rayanneisreading

[rayanneisreading]

Jacks will have to make Evangeline fall in love with him again. Honestly shouldn’t be a problem, he’s done it twice already. Apollo’s a fool with no game lol he’s going to get embarrassed

[rayanneisreading]

YALL GO TO FAE CRATE RN AND GET A HANGOVER RECOVERY KIT. I JUST ORDERED MINE AND OH MY GOD LOOK AT THE DUST JACKETS

LOOK AT THE ACFTL ONE

THEYRE TIED WITH A. RED. THREAD.

DO YOU SEE THIS SHIT???

[rayanneisreading]

it's very interesting because jacks is evangeline's favorite fate. he was also her first crush, the archer from her favorite story. she also finds him very attractive and even with him showing his worst side to her, she fell in love. i can only imagine how she will react to this guy trying to win her heart. by the way, it's so cute how she loves everything connected to him. 🥹❤️

[rayanneisreading]

New release date🥹

I’m glad Stephanie is taking the time she needs to write the best ending to the series that she can, and if that means another month to make things as perfect as they can be, I’m okay with that! I’d rather that than a rushed final product (especially when it’s a book for Evajacks endgame).

The original release date was perfect for me though because it would’ve still been during my uni holidays, but the new release date is mid-term when I’ll be working 9-5 every weekday :’). Slightly depressed I won’t be able to binge the whole series one book after the other like I wanted to but whatever it takes for evajacks.

How is everyone else feeling?

[rayanneisreading]

The fact that Jacks lost who he thought was his true love to someone else once, and will now think he’s going to lose the woman he actually loves to someone else again haunts me everyday.

And the fact that Evangeline, after reading the letter she wrote to herself without her memories, will probably support Apollo wanting to kill Jacks, because she read in her own words, that she hopes “Jacks gets what he deserves” makes me feel even worse.

[rayanneisreading]

i find it so funny how evangeline in every paragraph says “jacks is so dangerous, he’s a killer and a manipulator” and then right after that she’s saying “he looks like an angel 🥰 look at these dimples! and this golden hair and these blue eyes. and what if i touched him and his soft hair and his marble skin?” clearly representing the whole fandom that sees jacks injuring all human rights and say “he looks beautiful doing that, right? look at that baby!”

[rayanneisreading]

A Curse for True Love Second POV

Heads up, I think this is going to be long lol.

So we have confirmation now that Jacks is getting a few chapters in his POV.

I feel like these will be toward the end, since Stephanie only recently mentioned adding them, and she’s currently at the tail end of writing the first draft). STILL THEORISING ON WHAT KIND OF SCENES THEY COULD BE. 

There’s still that main second POV we haven’t gotten confirmation on, though! I couldn’t find my screenshot of when Stephanie first announced it on her story, but I do know that EVERYONE’S first assumption was Apollo.

But shortly after, Stephanie posted another story saying that the second POV wasn’t as obvious as she thought it was, and that she hadn’t seen many people guessing it. I don’t know about you, but I think I saw EVERYBODY guessing Apollo. 

SO HERE’S MY THEORY.

I really don’t think an Apollo POV makes sense narratively. 

1. Apollo’s POV would give too much away — we didn’t know he had the power to take memories before he did it, and I think his POV would tell us too quickly who he really is (though I have a theory). 

AND about his past with Jacks.

Screenshot taken from @jackstheprinceofhearts because we didn’t have this edition in the UK :’).

I think this is something that would be more fun to discover, narratively, through Eva’s perspective, as she unravels the mystery of what really happened to her.

2. Apollo is our villain.

He’s keeping Evangeline and Jacks apart in this book. What’s the fun in knowing everything the villain will be scheming? I feel like a villain needs to stay unpredictable to surprise us (much like Jacks in the Caraval trilogy).

3. Our no.1 POV will be from Evangeline’s perspective...but she doesn’t REMEMBER the events of the last two books.

Presumably, she’ll be stuck in the palace with Apollo. It wouldn’t make sense for Apollo to be the second POV here either, because he has no real idea about what happened too (I mean, he was cursed in various ways the entire time). AND he’s in exactly the same place as her, offering us no fresh angle on the story. HE will see everything Evangeline will see, and there’d be no NEED for his POV when she can share everything that goes on in the palace. 

What we need is an outside perspective of what’s happening, someone who has known Evangeline for the last two books, AND wants her to get her memories back. 

It’s not Jacks. And from the blurb, we know Apollo wants to kill Jacks and keep them apart so Eva doesn’t find out what she lost. Jacks will probably be kept away from Evangeline for at least the first 1/4 of the book.

So, to me, that means the second POV has to be someone who can show us Jacks’ side of things, without it being Jacks himself. Most importantly, at the end of Ballad, Jacks was READY to give up Evangeline. 

So we need to see the process that leads to him fighting for her again instead. 

Without a second POV OUTSIDE of the palace (i.e., not Apollo), we probably wouldn’t be able to see Jacks at all for a good chunk of the book, and I doubt Stephanie wants that. 

So my guess is LaLa. 

Mostly because she’s a good plot device. She’s on the opposite side to Apollo, she’s friends with Evangeline, will want her to get her memories back, AND (mostly importantly) she’s friends with Jacks.

Chaos seems like he’d take too much attention away from the main plot to me. We don’t really know much about him, so I think FINDING out things about him would distract too much from Jacks and Evangeline. He seems like the perfect candidate for his own series tbh. His role reminds me a lot of Jacks in Caraval (and he seems like the kind of LI Stephanie would love to write — she loves vampires, after all).

Jacks would also NOT go to Chaos if he was in trouble, especially as we know he’ll be harbouring a grudge after what Chaos did to Eva in the other timeline. And an even greater one, if the blood on the arch means Chaos attacked JACKS instead the second time.

But we know Jacks goes to LaLa when he’s in trouble. 

This is when the after-effects of the vampire venom leave him nearly passing out in the street.

So he might ALSO go to her if he were injured by Chaos.

As well as this, LaLa already has a romance built into the plot, with her dragon shifter, Dane. Who would have been released from the arch at the end of Ballad.

So her side plot as a POV character could only be REUNITING with Dane. I don’t think that would take much away from Evangeline and Jacks, as this is a pre-established romance that needs no build up. As opposed to the attention Chaos would steal. In fact, if she turns human again, seeing as the only reason she became a Fate was because she wanted to stop loving Dane — that would only make her all the more motivated to see Jacks happy too. They were friends as humans, after all. 

Don’t forget, Jacks also just gave up what he sees as his only chance at ‘happily ever after’ by using the stones to save Evangeline, instead of going back to Tella. He not only just watched her die, but he can’t even have her now he’s saved her, because he’s afraid HE’LL kill her. He will need someone to motivate him again.

I think LaLa will be the one to realise something is wrong with Evangeline and that she’s in danger, spurring Jacks to action. 

Maybe LaLa will want to thank Evangeline for opening the arch and giving her back Dane. But will realise her friend doesn’t remember her at all.

This way, we’re not starting from ground 0 again, with only Evangeline’s POV, and the relationship development between her and Jacks completely erased. If we only had Evangeline and Apollo’s POV, not knowing ANY of the prior plot, the whole book could’ve turned into a stream of “who’s this”, “wait, what happened?”.

If we have LaLa, we can see Jacks suffer. We can see how he will REALLY react to learning she’s forgotten him. We can see how cocky he is to Evangeline’s face (his whole “you can’t stay away from me” shtick), with it then skipping to LaLa’s POV where Jacks is crying into his apple cores. Y’know. That sounds a lot more fun to me than an Apollo POV. 

AND just because it’s dual POV doesn’t mean they’ll be equally weighted dual POVs. The fact Jacks also has a few chapters just reinforces this for me. I think Evangeline will take precedent, and the second POV could be more of a plot device to build up to an EvaJacks reunion, showing us the situation from both sides. 

AND we know there will be more scenes in the Hollow. 

So maybe Evangeline will realise there’s something wrong with Apollo and run away with Jacks to find a solution?? Maybe I should write my theories for the actual plot in another post because this is getting LONG, BUT —

I don’t think the second POV is Apollo!

[rayanneisreading]

Just thinking about how every time Jacks’ heartbeat was mentioned in Caraval with Tella, it was always “slower than a normal heartbeat” or “sluggish”, but whenever it’s mentioned in Ballad with Evangeline (which is CONSTANTLY), it’s always racing or pounding.

[rayanneisreading]

Happy Evajacks headcanons

A little something while we all suffer waiting for A curse for true love

-Lots of Forehead Kisses since Jacks is a lot taller than Eva

-Jacks learns to braid her hair after watching her do it

-After he turns human Jacks tries to avoid apples but loves Eva's various apple deserts

-He teaches her to swim in The Hollows lake of stars (Possibly leading to sexy times :)

-Princess Fluffkins (The Fox from Ouabh) likes to make random visits whenever Eva and Jacks are outside

-Eva tries and fails many times to convince Jacks to re dye his hair blue (She finds it hilarious but he most certainly is not amused)

-Jacks is a late night snacker, Eva often finds him eating some kind of apple related his in the middle of the night

-They don't fight often but when they do it lasts hours (They always make up in the end, Eva Can't stay mad at him for long and he hates upsetting her)

-Cuddle sessions all over The Hollow

-They go for a walk each morning in the woods around The Hollow and tell each other stories

-They take all their baths together (Wink Wink), the only problem is they can never decide on the temperature of the water (Eva likes warm while Jacks like water "The heat of the sun" in Eva's words)

-Washing each others hair in the bath (Eva has a very specific routine while Jacks just loves having his hair touched for as long as possible)

-Jacks brushes out her hair every night before they go to bed

-Eva sleeps in nightgowns (Except for Jacks shirts when she wants to rile him up) Jacks sleeps in just his underwear (He's been trying to convince Eva to let him sleep naked but she refuses)

-Eva sleeps on the left side of the bed and Jacks on the right but he hogs the middle

-Neither of them snore but Eva's a blanket hog and Jacks steals half the bed in his sleep

-Jacks always wakes first, he stays in bed and simply watches his beautiful wife rest (Hoping she's dreaming of him)

-When Eva wakes up the first thing she does is tell Jacks he looks handsome smiling (She knows he's only smiling because of her)

-They Kiss and lie in bed together before having breakfast

-It takes many years of being married to convince Jacks they should have children (His argument being he could lose her in childbirth and him not wanting their children to turn out like him)

-Eva wins in the end

-It takes months for them to concieve (This worry Jacks as he thinks there's something wrong with him)

-He's overbearingly protective already but once they find out that they're having a baby he goes over the end (Much to Eva's frustration and slight enjoyment)

-Even though he's human he still had some of his Fate powers, he could still sense others heartbeats (He finds out Eva's pregnant before she even knew because of this, he cries quite a bit after his discovery)

-Jacks has no interest in naming the baby knowing his wife will choose the perfect name (If it was a boy she wanted to name him after Jacks, this was the only name he refused)

Hope you guys enjoy these, I'll probably make another part sometime in the future that might contain a bit more angst :)

[rayanneisreading]

Also Tella word vomiting about every horrible thing he ever did, Evangeline’s growing alarm when it gets to how he gave her a heart attack, and Jacks slowly sinking lower and lower in his chair in the corner because Eva is most definitely going to rip him a new one when they’re alone again

The only thing i am looking forward to next year is tella and evajacks interaction.

Tella would be like "evangeline he manipulated you, he can control emotions, his kiss is deadly!"

And eva would smirk and look and jacks and think 'dont i know that' and jacks would just stand there all smug

[rayanneisreading]

I just need Tella and Jacks to meet again so she can call him out on this

Jacks you f*cking hypocrite

[rayanneisreading]

tbona spoilers

she is going to I just know it but I'm still stressed

[rayanneisreading]

TIME TO CRY BECAUSE THE LETTER SHE WROTE TO HERSELF, TELLING HERSELF NOT TO TRUST JACKS, IS AT THE TOP GOODNIGHT

[rayanneisreading]

This literally devastated me thanks

major tbona spoilers

I found this tbona fanart by palinline and... 😭😭

go support the artist! link is above just click on the name of the artist <3

[rayanneisreading]

Jacks’ Greatest Heartbreak

**TBONA SPOILERS**

Everyone remembers the Prince of Hearts’ church is supposed to smell like someone’s greatest heartbreak, right? Evangeline smelled apples and blood — what we know is Jacks.

“She’d read that the Prince of Hearts’s church held a different aroma for everyone who visited. It was supposed to smell like a person’s greatest heartbreak. But as Evangeline entered the cool cathedral, the air did not remind her of Luc — there was no hints of suede or vetiver. The dim mouth of the church was slightly sweet and metallic: apples and blood.”

Well, I was thinking about this passing comment Jacks made in OUABH, when he was infected with vampire venom.

“How good is your sense of smell?” she asked.

Jacks’s nostrils flared again. “You smell like fear and—”

Something unreadable flickered across his face.

I’d say he’d be pretty aware of what his greatest heartbreak was supposed to smell like. And I have to wonder if he recognised the smell, similar to how Evangeline would recognise apples and blood.

We all know what it must have ended up being :’).

“The girl was dead. If her lifeless body had not confirmed it, then it would have been made clear by the horrible scream of the Fate who held her in his arms.”

[rayanneisreading]

ⓘ this user loves evajacks

[rayanneisreading]

Anyone else find it a little suspicious that Elantine’s Most Wanted is the place that puts Tella in contact with Jacks (after she’s told to write to the shop by other people) and the shop just so happens to be owned by Evangeline’s father?

In fact, Eva’s parents have quite a lot of connections to the story and to Jacks himself. At the very least, they knew a lot about how the story was going to unfold and seemed to be organising things in the background. I might be missing some things since I’ve only read the Caraval series once about a year ago, but here’s some things I can remember (SPOILERS under the cut):

The Wanted shop knew about Tella’s mother, and they knew Jacks well enough to put Tella in contact with him and begin the entire story between Tella and Jacks that eventually led him to Eva. The shop even knew Jacks well enough to warn Tella about the danger of his deals.

Eva’s father was convinced that he needed to remarry immediately, choosing a bride that was such a bad match for him that it’s almost as if he married her specifically, for another reason. Given that Marisol is the reason Eva met Jacks in the first place, maybe this was another case of her father forcing the stars to align? Not to mention he then promptly died 6 months later, leading Evangeline to comment that it’s almost like he knew something was going to happen to him.

Her mother made sure she had the Archer and the Fox ingrained into her from a young age (she even embroidered little foxes onto dresses so that Eva was constantly surrounded by the imagery) which is an oddly specific choice of book to focus on considering Eva ends up meeting the Archer and falling in love with him - who also just so happens to be the guy that her father’s shop(s) was in contact with. Given that Eva’s mother is from the north, it’s possible that she could know that Jacks is the Archer if she was well connected enough.

Eva’s dad also owned the tailor’s shop that dressed Tella on behalf of Jacks; where the staff also seemed to know Jacks really well. Which makes multiple connections between Jacks and Evangeline’s parents.