#and find solace in that. waugh

[lesbianpegbar]

aughhh. augh

[justforbooks]

A farce, for heaven’s sake! Everyone knows farce is dead.” When a character says these lines on page eight of Janice Hallett’s latest whodunnit, The Christmas Appeal, we can practically see the author tipping us an outsized wink. Hallett, after all, is one of today’s foremost exponents of cerebral, knowing crime. A swift 180 pages later, Hallett has slain another victim and shown that farce was never really dead in the first place. Literary murder – especially the cosy sort – has always been comic. The real mystery is: why is it so popular now?

Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series, in which laughs, foibles and irony figure far more prominently than bloody murder, has topped the charts for four years running. The Crime Writers’ Association has just launched a new Whodunnit Dagger to honour the year’s best cosy, classic or quirky mystery. This Christmas, production company Mammoth Screen will bring us its latest Agatha Christie for BBC One, a reworking of Murder Is Easy that, like its predecessor Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, plays up the love and laughs – moving away from the grittier cynicism of its earlier adaptations.

But then, this is the production company that made Blandings – based on the PG Wodehouse Blandings Castle stories – and Agatha Raisin. The latter, an affectionate rendering of MC Beaton’s none-more-cosy crime capers, is a reminder that the genre has always been popular. Trace it back from SJ Bennett, whose sleuth of choice is Queen Elizabeth II, and Hallett, through Beaton and Simon Brett, with his wisecracking Charles Paris mysteries, and you find an unbroken link to the golden age of comic crime.

Christie herself wrote laughs aplenty, especially when it came to Poirot; her contemporary and fellow queen of crime, Ngaio Marsh, excelled at badinage. GK Chesterton’s Father Brown stories, written in the early 20th century, have a profound and gentle humour – or not so gentle in the barbed parody The Absence of Mr Glass, which pokes fun at Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle also made space for jokes amid the pea-soupers and arch villainy, not just in surreal escapades such as The Red-Headed League, but in the everyday interactions of Holmes and Watson. And there are links between the generations: as a producer on Radio 4’s classic adaptation of Dorothy L Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey series, Brett revisited the pinnacle of comic crime from the 1920s and 30s.

In Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited, the aristocratic Catholic family at its centre turns in times of crisis, not to sermons, but to Father Brown stories. Read aloud by the matriarch, the scene is at once absurd, touching and completely understandable. Part of the solace stems from the benign humour of the tales, and that explains why comic crime is resurgent today – amid planetary and economic crises, that promise of escapism is more beguiling than ever. Especially at this time of year. From Hercule Poirot’s Christmas to PD James’s Mistletoe Murders, authors as well as readers have been drawn to fatal festivities.

We’re all familiar with gallows humour, the need to find laughter in the grimmest places. Yet the appeal of truly comic crime is less about professional detectives doing a grisly job than dilettantes playing a game. Literature has few laughing policemen, but an awful lot of quipping amateurs. Even Marsh gave her best one-liners not to handsome Inspector Alleyn but to her Watson figure, the journalist Nigel Bathgate.

Games, puzzles and mysteries are by definition playful. And it’s not just the sleuths who are playing. Reader is always pitted against author in a test of wits – can we solve the crime before the detective? Like every game, there are clear rules: detective author Ronald Knox set out his not entirely serious 10 commandments of fair play in 1929. This is what makes these stories such perfect escapism today: readers can lose themselves in the contest. Every true whodunnit is a work of metafiction, as the reader flits in and out of the story, constantly trying to estimate the author’s intelligence or honesty in setting trails and leaving clues.

For my money, today’s greatest exponent of playful detective fiction is Alex Pavesi, whose Eight Detectives is a gloriously original, intricate and often very funny series of practical jokes played on the reader. Dann McDorman’s new novel, West Heart Kill, as tricksy as they come, uses a jigsaw puzzle as cover art, while the cover of my own Helle & Death tips its hat to Cluedo. This playfulness puts us in the right mood, but the classic whodunnit has other weapons, many of which it shares with farce: plots like clockwork, exquisite choreography and perfect timing. Sayers’s Peter Wimsey has been called “Bertie Wooster with Jeeves’s brain”.

The most important comic quality of both murder mystery and farce, however, is the meticulous arranging of cause, effect and misunderstanding. The detection of a murderer involves paying minute attention to what people say and do. The reader is given privileged access into the lives of others, replete with dramatic irony and a degree of omniscience. And what could possibly be funnier than the everyday idiosyncrasies of human beings?

The Christmas Appeal is packed with hypocrites and exhibitionists. Mrs Ruddle, in Sayers’s Busman’s Honeymoon, is a world-class gossip. As for the sleuths themselves, from Holmes, to Poirot, to Torben Helle, the more seriously they take themselves, the sillier they become. Snoop on anyone for long enough, and their habits, sayings, priorities start to become hilarious.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[masked-and-doomed]

So you want to talk about your ocs? Speak about UG. I demand /pos /hj (please talk about her she's so silly :3)

Waugh!! I do have a big post planned for her that I need to get the art done of, so for this, I'll talk about relationships of her to other chars !! (f.unger 1) :] (I hope this isn't that ooc for them Augh they haven't fully wrapped around my head yet..)

D'a.rce

UG loves her and wants to try and sway her over le'ga.rde. She knows it won't happen, but she definitely wants D'a.rce to get attached to her and the other party members so she has other people she can find solace in after le'g.arde's betrayal and him leaving her. D'.arce is protective of her and is worried for her well being. She does realise she can manage quite well on her own, but she doesn't want the burden of responsibility on such a young girl. D'ar.ce finds her quite strange and rude, sometimes pointing out her unladyness, but she gets over it soon enough.

C.ahara

UG loves Caha.ra and tends to joke around more with him. She makes sure to hand over every valuable item or money she finds to him, for his quest to get money out of the dungeon. He, like D'.arce, is worried for her. He won't exactly voice out his concerns but they both get his caution. Ca.hara also jokes more to her, them both using the humour of their situation to lighten the mood. Though, unlike him, UG actually finds the situation humourous. Penis monsters. Hah.

Rag.nvaldr

UG loves Rag, she sometimes consume the enemies too, offering him some of the remains. He reluctantly takes it and feasts with her, somewhat concerned that she is enthusiastic about devouring the carcasses of the monsters. Rag thinks she's cocky but can understand her skill shining through this dungeon. He likes her, not necessarily as outwardly protective. More so sees her as an ally in battle with her proficiency in murder. Still sees her as a kid, but doesn't worry too much.

En.ki

UG's most loved out of the 4 main adventurers. She tries to one up him and sticks her head in his business a lot. She loves annoying him. And it's not like he can kill her either, she's somehow more advanced in magic than him, pulling spells he hasn't even heard of. How ego crushing. Enk.i acknowledges her skill but only barely respects it considering how annoying she is. He's learned to tolerate her antics. He won't admit that he likes her a bit too. >:)

The Girl

UG and Girl are besties forever! With their shared experience of being doomed they find understanding in one another a lot. UG is the one that teaches her how to fight the most out of the cast, her praising the Girl at every time she helps a kill. The Girl finds comfort in UG's presence, despite how loud she can be. When reaching the tower of the endless and defeating Skin Granny, UG makes sure to get The Girl as comfortable as possible, with her having hard times with sleeping. The Girl feels. Quite safe around her.

Mo.onless

UG loves doggy ! She pampers Moon.less a lot and gives her all the scratches!! Belly rubs!! She's the one most keen on feeding Moonl.ess and handling the maggot infested rotten meat, to be gently taken out of UG's hand and to be scarfed down by the dog. Moo.nless likes her all the same as the others, she'll definitely remember UG's enthusiasm and scent. (wink wink nudge nudge Prehevil)

Le'ga.rde

UG loves Le'garde. (She fucking loves everyone, can you tell?) Not taking him seriously, since she knows about his 'grand plan to ascend' and stuff had been left up to the chances of these 4 saving him. Stupid man. Upon finding him, she jumps to treat his wounds and pats him on the head, in a mocking tone, congratulates him for making this far. Le'.garde can more or less tolerate her, but might consider being alone with Rag rather than being alone with her. He's more focused on his plan. He's quite suspicious of her, as she seems a little eager to follow along to Ma'habre...

Nas'hrah

UG likes Nas'hrah. Hah, first like. Maybe could be love, but Nas'hrah insults her quite a bit that she's taking it a little bit to heart. Not much, but she's getting tired of most of his words being mean ones. She's not sure why she finds Enk.i's annoyance towards her more endearing than Nas'.hrah's. (maybe cause of Enk.i's long hair) She entertains him with his quips often. Nas'hrah more or less dislikes her. Sure, he doesn't like anyone, but her constant energy and stupidity annoys him quite more than the others could manage. He finds some respect in her skill, but she's far too irritating for him to ever say anything good about it.

Pocketkitty

^ UG has mental illness so she uhh is like flip floppy between these about him. Him in return, well.. I'll.. leave you to guess that. He. Loves her, let's say. :) I wanna make a fic/comic of it soon, of their first meeting. She caught Pocketkitty a little off guard. ;)

[theophagism]

this is gonna sound so weird but drop some book recs

please, i love giving book recs! here are a few of my favs in no particular order w/ their Goodreads summary 

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

A stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.

Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.

honestly my favorite book. i can’t recommend it enough. it inspired my username and my blog title both here and on my other tumblr accounts. i’m planning on getting a few tattoos based on it as well. 

tw: sexual abuse, disassociation

Night Sky With Exit Wounds By Ocean Vuong

Collection of Vuong’s poetry

tw: internalized/externalized homophobia, poetic violence, the aftermaths of war/immigration  

The River King by Alice Hoffman

People tend to stay in their place in the town of Haddan. The students at the prestigious prep school don't mix with locals. Even within the school, hierarchy rules as freshman and faculty members find out where they fit in and what is expected of them. But when a body is found in the river behind the school, a local policeman will walk into this enclosed world and upset it entirely. A story of surface appearances and the truths submerged below.

so so so so beautiful and heart wrenching. i read it in sixth grade and have kept my copy ever since and haven’t stopped thinking about it. similar to The Secret History and If We Were Villians.

tw: self-harm, suicidal ideation, brutal murder

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last - inexorably - into evil. 

in my top five favorite book and one of my most reread. my copy is covered in notes and ramblings.

tw: murder, alcohol and drug abuse

If We Were Villians by M.L. Rio

Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago. As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.

it took me a bit to fall into but it’s really good. similar to The Secret History

tw: murder

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war. Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out. When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

A wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

The story of a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Through the story of Charles Ryder's entanglement with the Flytes, a great Catholic family, Evelyn Waugh charts the passing of the privileged world he knew in his own youth and vividly recalls the sensuous pleasures denied him by wartime austerities. At once romantic, sensuous, comic, and somber, Brideshead Revisited transcends Waugh's early satiric explorations and reveals him to be an elegiac, lyrical novelist of the utmost feeling and lucidity.

tw: sad ending, alcoholism

Crush by Richard Siken

Collection of Siken’s poetry

tw: internalized/externalized homophobia, poetic violence

The Likeness by Tana French

Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin Murder Squad with no plans to go back—until an urgent telephone call summons her to a grisly crime scene. The victim looks exactly like Cassie and carries ID identifying herself as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie once used as an undercover cop. Cassie must discover not only who killed this girl, but, more important, who was this girl?

it is part of a sort of series but it isn’t necessary to read the other books, though they’re great. I also recommend Broken Harbour from that series. similar to The Secret History.

tw: murder, one brief scene of homophobia by a main character’s family

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave. In Entangled Life, the biologist Merlin Sheldrake shows us the world from a fungal point of view. Sheldrake's exploration takes us from yeast to psychedelics, to the fungi that range for miles underground and are the largest organisms on the planet, to those that link plants together in complex networks known as the "Wood Wide Web," to those that infiltrate and manipulate insect bodies with devastating precision.

tw: will make you stare at the mushrooms at the grocery store for an ungodly amount of time

[welcometoitalia]

Films set in Venice: Brideshead Revisited (2008)

Brideshead Revisited (2008)

A dissolute aristocrat finds solace and refuge in Venice, before embracing the darker side of the city, in Julian Jarrold’s adaptation of the novel by Evelyn Waugh. This typical Venetian tale is told with class and wit in Jarrold’s film, as the middle class Charles Ryder travels to Venice with his aristocratic friend Sebastian Flyte, played by Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw. Newfound freedom is followed by deep betrayal in the city. Waugh’s story of lost youth and disappointed expectations has been adapted several times, perhaps most successfully by Granada Television in 1981, and this most recent film adaptation is a more ostentatious take on Waugh’s tale of decadence and failed dreams.

[billdecker]

2018.

 Here we are with the films list again. Bold = watched first time. 

Films.

The English Patient

The BFG

Anna Karenina [1967]

King Kong [2005]

54

Henry VIII and his Six Wives [1972]

The Disaster Artist

Napoleon Dynamite

The Addams Family

Kong: Skull Island

Justice League

The Addams Family Values

Johnny English

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Wayne’s World

Lady Bird

Westworld

Carol

Green Lantern 

England is Mine

Rush Hour

Pride and Prejudice [2005]

Call Me By Your Name

The Greatest Showman

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Dante’s Peak

Only Lovers Left Alive

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Blade Runner

Moonrise Kingdom

Clue

Get Smart

Darkest Hour

Blade Runner 2049

Lost in Translation

The Talented Mr. Ripley

The Lego Movie

Anchorman

The Shape of Water

Get Out

San Andreas

The Beguiled

Lady Chatterley’s Lover [1981]

Interview With a Vampire

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Song to Song

Atonement

La La Land

Drop Dead Fred

Attack the Block

Another Mother’s Son

I, Tonya

The Sense of an Ending

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Cold Mountain

Step Up

The Founder

The Fugitive

The Promise

Papadopoulos and Sons

Rob Roy

The Florida Project

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

Head in the Clouds

Crooked House

Miami Vice [2006]

Miss Sloane

Molly’s Game

Battle of the Sexes

Half of a Yellow Sun

A Quiet Passion

Lady Jane

Anne of a Thousand Days

Mars Attacks!

Zoolander

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Nina

Pele: Birth of a Legend

2001: A Space Odyssey

A Futile and Stupid Gesture 

The Mask

Phantom Thread

Black Panther

Eyes Wide Shut

The Death of Stalin

Baywatch

Paddington 2

Wonder Woman

Star Trek [2009]

Star Trek Into Darkness

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Star Trek Beyond

Denial

Chariots of Fire

Captain America: The First Avenger

Iron Man

The Incredible Hulk

Borg vs McEnroe

Iron Man 2

Thor

Avengers Assemble

Iron Man 3

Thor: The Dark World

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2

Ant-Man

Captain America: Civil War 

Doctor Strange

Spider-Man: Homecoming

Thor: Ragnarok

War Horse

God’s Own Country

In Bruges

The Big Sick

The Towering Inferno

Magnolia

Our Souls at Night 

Dog Day Afternoon

Willow

Roman Holiday

Sabrina

Annihilation 

North by Northwest

The Emoji Movie

Coco

Grease

Dirty Dancing

Captain Fantastic

The Wicker Man

This is Spinal Tap

Magic Mike XXL

Come Sunday

The Dark Tower

Bill

Avengers: Infinity War

Loving Vincent

Mansfield Park

Three Men and a Little Lady

Oliver!

Rough Night

Avatar

One Last Dance

Girls Trip

Alex and the List

The Dambusters

The Mummy [2017]

London

The Damned United

The Wedding Video

Deadpool

Enter the Dragon

Atomic Blonde

The Red Shoes

The Great Gatsby [2013]

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut

Morris: A Life With Bells On

Boss Baby

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Kenny

All About Eve

Lethal Weapon

Lethal Weapon 2

Final Portrait

The Little Mermaid

The Huntsman: Winter’s War

Men in Black 3

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

Tomb Raider [2018]

Crocodile Dundee

Jabberwocky

Legend

Lethal Weapon 3

The Witches

Down With Love

Clash of the Titans [1981]

Clash of the Titans [2010]

I Give it a Year

Terminal

Where the Wild Things Are

The Handmaiden

The Muppet Movie [1979]

Brakes

Ready Player One

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

A Wrinkle in Time

Breathe

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Eagle vs Shark

Farenheit 451 [2018]

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Mission Impossible

Mission Impossible II

Mission Impossible III

The Saint [2017]

JFK

Ocean’s 8

Deadpool 2

Falling Down

Duck Butter

Peter Rabbit

44 Inch Chest

You Instead

The Deep Blue Sea

Not Another Happy Ending

Punch Drunk Love

The Fast and The Furious

2 Fast 2 Furious

The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift

Fast & Furious

Fast Five

Fast & Furious 6

Furious 7

The Fate of the Furious

Geostorm

Ant-Man and the Wasp

Escape to Victory

Porcupine Lake

The Snowman

The Incredibles

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Daphne

Ingrid Goes West

One Day

My Neighbor Totoro

There Will Be Blood

Rampage

Goodbye Christopher Robin

Incredibles 2

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

Belle de Jour

Mission Impossible - Fallout

The Spy Who Dumped Me 

The Meg

Little Ashes

Meet Joe Black

The King of Comedy

Jason and the Argonauts

Flash Gordon

Odette

Strictly Ballroom

Into the Woods

Cars 3

The Book of Life

Murder on the Orient Express [2017]

Kath & Kimderella

Madame Bovary

X-Men: First Class

X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: Apocalypse

All the Money in the World

Quincy

The Post

Becoming Bond

Early Man

Little Women [1994]

Dangerous Liaisons

The Party

Operation Finale 

Nappily Ever After

What’s New Pussycat?

Saved!

A Star is Born [1976]

Modern Life is Rubbish

Jaws

The Mercy

Swept from the Sea

Permission

Venom

A Star is Born [2018]

Far and Away

Heat

Jane Eyre

Braveheart

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool

Juliet, Naked

First Man

Christopher Robin

Vincent and Theo

Pollock

Bohemian Rhapsody

One More Time With Feeling

Interlude in Prague

The Mask of Zorro

The Legend of Zorro 

You, Me, and Him

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms 

Crazy Rich Asians

Bobby [2016]

Outlaw King

Space Jam

They Shall Not Grow Old

The Grinch [2018]

The Big Lebowski 

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Mulan

The Battle of the River Plate

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead

My Generation

Batman Begins

Being John Malkovich

Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone

Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows - Part One

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows - Part Two

Widows

Immortal Beloved

Basquiat 

Goya’s Ghosts

The Madness of King George

Charade

Star Wars: A New Hope

Stars Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Stars Wars: Attack of the Clones

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Star Wars: Rogue One

The Polar Express

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Dr. No

From Russia With Love 

Goldfinger

Thunderball

You Only Live Twice

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Diamonds Are Forever

Live and Let Die

The Man With the Golden Gun

The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

A View to a Kill

The Living Daylights

Licence to Kill

Goldeneye

Tomorrow Never Dies

The World is Not Enough 

Die Another Day 

Casino Royale

Quantum of Solace

Skyfall

Spectre

Superbob

Greenfingers

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle

A Christmas Prince

Aquaman

Love, Cecil

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding

The Man Who Invented Christmas

Copying Beethoven

The Party’s Just Beginning 

Point Break

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

The Sound of Music

The Muppet Christmas Carol

The Muppets

Cars 2

The Holiday

A Bad Moms Christmas

The Holiday Calendar

The Christmas Chronicles

Nativity

Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger

Arthur Christmas

Bobby Robson: More Than a Manager

Zootropolis

Mary Poppins

The Good Dinosaur

Trolls

Rise of the Guardians

Bros: After the Screaming Stops

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years

Get Carter [1971]

Bottle Rocket

Turbo

Closer

Nothing Like a Dame

Bolt

Make Us Dream

Die Hard

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Porridge

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Books.

A Book For Her - Bridget Christie

Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie

Bright Star - John Keats

The Oberon Book of Comic Monologues for Women - Katy Wix

The Oberon Book of Comic Monologues for Women: Volume 2 - Katy Wix

Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut

Division Street - Helen Mort

The Victorian Guide to Sex - Fern Riddell

A Woman’s Work - Harriet Harman

Help - Simon Amstell

The Princess Diarist - Carrie Fisher

Selected Poems - Sylvia Plath

Ariel - Sylvia Plath

The ‘If You Prefer a Milder Comedian Please Ask For One’ EP - Stewart Lee

The Rachel Papers - Martin Amis

Parker Pyne Investigates - Agatha Christie

Bone - Yrsa Daley-Ward

Pages For You - Sylvia Brownrigg

The Sun and Her Flowers - Rupi Kaur

Different for Girls: A Girl’s Own True-Life Adventures in Pop - Louise Wener

A Single Man - Christopher Isherwood

A Room of One’s Own - Virginia Woolf

Repeal the 8th - Una Mullally

Why Not Socialism? - G.A. Cohen

The Chaos of Longing - K.Y. Robinson

High-Rise - J.G. Ballard

Animal Farm - George Orwell

Fully Coherent Plan - David Shrigley

The Lesser Bohemians - Eimear McBride

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 - Sue Townsend

Hera Lindsay Bird - Hera Lindsay Bird

Submarine - Joe Dunthorne

In the Penal Colony - Franz Kafka

Babette’s Feast - Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) 

The Expelled - Samuel Beckett

Youth - Joseph Conrad

The Life of Rylan - Rylan Clark-Neal

Autumn - Ali Smith

The Cornet-Player Who Betrayed Ireland - Frank O’Connor

Two Gallants - James Joyce

Teaching my Mother How to Give Birth - Warsan Shire

Selected Poems - Edgar Allan Poe

Casino Royale - Ian Fleming

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

The Door in the Wall - H.G Wells

Terra Incognita - Vladimir Nabokov

Dirty Pretty Things - Michael Faudet

Women  & Power: A Manifesto - Mary Beard

Dear Illusion - Kingsley Amis

Bitter Sweet Love - Michael Faudet

Smoke & Mirrors - Michael Faudet

Girl Meets Boy - Ali Smith

Pre-Raphaelites - Heather Birchall

Conspiracy - Charlotte Greig

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

Sex and Rage - Eve Babitz

Scoop - Evelyn Waugh

The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh - edited by Mark Roskill

Role Models - John Waters

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

How Not To Be a Boy - Robert Webb

Animal - Sara Pascoe

Absolute Pandemonium - Brian Blessed

Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh

A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness

A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters - Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters

Normal People - Sally Rooney

Feminists Don’t Wear Pink - Scarlet Curtis and Others. 

Parsnips, Buttered - Joe Lycett

The Humans - Matt Haig

The Machine Stops - E.M. Forster

Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott

Poems for a World Gone to Shit - Various

[sadlittlenerdking]

to love, to die

The Magicians, Quentin and Eliot.

Chapter 1 of 3 

Word count: 2,183 of ? 

Summary: Eliot lives through his loss.

You can also read it on ao3

The first time Eliot Waugh sees Quentin Coldwater, it feels like a bucket of ice waters been dropped over his head. It's almost as if his life resets itself, readying itself and settling in on this moment as his rebirth.

Quentin is nerdy and self conscious, and Eliot can see it in the first breath he takes when he steps onto the Brakebills property, stumbling out of the bushes like a lost little nerdy lamb. He feels an almost immediate overwhelming urge to take care of him. But he stands, leaning up against the Brakebills entrance, raising an eyebrow at Quentin as he slowly makes his way towards him, mesmerized by the disappearance of the shitty New York alleyway, and the appearance of an illuminous, enormous school.

When they're just a few feet away from one another, Eliot takes a step forward and smiles at him. "Quentin Coldwater?" He asks, and as Quentins eyes wrinkle in the beginning of a smile, something warm nuzzles it's way down Eliots back. He forces himself not to react as Quentin nods and says, "I'm Eliot. Magic is real. Follow me." And then he turns and makes his way across the grass towards the examination room.

Later, as he leaves Quentin behind for the test, his mind makes a small wish, just as the doors close and Quentin disappears from view;

Please don't fail this test.

Margo asks him what his problem is when he returns to the cottage, dazed and confused. He shakes her off, and sits down in the window seat and stares off into the distance. She leaves him alone after a bit, off in search of somebody that could actually entertain her.

He finds Quentin, later, likes he's drawn to him, and he doesn't know how it happens, but Quentin, and reluctantly his friend Julia, become part of the fold that has only had room for himself and Margo all these years. And the weirdest part, is they fit. Margo finds them amusing, even Julia, who can be a bit intense and scary.

Somehow, he and Quentin grow closer. Quentin is so painfully straight, in love with Alice, and so blatantly uninterested, that it should make Eliot forget about his little crush and move on. But he can't, because when Quentin smiles the whole room lights up, and Eliot drinks a little less, just so he can remember that smile when he wakes up.

But then Alice brings the beast with her obsession with her brothers death.

And Quentin dies.

*

The second time Eliot Waugh sees Quentin Coldwater for the first time, his heart stops, like it knows something he doesn't.

Quentin stumbles through the thrush of the trees and stares up at him in wondrous amazement, and with the sun hitting him the way it is, all golden and soft, his hair caramel and glistening - honestly how the fuck is it even possible for someone to be so alarmingly pretty - Eliots pretty sure he falls in love at first sight. Not that he'll admit it, because this strange, beautiful, man is walking towards him and he has a messenger bag overloaded with books, and he's slumping slightly to the side. And he is so blatantly straight, Eliot wants to slap himself.

But still; when Quentin and his shiny hair stop in front of him, mouth open in silent amazement, Eliots heart skips a fucking beat as he stutters the name that he'd practiced for at least thirty minutes so that he'd sound sophisticated and intimidating for his first year. Instead he sounds lost and excited, and this is so not the impression he's going for. Margo will never let him live this down if she finds out.

But Quentin smiles this big, confused grinned and asks where he is, and Eliot gets lost in his wonder. "Brakebills," he says after a beat, setting his shoulders and flicking his cigarette with a small spell to exterminate the butt, "Magic is real, you have magic, etc, etc. I'm Eliot, your illustrious guide," he takes a small bow and smirks as Quentin smiles, "Let's go."

"Where?"

Eliot hesitates, but then looks right into those pretty eyes and asks, "Does it matter?" Maybe it's a test, maybe he already knows the answer.

Quentin stares at him for a beat and then shakes his head. "Magic is real."

"It is."

He motions in the direction Eliot had started in, "then lead the way."

Even it isn't the test, Eliot thinks as he leads him towards the exam, Quentin passed this test without even trying.

He tells Margo about him when he gets back to the cottage and she smiles so wide he feels like he's set a cat loose on an itty bitty bird. Even more so when she somehow gets it out of him that Quentin makes him feels all kinds of shakey and nervous. Naturally, she pulls him to the exam center, and together they wait for Quentin to appear.

When he does, there's a pretty brunette they later learn is Julia - his life long best friend - hanging off his arm.

They don't like Julia, but even Margo seems to fall a little bit in love with Quentin, so they tolerate her When they introduce Quentin to their little group. Quentins in love with her, Eliot can see it in he way he watches her, and praises her when she masters a new spell.

Then the beast kills Julia and Quentin breaks. He loses his glow and Eliot can't get him to smile. And the last months of their lives, Eliot falls harder and deeper, even as Quentin grows harder to reach.

In his last breath, he finally sees a light behind Quentins eyes, just as the Beast reaches for his throat. Quentin is unaware of the beast, his eyes are locked on Eliot. There's something unspoken in them, that if they weren't about to die, would leave Eliot with questions, that he wouldn't dare leave unanswered. But they don't have time, they don't have any life left, because  just as the beast latches on, Eliots hand reaches out, but he can't move, can barely breathe.

Eliot dies just moments after Quentins body falls to the ground. And he doesn't know it, couldn't possibly, but the beast disappears and Quentin crawls across the floor, and reaches for Eliots outstretched hand.

And that's how they die the second time.

*

The third, fourth and fifth time are all almost exactly the same, except there's no Alice in the fifth. Quentin still loves Julia, but he's a little more open to what's out there because Julia loves her fiancé.

Eliot and Quentin sleep with one another each of these times, and Quentin refuses to talk about it in the morning. Margo pushes Quentin and Julia away, each and every time, won't tell them why, but before any of them knows what's happened, Eliot and Quentin can barely call one another friends.

Eliot does what he's always sworn he'd never do - he pines. Even through the murder and mayhem, even through Julia's death that leaves Quentin with nobody but Penny and Todd - fucking Todd - Eliot pines, staying far away.

One day, though, there's an unspoken truce. In the library in the neitherlands.

Eliot finds him sobbing in one of the aisles, broken down and crushed, and he sits down next to him, grabbing onto one of those soft, calloused hands and pulling it into his own lap. His thumb strokes over the knuckles, and they sit there, silent.

At some point, Quentin stops crying and he looks up at Eliot, and it appears as if  he has something he wants to say, but the librarian appears and she exclaims in shock, "No books on the floor!" And they clammer to pick them up hastily, lest they be banished with Penny.

When they leave the library with what they think is an answer, the beast is waiting for him. It kills Margo and Kady first, then turns to Quentin, and there's a bizarre familiarity in the way he moves towards him.

Eliot screams Quentins name, but the Beast reaches in and rips out his heart. The "No," rips out of Eliots chest in such an intense wave each time, he feels as if it alone tears his shade from his body. But then the Beast turns towards him, an unknown mercy, and slits his throat.

He collapses to the ground, and gazes into Quentins unseeing eyes until he bleeds out.

*

The sixth and seventh times are different. A tall brunette woman emerges from the woods, and smiles bright like she's known about Brakebills her entire life. Except she hasn't, because Eliot can see the confusion and wonder behind her eyes. He sees it in every first year, or potential first year.

There is, however, something familiar about her that tugs at him. He pushes it aside, but even so, whatever it is, it's enough to will him into bringing her to the cottage after the test. To slowly work Margo into accepting this woman into their group.

Her names Julia. She talks a lot. But mostly about a friend from before; Quentin. She can't believe he isn't a part of this, that he doesn't have magic. She wants to tell him everything. She knows she can't, and Eliot comforts her, doesn't know what he's doing, but he's drunk, and she's soft, so he lets her lean on him for hours at a time.

She has a familiar scent that comforts him, even though it fades the longer she stays at Brakebills.

One night, she bursts into his room and pulls him from his bed. He asks her what the hell shes doing but all she says is, "It's Quentin." And he's never met the mysterious Quentin, but something about his name has him magicking on a pair of shoes and following Julia in her insanity.

Somehow Quentin is more than he expected, and less all at once.

Eliots breath hitches the first time he sees him. He can't tell if it's because of the dark circles under his eyes, or the way he looks a little lost and broken, yet still this ethereal being that lights the entire room around him.

He's been having dreams. Crushing dreams about Fillory, but Fillory isn't real, except it is.

He has depression, too, which alone should make Eliot want to run in the exact opposite direction because he's fucked up enough on his own, but instead all he wants is to make Quentin, in all of his nerdy, fucked up glory, smile.

The beast comes, Julia nearly dies. Margo does die. Eliot takes solace in Quentin, and Quentin buries himself in Eliot. They share their pain, and use this to make them stronger. Think it makes them strong enough to defeat the Beast.

They die separately this time. Penny takes Quentin to Fillory alone, and comes back covered in blood, breathless and shaking. And he turns to Eliot, jaw open and eyes filled with terror, and Eliot knows without him having to say anything.

Penny and Kady catch him just as his knees give out from beneath him.

In one version, he overdoses on alcohol and drugs and misses the final battle. In the other, he goes to the beast ready and willing for death. In both, the loss of both Margo and Quentin is enough to break him.

*

The eighth time Eliot Waugh sees Quentin Coldwater is a fleeting glance as a monster crashes through the wards and snaps his neck.

*

The ninth and tenth times are beautiful agony. Because Eliot Waugh and Quentin Coldwater fall in love. Margo, usually against real relationships, loves Quentin, and is the main force that brings them together.

In one life they get to say goodbye, in the other Quentin watches Eliot die through a magicked mirror. Margo holds him, refuses to watch the beast. But the beast knows they're watching, and he makes Eliots death last.

And just as the final blow comes, Eliot hears the beast say, "Quentin Coldwater," like he knows him, like he's memorizing the name and the way it feels on his lips. Like he knows something the rest of them don't.

But then everything goes black, and he can almost hear Quentins scream.

*

Eliot Waugh has better things to do in the eleventh reincarnation. He has a test to study for, first years to intimidate, and Margo is in dire need of a shopping excursion. Except he's been forced to welcome a new student who is late. Jamie Lawrence, the stupid white card says.

He stands, arms crossed and staring angrily at the place he'd set for Jamie's entrance.

Jamie doesn't even pass the test.

This time around, Eliot and Margo never even hear the name Quentin.

Something feels missing every day until time resets.