#manchee

[sillypelagicredcrab]

Chaos Walking

[thesweetnessofspring]

It's not just the fact that Manchee died. It's the way he was killed. Saving Todd and Viola, the deliberate threat Aaron used, Manchee pleading with Todd before Aaron kills him. I'm not even very fond of dogs (it depends on the dog/owner tbh) but I'm a wreck again. 😭 Good ruddy dog.

[nervousloveheart]

Favorite extracts of ''the knife of never letting go

You can't say everything, so you don't say nothing.

--------------------------------------

I swallow, trying to get rid of the pressure in my throat, the unbelievable sadness that comes and comes as I look at it looking back at me. Knowledge is dangerous and men lie and the world keeps changing, whether I want it to or not.

There it is, looking back at us, breathing heavy, crouched at the base of a tree, cowering from Manchee, its eyes practically dying from fright but still trying to offer up a pitiful threat with its arms.

She looks at me.

I know what a girl is. Course I do. I seen ’em in the Noise of their fathers in town, mourned like their wives but not nearly so often. I seen ’em in vids, too. Girls are small and polite and smiley. They wear dresses and their hair is long and it’s pulled into shapes behind their heads or on either side. They do all the inside-the-house chores, while boys do all the outside. They reach womanhood when they turn thirteen, just like boys reach manhood, and then they’re women and they become wives.

And its hair ain’t long. Her hair. Her hair ain’t long. And she ain’t wearing no dress, she’s wearing clothes that look like way newer versions of mine, so new they’re almost like a uniform, even tho they’re torn and muddy, and she ain’t that small, she’s my size, just, by the looks of her, and she’s sure as all that’s unholy not smiley.

And for two, I just know. I just do. I can’t tell you but I look and I see and I just know. She don’t look like the girls I seen in vids or in Noise and I never seen no girl in the flesh but there she is, she’s a girl and that’s that. Don’t ask me. Something about her shape, something about her smell, something I don’t know but it’s there and she’s a girl.

And she ain’t another boy. She just ain’t. She ain’t me. She ain’t nothing like me at all. She’s something completely other else altogether and I don’t know how I know it but I know who I am, I am Todd Hewitt, and I know what I am not and I am not her.

What do I do? It ain’t fair. Ben told me I’d get to the swamp and I’d know what to do but I don’t know what to do. They didn’t say nothing about a girl, they didn’t say nothing about why the quiet makes me ache so much I can barely stop from ruddy weeping, like I’m missing something so bad I can’t even think straight, like the emptiness ain’t in her, it’s in me and there ain’t nothing that’s ever gonna fix it.

She seems like maybe she’s calming down. She’s not shaking as much as she was, her arms aren’t up so high, and she’s not looking like she’s about to run off at the first opportunity, tho how can you know for sure when a person’s got no Noise? How can they be a person if they ain’t got no Noise?

---------------------------------

But a knife ain’t just a thing, is it? It’s a choice, it’s something you do. A knife says yes or no, cut or not, die or don’t. A knife takes a decision out of your hand and puts it in the world and it never goes back again.

---------------------------------

Like how stars might sound. Or moons. But not mountains. Too floaty for mountains. It’s a sound like one planet singing to another, high and stretched and full of different voices starting at different notes and sloping down to other different notes but all weaving together in a rope of sound that’s sad but not sad and slow but not slow and all singing one word.

It’s like the song of a family where everything’s always all right, it’s a song of belonging that makes you belong just by hearing it, it’s a song that’ll always take care of you and never leave you. If you have a heart, it breaks, if you have a heart that’s broken, it fixes.

---------------------------------

“I think I’m finally understanding the story, Todd,” she says. “Why are they coming after you so fiercely? Why is a whole army chasing you across towns and rivers and plains and the whole stupid planet?” She points to Mr Prentiss Jr. “I heard what he said. Don’t you wonder why they want you so badly?”

The pit in me is just getting blacker and darker. “Cuz I’m the one who don’t fit.”

“Exactly!”

My eyes go wide. “Why is that good news? I have an army who wants to kill me cuz I’m not a killer.”

“Wrong,” she says. “You have an army who wants to make you a killer.”

I blink. “Huh?”

She takes another step forward. “If they can turn you into the kind of man they want–”

“Boy,” I say. “Not a man yet.”

She waves this away. “If they can snuff out that part of you that’s good, the part of you that won’t kill, then they win, don’t you see? If they can do it to you, they can do it to anyone. And they win. They win!”

---------------------------------

I rub the ears of my dog, my stupid goddam ruddy great dog that I never wanted but who hung around anyway and who followed me thru the swamp and who bit Aaron when he was trying to choke me and who found Viola when she was lost and who’s licking my hand with his little pink tongue and whose eye is still mostly squinted shut from where Mr Prentiss Jr kicked him and whose tail is way way shorter from when Matthew Lyle cut it off when my dog – my dog – went after a man with a machete to save me and who’s right there when I need pulling back from the darkness I fall into and who tells me who I am whenever I forget.

“Todd?”

And Aaron wrenches his arms and there’s a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever.

My chest closes up. My throat clenches shut. I can hear him barking in my Noise. “Todd?” he’s saying, wondering why I’m leaving him behind. “Todd?” with an asking mark, just like that, forever asking where I’m going without him.

-------------------------------------

“The army your girl’s been talking about has been spotted marching down the river road,” Doctor Snow says. “One of our scouts just reported them as less than an hour away.”

“Oh, no,” I hear Viola whisper.

“She ain’t my girl,” I say, low.

“What?” Doctor Snow says.

“What?” Viola says.

“She’s her own girl,” I say. “She don’t belong to anyone.”

And does Viola ever look at me.

Life ain’t fair.

It ain’t.

Not never.

It’s pointless and stupid and there’s only suffering and pain and people who want to hurt you. You can’t love nothing or no one cuz it’ll all be taken away or ruined and you’ll be left alone and constantly having to fight, constantly having to run just to stay alive.

“The point is,” Viola says, stopping halfway thru a dense patch of scrub to hit me really hard on the shoulder, “he cared enough about you to maybe sacrifice himself and if you just GIVE UP” – she shouts that part – “then you’re saying that the sacrifice is worth nothing!”

“Ow,” I say, rubbing my shoulder. “But why should he have to sacrifice himself? Why should I have to lose him again?”

She steps up close to me. “Do you think you’re the only person who’s lost someone?” she says in a dangerous whisper. “Do you forget that my parents are dead, too?”

I did.

I did forget.

I don’t say nothing.

“All I’ve got now is you,” she says, her voice still angry. “And all you’ve got now is me. And I’m mad he left, too, and I’m mad my parents died and I’m mad we ever thought of coming to this planet in the first place but that’s how it is and it’s crap that it’s just us but we can’t do anything about it.''

I still don't say nothing.

-----------------------------

But there she is and I look at her, really look at her, for probably the first time since I saw her cowering next to a log back in the swamp when I thought she was a Spackle.

A lifetime ago.

She’s still kinda cleaned up from the days in Carbonel Downs (only yesterday, only just yesterday) but there’s dirt on her cheeks and she’s skinnier than she used to be and there are dark patches under her eyes and her hair is messy and tangled and her hands are covered in sooty blackness and her shirt has a green stain of grass across the front from when she once fell and there’s a cut on her lip from when a branch smacked her when we were running with Ben (and no bandages left to stitch it up) and she’s looking at me.

And she’s telling me she’s all I’ve got.

And that I’m all she’s got.

And I feel a little bit how that feels.

The colours in my Noise go different.

-------------------------------------------

And I find myself watching Viola.

The trail of dust on the far hilltop follows us as we run, pulling ahead slowly as the day gets older and finally disappearing in the distance and I watch her checking it as we hurry on. I watch her run next to me, flinching at the aches in her legs. I watch her rub them when we rest and watch her when she drinks from the water bottles.

Now that I’ve seen her, I can’t stop seeing her.

She catches me. “What?”

“Nothing,” I say and look away cuz I don’t know either.

I feel her silence next to me, feel the pull of it on me and the hollows in my chest and stomach and head and I remember the ache I used to feel when she got too close, how it felt like grief, how it felt like a loss, like I was falling, falling into nothing, how it clenched me up and made me want to weep, made me actually weep.

But now–

Now, not so much.

----------------------

The voice of Viola making the world into the voice of my ma, singing the song.

“Early one morning, just as the sun was rising,

I heard a maiden call from the valley below,

‘Oh don’t deceive me, oh never leave me,

How could you use a poor maiden so?’”

I can’t look at her.

I can’t look at her.

I put my hands to my head.

“And it’s a sad song, Todd, but it’s also a promise. I’ll never deceive you and I’ll never leave you and I promise you this so you can one day promise it to others and know that it’s true.

“Oh, ha, Todd! That’s you crying. That’s you crying from yer cot, waking up from yer first sleep on yer first day, waking up and asking the world to come to you.

“And so for today I have to put this aside.

“Yer calling for me, son, and I will answer.”

Viola stops and there’s only the river and my Noise.

-----------------------------------

I glance over at Viola and I see that her face is pulled as sad as my Noise feels. Her eyes are wet and her chin shakes, just barely, just a tremble in the dawn sunlight. She sees me watching, feels my Noise watching her, and she turns away to face the river.

And there, in that morning, in that new sunrise, I realize something.

I realize something important.

So important that as it dawns fully I have to stand up.

I know what she’s thinking.

I know what she’s thinking.

Even looking at her back, I know what she’s thinking and feeling and what’s going on inside her.

The way she’s turned her body, the way she’s holding her head and her hands and the book in her lap, the way she’s stiffening a little in her back as she hears all this in my Noise.

I can read it.

I can read her.

I can read her Noise even tho she ain’t got none.

I know who she is.

I know Viola Eade.

I raise my hands to the side of my head to hold it all in.

“Viola,” I whisper, my voice shaking.

“I know,” she says quietly, pulling her arms tight around her, still facing away from me.

And I look at her sitting there and she looks across the river and we wait as the dawn fully arrives, each of us knowing.

Each of us knowing the other.

-----------------------------------

Cuz the thing Ben showed me back when I left our farm, the way that a boy in Prentisstown becomes a man, the reason that boys who’ve become men don’t talk to boys who are still boys, the reason that boys who’ve become men are complicit in the crimes of Prentisstown is–

It’s–

And I make myself say it–

It’s by killing another man.

All by theirselves.

All those men who disappeared, who tried to disappear.

They didn’t disappear after all.

Mr Royal, my old schoolteacher, who took to whisky and shot himself, didn’t shoot himself. He was shot by Seb Mundy on his thirteenth birthday, made to stand alone and pull the trigger as the rest of the men of Prentisstown watched. Mr Gault, whose sheep flock we took over when he disappeared two winters ago, only tried to disappear. He was found by Mayor Prentiss running away thru the swamp and Mayor Prentiss was true to his agreement with the law of New World and executed him, only he did it by waiting till Mr Prentiss Jr’s thirteenth birthday and having his son torture Mr Gault to death without the help of no one else.

And so on and so on. Men I knew killed by boys I knew to become men theirselves. If the Mayor’s men had a captured escapee hidden away for a boy’s thirteenth, then fine. If not, they’d just take someone from Prentisstown who they didn’t like and say he disappeared.

One man’s life was given over to a boy to end, all on his own.

A man dies, a man is born.

Everyone complicit. Everyone guilty.

Except me.

He was going to murder Ben.

That’s how he was going to force me to kill him. That’s how they woulda done it. To perfect their army and make me a killer, they were going to murder Ben.

And make me watch.

Make me hate enough to kill Aaron.

-----------------------------------------

This time I know–

I’m going to use it.

And I jump for it–

My hand outstretched–

My Noise so red I can barely see–

Yes, says the knife–

Yes.

Take me.

Take the power in yer hand–

But another hand is there first–

Viola.

And as I fall towards it there’s a rush in me–

A rush in my Noise–

A rush from seeing her there–

From seeing her alive–

A rush that rises higher than the red–

And “Viola,” I say–

Just “Viola”.

And she picks up the knife.

My momentum is tumbling me towards the edge and I’m turning to try and catch myself and I can see her lifting the knife and I can see her stepping forward and I’m falling into the ledge and my fingers are slipping on wet stone and I can see Aaron sitting up and he’s only got one eye now and it’s staring at Viola as she’s raising the knife and she’s bringing it forward and I can’t stop her and Aaron is trying to rise and Viola’s moving towards him and I’m hitting the ledge with my shoulder and stopping just short of falling over and I’m watching and what’s left of Aaron’s Noise is radiating anger and fear and it’s saying No–

It’s saying Not you–

And Viola’s raising her arm–

Raising the knife–

And bringing it down–

And down–

And down–

And plunging it straight into the side of Aaron’s neck–

So hard the point comes out the other side–

And there’s a crunch, a crunch I remember–

Aaron falls over from the force of it–

And Viola lets go of the knife–

She steps back.

Her face is white.

================================================Lastly, I just wanna say the spelling mistakes in the knife of never letting go really makes me appreciate the fact that the author took the time to add just a little more to Todd as a character, seeing as being able to read/spell/write usually go hand in hand.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that Todd's first words to Viola are “Who are you?,” and her first word/s are “Viola.”

[cowboyjazz]

my sweet sweet perfect dog son wears a red plaid bandana and every time it gets loose and i take it off to retie it he acts a damn fool about it

[now-that-i-saw-you]

The trilogy's inciting incident is when Todd kills the Spackle, he doesn't even realize what he put in motion by doing it but everything that happens after goes back to that single moment

[flysafepapi]

I’ve only read about two-ish pages of Chaos Walking, but I’m declaring Todd my enemy until further notice solely based on the changes in Manchee’s dialogue.

The way his happy little dog thoughts went from so excited about the squirrel (“Squirrel, Todd! Squirrel!”) to only being questions after Todd smacks him for running off (“Ow? Todd? Ow?”) because he doesn’t understand *why* he’s being punished like that has incited a rage inside me that cannot be described with words.

[lesbiandiegohargreeves]

This Sunday's new #DarkWinds is a good one and if you don't believe us, believe #ManChee.

[prentissforpresident]

I'm surprised there's not more crossover between these two fandoms. There's a lot you can compare:

The boy with the knife and the girl from another world who are thrown together by circumstance but form a very close bond (also friends to lovers)

The kids are traumatised, the adults are complicated and not many of them can actually be trusted

So much responsibility falling on the shoulders of two kids

Coming of age and loss of innocence (the reveal to the protagonist(s) of something super disturbing going on behind the scenes)

Religion being used to control and hurt people

Villains who are skilled manipulators, who do awful things that make you despise them, yet are changed just enough by the influence of the protagonist to make one right choice when it counts

It seems like it's gonna be okay, then the ending rips your heart out

Hey, remember when His Dark Materials got a disappointing movie adaptation of the first book which removed the cliffhanger ending and the sequels were never adapted, but then later on it got rebooted as a TV series which was more faithful to the books?

I’m manifesting…

[metmuseum]

Vase. 1865–1921. Credit line: Gift of Katheryn Hait Dorflinger Manchee, 1974 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/9330

[sillypelagicredcrab]

It’s a girl.

[thesweetnessofspring]

hiiii,

i just wanted to say that i recently-ish finished the first book from the chaos walking series, and it completely blew me away!!! it was SO gripping!! the amount of times I almost felt too stressed to read on is a little embarrassing honestly 🙉

but beyond it being incredibly fast-paced it is soooo thematically rich and emotionally harrowing at times (u were right I did cry - rip Manchee 😔). also, idk why but todd really gave me finnick vibes... (more on that when I figure out a way to explain myself, but i'm leaning heavily on the exploration on what it means to be a "Man" that is very prevalent in this book...)

anyway... i'm going on holiday for a few weeks and I've already got the second book locked and loaded!!! thanks for the recommendation 🫶, i'd love to hear some of your thoughts on the books :))))

First I want to apologize for how long it's taken me to get to this. 😭But yay I'm so glad you enjoyed the first book!!!! It's one of those edge-of-your seat reads that also says a lot and draws really interesting and layered characters and the next two in the series only get deeper with characterizations as you get to know the other characters (which you might already know as you might have read the other two by now).

I wouldn't have really connected Todd to Finnick before! I'm interested to hear your thoughts on it.

Part of the reason I delayed answering this is because I wanted to read the 2nd and 3rd books again before giving my thoughts, only my copies of those are buried in my parents' garage and they're renovating so things are a mess but I wanted to respond sooner than I'll get around to digging them out and rereading. It's been on my mind especially with the week we've had. Spoilers and long rambling below

So of TKONLG, what really stood out to me this past read was initiation into being a man by Mayor Prentiss, what Todd discovers. That they take a 13-year-old boy and make him kill a man trying to escape their hellhole of a town, or else pick someone they simply don't like, and make everyone else watch. How Ben and Cillian had to be so careful with their Noise to try and save Todd and set him loose with only a dog and a knife (and perhaps getting Manchee when Todd was 12 wasn't so accidental).

I've especially thought about it this week with the election. That boys are told to be a "man" by putting their pride in front of the lives of others, to the point they were the ones doing the killing. Psychologically, that's an intense ritual bonding them into a cult and letting it change them, especially as trying to leave puts them in the position to be the one who gets killed. And that's not to include the way they'd murdered all of the women in town before that. Prentisstown created scapegoat after scapegoat.

I think most of the boys must have been told that it was they kill or be killed to get them to comply. A few like Davy were probably happy to prove themselves a "man". Todd fought the most, and it was only Viola being threatened that gave him enough anger that he could have killed Aaron. Aaron, whom he never liked and didn't have family or anyone that would ask for justice for his death and wanted to be the sacrifice. Todd still fought it, even though in the end, Aaron had to be killed.

Would killing Aaron have made Todd a man? Did Todd become a "man" when he killed the Spackle before? Did Viola spare him, or are they both "guilty"? Is there an exception for the kind of ruthlessness in which Todd was pursued to complete this mission? I like that these are questions Ness poses instead of telling us. And the plot only gets juicier from here!

[chic-a-gigot]

La Mode nationale, no. 45, 9 novembre 1912, Paris. Robe de drap souple. Bibliothèque nationale de France

Robe de drap souple, marron clair. Jupe légèrement drapée sur le côté du devant. Corsage genre kimono, croisé, orné de revers en velours marron rayé vert. Parements de manchee également en velours marron rayé vert. Petit volant de dentelle crème. Boutons de satin marron. Guimpe de tulle.

Soft, light brown cloth dress. Skirt slightly draped on the side of the front. Kimono-style bodice, crossed, decorated with brown velvet lapels with green stripes. Sleeve facings also in brown velvet with green stripes. Small cream lace ruffle. Brown satin buttons. Tulle wimple.

Métrage: 4 mètres en 130.

[tangiesstuff]

Okay so I can’t have been the first to think of this, right?

Right?

Toddano Hitohewitt: [Running scared]

Viomi Shoukeade: [Terrified of his knife]

T: うるさい、マンチー。スパクじゃない。(Shut up, Manchee. That ain’t a spack.)

V: [Also terrified of speaking]

T: 女の子です　(Its a girl.)

T: [Has never seen a real life girl before]

[fullmusicbardsquared]

What is your favorite primate?

What's your favorite King Crimson song? (sorry if you've said it before already)

What is your least favorite movie (or one of your least favorites)? (right back at you lol)

1. im no primate expert I'm afraid......I suppose I think japanese macaques are interesting! I liked tarsiers when I was a kid (steve jenkins) so them too I guess!

2. I like many of their songs .. from their first record I talk to the wind from beat I like waiting man & neurotica from discipline... indiscipline. those are all different enough to be my favorites. they're quite beautiful poems for me and they have have nothing to do with an oc

3. One of my least favorites, for non adaptation reasons, is forrest gump. I hate that movie to the depths of my soul. for adaptation reasons, chaos walking. the BOOK SERIES chaos walking is genuinely amazing and watching the movie made me want to die. Explanation under cut. I also don't like dumb and dumber - it's one of those movies where it's best watched in youtube clips your mom shows you.

so chaos walking....part of me Knows a chaos walking movie was doomed to fail because of one lore facet: the Noise. Chaos walking is the book series but the movie is the first book (the knife of never letting go) and the premise is that a 13 yo boy Todd is a member of a subsistence (think puritan or something level tech) colony (Prentisstown) on the planet New World. Todd uncovers Viola, a girl who's a crashed accident from a spaceship traveling there further out, and they go on the run together ITS GOOD. now there are two noticable things abt Prentisstown. 1 there are no women 2 the Noise, which is a native germ of the planet that allows human men (and only men) to hear the thoughts of each other and animals. you can tell why this is hard to put in a Movie. but on the other hand, THE REST OF THE MOVIE IS TRASH AS WELL !!! ITS A LOST TEEN DYSTOPIA MOVIE! IT HAS TOM HOLLAND! HE USNT 13! ITS BAD ITS HORNY IT RUINS THE ATMOSPHERE AND MANCHEE THE DOG. STILL. DIES! FUCK OFFFF! I HATE IT SO MUCH! IT TAKES A GENUINELY GOOD THING AND MAKES IT BORING AS SIN! AAAAAAAAA

[coconutgirlsgotasurfcrush]

Charlie Manchee🦩🌴☀️ on pinterest

[sunflowernoob]

waahoooooooooo my old ms paint chaos walking doodles. i only picked out the ones i still like lol. hmmm maybe i'll post my more recent stuff later,,.

anyways, wowie finally posting my art again!

manchee