#the listeners

[theinquisitxor]

MAGGIE

[aspirationallyeldritch]

I keep seeing reviews for Maggie Stiefvater's new book The Listeners, which say things like "trc fans won't like this because it doesn't have a thrilling action plot" and I would like to know if those authors have ever met a trc fan

[wickedlittlecritta]

huge mood tucker

[mossfeathers]

day 6 of lifetober- listeners (click for higher quality + reblogs appreciated)

yes i know this is a scene from evo. sue me. also version w/o filters and the ref pic i used (martyns there too)

[jordeclans]

MAGGIE.

[buckkyyp]

//wild life spoilers

MARTYN GETTING THE LISTENING POWERS?????? AND GRIAN GETTING THE MIMIC POWERS???????? OH HE KNOWS WHAT THE FANS WAMT

[ghostconch]

The Listeners (2024) - dir. Janicza Bravo

[lovvelorrn]

oh trc fam, how is maggie’s new book??? i want to read it but i still haven’t found the time

[aniisol]

What I concluded after watching the Eyes and Ears lore stream (and talking about it with @lillypad-monopoly !)

The Watchers are more involved with fighting the Listeners and keeping places in the Council, which leaves them less time to heavily focus on the life games. They still have to keep the games running, since they feed on their emotions, but have less time to spend on every individual player. (Thus, they've stopped keeping up with "The Canary Curse" and demanding that Jimmy die first.) They've focused their energies on a couple players instead of every one, and the more "admin" role has fallen to Grian.

Grian is a neutral party, and involved himself less with Watcher affairs, but is still a Watcher. He ran the wildcards in Wild Life, but didn't and doesn't monitor or control other players.

The three main players who are more "brainwashed" into ignoring the Watchers and the state of the game are Impulse, Jimmy, and Pearl. Impulse has always been desperate to win, so badly it affects his normal behaviour. He's, as Martyn said, "going mad with it." Jimmy, in his similar desperation, began praying to the Watchers. They had since abandoned his curse and the attention they paid to him, both letting him live past the first death and making him decide that they favoured him. Pearl was a character who "broke the rules," especially in Double Life, but in this case, that was what the Watchers wanted to happen. If they hate love and trust, why would they pair up people and force them to love and trust one another? Pearl, in her refusal to team with Scott and pretending to be red, did what the Watchers wanted. Since then, she's become more brainwashed into doing what they really want.

Martyn is NOT a Listener, but has had many experiences with the Watchers and Listeners, more so than most the players, and some of these interactions have stayed with him. He is less brainwashed than some of the others, but doesn't bother to educate anyone else because he knows what the consequences might be.

The three main players who are very aware of what is happening are Ren, Scott, and BigB. This is Ren's first season back after missing two. What did he see while he was gone? What did he learn about? He suggested that the players "team up to kill the maker," but died before he ever killed Grian. In Eyes and Ears, the failure of his superpower (to become Martren) was a Watcher's form of torture... so what did the Watchers desperately not want him to tell anyone? Scott and BigB both had their DNA infected, like Ren's, but instead, they became the Creaking. They are becoming far more lucid to the games in their actions and words. Scott was always a Watcher target, and BigB has become more distant-natured strange. Their DNA got infected just like Ren's, but they became less human as the game went on. Did the Watchers do that, to stop them from understanding? Made them less able to understand?

[astairwaytobooks]

Just finished reading the Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater and I think I must read it again before I can understand it completely and I am sure it is a story that will linger in my head for days to come.

I liked it, though it was not quite what I expected.

I have so many questions about the framing of the story too. Who is this Eric Parnell?! And was it ever mentioned that Pennybacker had a daughter? Did I miss that? Or does this imply he did get back together with his wife?! Why is there two months between the letter at the front of the book and the reply at the end?! What did 411 want with all the stuff she ordered?! Is there another easter egg there? Is it just Maggie Stiefvater's way of recommending books to us?

So much is going on in this story that I could not possibly absorb it all in one go. But that doesn't matter, I don't mind returning to the Avallon sometime.

[thatstoomanysausages]

MARTYN’S POWER IS TO BE A LISTENER

[ammonite-am-i-rite]

Look what just arrived in the post. It's so beautiful 😍. I'm in love with the endpapers and the details on the hardcover. I hadn't realised it was going to be signed - my first Maggie signature!🎉

I can't wait to dive into another Stiefvater book. ❤️

[wickedlittlecritta]

there's a scorpio races easter egg in the listeners to delight me specifically

[helios-the-stan]

So me and my partner came up with something after the last episode of Wild Life and I’ve been brain rotting about it ever since so I figured I might as well share about it here.

So we saw in Limited Life that the Watchers have started to… take more direct control so to speak. The return of the Boogeyman sometimes with multiple rolls in one session. The poem after Martyn’s glass death. Martyn’s finale betrayal and the heavy implication he wasn’t entirely there for it. Me and my partner have head canoned since that finale that Martyn, while originally a vessel of contact for the Listeners within the life series, has since been… corrupted so to speak. Spending so much time inside the games fighting to win every time made him lose his way a bit and let the Watchers start to seep in and try to take over as a way of fighting back against the Listeners. And with Limited Life they succeeded.

And then came Secret Life. The Watchers were celebrating and so sure they’d won they started getting cocky. Interfering further even as their control slipped elsewhere. Both a grab for further power and a way of showing off their success with Martyn. They sent the Secret Keeper to watch more directly. To give out orders and pull the strings on the drama from within it better than their rebellious little winner Grian ever did. After all the biggest enemy against him and them in general was now theirs right? Except he wasn’t. Not really. Sure part of him had been changed. Corrupted by the Watchers influence. He was more unhinged, more violent, more hungry for a win than ever. But he wasn’t lost for good. The Listeners could still fight through him. And they were determined to make it count now too. They guided him to Jimmy. Knew if he had a canary to fight for and have fun with it might soothe him. Bring him down to them again. Maybe he could even break the curse. That safeguard the Watchers had put on the weaker of the Listener influences in the world to keep their strength weakened with his early exits before the Listeners could really make things count, or so the Watchers believed anyway.

But the Listeners were more patient than that. And while Martyn was reckless he was having fun with Jimmy. Lighthearted playful fun in between the chaos he wrought on others. Like he’d used to have, back when Ren was around to have it with. Double Life had been a bigger toll on both Ren and Martyn than either let on. Perhaps the weakness that let the Watchers get to Martyn, though perhaps that was just a matter of time too ironically. And while the Listeners could not risk taking their vessel out… they could save Ren for a time. Take their vessel’s favorite out for a bit so he could relax and heal like they’d later do for Pearl and Cleo. It was a risk. But one they knew would pay off eventually. If they just played their cards right.

And then Jimmy died. It wasn’t first. The Watchers got cocky and pushed Lizzie down expecting Jimmy to die to Grian’s antics just as they had planned just a bit sooner than he did. Grian delayed just a bit too long by Mumbo. By the very tasks the Secret Keeper, one of their own, had given out. So Lizzie floated in the void as punishment. And Jimmy was soon out too. And the Watchers were pissed. So they grabbed their new toy and flung it at a wall, metaphorically speaking. Martyn snapped. Jimmy was dead and he was just as pissed as the Watchers for it, if for very different reasons. But deep down? He wasn’t really mad. He was sad. Heartbroken. He’d teamed with Scott in Limited Life to avoid this very thing. Scott was a winner and he was damn good at the game. It was as much him and his sacrifices and team playing that got Martyn his win as it was himself and the Watchers need for drama. Martyn hadn’t wanted to lose again. Hadn’t wanted to bet on a losing dog again even if he’d always be drawn to the people he was close to more than the people who would get a win. He never really lived up to what the Watchers tried to get out of him after that. Because the Listeners had guided him to heartbreak over wrath if just for a time.

And then Martyn was gone and we got to watch and listen as Scott once again made a sacrifice for his team only to for once have it not be the final step to his or his teammate’s success. The patterns were breaking. The curses and boons faltering. The Watchers were losing control more than they’d realized in their moment of cockiness. Now it was winner versus non winner and they couldn’t let Pearl win again. So despite their desires for a villain in Scar she was struck down and Scar was declared the winner. The hero of the story. All with no friends to his name. At least he thought so. But the Listeners knew better. Several people had been guided to him throughout the sessions. To try and make friends. They were always rebuffed. The Watchers wanted a different path for Scar. But the Listeners did not care. For they knew it was the thought that mattered. That would guide Scar’s heart in the future. Scar was punished for his victory. Trapped in that world with nothing but a girl trapped in the endless void he did not know existed for company. But loneliness would only further cement the path the Listeners wanted for him later. They knew it. Even if the Watchers were too impulsive to see how they were playing right into their hands.

And finally we get to Wild Life. Where no alliance is truly secure and the teams can barely even come up with names for themselves. Where every session is a new fresh hell for the players concocted seemingly at random with no rhyme or reason or ties to what came before. Each week a new torture as everything around them starts to fracture. Their minds and their hearts. The challenges they face. Their connections to others. Everything is exaggerated ten fold as the Watchers drum up as much food as they can forcing things much more extremely than ever before. They know they need the power though. Oblivious to the fact that by overfeeding they are shattering their food source apart. Turning what once was hearty steak into spun cotton candy sugar. Sweet. But entirely innutritious.

Ren was brought back with the explicit goal whispered into his ears to bring Martyn back to the Listeners. To warm his chaotic corrupted heart back to how it had once been when they were king and hand. More playful than violent even if that play had bred violence when Grian and the other Watchers demanded it. He was gifted back to the Listener’s vessel on a silver platter and he was hungry for it. Jumped to be back with him in a new form. Ready to steal victory for Ren like he’d failed to do so many times before. He was a winner now after all. Stronger. Fiercer. Violent. Feared. Wild. It was perfect wasn’t it? The wild card of the winners dragging the former king to his throne? But the Watcher corruption was strong as the world started to shatter. Ren’s attempts at plans and soothing were targeted so that corruption could be maintained and Martyn was set loose to cause problems for everyone even more so than the Grian or the Watcher vessels Pearl and BigB did. And yet still Martyn stays intently loyal to the man despite the betrayals everywhere else, because that’s his losing dog, and he will make him king again.

Meanwhile Scar was gifted two new friends for his new team. Two friends as clumsy and seemingly harmless as him. Jimmy and the one who had broken Jimmy’s curse. Surely he would be harmless too now. Would no longer get in the Watchers way like he had so many times before in seemingly every game. He was a winner now too. Surely he would back off. But if anything it just made him fight harder. Because he was lonely. And he was gifted friends. And he refused to be lonely again now that he had them.

Jimmy was always a Listener vessel. From the very start he’d been guided by them. But Lizzie was a bit of a unique case. Because the Listeners could not send one of their own the way the Watchers did with Grian they instead took two special cases to add to the fray when they needed it most. Not vessels, but simply untouched parties who had not had chunks taken from them like the other players, who when they played could be easily drawn back to the Listeners arms to be healed and comforted. Lizzie was one of these players, Mumbo being the other. And so while Lizzie had no guidance she was still very much a spy of sorts for the Listeners. A piece they knew the Watchers would ignore even if they shouldn’t. Disregarded as unimportant for their weakness and lack of strong food but strong in exactly the ways the Listeners needed them to be so that the other players could one day be like them. She had already served that role once before in unknowingly encouraging the Watchers to prompt her early death and breaking of their own curse on Jimmy, and perhaps even before in distracting her husband and stealing his wrath whenever she was on the field whether in her own body or not, and now she would play it again in helping to keep the boys alive and granting them the gentle love and care they required to heal from the unique punishments dealt to them.

Meanwhile Mumbo had a different task. While Lizzie was like the ocean, gentle on the surface but with the power to be all consuming when they needed her to be, cleaning and distracting with her presence around someone, Mumbo was rather the opposite. He was a cloud of smoke. Coal dust filling the air. Blocking out the eyes that sought to watch so intently. Drawing attention with his anxiety but never quite making strong enough moves to feed. Hiding what the Watchers should’ve been focused on instead with the drama he imposed in his own head but rarely held tightly to amongst others. Rarely doing more than a few paranoid words and always following those with stronger convictions than his own even when they countered the words he’d just spoken. So Mumbo was given to Grian. Half a peace offering considering the Watcher’s unique obsession with the man. And half a distraction for him. Something to steal away his attention so his fellows couldn’t try to force his rebellious spirit to serve them regardless of his wants. A poison in the already chaotic world to break it down further by keeping the one with the most direct control over the chaos focused on someone who clearly needed and wanted his attention.

And that was their goal. Poison this world. This cycle the Watchers had created. It would be painful for the players yes. But the Listeners knew it was what needed to be done. If they did not make the game unable to be repeated the Watchers would just start another one. And another. And another. Until the players themselves were so broken they were little more than puppets. At least this form of chaos had them causing it of their own free will. A painful free will none of them truly wanted to follow. But a free will nonetheless. One that hopefully could break them free so they could be healed piece by piece and allowed to return to the lives they deserved to live outside of all this turmoil.

[ofliterarynature]

June/July preorders, probably my last for 2025!