#fire graceling

[aelinfireheartgalathynius]

I've been doing some book binding for fun lately and I rebound a thrifted paperback of Fire by Kristin Cashore today so enjoy some photos bc I'm obsessed with this fabric:

[birds-nest-trinkets]

the graceling realm series really defined world building for me as a young reader; truly a testament to how you expand a world with depth and reinventing your series whilst maintaining similar tones and themes

each of these playlists embody the main female character, the themes and arcs of said book, etc.

but i wanted to keep some similar sounding songs throughout them as within the different contexts they create new meaning.

[fireghost-x]

me, a graceling series fan: I love all my children equally.

me, a graceling series fan: I don't really care about graceling...

[shy-peacock]

Does anyone reading the Graceling series know if there is a good “synopsis” of the first three books I could look through before going into the fourth book?

I remember some- but not all of the details and I wasn’t sure if it would be vital to the fourth book. 😬

[ladyofthedells]

“Truths are dangerous.” “Then why are you writing them in a book?” “To catch them between the pages.”

artwork by miaiminnis (insta) (tumblr)

[hatepotion]

katsa / fire / bitterblue 

[airyfrasc]

Got hit with my annual urge to paint Fire from the Graceling realm novels by Kristen Cashore 🔥

[may12324]

You art has such Mucha-esque BEAUTY to it. Thank you for being a creator 💖 and for having drawn Graceling (which I’m rereading) and for drawing Baldur’s Gate (which I’m currently obsessed with).

thank you!

And whoa, a Graceling fan, man it has been a while! I really gotta read the new graceling books, I was so obsessed with the first 3 back in the day. I will always stand behind the fact that Katsa was very very butch lesbian coded.

[luminouslumity]

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[strawberryshortpace]

I just read Fire by Kristin Cashore and I absolutely loved it so I looked into the other books in the series and realized that my library app did me dirty and for some reason didn’t tell me there was a book before Fire

So I read Fire, fall in love with all the characters and the world it built, look more into the series, am told said characters really aren’t in the other 4 books beyond mentions, and now I’m sad

Only character I’m pretty sure is significant in any other books is the one I was praying for the death of every time he was even mentioned

[darknight1192]

[wavesmp3]

shawna!!! i picked up “the sea is yours to take” and genuinely so In love with your world building! can i know how you plotted the story out or how this world even emerged :OO

omg genuinely so excited to answer this ask, like you have no idea. i pulled out my laptop for it hehe

so as a disclaimer i must start by saying that i first started creating this fic and the world around it in 2019 (which can you believe was 5 years ago lol) AND i haven't really revisited all my notes since i was working heavily on this world in 2020 AND my notebook with all the details and brainstorming i did is at my parents' house and therefore do not have access to for the time being...

all of this to say that i am a little muddy on all of the nitty gritty details, but we continue forward nonetheless!

so as i said the initial idea that turned into this world came to me in the summer of 2019 in a silent chapel in the form of this drabble

(which, a note on the silent chapel part lol, i'm not a very religious person and i had never been to one before that but i think going to a place like that and thinking of the drabble there is why the piece has a strong emphasis on religion and like religious institutions, a lot of which was inspired by catholic ideologies such as the very idea of seven sins and seven gifts. and a lot of the emphasis on the religious beliefs of that world might not be as obvious in 'the sea is yours to take' (tsiytt) but it has more importance in the other installations (read: the world is ours to remake, posted as an original work somewhere on my blog as well as the crown is his to wear which was supposed to be the third and final installation that i never got around to writing rip)

but back to the point -- the drabble kind of set up the main plot which, to put it briefly, is that there is a king who is up to no good so much so that his own son is looking to overthrow him.

(note that the drabble was slightly different when originally posted and had been edited after the fact once i had created the entire world and overarching plot, but it was mainly the same as it stands right now apart from the naming of a couple things. fun fact: the gifts were called the virtues in that drabble)

and from there i kind of let my mind run wild.

i can't remember if i did most of the plotting/creation of that world during 2019 summer or if i did it during 2020 summer, but the main point is that i had almost a full year of just on and off thinking about this piece and this world

so from there (ignoring the timeline of all this world building) it was mainly just figuring out the answers to a whole bunch of questions like: why is the son trying to overthrow the king? what is the 'no good' that the king is up to? why did the prince seek out this other character in the drabble? what does that character know that can be of help? how or why do they specifically know it?

and it continued and continued like that for a long time until i had a pretty good understanding of what i wanted the plot to be. and because of the nature of the overarching plot with the plans to overthrow the king it kind of also did a lot of the world building too. i again had to ask and answer questions like why are all the sins and gifts apart from fortitude dead? why would the nomads know something that the rest of this world doesn't? why have the nomads ceased communication with the rest of this world? and a ton of other questions and answers that literally wouldn't even make sense with what is discussed in tsiytt but kind of helped informed what tsiytt needed to set up for following installations to make sense.

(note: kind of hate the naming of the nomads and the nomads land, it just feels wrong and a bit offensive of a word to use in the context that it is. i was young and really the only thing i was thinking about was the fact that it sounded like no mans land)

anyways this whole lengthy explanation is again just to say that i knew a certain couple of scenes needed to happen to drive the plot forward: like not knowing why fortitude sent the prince away, fortitude killing lord seth, the ending scene, and then a couple others that i won't say because they're probably spoilers.

and from there i just got to add in scenes to build out the love story as well as the characters. i wasn't following a very serious outline (especially when i started to write in may 2020) but rather just following my heart and letting words and scenes come out as i was writing them. but then because i was just thinking about this world and this piece so much i started to think up scenes that i wanted to write that would only happen much later. and so from there i was following a very loose outline. which was really just a whole bunch of bullet points of scenes i wanted to add. like they were so unserious. and to show how unserious, here is a sc i pulled of them (thank you google doc version history)

LOL

anyways i think that's kind of all i have to say right now, but i could really talk about that piece and that world for years, there is so much depth that will unfortunately never leave my little brainstorming notebook. even details like the zalazar river have so much more history and meaning to it than is explored or even brushed on in tsiytt.

i really apologize that this got so long (and if you can believe it, this is me trying to keep it short) and if it makes absolutely no sense. but if you have more questions or things you wanted to discuss or ask pls pls pls go right ahead. my ask box or dms are always open!! i love any excuse to talk about this world and these characters. they're my heart.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Those Books that Just Casually Reach into Your Chest and Tear Your Heart Out

So, as you may or may not know, I moved to Canada a few years ago, and had to leave some of my books in Alaska. Graceling and Bitterblue were two of those books, but SINCE I moved, Kristin Cashore has added two fantastic books to the series, and I wanted to talk about them today, because every single one since Graceling in 2008 has managed to just casually reach into my chest and tear my heart out.

Cashore's writing is a really fascinating balance between geopolitics and the intensely personal interior lives of her protagonists. From Katsa learning that her grace is the exact opposite of what she thought to Fire's acceptance of her heritage and actions, to Bitterblue's massive growth and Hava's recovery from just a stunning amount of trauma, these books are always a trip and always worthwhile.

Graceling came out in 2008, and it was a book I really had to sit with and read a few times, because Katsa's head was not necissarily easy to be inside--but taking the time to get there and understand her was immensely rewarding. Apparently they are also doing a Graceling graphic novel, for those of you who want to explore the story that way!

Fire is and will forever be my favorite entry in this series, which might be a bit strange because it functions more as a companion to the rest of the books--dare I say immensely relevant prequel that gets increasing nods in the subsequent books?--than a part of the main storyline. But what I will never forget about Fire is how physically present she is as a character, which was a really interesting switch from the other protaginists.

Bitterblue--it has been a lot of years since I read Bitterblue--is a masterwork in untangling and understanding the past and the true extent of the trauma that King Leck caused. I'm an English major for a reason, but Bitterblue made me appreciate math in a way that a string of increasingly desperate math teachers never, ever could.

Winterkeep expanded Cashore's world both in terms of geography and in terms of what authors can do in YA fiction now that it's not 2008 anymore (this book was released in 2021--LOTS changed in the intervening time...). This was more of an ensemble book--albeit with Bitterblue in the fore again--than the first three, and it was incredible.

Seasparrow is Hava's book, and literally everyone needs a hug. There are baby blue foxes, and everyone resolutely NOT becoming the Donner party. This book grabbed me by the heartstrings and hung on as Hava learned to forgive and to grow.

[ladyofthedells]

Discord Server is having a blast making picrews of our ladies <3

From Top Left: Bitterblue v1, Bitterblue v2, Fire, Hava, Katsa, Lovisa

[hatepotion]

wips :)