#Emelan

[alwaysfrowningslightly]

If people are sad about The Wizard Facism game coming from someone you used to look up to and admire, may I suggest an author whose books are filled with nuanced characters and strong, dynamic women?

Tamora Pierce has been writing since the 80’s and has two worlds of magic and fantasy and bonus!!! Isn’t a transphobic POS.

[ace-artemis-fanartist]

Briar Moss.

[minuiko]

Weekend sketchdump of various Emelan/Tortall scenes via discord requests! It's been a blast :)

[unfavorableinstigation]

Bless Tamora Pierce for making 'mast buildup' a childhood terror for so many of us. The Bermuda Triangle and quicksand may not have held up, but by god the mast buildup retains its relevance.

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Victor Vale- Vicious by VE Schwab

August Landry- One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

Daja Kisubo- The Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce

Neil Josten- All for the Game by Nora Sakavic

[lyndentree63]

Forever sad for the people in North America who didn't get the poetic titles for The Circle of Magic Quartet The Magic in the Weaving The Power in the Storm The Fire in the Forging The Healing in the Vine I remember moving to Canada, going to the library and shrieking internally when it was just "Sandry's Book" etc.

[motherofmabari]

[ladylingua]

so not to stick myself into places where it’s not my business, reading between the lines from press releases and website announcements and patreons, etc about her health and how she’s doing

I think Tammy is getting to a point where fans should perhaps consider transitioning themselves from expectations to just appreciation,

of course I want more books and updates…but more importantly I want Tammy to be well and to not burn herself out. Rather she take all the time she needs and guard her health than go to appearances or churn out new content and I have no doubt many other fans feel the same way, I hope she knows that.

[tourneys-by-me]

Round Two - Ferromancy (metals) 2/8

[checkoutmybookshelf]

No lie is detected. Just pick up a Tamora Pierce book.

[junipernoon]

I recently binged the Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce! I'm pretty happy with my interpretation of the characters (I feel like I could have made Tris fatter, but still better than that one cover, you know LOL), anyway Briar is the most trans, and Sandry is a Wasian.

Let me know how you picture the characters in the notes!

ID in alt

[relatableblorbopoll]

Round 1 of preliminaries, group 18

The first two places get a place on the bracket

Little reminder: there will be 2 more rounds of preliminaries, the losing blorbos of this poll still have 2 chances of getting in the official bracket

Propaganda under the cut

Tobias (Animorphs)

"his mom left him and hes at least a little transcoded and also hes a bird for the rest of his life"

Isaac O'Connor (Paranatural)

"he's like me but specifically when i was thirteen which should tell you all you need to know about both me and him. emotional wreck of a lad who feels excluded from his friend group no matter what. drew a gjinka of a fruit bowl in art class. canonically a fan of hatsune miku. will apparently be eaten by a cat in the future and survive."

Trisana Chandler / Tris (Emelan book series)

"Grumpy girl just wants to be left alone with her books but oops she actually has such a big heart with so much love in it. Always annoyed about having to put down her book to help her friends or save a bunch of innocents. Also she's got trauma out the wazoo, her family didn't want her and she was always bullied for her weight, and then at like age ten she has to kill a bunch of people and live with THAT trauma."

Sokka (Avatar: The Last Air Bender)

"I also like meat, sarcasm, and boomerangs. On a more serious note, he's the only one out of his group of friends for the longest time without special powers (relatable when you're friends with super talented people), he really likes organization and charts (same), and he completely fumbles his first attempt at public speaking (painful, but same). We're also both just a little bit goofy."

Haruhi Fujioka (Ouran Highschool Hostclub)

"She gets into a rich kid school and immediately goes into debt. Constantly annoyed by rich kid problems (including but not limited to: buying them instant coffee instead of expensive ground coffee). She’s supportive but doesn’t let them walk all over her. The whole show revolves around everyone thinking she’s actually a boy just because she has short hair and wears the boys uniform instead of the girls one— and that’s relatable because i wouldn’t want to wear the girls uniform either it’s not great"

Shinji Ikari (Evangelion)

"THE LAST 2 EPISODES OF THE SERIES??? holy shit I've never actually related to some fictional character so much. his self image, attitude, emotions, decisions, relationships, etc; he's just. me. that's not even funny. also thank god this thing is anonymous i would've delete my blog outa shame"

[franticvampirereads]

Another two for one book review! Being snowed/iced in has been good for one thing at least 😅

Daja’s Book:

This was such a good book! And I’m gonna be a broken record here but, it still holds up. It’s one of the best middle grade books that I’ve read. I loved getting more of Daja and seeing how she interacted with her fellow Traders. I loved the growth that she and the rest of the kids had. Both in their magic and in their relationships with their teachers and each other. I just really loved this! It’s getting four and a half stars.

Briar’s Book:

This was the book I was most worried about rereading in this series. Mostly because I thought it would be triggering given that it’s about a pandemic. But it wasn’t. Or at least it wasn’t for me. In fact it was almost comforting in a way? I appreciated Briar’s willingness to jump into caring for the sick, his helplessness and anger when things were out of his control, and his determination to find a cure. This is might be my favorite book in this series. Briar’s Book is getting five stars.

Reading Challenge Prompt Fills:

Alphabet challenge: D

Alphabet challenge: B

[whimsicallywiddershins]

My best guesses on which cultures/countries Tamora Pierce bases her places and peoples off of. Obviously these aren't perfect copies, but more of where the idea may have come from.

Tortall is definitely Europe. Knights, castles, European names like John and George, ect. Easy.

Bazhir Desert: this one is trickier. Very likely based on Arab deserts or the Sahara and the peoples who live there. It's very ambiguous, just a basic desert culture, not a ton of world building here, but it's been a long time since I've read the Lioness books.

Galla and Scanra: I believe these are both based off Northern countries, with Scanra definitely based on Viking culture. Galla is less so, more like Lithuania or Poland, but neither is Russia. We will get to Russia in a bit.

Sairen and K'miri: Definitely Mongolia and steppe people and place.

Roof of the World: Tibet

Carthak: Egypt. Definitely based on ancient Egypt. Crocodiles, hyenas, lots of gold and darker skinned people. Old, powerful and center of learning.

Yamani Islands: Japan. I don't need to elaborate.

Copper Isles: This one I think is a bit of a mix of Indonesia and Hawaii.

Now, for Circle of Magic! (aka the fun and interesting culture and worldbuilding)

Emelan and the Pebbled Sea: Definitely Mediterranean, but I'm not sure which. My best guess is a sorta Turkey/Persian influence. It's not as obvious as Tortall. I believe the Chandlers and Tris are from a more Italian culture, probably from a country up North, but close enough to border Emelan and making travel easy. The whole merchant family thing made me think of Italy.

Traders: Likely based of Roma/Romani people. Trading caravans and largely persecuted. Not an exact copy, but similar.

Namorn: Russia! Definitely Russia. Large empire, very cold, far north and uses vaguely Russian terms. Powerful and not to be messed with.

Tharios: This one was tricky and fascinating. Probably ancient Greece, but I believe there were some other influences. The world building was massive as the plot directly involved the culture of the city. We also view the city from the scholarly but judgemental eyes of Tris.

Chammur: My best guess is India. Briar is more concerned with gangs and Evy so he doesn't really let us see the city as well. But India seems like a fair bet.

Yanjing: China. No needed discussion here lol.

Gyongxe: I'm guessing Tibet, again. The Roof of the World was way too quick, so Im glad Tamora re-visited this culture in a better way. Who knows, the Shang Dragon was very Chinese inspired, maybe Alanna did travel that far and missed Briar, Rosethorn and Evy by a few years! I'm still firm in the belief that all the books are in the same world.

If you agree or disagree with my picks, feel free to comment and propose your own theories! Or if I missed a country.