaestus, Apollo, Aphrodite

Cards: The Empress, Knowledge, 5 of Pentacles, 10 of Books, Autumn, Mystical Sister, Labradorite, Larimar

Hey, pile 1. I see 2 different people who have been thinking about you. I see one of them used to be your other half. Someone you felt close enough to they felt like family. I think y'all had a falling out of some kind. The second one is someone you only knew briefly. You met them right before they started to know themselves. You weren't destine to really know them and they weren't destine to know you. You may have worked with them or went to school with them. It looks like they have been talking about you to each other. It isn't gossip talk by the way. It seems very positive. They both feel like Leo's by the way. I could also see them as Aquarius's.

The former friend is telling this former acquaintance about you. The friend has needed to talk to someone about what happened between you two. They want to make up with you but are a bit too stubborn and prideful to admit they were wrong about whatever you two were fighting about. They miss you a lot. They think they made a mistake by causing such a fuss about this. They regret the falling out. They saw how gracefully you handled the conflict and they feel pretty guilty about acting so childish.

The former acquaintance is learning so much about you from the former friend. They knew little to nothing about you before they started talking to this person. Before, their view of you was very vague but they loved how you dressed and wanted to emulate their style. They really wanted to know you but were too shy to really ask to hang out or to ask where you got your clothes from. The more they learn about you the more they wished they had taken a chance because even though this ex-friend is the one telling them about you they aren't saying anything bad. They hear the stories of you and I think they feel envious of how close this former friend got to you.

You probably know these two are hanging out now. You don't really care because you have moved on from that part of your life. You would totally be open to forgiving your ex-friend and getting to know your former acquaintance but they won't take the chance. You shouldn't reach out either. They have to be brave enough to seek you out on their own. You are very forgiving and kind. I think the only reason they wont come forward is because of their own insecurities. They don't feel they are worthy of your light. They know you are a strong independent individual and they might not know how to handle how good you are at setting boundaries.

__________

PILE TWO

Astrology: Capricorn, Cancer, Pisces

Song: Welcome to the Family by Watsky

Vibes: White, blue, orange, silver, apples, trees, storms, ex-christian, reflection, boomer, garden, moon cycles, sea gulls, POS, irregular periods, feminine, 222, 4, birds, Demeter, Hera, Persephone, Artemis

Cards: 5 of Cults, Shame and Decay, Growth, Ace of Wands, Tin, Dissolution, Almandine Garnet

Hello, pile 2. There is one person thinking of you. It is a family member. I feel a feminine energy but it could be someone of any gender. I feel that this person believes you inherited your power and your abilities from them. I don't think this is true, this is just a belief of theirs. They have a lot of believes about you that aren't true to be honest. When they look at you all they can see is a mirror and they see nothing beyond that pre-existing belief. They could be a Taurus or a Libra but I also see Leo energy here too.

This person does not like how you live your life. This person has a predetermined idea of how you should be living. They can't seem to get the idea that you aren't their copy. They think because you aren't following the life they think you should that you are somehow sinning or demonic. They can't seem to understand you are an individual. In their eyes you are an extension of themselves. This way of thinking is really cancerous. They make wild and outrageous claims about your life that are made with no proof or evidence. They are honestly just poisoning their own mind by doing all of this. I hear them praying for you but they don't really know what they are praying for. What they say they are praying for is your uprising and for you to "come to your senses" but they are just praying for your down fall. They gossip to their friends about you and honestly some of the friends that have stood up for you and said that this person was being ridiculous. This person immediately and immaturely cut off anyone who didn't agree with them.

Do not reach out to this person. If you are still in contact with this person I recommend removing them from your connections. They do not have your best interest at heart and I think contacting them would add more fuel to the fire. They are sick in the mind and refuse to admit that they could be wrong. They do not take criticism well and they do not like anything different than themselves. They surround themself with yes-men who will do anything they say. Please, stay safe and protect yourself from such a mean person. They do not deserve your light.

____________

PILE THREE

Astrology: Scorpio, Sagittarius, Aries

Song: Hey, Runner! by The Arcadian Wild

Vibes: Black, brown, rainbow, teal, tendrils, doorways, stairways, 6666, 1234, snakes, crows, ravens, dogs, squirrels, spiders, animals, burrows, wild, water, skeletons, halloween, keys, cats, Pan, Artemis

Cards: 10 of Curses, Rotation, Darkening, Smokey Quartz, Queen of Pentacles, 2 of Pentacles, 6 of Books

Hi, pile 3! I see one person thinking of you. This person was not good to you. They abused you. It could be a former romantic partner or a family member. I also see you might have worked together. Either way they are not a good person. This person made you feel very helpless. I'm sorry they treated you so bad. You deserved better. They did something awful to animal you really loved. They somehow removed this beloved pet from your life. They didn't like that you gave more attention to this creature than them. They were jealous of this animal. They wanted to control you and your emotions. They took joy in your mourning. For some of the people reading, I think this person could have hid that it was their fault that this animal left your life. They could have acted totally innocent when you cried about your loss but for others I think it was very obvious that it was their fault.

The reason they have been thinking about you is because they have been feeling bad about themself. They used you to regulate their self hatred and emotions overall. They miss the power they had over you. They miss being a predator. It looks like you found an out from a life around them a while ago. You escaped their grasp like they always said you couldn't do. You made your own life and you made it beautifully. I don't think you have very active social media or at least not social media they have access too. They have tried to find you online but they can't seem to locate you. When they do find you they text you immediately and you block them like always. They don't like how you see yourself as equal to them now. They are such a piece of shit for real. They do not like that you live is flourishing without them. They are so pathetic lmao.

I'm proud of you for getting away from them, my dear. You have taken such good care of yourself since you left. You are a wonderful and lovely person who did not deserve to get fucked over by someone who was supposed to care for you. This person is tied up in knots about not having control anymore. They will never have control again. They used to feel powerful when they bullied you but now your power over your own life makes them feel weak.

__________

PILE FOUR

Astrology: Aquarius, Gemini, Virgo

Song: Cherry Hearts by The Shin and RAC

Vibes: Iridescent blue, dark blue, turquoise, gold, cicadas, moons, spilled water, tears, 888, mountains, wings, snakes, mourning star, water, swimming, ocean, copper, eldritch horror, Ra, Horus, Aphrodite Urania, Mother Mary

Cards: Queen of Swords, Moonstone, Chrysocolla, Uranus, Virgin's Milk, Death, 8 of Cups, 8 of Pentacles

Hi, pile 4. So there are two separate people thinking about you. They are unrelated to each other and they do not know each other but they have the same reason for thinking about you. The first person was a friend that was crushing on you hard. I think maybe you had a one night stand with this person and it changed their life. I think they are probably an Aries. The other was a very close friend that moved away. Or maybe you moved away from them. I can see you guys being friends in college. I think this person is a Cancer or an Aquarius. They both were deeply and irrevocably in love with you.

The Aries person followed you around like a puppy. They are a very masculine person but you made them feel a lot different than they usually do. I think you might have been their first real crush or their first fuck. They put a lot of effort into getting to know you even though you made it very clear you did not want a relationship. They still attempted to get into a relationship with you despite your boundary setting. They were a fool. You taught them about their passions which makes me think you have a "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" kinda vibe to you. They really were head over heels for you. I don't think you are in their life anymore. I think this person will think about you for the rest of their life.

The Cancer/Aquarius person was a really close friend of yours. I think either you helped them through a break up or they helped you through a break up. Either way during the mourning process they fell for you so hard but they kept it secret. They didn't know if their feelings were real or if they were just because of the situation. This person might still be in your life but I don't see them ever telling you about their feelings. I think they see you as this really cool and independent person. They don't think someone like you could ever love them. They try to keep their feelings down. They tell themselves their feelings are not real but their heart always skips a beat when they see you. They still catch themselves imagining a future with you. They have some naughty dreams about you too. They can not get you out of their head.

Both of these people love you a lot, my friend. I don't know if it's just your personality but you are just a really lovable person. You might be accidentally flirtatious. I hope this gave you some insight on who was thinking of you, my dear.

[ivesambrose]

𝑱𝒖𝒑𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝑻𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒖𝒔 𝒎𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒔 💛

(May 1, 2024 - May 13, 2025)

Based on sidereal transits

To book a personal reading with me DM or email me at Ivesambrose@gmail.com

𝒜𝓁𝓁 ℒ𝒾𝓃𝓀𝓈

PICTURE 1

"I know that if 1 believe in it even in the slightest, I can even make dust turn to gold." There's confidence in your words and even in your skills. You're done being a prisoner to your own limitations, it hasn't really been your ally eitherway. There will be considerable focus in starting or expanding a business or doing well academically for your future. Your focus and persistence will not go to waste either this time You might feel rather competitive though. Like you want to prove yourself no matter what. Be mindful of not falling into another cycle of self imposed limitations, this one being 'taking on too much all at once in order to be taken seriously. There's a strong message of not giving up or losing sight of your wants and goals when you're almost there. Perhaps this confidence feels too new to you and you're trying to find the sweet spot between being conceited and genuinely self assure. Additionally, some of you might be getting pregnant or planning on the same. Rest of you will be choosing a specific venture, whatever you choose will be the right option. Go for whatever inspires you the most. Your heart vigoursly feels called towards something. Don't make further excuses for it.

PICTURE 2

Fortune indeed favours the bold, fortune also favours the determined. You've been anticipating the tables to turn for you. The anticipation soon turned to a vision that you haven't wavered from. You may have at least one person who has been cheering you on from the get go, their presence and words have constantly pushed you to believe in what feels like the impossible. If there's something you have really wanted to excel at or get into, expect to see progress in that. Financially things will be gradually be getting better. You'll be focused on researching on making the right investments or where to invest money. You're advised to keep matters regarding property, work, ambitions, inheritance etc a secret. You may also be leaving behind something that's served it's purpose for something else, At some point after your dedicated efforts and hard work you'd want to move towards a softer life. Additionally, you might get into petty arguments with people who have their noses in your business. You might feel the need to stand up for yourself and what you believe in. Know your power but don't waste time in verbally proving your worth to people who don't really care deep down and want to see you fall, they are not worth the stress. I really do feel you might want to invest in magnesium sprays or melatonin gummies or lavender oils too since there might be sleep issues you might be facing or just a restless mind. Go easy on yourself.

PICTURE 3

You found joy in watching your life unfold, somewhere you, realised that regardless of what you see the result will remain what you want. Like knowing the ending of the movie SO the plot is simply there to take you to the journey. You might also be aggresively pursuing something by that mean this is something you're really fixated on and see unfolding. So what others might call 'obsesseive' doesn't really phase you. It is what it is Likely it's after significant trial and error you have decided to be deliberate in regards to what you want and it's a good thing. Likely you have decided to free yourself from the narrative that you have got to do everything alone abd by yourself and found a friend or people who are willing to encourage and collaborate with you. There will also be a focus on your nervous system/regulating your nervous system and health. You may also try holstic medicine or healing your system through food or lifestyle changes. There is new offer in love or for some an offer that emotionally fulfills you but you might have to self reflect a bit on the way you tend to self sabotage given your past experiences. Addressing this will actually help you look past your fears and illusions and see things from a different perspective. A perspective that serves you better and doesn't make you feel like you're losing grip. There is an emphasis on higher education/studies and travel as well that will further strengthen your faith in yourself. Some of you might just find better job opportunities or expansion out of your current city or hometown or in a foreign land.

PICTURE 4

Often what you so deeply want and what is supposed to happen ends up happening and coming through overnight and when they do, you're no longer counting the days or keeping track of them it simply becomes a part of your reality. Things have been gaining momentum behind simply because despite the circumstances you have still persevered and they will start coming through just as quick.

Be prepared, you're going to be travelling long distances and quiet often, you'll have a lot of connections coming through, new friends, new partnerships, existing ones solidifying and choices to make as well. Step into your new found confidence. You might as well find yourself commanding rooms you walk into with your presence alone. You'll also be finding yourself pursuing your joys and passions and romanticising your life more.

What you love to do might just become your daily routine and work. You'll have to learn to balance there too so you don't continue to associate what brings you joy only to 'work', you'll find other things to engage in too. Take extra care of your health given the travel and opportunities presented. You'll find yourself taking risks you have previously felt unprepared for and you'll be glad that you did. There's a a form of karmic justice that will be served too, The biggest thing you'l achieve is overcoming the worst of your hurdles with ease and being unapologetic about getting what you want. Just stay true to yourself above all.

[writinginatree]

Masterlist

I'm also on AO3 and Wattpad (@ Ronniewritesinatree on both)

Old masterlist with fandoms I no longer write for Here

Fourth Wing

Bodhi Durran (romantically):

Four Long Years

Broken Tooth

Adaptability (fem!reader) Part 2

I Want You More Than I Want To Die (fem!reader) (18+)

Candlelight, Roses and a Locked Door (fem!Tavis!reader)

Kiss It Better

Together Part 2

Bodhi Durran (platonically):

Out of Practice (Riorson!reader)

Daggers & Distractions (fem!Riorson!reader)

Safe Space (fem!Riorson!reader)

Ridoc Doesn't Like Spaghetti (sibling!reader)

The Taste of Home (fem!Riorson!reader)

Cared For (Riorson!reader)

This Wasn't Supposed To Be About Horses (fem!Riorson!reader)

Signets (fem!Riorson!reader)

Simple Gestures of Love (fem!Riorson!reader)

Brennan Sorrengail (romantically):

Caught (fem!Riorson!reader)

Learning By Doing (Riorson!reader)

Garrick Tavis (romantically):

Kisses & Confessions (fem!Riorson!reader)

Talks & Tantrums (fem!Riorson!reader)

Let's Fistfight the Sun

At His Princess's Command (fem!Tauri!reader)

Imogen Cardulo (romantically):

Sparring (fem!reader)

Ice Cream for Breakfast (Riorson!reader)

Polyamorous relationships:

Attention (Garrick x afab!reader x Xaden)

The Book Can Wait (Bodhi x reader x Xaden)

Ambushed (Garrick x fem!reader x Xaden)

Threatening Violence (Violet x fem!reader x Xaden)

Xaden Riorson (romantically):

Sleeping In (afab!reader) (18+)

Too Sweet (fem!reader) Part 2

Latenight Confessions

Cake and Errant Boyfriends (male!reader)

Xaden Riorson (platonically):

Zombie (sister!reader)

Here For You (sibling!reader)

The Taste of Home (sister!reader)

Cared For (sibling!reader)

Jealous Little Puppy (sibling!reader)

This Wasn't Supposed To Be About Horses (sister!reader)

Caught (sister!reader)

All the Blood that You Still Owe (sibling!reader)

If He Were Better At This... (sister!reader)

Non Reader-Inserts:

Untitled Bodhi & Xaden ficlet

The Person in the Mirror (transmasc!Bodhi)

Inheritance Cycle

Murtagh Morzansson (romantically):

Murtagh's reaction when you save him during a battle

Murtagh with a chronically ill partner (headcanons)

Untitled comfort fluff

John Wick

John Wick (romantically):

Baba Yaga's Cure for Period Cramps

Saved

John with an S/O with chronic pain

Come Here (fem!reader) (18+)

Safe Where He Belongs

Christmas Drawings

Morning Cuddles

The Hunt

John Wick (platonically):

Loss (daughter!reader)

fresh bruises (daughter!reader)

I Love Halloween (Young!John x fem!best friend!reader)

Nightmare Time Is Story Time (daughter!reader)

Dog Is the Best Babysitter (daughter!reader)

Are You Sick? (daughter!reader)

No Veggies, No Cookies (daughter!reader)

Withered Daisies (daughter!reader)

The Lost Boys

David:

Smells Like You

Sunshine On My Shoulders

Dwayne:

Of Spiders & Mothers

Blood & Lust (fem!reader) (18+)

Marko:

Star's Best Friend (fem!reader) Part 2

Paul:

Possessive

A New Friend

Vampires Will Never Hurt You

All or multiple:

Migraine (Marko, Paul)

Comfort Stories

Turning (poly)

Coming Out (lesbian!reader)

The Death of the Party

Happy Halloween

Breakfast Gone Wrong

Sugared Blood

[crowsgrudge]

i kind of forgot how good the inheritance cycle is like no wonder i read all the four books in 2 weeks when i was 12. this is peak

[tategaminu]

Books in my to read list:

The Inheritance Cycle (2 left)

ASOIAF novels

The Dragon Prince novels

Dragonheart (novelization version)

If anyone has any high fantasy book recommendations please tell me so I can add them to the list.

[madscientistshowdown]

Top 2 will move onto main bracket

PROPAGANDA

Wheeljack:

he blows things up everyday. should be staff at jurassic park considering HE MADE DINOSAUR WAR MACHINES (i.e the dinobots) that are also his sons, he literally bypassed the lore of nature and built giant robot invincible dinosaurs THAT ALSO BREATHE FIRE. mad mechanic not just scientist.

Kyo Ethnina:

Also called the "Book Hero", he is anything but heroic: a massive egomaniac with a giant laboratory.

Raboniel:

One time she tried to create a disease that would kill all humans, and she released it knowing it would kill her own species as well (it didn't really work, but it's the thought that counts) She was successful in helping create an extremely powerful weapon that can kill immortal beings.

Iknik Blackstone Varrick:

Both a mad scientist and eccentric entrepreneur rolled into one. Completely lacking in morals, this guy had company built the local prison and pre-installed a luxurious prison cell just for him, since he figured he'd probably be arrested eventually. Ends up switching to the good side near the end of the final season, but only after spending most of it as the head of the main villain's research department.

Christopher LIghtwood:

If he's not with his friends he's in a lab. He made explosives that blew up his school at age 12, leaving a hole in the building named the 'Christopher Lightwood Chasm'. He aims to help others with his creations but he can't be left unattended for too long or accidents happen

Angela:

i am Not Sure if she counts because she us tecnically a witch/magic user but I believe she is definetly the medieval fantasy equivalent of a mad scientist! because -she is an apothecary/someone with scientific knowledge on plants and medicine -she is a huge force of chaos, a trickster if you will -she does Not follow rules. not any of them -she had a traditional education where a wise scolar taught her magic as well as presumably scientific knowledge -she is regarded as pretty insane by the people around her -she is a wielder of strange and fascinating objects and companion of strange and fascinating creatures

Dr Seth Brundle:

The scientist who's teleporter experiment turned him into a horrible fly monster (An early test also resulted in a baboon dying painfully) Also played Jeff Goldblum.

[cryingpariah]

I love how one of the common pitfalls with Vegapunk is that in spite of him being a genius, he rarely actually thinks things through.

Like, he called his collection of scientists dedicated to 'world peace', which by the by consisted of a burgeoning dictator and two eco-terrorists, MADs.

Even though a lot of his inventions like the food machine or the island ac work fine and could be mass-produced by scaling them back a bit, no doubt helping the vast quantities of starving people in the One Piece world, he just hoards everything on Egghead and brands things that more or less work fine as failures because of his perfectionist streak until another idea pops into his head and the cycle starts all over again.

He couldn't put it together that his greatest vice sentience and a physical body would come back to bite him in the ass later on.

He gave the child soldier clone robots access to the Lineage factor of the six most powerful pirates and was shocked when it turned out they inherited personality quirks and memories from them two.

Dude rolled a nat 20 on intelligence but a negative 20 for wisdom. Which btw, Goodness and Wisdom were the two Vegapunk satellites who were taken out early on and if that ain't symbolic I don't know what is.

*slaps the top of Vegapunk's apple head* this fella can fit so much dramatic irony and hubris in him!

Vegapunk is sooooo odd to me. Everything about him is so oxymoronic it’s actually kinda baffling how Oda put everything that he did into this character. He’s all book smarts with absolutely no streets smarts and it’s almost sad to see. Everytime they showed us a decision he had made I was thinking ‘Okay…why would he do that though?’

From the creation of the Satellites (who makes robot versions of themselves that embody literal VIOLENCE AND EVIL and thinks things are gonna be hunky dory?) to the stuff with MADs (NEVER put more than 2 scientists in a room together or they’re gonna try to create a new element and jumpstart the end of the world) to making it so inanimate objects could eat devil fruits (I still want him to walk us through the process for that one causeeee 😬😬) to not joining Dragon and the Revs because they didn’t have the money to support themselves (which like I get it dude but like have a heart they’re trying to liberate the world).

The worst thing about all of this is you can tell he has a good heart, he genuinely wants to share knowledge and make the world better he just..keeps stumbling over that finish line. (Or mor accurately he stops midway through the race and restarts because he figured out a better way to run).

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 2/11/2025

the bon mot slot goes to the Witcher comics, bc after i inhaled all of the 2014-present series i realized they scratch the same sad goth detective itch batman does

oops! all books!

adding another axis to the "depressive cycles" graph, where x is "how many minutes of mother mother have i listened to in the past two weeks" and y is "how many books have i read and bounced off in the past two weeks" and brother we're at the extreme upper right hand corner

what was supposed to be last week's gay and/or lesbian romance and/or erotica

Desire by Starlight, by Radclyffe, is a 261p softcover published in 2010 by Bold Strokes Books. two unrelated facts about this physical object: VERY glossy cover, and smells faintly of mildew despite having a perfect text block with no water damage. radclyffe has written over a hundred books and this is somewhere in the middle. this is sitting at a solid 4 on goodreads with some complaints that she tends to be a little formulaic. i am going to be very honest and say that when i read this two weeks ago, i did not take very good notes bc i didn't love this one. the structure and pacing were mostly fine and there were only a few strange phrases in the sex scenes, i simply did not find it particularly memorable. we have for sure read worse during this project.

i wish the local love interest did not go by Gard, short for Gardner. is it a stupid old money new york name? sure. is it hard to take the book seriously? yes.

i also found it amusing that radclyffe does not follow her own novel-writing rule outlined in this very meta novel: rarely if ever does a scene open close to the heart of a chapter.

the secret our dear gard is hiding kind of fizzles out in the literal last ten pages. i think she should have had a better or more interesting secret instead of one that could be comfortably resolved through a singular therapy session. i also feel that this teetered on will-they-won't-they-let-each-other-through-a-hardened-outer-shell a little bit too long, and the breakthrough was perhaps not as cathartic as i would have liked. this excerpt, nearly halfway through the book, they are still not together. while it's very funny to watch them seethe in poorly concealed jealousy, i am tapping my watch. do something.

i cannot immediately find the weird wording that threw me a little during the sex scenes. the sex scenes are kind of widely scattered.

i think the thing that annoys me most about this book is that there's no real benefit for either of them in this relationship. jenna has broken down from not eating or sleeping well on a national book tour, not because she's psychically suffering from not letting see her feelings she keeps in a tightly locked box. there's no real benefit for gard either, who is lonely but not cripplingly so. it starts off as a casual-only thing and then both of them (and me) are startled they catch real feelings.

there are some gestures made toward It's Nice To Have Another Woman Around In Case of Physical Injuries Due To Mishap but i would have loved to see more of how gard was won over by being taken care of. gard princess carries jenna into her vet clinic bc of a fucked up ankle and jenna is annoyed, flustered, and doubly annoyed she's flustered.

i think this one was so forgettable bc i genuinely had trouble remembering what the conflict (if any) was. both of them are stable adults with real jobs and other friends. inheriting a farm in vermont doesn't really add any new or exciting problems for either of them. neither of them are very spontaneous and neither can manic pixie dream girl the other out of her shell, and when they finally do emotionally let their walls down it doesn't feel very organic.

the like technical putting words one after another is there, this is her zillionth book and everyone has dialogue that sounds like things real people would say out loud with their mouths and everyone's physical actions map onto my real-world understanding of how bodies in 3D space work. this one did not grab me.

-

this week's gay and/or lesbian romance and/or erotica

title drops in this book: 3.

Heart on Fire is a 167p softcover published in 1996 by our old friend Naiad Press. a slightly water-damaged paperback i felt okay dragging down to the gulf when i was dragged down to the gulf last weekend for my health. this was Diana Simmonds' first solo book and first fiction book, and a lot of older lesbians seem to have a great deal of fondness for it. while i was trying to find any press or interviews, most of the hits were from other lesbian authors citing her as an inspiration. naiad really banked a lot on it being the hit novel of their publishing season and were sure it would eclipse their previous bestseller from nearly a decade ago, Katherine Forrest's Curious Wine. i don't own a paper copy but have placed a libby hold so we will make a detour from physical books in the near future.

overall, a rare book where the third act breakup does actually make a lot of sense: being the partner of a globetrotting traveling musician would put a strain on any relationship whether you choose to stay on the road or wait at home. however! it really did stick the landing! and for that i can forgive it a great deal! the sort of not quite reality of their respective third act depression sojourns and then the incredibly sensory descriptions of the finale concert…very good. very nineties movie about a musician ending if that makes any sense.

while i think the structure is fine, i think the actual craft of the narrative is more variable. we'll go into the style in the next paragraph, but part of the dedication goes "to CCC, without whom it would be full of people thinking to themselves." i wish CCC had dialed their feedback back a little bc i would have loved some more interiority, particularly from jody. i must commend our stuck-in-one-place half of the couple, grace, who makes SUCH fascinating decisions. the traveling musician jody looks like she could be the sister of her abusive ex-husband, grace's brief rebound from jody is her goddamn college advisor… bonkers. what ARE you doing???

stylistically, it feels like sitting on the patio of a lesbian bar for three hours and listening to a friend telling you a very long story about how two absent friends you don't know got together with a lot of elaborations and asides. i occasionally found this style tiresome. there are some charming turns of phrase, like "She wrote the address of the roadhouse on the package, sealed it with a kiss, said "What the hell," to neutralize the sentimental gesture, and dropped it into the mailbox." i also cackled out loud at "I don't know, I-- I really really want you, so much, and I am not very good at being cool about it." did nearly tear up at this paragraph:

some things have aged a little strangely since 1996. grace is briefly forcibly kissed by a very drunk bandmate before jody rescues her, but there are further instances of someone not immediately stopping a kiss or an embrace or what have you when someone else says no, that i think could not be written in a modern day romance novel. there are some very frank discussions of marital abuse right after a literally soul-healing sex scene.

this is a book that could never be rewritten as a straight romance with light serial numbers filed off. no one is in physical danger just because they're gay, but there's a lot of internal homophobia and readjustment on grace's part, and overall people are fairly accepting in theory but not always in practice. jody outs herself to the aussie press, and early on/right after her bus breaks down, grace and her mother discuss this news and her mother tells her off for being prejudiced, but connives to throw them together to distract grace from her recent divorce. her mother is then is very sad about the thought of her daughter who would have a very difficult life as a publicly out lesbian, and I can’t really blame her, but it’s such a switch from the vehement Fix Your Heart Or Die!!! discussion in the second chapter. there are some fraught familial reactions to grace's bisexuality-- her mom basically bullies her dad into remembering he loves his daughter-- but they all do come around.

this was fine and a good beach read, i'm not sure that i'll ever reread it. almost forgot about the sex. i think the current fashion for queer romance novels is not quite as purple, but the whole book is like this and i must respect an author's full commitment in this manner. here are some sex examples on non-consecutive pages.

-

did not finish, or finished with severe annoyance

i have become a libby power user in my old age bc texas is remarkably free with its library cards. i don't THINK i'm meant to have five of them but there seems to be no law against it and no one's told me to fuck off? this is good bc i have (at the moment) 44 holds and 56 "notify me if any of my libraries purchase this book" books tagged.

the flipside of being willing to give anything vaguely intriguing a try is that most books aren't very good or they aren't quite what i want. i will DNF anything, anytime, for no good reason. i know that statistically most novels are debut novels but i am so fucking tired of reading debut novels.

Hammajang Luck, by Makana Yamamoto, debut novel published last month. comps include ocean's 8, blade runner, and gideon the ninth. much as i love a heist novel, a heist is extremely ambitious for a debut and i didn't quite vibe with the style. i DNF'd at around the end of chapter seven, it has a very strange issue where we get from location to location pretty snappily but overexplain setting and clothing too much within individual scenes. i think it wants to be a screenplay a little too bad. a great deal of the dialogue is hawaiian pidgin (what the author grew up speaking). very much a me problem, i didn't have any experience with this language coming into this book and it was hard to turn off the kneejerk "this is racist and making fun of black people" response i had. again, very much a me problem.

Yamamoto uses Hawaiian pidgin—“an amalgamation of Hawaiian, English, Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese”—in much of the novel’s dialogue, particularly between Edie and their crew members. It is the “primary language” spoken on Kepler and speaks to the kinship between the characters. However, the decision to include pidgin occurred by happenstance. When writing the first line of dialogue between Edie and Cy, fellow crew member and friend, “it just came out in pidgin spontaneously”. Yamamoto “tried to rewrite it in standard English”, but it “sounded wrong”. Notably, the pidgin and Hawaiian words in the novel are not italicised or translated, nor does the novel include a glossary of terms. Yamamoto felt that these practices were “othering” and so asks the reader to do the work.

i think this is a reasonable thing to ask a reader, and i think i might have to take a crack at it some other time.

The Rainfall Market, by You Yeong-Gwang, a debut novel from last year freshly translated from Korean. a young woman wins a lottery ticket to enter the Rainfall Market on the first day of the rainy season, where she can completely change her life. DNF at two chapters. this seems to be generally marketed as general fiction (which is what my library had it under) but it feels very middle-grade, both as far as sentence structure and vocabulary and the general maturity-- the protagonist is about to graduate high school but her concerns and goals feel more like she's about twelve. not sure if it's an unfortunate series of translation and marketing decisions? rough!

Water Moon, by Samantha Sotto Yambao, the author's fifth book and published last month. the premise of this book is so charming: liminal-space pawnshop where you can exchange your regrets for tea, woman taking this family business over from her father, physicist who stumbles in, oh no! the physicist is playing the scully to her mulder but does not have a physicist Vibe. i think he’s too personable and not tiresome and mansplainy enough to be a particle physicist. he's too nice. she falls in love with him near-instantly. DNF partly because i have never met a particle physicist i could stand to be around for more than fifteen minutes, mostly a DNF bc at about a quarter of the way through this very slow to start book, when the girl turned to the boy after they fell through a pond into a perfect recreation of a edo-era tokyo street and said "this is the other world, you can call it isekai" i did not throw my elderly ailing phone across the room and i did not get up and stomp around bc phil was on my lap but i did vehemently return the library ebook thirteen days early.

Lucky Red, Claudia Cravens, a debut novel published summer 2023. this thoroughly fucking annoyed me. published by the literary group that also ran...basically a budget MFA? they called it a "novel generator in 12 months", they have since closed, and i cannot find how much AI was involved. i do not think this book was marketed well:

A thrilling, raucous, and gloriously queer debut about a scrappy orphan bent on making her own luck in the American West—and finding friendship, romance, and her true calling along the way, now in paperback.

this book is about an older teen in 1877 dodge city who turns to survival sex work. terrible thing after terrible thing happens to this girl whenever she makes a connection outside living just in her own head and for what? it felt like the author was setting up to deliver some moral lesson or theme other than "never question your boss" but never quite followed through. it felt like the author was punishing the protagonist for being a whore even though that’s the book the author chose to write and the author can't quite decide if it's empowering or not. again, it's very strange to read a book where the protagonist is punished for almost every decision she makes and very few parts of sex work are idealized, but then she turns to the camera and reassures the reader with a chipper "but it wasn't all bad!". i wish the protagonist got to mature or grow as a character a little more. i think this could have used more time in the oven and an ending that doesn't feel like a very ill-earned end of every american western ever. thank fucking god this is a real ensemble cast and not found family or i would be much more impatient with this book than i already am.

good at getting me to finish a book bc it's very effective at hustling you from chapter to chapter. great technical skill on that front. bad at any sort of emotional throughline.

things i DNF'd after less than two chapters

Thornfruit by Felicia Davin, published in 2018 and her seventh or eighth book. i am a little annoyed bc this was on hold for over two months but i really do appreciate the AO3-style list of tags and warnings in the front bc now i know there is stuff in this book that is not for me!

Passing Strange, by Ellen Klages, a 2017 novella and her...twentieth? work. a prolific woman. urban fantasy gay historical fiction of 1940s magical san francisco. while i do love a magical painting, i did not have it in me this week to read about a woman struggling with her legacy in the face of a terminal diagnosis.

Nevernight, Jay Kristoff, 2016 first book of a trilogy and his third trilogy overall. he keeps fucking getting me with fun vampire premises but he's very much in the same bucket as paolo bacigalupi in my brain. far more brutal and visceral things happen than you really are prepared for. do not love an opening chapter with disassociation to a past sexual assault in the middle of an assassination, as movie-crisp as the match shot transitions from present day to disassociation were.

plus a nice half dozen varied romances im not going to individually name, bc the last time i seriously used the "tag for later" feature in libby was the summer of 2019 and my tastes have changed. for example i rarely put myself through heterosexual vampire romance books these days.

-

yeah these were all right

Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett, his first full novel in 1929 after literally dozens of shorts and novellas. this detective noir was like watching a car crash. brutal little book. im positive this is not the earliest example of turning both ends of a town against the middle for your own profit, but it was the one cited for yojimbo so its the one that gets brought up a lot. i think the cast is slightly too large for what hammett is trying to do. sometimes reading noir as something woman-shaped feels like an elaborate act of self-harm.

Unnatural Magic, by CM Waggoner, a debut novel from late 2019. thoroughly charmed by this one! one of the most well thought out country/species/religion/immigration systems and how any and all of those can impact any one specific wizard’s magic. it's like a beautiful clockwork orrery ticking along in the background. very prachett-esque approach to troll gender. the baddie is Not doing good things but the ultimate motivations are really understandable! I get why that happened even if it was a really bad reaction! a line i keep turning over in my head is "worry like a third person in the room." i have put their second book on hold on the strength of this one.

The Firebird’s Tale, Anya Ow, a debut novel from 2016. charming retelling of the fairytale element of a royal having to marry the one who makes him smile. the lead up to and the third act separation itself were kind of stupid, and felt like it wanted to be a duology but wrapped up very fast. has a lot of thoughts about choice and putting the end of things to bed quietly and with dignity on your own terms. also has a lot of thoughts about meanings of stories. the non-magical and non-immortal half of the couple is a possessive prince who falls so hard so fast and is mad about it. they fuck so many times while thinking "well surely this doesn’t mean anything, we're just married for the convenience". they're both so dryly exasperated.

-

there's an additional hardboiled noir that was fun but i have nothing particular to say about, and a stack of physical comics from a new library that i mostly hated, but we are almost at the image limit and it is 1030 PM. i can't see why we wouldn't be back to the usual format next week but no promises bc there are no rules

[ryin-silverfish]

How does Nezha being soulless work in fsyy? Does that mean he cannot reincarnate anymore? And if he is soulless because his lotus body is not made of flesh and blood, does that mean that yaoguai who start as inanimate objects are also soulless?

On a plot level: it just means he's immune to soul-based attacks and works as a "lol, your gimmick doesn't work" card.

Nothing is said about reincarnation, but since he attained "Sagehood in Flesh" at the end of the novel, it is implied that he is free from (natural) life and death in the same way the average immortal is.

The last question is, well, a bit complicated. As I've quoted before in my Lingzhuzi answer, FSYY does seem to imply that "blood and essence" is intimately connected with having a soul.

However, since the sentence is only used to describe Nezha, one can argue that Lingzhuzi might just be a special case, and there's almost nothing said about the souls of inanimate object yaoguais in-story.

Which brings us to...

The original Ming printed edition of FSYY has a slightly different list of names in Chapter 99, which doesn't include the yaoguai characters who appeared on the Investiture in the later common version.

(There are also a bunch of discrepancies that suggests the list might be inherited from an older, now lost version, where most yaoguais are not considered valid candidate for the Investiture.)

However, if you are using the list in the common version, then Lady Shiji, an inanimate object (rock) yaoguai, is very much deified as a stellar official.

And for people who get Investiture'd, their souls are described as drifting into the Investiture Terrace after death, which would imply that, for books that use the common version list, inanimate object yaoguais do have a soul or some posthumous essence that can be deified.

I guess my answer is still "It's up to your HC." Yeah, sounds like a copout, but hear me out.

Most classic vernacular novels aren't written by a single author, nor are they interested in "realistic worldbuilding" the same way modern fiction is.

For Shenmo novels specifically, the author-compiler is usually stitching a bunch of preceding works in the same story cycle, cultivation terminology, and folk religion iconography + tales together into a 100-chapter story.

So, when they put a gimmick into the story, such as Lotus Body = Soulless or Nezha being the incarnation of a treasure, they aren't really interested in whether that gimmick applies to similar beings, or lore implications about the wider world of the novel.

It just means that anyone using soul-based sorceries take the L when up against Nezha in a "Battle of the Daoist Arts" scene, and possible inspiration taken from a Daoist deity's iconography.

To us modern readers, who are used to stories created by a single author and consistency within the world-as-written, it's very tempting to want logical explanations and more "worldbuilding stuff" (which's what fanfics are for!).

However, reading the novels on its own terms kinda requires us to put these impulses aside for a sec, and thinks about whether this weird thing 1) can be traced to an earlier source in the story cycle/historical records, 2) reflects the world and culture it is written in, and 3) carries meaning other than literal ones.

Hope the rambling doesn't bore you too much.

[vee1021]

Moots, please, I need to re-read something soon. These are my options, and the main con

[eighthdoctor]

Book Review 13/36

It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn

So my therapist assigned this as homework; I put it on hold but only received it right as we went on a 3 week hiatus. I may update this review after our next session.

As it is, though, I am deeply unimpressed. Early in the book I sent to my wife, "the problem with pop psych books is that the line between “complete hooey MLM cult nonsense” and “legitimate peer reviewed approach” is astonishingly thin".

This book is option 1--mostly. The idea is that trauma can be inherited, that the things our ancestors lived through can be passed down to us. So far, so normal. But the mechanics of that, as currently known, are fairly blunt (if genetic) or limited to 1-2 generations (if behavioral*).

The research Wolynn sites backs this up, but most of the book is not about research. Most of the book is about how, uh, trauma can be passed along almost any family line; if your parents weren't traumatized but you have a mental health issue, clearly the problem is your uncles/grandparents/cousins/more distant ancestors! The mechanism by which an uncle can transfer trauma to a nibling is not explored.

The problem, of course, is that the narratives we tell ourselves about trauma are incredibly powerful. He's right that a huge factor in PTSD developing is the memories not being properly integrated, and god knows family trauma is a thing, but like...Everything after that point is just bull.

*Puts an asterisk and then forgets about it. I don't think there's enough rabid arguing discussion about how many of the effects of transgenerational trauma can be straight psychology/behavioral changes (ie, living through a famine will make you weird about food, and you will instill weirdness about food in your children). This does not require any fancy biology or morphic resonance, it's just...Learning theory.

1/5