#dark nest trilogy

[yubsie]

This is your periodic reminder that there was a Legends novel where the B plot was Han, Luke and Leia watching the prequels on Artoo.

This was in fact that good plotline of that trilogy.

The A plot was Jedi bug sex orgies.

[jacentenelka]

“I think my suitors have had enough time to plot your d e a t h .” “I’m glad I could bring them t o g e t h e r .”

                                    Dark Nest: The Joiner King

  Our IG account was disabled for a reason we’re unsure of/weren’t told so we had to start a new one. If you were following us over there (thank you, first of all! :D) you can now find us on IG here!

  It’s sad because we made a lot of SWEU friends over there and now all the people we were following and all the posts we made are just gone. :( Anyways, we’ll be starting over on IG and if you’re a fan of Jacen Solo and Tenel Ka we’d love to see you over there! 

  We’ll be working on some new pieces (photos, gifs, etc.) for this project soon! We’re in the middle of moving places at the moment (for real, not just IG accounts, hehe) so we’ll be back with new stuff in the near future! Thank you! <333

[darkladylumiya]

Troy Denning really was like “what if bug pheremones mind controlled some 20-somethings” and made that a whole-ass trilogy

[incorrectstarwarslegendsquotes]

you are not alone. there's bugs.

Jaina Solo, The Dark Nest Trilogy

[miraluking-respectfully]

I wanted my next longpost about DNT to focus on what this book reveals wrt the process of Joining. Instead, I accidentally went on a rant in the Discord server about the Killiks as a people during this particular era of galactic history in-universe, and by extension, Raynar Thul.

Raynar Thul, aka UnuThul, is a Joiner of Unu of some significance who I've put off explaining because when I entered the book, I knew about him and I considered his presence abhorrent. I've since gotten over some of those feelings, but I'm better off copy-pasting my Discord Rant than to try and summarize here.

Spoilers for The Joiner King below, but don't worry about that too much, as I'm kind of reading this book so you don't have to.

Call me Bug Walker.

*bad rimshot*

Begin Copypaste

The trouble with this particular novel is that while it's EXTREMELY juicy with Bug Lore, half of what it reveals about Kind society/culture/biology are New Developments™️ that i'm having to untangle from what could feasibly have been present before, ie, within the SWTOR era. Basically the premise of this book is that the nest has been undergoing some Changes due to the influence of a highly Force-sensitive Joiner, who was then able to extend his will over the nest as a whole. So discovering which is the nasty yucky invasive anthropomorphism introduced into my bugs by this character and which is the acceptable seasoning of anthropomorphism inherent to the development of a fictional intelligent species is not always super cut and dry

Like, the care given to individual casualties is an explicitly new development (makes sense, there aren't a ton of eusocial hive insects IRL that perform triage), but is the spaceport they built? Is the trade they're performing with other species? Is the Colony involving multiple distinct nests sharing a unified hive mind as opposed to a bunch of them? I'm like, not sure

Which is kind of funny, because the idea that the Killiks were a static culture until this One Guy with the right levels of space magic crashed into their planet & exerted his will over them with his last burst of near-death strength Also Really Bothers Me(edited)

"Well, Mads, if you like an aspect of Killiks 2.0, you can just pretend it's always been present in Killiks 1.0!" I don't waaaannaaaa

I want the LEAST anthro version of my bugs!!! I want the version of them BEFORE Raynar Thul got his grubby little mind all over them!

Joiners as a concept are fuckin sick not only because of what the bugs can give to them but for what they can give to the bugs. Joiners aren't Oops! All Hive Mind, they are two minds. Your old personality and memories still exist, but your understanding of the world and your priorities are now one with the Hive. And because I <3 TLT and I'm really big on the permeability of the soul rn, that suggests to me that the character and personality of a hive would change, slowly and surely, depending on the types of Joiners incorporated into it. It would have to. If the hive mind pre-Raynar has no clear source, no clear singular will behind it (disclaimer: IDK if this is true, I have 2.75 more entire book to read), then it could only be shaped and influenced by all its participants, bug and otherwise.

Raynar's existence + influence over the Colony doesn't preclude this possibility, but like. He does raise a question,

that being, could any Forcie have done this under the right circumstances? if not Why not

Like the book hasn't stated it outright but the wiki seemed confident that this guy has been the only Forcie Joiner to get subsumed, and while I don't know if that's a wholly accurate statement bc fucking nobody has read these books, the fact that the books gave the wiki authors that impression BUGS ME (pun intended)

This is the first EU book I've ever read. IDK what kinds of fuckin galactic percentages of Forcies to non-Forcies it's assuming. Obviously the number would be low because this book takes place a point when the Jedi are bouncing back from a painful extinction, but that extinction was recent, it was artificial, and also as we all know well Jedi =/= all Force users and statistically it is buckwild crazy to me that the Killiks would exist for 20,000+ years (the migration Vector mentions was introduced here btw! These are the Kind that left Alderaan, that he was looking for!) and at no point would they have picked up a strong-willed Force-user before this one dude

Now, there IS a confounding factor here. Which is, I imagine any other Forcie Joiners pre-Raynar were not, um. Trying to influence the nest as hard as he was

For starters he's just super duper strong in the Force, but also, he Joined because he crashed into a planet and crawled out of his ship half-dead and super on fire after watching multiple of his friends die horribly, and the will he exerted over the Killiks was a last-ditch effort to get them to save his life as opposed to eating him

that is a SPECIFIC-ASS set of circumstances and maaaybe if such a thing happened again within a different and unrelated nest, the same thing could have happened. Maybe it wasn't the presence of Force abilities that caused this one guy's brain to redirect the flow of the collective mind, but the effort he was putting behind it, effort that previous Force-sensitive Joiners had not found a need to wield

And also, like, UnuThul is 100% a Joiner. He is no more the same guy he was going in than Vector is, this is made clear

Bright side: as I said, I have A TON of this book left to go. And there have been a bunch of really strange happenings within the nest that Raynar in his Dawn-Herald-On-Steroids role seems as baffled by as the rest of the Kind. So maybe the next Big Reveal is gonna blow my ass clean off, slash positive, and make this all sit right with me.

But nonetheless I am bovvered. I am bovvered that a hive mind could develop a person in the drivers' seat for any reason. It feels too easy and it feels too anthropomorphizing, and both of those make it reeeally boring

End Copypaste

[joellesolo]

I just finished The Unifying Force...

I know it’s been like, ten years since SOTJ was cancelled, but I just burst into tears for the millionth time knowing we’ll never get our heroes stories ended properly. I would take the SOTJ trilogy books over the sequel trilogy movies, any fucking day...

😭

[le-trash-prince]

I feel like I’ve been able to read so many speculative fiction wlw books in the past few years that I get a little frustrated when ppl complain that wlw relationships are always sidelined in stories. So I’m just gonna make a list of the ones I’ve completed, for posterity. There are so many interesting books out there and all of these deserve more attention.

To reiterate, this is speculative fiction (sci-if/fantasy) where the primary relationship is wlw.

Ash: Chinese and fae influenced retelling of Cinderella (+Huntress, a prequel)

A Restless Truth: historical magical murder mystery set on a Titanic sister-ship. This is the second book in a series but my favorite so far

Burning Roses: European fairy-tale/Chinese legend mashup featuring older ladies

Cinderella is Dead: YA fairy tale dystopia

Crier’s War: human x android enemies to lovers political intrigue

Even Though I Knew the End: supernatural detective noir, super quick and super fun

Gearbreakers: enemies-to-lovers with mecha

In the Vanisher’s Palace: Viet influenced Beauty and the Beast where the Beast is a dragon lady

Juniper Harvey and the Vanishing Kingdom: middle school age mythological fantasy adventure, I wish I had this growing up

Labyrinth Lost: bruja fantasy underworld adventure

Last to Leave the Room: WFH doppleganger horror + toxic coworkers who hate each other (they really don’t)

Legends and Lattes: Simple and sweet DND inspired cafe AU

Once and Future: King Arthur but in space with ladies. Wish this one had been poly

Roots of Chaos series: high fantasy with dragons and so many queers.

Strictly No Heroics: the struggles of villain henchmen

The Abyss Surrounds us/The Edge of the Abyss: kaiju pirates, enemies to lovers

The Burning Kingdoms Trilogy: desi epic fantasy, enemies to lovers

Spear: Arthurian sapphics

Someone You Can Build a Nest In: shapeshifting monster falls for a monster hunter

The Locked Tomb: wlw necromancers in space. Enemies to ???

The Luminous Dead: spelunking thriller set on another planet—this one is fucky everyone should read it

The Memory Librarian: short stories set in Janelle Monae’s android world

The Mimicking of Known Successes: detective noir set on Jupiter—ex-lovers reunited by circumstance

The Red Scholar’s Wake: space pirates, enemies to lovers, human x spaceship

The Salvation Gambit: con-artists breaking out of a sentient prison-world ship

The Space Between Worlds: inter dimensional corporate exploitation, handler x agent mutual pining, this one is so underappreciated

The Witch and the Vampire: YA vampire x vampire hunter

This is How You Lose the Time War: everyone knows this one

We Set the Dark on Fire: YA Latine political intrigue, school rivals to lovers

If you have any others please add, I’m always looking to grow my reading list

[terapsina]

Let's talk books. Sorted in threes by vibes.

-------

I Support Women's Wrongs (murder, slaughter and body horror galore).

---

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ by Django Wexler - A woman from Earth is dropped into a magical realm, meant to save the Kingdom from the FoRCes of DaRKneSSss... except, unfortunately that might have been a thousand years worth of time loops ago, so it's rather time to lose one's temper and decide to become the Dark Lord herself.

Main character -> basically Deadpool (measured in sanity, humor and levels of bisexual horniness)).

Someone You Can Build a Nest In ⭐⭐⭐⭐ by John Wiswell - Shesheshen, a shapechanging monster who's rudely interrupted during her hibernation by hunters. Manages to to eat one of them, unfortunately she also gets shot by an arrow and falls off a cliff. On the bright side she meets a lovely human woman she might end up falling in love with so much... she'll want to build a nest in her (it's possible there's some Cultural Differences that need to be worked through).

Hench ⭐⭐⭐⭐ by Natalie Zina Walschots - Anna's latest temp job for a villain (because even supervillains need office help) ends with her carelessly injured by a superhero, laid off and with injured mobility for the foreseeable future (because human bodies don't see much difference between getting hit by a truck and getting moved out of way by someone able to pick up a truck). Angry, disillusioned, and looking for some vengeful payback she starts compiling the statistics of exactly how much suffering gets left behind the heroes and in quick order finds a new job working for one of the worst supervillains in the neighborhood.

-------

Extremely Competent Women Show Up to Fix Everyone's Shit (with a whallop of romance which was actually sweet instead of irritating)

---

The Witchwood Knot ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ by Olivia Atwater - Winifred Hall was invited to the Witchwood Manor under the pretense of being the governess for a very bratty kid, but when said boy suddenly turns into a very quiet and perfectly bland boy overnight it's very obvious her charge has been stolen by faeries (and it might have something to do with the actual reason she's there). Rescue however is complicated by some factors, one, there being something terribly dark and wrong about the house (normal houses don't have screaming faces in the walls), another, the faerie man posing as the manor's butler who would very much like to make her run screaming the way so many servants had before her (unfortunately for him, she's not even half as scared of him as she is the eyes of the father of her charge).

This one's about dealing with past trauma, and otherworldly terrors paling in comparison to mundane monsters, set in a very beautiful and dark and shiver-inducing Victorian time world where the Fair Folk are very real.

(Same world as her Regency Faerie Tales trilogy that Started with Half a Soul but it's not necessary to read that one first to enjoy this one)

Keeper of Enchanted Rooms ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ by Charlie N. Holmberg - Merritt Fernsby inherits a house only to be immediately taken hostage by what turns out to be a very stubborn and opinionated magical house. Hulda Larkin of the Boston Institute for the Keeping of Enchanted Rooms goes there to facilitate the relationship between the house and its new owner.

It's supposed to be a very simple job. Unfortunately there's a third POV character in this book (no, not the Whimbrel House, though I adore that house and *insert here the Rosa Diaz gif about her new puppy and how she would kill everyone in this room and then herself if anything were to happen to that dog*). Anyway, they're a bit... uhhh... let's go with Bad News.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ by Heather Fawcett - As one might expect from the title, Emily (a Cambridge scholar) wants to write the first ever encyclopedia of faeries. And she's brilliant enough to do it, what she's terrible at is people (*insert autistic character alert here*).

Someone else might then say it's lucky that a fellow scholar with a far easier time at charming people has stuck his toes in her reaserch trip into the Hidden Ones... that person however doesn't understand how irritating, frustrating and maddening her academic rival Wendell Bambleby actually is.

What follows is a story filled with winter snows, some terrible fae, some adorable fae, some not-very-secret fae, the goodest of good dogs, and lots and lots of squabbling. It's the best.

-------

Dark and Impactful Stories about Children Who Decide on Their Own Paths

---

A Skinful of Shadows ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ by Frances Hardinge - Kate, an orphan and the illegitimate daughter of some stuffy (and evil) aristocrats runs away because being a bastard doesn't mean she didn't inherit the family magic that allows her to get possessed by the dead.

A dead bear ghost is one thing, a Get Out situation is something else entirely.

A Sorceress Comes to Call ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ by T. Kingfisher - Cordelia isn't allowed friends or the privacy of closed doors, and whenever she's done something she shouldn't - a category too unpredictable to guard against - she's not allowed power over her own body.

Because her mother is an evil sorceress (think Regina and Cora... except somehow even worse). An evil sorceress that has found herself a Squire to lure into a marriage.

Hester is an old maid living with her brother, a Squire (well look at them coincidences), when said brother acquires a woman clearly set on his fortune. The plan is only to save her brother, except Hester can't help noticing how the woman's daughter keeps flinching in her mother's presence.

In The Lives of Puppets ⭐⭐⭐⭐ by TJ Klune - A family can be an android inventor, his human son (*homoromantic asexual alert*), a sadistic nurse droid, and a very emotional roomba.

And it can be a very happy family. Until one uncovers and wakes up an android that shares a very Skynet past with one's father, said father gets kidnapped, and one has to go on a journey to get him back.

(A book I like to call Sci-fi Reverse Pinocchio)

-------

Unraveling an Unjust System (and a hero that - on a scale from occasionally to constantly - hears a disembodied voice directly in their heads okay the connection between these three is a bit of a stretch but they're all great books so shut up)

---

Hell for Hire ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ by Rachel Aaron - 5000 years ago Gilgamesh conquered the heavens, enslaved the demons and made it so that the only road to magic humanity had access, was through him.

Now, however a mercenary team made up of free demons gets hired by a Blackwood witch to protect him (and his familiar, the talking cat named Boston) while he puts down roots (literally) inside the new forest grove he's about to start so that he can stand up against the warlocks after him.

The witch quickly becomes the best client Bex and her crew have ever had (after all, warlocks under the rule of the Eternal King Gilgamesh are slavers of their kind, they are delighted at the chance to kill some).

Vespertine ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ by Margaret Rogerson - In a world where the veil between the living and the dead has been kinda broken Artemisia (*another autistic character alert*) is training to be a Gray Sister (magic nun).

Until her convent gets attacked by possessed soldiers and she has no choice but to pick up a Saint's Relic containing a malevolent revenant to protect it.

Problem. Only a Vespertine is supposed to do it. Another problem. The only one "alive" who can teach her to be a Vespertine is the revenant. Another another problem. The revenant cannot be trusted and if she loses control to it, the death toll will be counted in cities.

Terminal Alliance ⭐⭐⭐⭐¾ by Jim C. Hines - Post Zombie Apocalypse, where some aliens showed up, sort of cured the zombies and took the (mostly) cured zombies into their military.

Which leads us to Marion Adamopoulos, also known as Mops, the Leutenant in charge of Shipboard Hygene and Sanitation of the Earth Mercenary Corps Ship Pufferfish.

Right up until a bioweapon turns the entire crew except her crew back into zombies. Congratulations, she's the captain now.

(Space Janitors save the universe story).

-------

[will80sbyers]

Do you still have the list of movies that inspired ST4? I had a picture of it but I lost it and I haven't been able to find it since. Please and thank you in advance.

Yep!

Long post warning lol

300

2001: A Space Odyssey

47 Meters Down: Uncaged

12 Monkeys

28 Days Later

13th Warrior

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

Altered States

Amelie

American Sniper

Analyze This

Annihilation

Aristocats

Armageddon

Assassins Creed

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Arrival

Almost Famous

Batman Begins

Batman V. Superman

Basket Case

Battle at Big Rock

Beauty and the Beast

Beetlejuice

Behind Enemy Lines

Beverly Hills Cop

Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey

Billy Madison

Black Cauldron

Black Swan

Boondock Saints

Borat

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Burn After Reading

Broken Arrow

Blade Runner

C.H.U.D

Con Air

Cast Away

Congo

Constantine

Children of Men

Cabin in the Woods

Crank

Casablanca

Carrie

Crimson Tide

Clueless

Dukes of Hazzard

Don’t Breathe

Death to Smoochy

Doom

Dark Knight

Dogma

Deep Blue Sea

Dreamcatcher

Drop Dead Fred

Die Hard

Die Hard 2

Die Hard 3

Don’s Plum

Dances with Wolves

Dumb and Dumber

Edward Scissorhands

Enter the Void

Ex Machina

Event Horizon

Emma (2020)

Forrest Gump

Fargo

Fisher King

Full Metal Jacket

Ferris Bueller

Fallen

Fugitive

Ghost

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Ghostbusters

Good Fellas

Girl Interrupted

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Get Out

Good Will Hunting

Hackers

High Fidelity

Hellraiser 1

Hellraiser 2

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Hidden

High School Musical

Hurt Locker

Heat

Hunger Games

Highlander

Hell or High Water

Home Alone

I am Legend

It’s a Wonderful Life

In Cold Blood

Inception

I am a Fugitive from Chain Gang

Inside Out

Island of Doctor Moreau

It Follows

Interview with a Vampire

Inner Space

Into the Spiderverse

Independence Day

Jupiter Ascending

John Carter of Mars

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

James Bond (All Movies)

Julie

Karate Kid

Knives Out

Kingsmen

Little Miss Sunshine

Labyrinth

Long Kiss Goodnight

Lost Boys

Leon: The Professional

Let the Right One In

Little Women (1994)

Mad Max: Fury Road

Magnolia

Men in Black

Mimic

Matrix

Misery

My Cousin Vinny

Mystic River

Minority Report

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Neverending Story

Never Been Kissed

No Country for Old Men

Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

North by Northwest

Open Water

Orange County

Oceans 8

Oceans 11

Oceans 12

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Ordinary People

Paddington 2

Platoon

Pulp Fiction

Papillon

Pan’s Labyrinth

Pineapple Express

Peter Pan

Princess Bride

Paradise Lost

Primal Fear

Prisoners

Peter Jackson’s King Kong

Reservoir Dogs

Ravenous

Rushmore

Road Warrior

Rogue One

Reality Bites

Raider of the Lost Ark

Red Dragon

Robocop

Shooter

Sky High

Swingers

Sword in the Stone

Step Up 2

Spy Kids

Saving Private Ryan

Shape of Water

Swept Away

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Superbad

Society

Swordfish

Stoker

Splice

Silence of the Lambs

Source Code

Sicario

Se7en

Starship Troopers

Scrooged

Splash

Silver Bullet

Speed

The Visit

The Italian Job

The Mask of Zorro

True Lies

The Blair Witch Project

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Tangled

The Craft

The Guest

The Devil’s Advocate

The Graduate

The Prestige

The Rock

Titanic

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Fly

Tombstone

The Mummy

The Guardian

The Goofy Movie

The Peanut Butter Solution

Toy Story 4

The Ring

The Crazies

The Mist

The Revenant

The Perfect Storm

The Shining

Terminator 2

The Truman Show

Temple of Doom

The Cell

To Kill a Mockingbird

Timeline

The Good Son

The Orphan

The Birdcage

The Green Mile

The Raid

The Cider House Rules

The Lighthouse

The Book of Henry

The A-Team

The Crow

The Terminal

Thor Ragnarok

Twister

The Descent

The Birds

Total Recall

The Natural

The Fifth Element

True Romance

Terminator: Dark Fate

The Hobbit Trilogy

Unforgiven

Unbreakable

Unleashed

Very Bad Things

Wayne’s World

What Women Want

War Dogs

Wedding Crashers

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Welcome to Marwen

Wet Hot American Summer

What Lies Beneath

What Dreams May Come

War Games

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Weird Science

Willow

Wizard of Oz

Wanted

Young Sherlock Holmes

You’ve Got Mail

Zodiac

Zoolander

[sweet-old-hereafter]

First of all, thank you to everyone who has hyped up The Primus Game!

Second of all; Chapter One is coming soon, as in within the next few days. Mostly just edits now. So excited to share it! Opening passages below the cut. Here’s a few things you should know:

- This will either be a duology or a trilogy

- Rated M for canon typical violence, may get darker in later installments

- Written in first person progressive, alternating between Noa and Mae’s POV. This is a little experimental, may not be for everyone!

- the prose will also be different between POVs. The apes can speak a little more fluently but they speak a different dialect of english.

- This is a hunger games AU so expect parallels but nothing is 1:1 and later installments will deviate so expect the unexpected! You do not have to be familiar with THG to read.

I think that’s it? I’m going to commit to one chapter a week but I’d like to do more when I have time. Hope you enjoy my contribution to this community!

Chapter One: Noa

I wake to the sound of my father’s coughing.

Moments ago I was falling down a ravine and I could see my hands, stretched out, helpless - as the light above grew smaller, smaller…smaller. An eagle soared before the sun. It called down to me and I braced for the below.

But the cawing shifted to a fit of hacking, and I return to the world with a gasp. Gratitude and guilt war in my mind; this is not the first time I have dreamt of that place between the mountains. For all seasons of my life I have been landing in the ravine, and something horrible waits for me there. I did not - do not - need to see it today.

The rays that scatter the dark are blue like new dawn. It is early. Too early to stir, too late to sleep again. So I flop over and stare at the shifting shadow between my nest and the wall. How I wish I was still so small. To burrow and hide there until this day ends.

I should not be nervous. I am not nervous, for myself. This will be my first reaping and I have taken no rations; my name is in that basket one time. But another, who I may know - who does know me through my father - will have to go and die for Eagle Clan. Or Mining Clan, as the Coast was so gracious to rename us.

Father’s coughing takes time to die down, but it does. Mother’s voice hums through the wood of our home. I cannot hear what she says, but she must be beckoning him back to rest.

I turn and sit up. There is a waterfall in my ears. Has the dream unsettled me so? Maybe just…sat up too quick.

Today, I will face two passages; tomorrow, I will be changed. One has become a celebration of the passage of the other, the reaping. The one forced on us by the Coastals. We once had our own traditions, far apart from theirs. Well, that is what the elders say the elders before them said. I have not known this time.

To be continued

[copperhawkthoughts]

Fearne’s mom’s backstory is basically the plot of a Dark Fae Booktok Romance trilogy

Book one, The Sorrowlord’s Delight, is the standard tropey “untameable, sexy young woman faun swept off feet by handsome, charismatic, evil misunderstood vampire werewolf demon prince fae” and ends with Birdie & Ollie’s climactic escape from the Sorrowlord’s keep to live happily ever after(???)

Book two, The Songbird’s Flight, starts off as the promised domestic bliss epilogue with Birdie & Ollie building a happy little nest, but quickly takes a turn when the heavily-pregnant Birdie is kidnapped by her ex and her labour is induced in a weird and frankly kind of unsettling, I-am-still-reading-a-romance,-right?, ritual involving evil mages and the evil, haunted red moon. The climax of this instalment is somehow now a heist(??) as Birdie & Ollie team up with Morri to save infant Fearne from her father’s clutches. The book ends as Birdie makes her dreadful, necessary bargain with a deeply grey Morri to keep Fearne safe.

Book three, Fate’s Daughter, is widely panned. The narrative’s frequent and seemingly non-linear timeskips in the first act prove confusing, as the story switches back and forth between scenes of Fearne growing up with Morri over the course of nearly a hundred years in the span of a couple chapters, while spending several more following Birdie & Ollie on the increasingly implausible run from the Unseelie Court over only half a dozen years. No one is sure how the math works, but it proves a convenient - if, again, unsettling - device for aging up the baby from the last book into the sexy ingenue the genre is more suited for. The latter half of the book focuses heavily on Fearne’s adventures, all but abandoning Birdie & Ollie, and ends on an unsatisfying note with several major plot threads hanging.

No one is really sure if or when book four is coming out.

[petalpetal]

okay books I've read since the beginning of 2024 (also note I only complete books I like if I don't like I drop it and move on so these are all good according to me)

also some of these are new and some are not I randomly choose what to read next through a generator

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott

Our Hideous Progeny by C.E. McGill

The Scholomance Trilogy by Naomi Novik

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas

The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin

The Tatami Time Machine Blues by Tomihiko Morimi

Penguin Highway by Tomihiko Morimi

The Tatami Galaxy by Tomihiko Morimi

Once and Forever: The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa by Kenji

Night on the Galactic Railroad & Other Stories from Ihatov by Kenji Miyazawa

The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl by Tomihiko Morimi

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi

Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness by Nahoko Uehashi

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura

Joan by Katherine J. Chen

A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw

Menewood by Nicola Griffith

Hild by Nicola Griffith

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

The Beast Warrior by Nahoko Uehashi

The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi

Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

The Road Through the Wall by Shirley Jackson

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson

The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson

Anime Supremacy! by Mizuki Tsujimura

After the Forest by Kell Woods

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty (okay I read this in decemeber BUT ITS SUPER GOOD I MEAN HELLO ITS A PIRATE ADVENTURE)

[tremendouskoalachild]

Wookiee Jedi: A History

Wookiees. Jedi. Wookiee Jedi. How could you not love them? I’ve decided to compile a hopefully exhaustive little list of all Wookiee Jedi in Star Wars, canon or not. They are ordered chronologically by their introduction and sorted by decade.

The 90s or: Lowbacca, a category of his own

The first Wookiee Jedi in Star Wars was Lowbacca, nicknamed Lowie, introduced in 1995. He was Chewbacca’s nephew and one of the principal characters in the Young Jedi Knights book series, where he trained as one of the students at Luke’s Jedi academy alongside Han and Leia’s kids. He remained a quite frequent side character in later books, especially the New Jedi Order series.

Lowbacca was literally and figuratively exiled in the Dark Nest trilogy (2005) after Lucas banned Wookiee Jedi (we’ll get to that). He did appear in books since then until the cancellation of the now-Legends timeline, although less frequently than before. His appearances in late-stage Legends content are usually related to Wookiees and Kashyyyk specifically, rather than as just another Jedi knight, and mostly reserved for Troy Denning’s novels. Important fact to know about Lowie: I love him.

The 2000s and The Ban

The early 2000s saw the introduction of several Wookiee Jedi, although always as very minor characters. The first one we need to discuss for completeness’ sake is, no joke, Unidentified Wookiee Jedi. We know next to nothing about them: they appear briefly in the background of a 2000 book as a student of the new Jedi Order. This is contemporary with Lowbacca’s time but due to other storylines we can rule out that this Jedi is him. I suppose you can decide for yourself whether this is a simple continuity error, or a random background character used to characterize the setting of Luke’s Order as a harmonious multispecies organization (while utilizing a well-known Star Wars alien species).

For more senior – and named – Jedi we have Master Tyvokka, member of the Council, introduced in 2001. He appears in the flashbacks of a single issue of the Republic comic line by John Ostrander, though he is mentioned in several following issues. He is technically canon despite only appearing in the old continuity due to a mention in reference to Plo Koon, who was his student in both continuities. I think he’s cool for the simple fact that he used a yellow lightsaber. We know Lucas was familiar with the Republic comics (he famously incorporated Aayla into the prequels) but it isn’t entirely clear how much of them he read.

Next we have RPG Wookiees. Master Kirlocca was a prequel-era Jedi in the campaign Living Force, which started in 2001 and concluded in 2007. He has appeared in many installments and supplementary materials of the campaign but never outside it. Living Force also “introduced” Wookiee Jedi Knight Vorlocca as a corpse players find in one of its adventures. Whatever, he counts. (the RPG also introduced Force-sensitive non-Jedi Wookiees named Kuce and Furellas, who is notable for being a lady.)

At some point in the early 2000s Lucas banned the introduction of more Force-sensitive Wookiees. Apart from Lowie this affected Hanharr, a member of your party and playable character in KOTOR II. The devs were supposedly not allowed to include the option of making him a Dark Jedi for this reason. When working on ROTS, concept artist Derek Thompson "wanted to try at least one Wookiee Jedi on the off chance that George would go for it. He didn't go for it."

The 2010s or: maybe we can get Wookiee Jedi again?

Quite possibly the most widely known on this list is Gungi, the first Wookiee Jedi we’ve seen on screen. He made his first appearance in a 2012 episode of The Clone Wars’ fifth season as one of the Jedi younglings gathering crystals for their lightsabers, in an arc that was at one point considered for its own spinoff. He has since also appeared in The Bad Batch season 2. His nature as a Wookiee Jedi is specifically referred to as rare by Huyang and since Lucas was still involved in making the show at that time we can assume he either went back on his distaste for furry Jedi by then, or wanted Gungi to be all the more unique.

Also in 2012 – suggesting Gungi’s introduction might have loosened the ban – we have another comic Jedi, Ruhr. More accurately, he was a Je’daii, a predecessor organization to the Order we know. He was part of the Dawn of the Jedi series, also by Ostrander for Dark Horse. That series ended 15 issues in because the comic rights were transferred to Marvel after the Disney sale, so no more Ruhr.

We also absolutely have to mention Kitmum. She (!) is not canon and never was – unlike the other books and comics discussed here her 2013 book was explicitly non-canonical even before the impending canon reboot of 2014. We love her for her outfit, teaching children how to exercise, and being the only girl Jedi on this list.

The 2020s and the High Republic, golden age for Wookiee Jedi fans

Star Wars publishing over the last several years was largely focused on the High Republic initiative, which is so far a great time for Jedi Wookiees (or, more accurately, for their fans – the Jedi are not doing so good), with more to come soon in The Acolyte, set in the same era.

The first and most prominent is Burryaga Agaburry, one of the principal characters in the adult novel trilogy in Phase I, introduced in Light of the Jedi (2021). He is both a POV character in his own right and the best friend of the main teenage Jedi in the adult novels, Bell Zettifar. Apart from the novels he appears in the audio drama Tempest Runner and is often mentioned or shown in the background of many other High Republic projects. He is also one of the characters most often depicted in children’s media of the era, probably due to his adorable cuddly appearance. His fate in the wake of Phase I’s ending was a major cliffhanger leading into Phase III, leaving the readers hanging for over a year and a half. You love Burry.

The other major Wookiee Jedi in the High Republic multimedia project is Arkoff, technically first introduced in the same book as Burry due to a single mention of his name in a list of notable Jedi. He is the teacher of Lily, herself the protagonist of the Edge of Balance manga, and appears more notably in the manga’s prequel volume set 150 years earlier during Phase II. Ah, the advantages of Wookiee life expectancy.

2023 saw the introduction of Krrsish, an initiate in the flashback sections of the Yoda comic. He has a hard time.

The first Wookiee Jedi in live action is set to be Kelnacca in The Acolyte. He is played by Joonas Suotamo, the actor who took over the role of Chewie for Solo and TROS. He’s also getting a comic one-shot by Cavan Scott later this year!

I can't wait to meet him.

[miraluking-respectfully]

now that i'm out of the life-stalling brain-infecting obsession phase of enjoying dragon age, maybe i can find some time to jump back into - well, into SWTOR, but also The Bugtext...i remember i was enjoying it but i kept kinda being confused and frustrated by all the references to other EU books. like Thrawn is fucking here now, did I mention that? the chiss feature pretty heavily in this and while the catchup-exposition-to-plot ratio is pretty adept i still regularly have no clue what anyone's talking about 💀

[daisyishedwig]

So my plan was originally to do these recaps every month, but that didn't happen. So instead, here's a reading recap for the first 6 months of 2024 in which I read 99 books, a concept that is still insane to me considering my goal for the year was 50. Pictured are my highlights, the god-tier books that left me screaming or the ones that I left feeling like a new person.

And here is the full list of everything I've read so far this year. (Bolded are the books pictured and italicised are books reread)

January My Dear Henry by Kalynn Bayron 4/5 The Seven Husband of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 5/5 Padawan by Kiersten White 5/5 Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat 5/5 You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron 3/5 The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones 5/5 Teach the Torches to Burn by Caleb Roehrig 5/5 The Star Host Trilogy by F.T. Lukens 5/5 Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa 4/5 Harley Quinn: Die Laughing by Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner 3/5 Coffee Boy by Austin Chant 5/5 Star Wars: Vader: Dark Visions by Dennis Hopeless 3/5 Caroline’s Heart by Austin Chant 5/5 Stranger Things: Flight of Icarus by Caitlin Schneiderhan 2/5

February Self-Made Boys by Anna-Marie McLemore 5/5 Pretty Boy by Jett Masterson 1/5 The Prince’s Dearest Guards by Beau Van Dalen 3/5 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab 5/5 A House Unsettled by Trynne Delaney 3/5 Bunt! Striking Out on Financial Aid by Ngozi Ukazu 5/5 The Chalice of the Gods by Rick Riordan 4/5

March  By Any Other Name by Erin Cotter 5/5 From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty 4/5 Family Business by Jonathan Sims 5/5 Hook's Tale: Being the Account of an Unjustly Villainized Pirate Written by Himself by John Leonard Pielmeier 4/5 Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones 4/5 Ouran High School Host Club by Bisco Hatori 5/5 Peter Darling by Austin Chant 5/5 Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones 3/5 Darling by K. Ancrum 5/5

April The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull 2/5 A Worthy Opponent by Katee Robert 5/5 Circe by Madeline Miller 4/5 The Never King by Nikki St. Crowe 4/5 Ben and Beatriz by Katalina Gamarra 5/5 Hide: The Graphic Novel by Kiersten White 3/5 The Darcy Myth: Jane Austen, Literary Heartthrobs, and the Monsters They Taught Us to Love by Rachel Feder 4/5 The Dark One by Nikki St. Crowe 4/5 Their Vicious Darling by Nikki St. Crowe 4/5 Ledfeather by Stephen Graham Jones 5/5 The Fae Princes by Nikki St. Crowe 4/5

May  Black Butler by Yana Toboso 4/5 The 2000s Made Me Gay: Essays on Pop Culture by Grace Perry 4/5 Pan by Christopher Ruz 3/5 Devourer of Men by Nikki St. Crowe 3/5 The Promised Neverland by Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu 4/5 A Sea of Unfortunate Sould by Jay R. Wolf 3/5 Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell 4/5

June The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan 5/5 Red Rising by Pierce Brown 4/5 Neon Gods by Katee Robert 5/5 The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco 5/5 The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan 4/5 What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher 4/5 The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan 5/5 Hooked by Emily Mcintire 4/5 Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro 5/5 A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow 5/5 A Thief in the Night by KJ Charles 5/5 How To Bite Your Neighbor and Win A Wager by D.N. Bryn 5/5 His First Bite by D.N. Bryn 5/5 The Lost Boy by Joshua Grant 3/5 Tink and Wendy by Kelly Ann Jacobson 3/5 The Wicker King by K. Ancrum 5/5 Epically Earnest by Molly Horan 4/5 Otherworldly by F.T. Lukens 5/5 White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson 5/5 Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat 5/5 A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow 5/5 Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean 5/5 Night of the Living Queers: A Queer Horror Anthology 4/5

[iamafule]

I think the reason people are using dreamworks to hate on Disney is because Dreamworks relies on more of a fantasy element where there's magic and fairies and it's all set in the past or in a magic land where everything's interesting whereas Disney relies on pixar and Marvel to make shitty movies that all have the same character tropes and the same morals that are all set in the modern world or the future

Dreamworks can acknowledge that people don't really like the present because of the whole screen addiction thing so they stick to a timeline and a theme where screens are rarely and sometimes never necessary while Disney likes to focus on being inclusive so they modernise all their stories.

Also Dreamworks is more open to experimental work and the animators have more creative freedom to draw things in different styles or give the characters different features and personalities and details and little mannerisms and habits (Take Hiccup for example: handicapped, left handed, talks with his hands alot, adventurous, smart but stupid about it, very peaceful) while all Disney's characters are hollow and a sort if copy and paste theme.

Dreamworks takes more risks to put out movies with plots and characters that no ones ever seen before while Disney just takes stories they've already done, changes up the characters a little bit and them adds a message about generational trauma.

This leads to my rant about how much I hate httyd 3.

The soundtrack was too melodramatic. And the visuals were all bright and colourful to get the attention of 2 year olds. The light fury design was pathetic. The only reason the light fury exists is to be Toothless's girlfriend. Then they went against everything they'd worked for within the first 2 movies. In the first 2 it was all about how Hiccup and Toothless are bestfriends and stick together no matter what. That was even the moral in the 2 shows, first Christmas special and one of the short spin off films. But the third movie went against all of that and made them separate. It ruined the trilogy! The second movie however. The soundtrack fit perfectly for each scene and the colour scheme was perfect. In the scenes where Hiccup discovered his mother and the bewilderbeast nest the colours are appropriate and bright while not bombarding the screen with flashing lights and colours while the scenes featuring Drago had a more dark and sinister colour scheme, as well as the music becoming more heavy and ominous. Where as in the hidden world the colour scheme always had bright colours which made it feel less dark and scary. They modernised the Viking age so that it would be more appealing to younger generations. But the thing about the how to train your dragon fan base is that it mostly consists of people aged 12-27.