#unsoul

[fisherrprince]

more fantasy novels should just have not-entirely-human people as the protagonists without it having anything to do with the actual plot. Like a hero’s journey story in a world shaped like a disc with a black hole at the center should just have a catboy protag and it has nothing to do with anything

[amalgamasreal]

Cradle Series: Animated!

Sharing this every day that the Kickstarter is live. If you don't have the funds to donate I highly recommend checking out the original Cradle Series to see why this series deserves an animated adaptation.

Will and his team has worked so hard on this universe and I cannot wait to see where else he can take it.

[yerinarelius]

all the concept art from the cradle animation kickstarter so far!

[chaoticcorvidium]

Just finished reading unsouled by Neal Shusterman. My thoughts: mehhhhhhhh. It was fine, but just the entire way eh framed the Arapache nation was super cringy. Like dude. Chancefolk?? Slotmongers??? Can people ever be normal about indigenous people. Plus he kept going on about vision quests and spirit animals. In an inaccurate way. Idk, I'm not arapache. Wait omg I just googled. I'm pretty sure he made up the name "Arapache". it's not a nation. Omfg. Be for real. I can't even. 2/10

[arcofacatboy]

Remember when, towards the beginning of Unwind, Connor sees a storked baby on someone’s doorstep?

Connor has just escaped the juvies less than 48 hours beforehand. Right now, his main focus is not getting caught by juvies and being unwound as a result. He has Risa and Lev to look out for - not that he knows either of them very well at this point - but his main goal, at this point, is saving his own skin (literally). Connor didn’t object when his classmate, and fellow unwind, Andy Jameson, sacrificed himself for him. It was implied in a Facebook post (all the way back in 2011!) that Connor and Andy were friends - and Andy was ultimately unwound because he saved Connor’s life. Andy is never mentioned again. Connor feels no guilt over Andy entering a divided state for him.

And yet, when Connor sees that baby on the doorstep, he panics.

It’s not like the general public in the Unwind Universe care about storks that much. Starkey was tormented by his status as a stork - everyone else thought he was a joke because of it, and he hated himself for that. Bam feels similarly, and is no stranger to becoming aggressive with those who try to belittle her because she was abandoned as a baby. No adults seemed to want to help them in this regard - they sent Bam and Starkey off to be unwound in the end, because their status as storks and the lack of affection from everyone in their lives came to be too much, and their anger was no longer contained and internalized. Bam lived - but Starkey ultimately died because he, more than anything, wanted to be something other than a stork to be unwound, who wouldn’t amount to anything.

But that’s not the point here, really. Connor doesn’t know Bam or Starkey, let alone that Starkey will die at his only remaining hand. He’s not panicking because someone he knows is a stork, and is suffering because of it. Someone he knew was a stork, and died because not a single person in his neighborhood cared about keeping him alive.

A baby was put on the doorstep of Connor’s parents. They knew why he was there - they had been storked, and they were now legally, and morally, obligated to take in the baby as their own.

But they already had a seven year old and a four year old! Two boys, no less! They had no need for a third son. Surely no one had seen them be storked by whatever irresponsible girl had gotten herself pregnant and given her baby up to good, hardworking people, who shouldn’t have had to bear the burden of her bad decisions.

Surely no one would notice if they just moved the baby to the doorstep of the neighbors. Surely they wouldn’t mind raising a son.

But no one said a damn thing.

Two weeks later, the baby boy showed up on the Lassiter’s doorstep - again.

He was visibly sick, so close to death that only then, out of pity for the infant, did the Lassiter parents take him in. He died in the hospital - most likely alone, having never known a world in which he was wanted. He never knew a world in which he wasn’t passed from porch to porch, doorstep to doorstep, suffering, alone and sick, because of the silence and apathy of everyone around him.

Everyone in the neighborhood came to the baby’s funeral, a funeral that was only held because it would have looked terrible for the Lassiter parents to not hold a funeral for the baby that died on their watch, and was technically their son. And they all cried. They knew they were all responsible for that baby boy dying, so they cried and cried, never admitting guilt, never admitting that one of them could have saved the baby’s life - and they chose not to.

Connor was only seven when the baby died. And yet, at sixteen, the death of the baby still haunts him. And here he is, face to face with the same situation. There is a baby on a doorstep - and the recipient of this precious gift is complaining about having to care for another unwanted child.

He remembers the death of the baby who could have been his neighbor, or his baby brother, if anyone around him had showed an ounce of compassion. A horrible thought strikes him.

This baby could suffer the same fate.

Connor is already so close to death himself. He could be caught by juvies at any moment. If he gets caught, Risa and Lev could die, too.

But, if he doesn’t act now, so could the baby.

So he goes to save her. He confronts the recipient of the storked child with no real plan. He just wants to save the baby. He can’t let another baby die because of human selfishness and apathy.

Risa steps in, making up a lie that she and Connor are the baby’s parents, and tells the recipient that she’ll take her baby back. Risa is furious with Connor, and chews him out. What could make him do a stupid thing like that? The three of them could be caught at any moment, and a screaming, crying baby isn’t going to make escaping persecution any easier.

But Connor couldn’t let Didi die.

Unwind came out in 2007 - it celebrated its seventeenth birthday last November. Unwind is now so old that, if it was a teenager, it couldn’t be unwound itself! So why bring up a well-known scene from the very start of the book.

Like the book itself, it comes back to Neal Shusterman.

@nealshustermanreal - remember what you wrote. While The Schwa Was Here might have been your first critically acclaimed book, Unwind is why you’re here today - why you are anything to anyone. And while all your books (that I’ve read) have complex themes of morality, like the anecdote I just mentioned above, remember that Unwind is what most people who know you, know you from. They know about Baby Lassiter, and they know about baby Didi. They know that silence, apathy, and complacency does more harm than good - they know that because of you.

And yet, here you are. People are dying in droves, and the people that aren’t dying are being injured, having their homes destroyed, being forced to watch their loved ones die, or otherwise being terrorized. Palestinians are dying. And yet, you wait over two months to say anything about it. You wait until your book tour, promoting a graphic novel you wrote about another genocide, is over. You send out an email quietly, an email that only those who are subscribed to your newsletter will see. And your statement seems to be an afterthought, squeezed between a paragraph on how you approach presenting your books on tour, and links to where you can buy a signed copy of your new, shiny graphic novel about genocide. And this is what you say.

Most of your fans, at least on this platform, know of this email. We’ve all seen it. But I want to focus on that last part.

“I’ve taken a stand - by refusing to feed that mentality. The situation is tragic for everyone. We need empathy everywhere.”

You are being selfish. You wish to try to see why both Israel is justified in their slaughtering of Palestinians, and why Palestinians don’t deserve to be slaughtered. This is not a topic in which you can have your cake and eat it, too. Either you support the country who has proven that they will continue to murder Palestinians, destroy every aspect of their culture, and bomb every place that Palestinians cherished and loved, or you denounce that. Your refusal to acknowledge that the citizens of Palestine are the current targets in a genocide, to acknowledge that Israel will call anything or anyone they don’t like “Hamas” to slaughter them without criticism, and to acknowledge that all of this was the result of Israel wanting to destroy Palestine does not paint you as someone who is refusing to feed a black-and-white mentality. It paints you as someone who, because they aren’t being directly affected by this genocide, doesn’t think it’s their problem. That, by definition, is apathy.

This isn’t a perfect comparison by any means, but.

You are leaving Didi to die.

[chumsterfire]

Day 14 Castle Elder Whisper

[leafydinosaur]

i don't really HATE cam because i know he didn't wish to be "born" but he literally needs to understand that risa doesn't like him back. the whole love triangle reminded me of twilight because cam literally cannot comprehend that risa is in love with connor and not him. kinda like jacob can't understand that bella loves edward also the meet up scene in unsouled where connor and risa reunite is so anticlimactic. i literally almost cried because i imagined the reunion to be like them hugging and kissing and crying. it's probably unrealistic for them to cry because they don't really seem like criers, but i would literally sob my eyes out if i saw my lover again after a year. the way connor calls risa his girlfriend is so cute AHAHABDHJBJD smh where's my connor to my risa

if there are any unwind fans still out there, lmk!!!

[the--grin--reaper]

THIS FIVE SECOND CLIP HAS NO RIGHT TO BE AS FUNNY AS IT IS

[sirofreak]

I GOT MORE MEMES GUYS!

Here’s the first one!

[moony2moon]

So I started reading Unsouled

Argent: *Appears in the book for the first time*

Me: *Picks him up and puts him in the "Precious Bois" box*

Argent: *Abuses his sister (Grace) one page later*

Me: *Picks him up again and yeets him*

[bopeisdope]

Inspired by Hayden headcanon from @sirofreak !

How the gang sits on couches

Sorry if I forgot anyone! I could only add 10 text boxes

[nealshustermanreal]

"You should never apologize for existing, Lev. Not even to all those people out there who wish you didn't.” ― UnSouled

[star-dust777]

Here is me ranting/venting? because I need to get this out

!!Spoilers for Unwind!! And super creepy stuff

Okay so I’ve read the entire Unwind dystology, and of course I decided to re-read the books. I just re-read Roland’s unwinding scene from Unwind and HOLY FUCK it almost feels worse than the first time I read it. Everything after “splitting the corpus callosum” on page 292 was TERRIFYING. The feelings you get when you read it are so disturbing that you just feel “out of place” after you read it.

It’s just the way that they go in on his brain, and how he gradually loses consciousness as they cut his brain apart, and then listing the parts of the brain??? Like, it’s not really about the order or them taking his brain parts, but it’s just so utterly creepy the way they go in for his lobes and cerebellum and finally his brain stem. when they get to the hippocampus/medulla, he’s completely gone. It’s the “best” worst scene I’ve ever read, props to Neal Shusterman for being such a great writer.

The way that he has NO SENSES and he’s sort of stuck with his thoughts, like, no sight, no sound, etc. and the way he fades out of consciousness while trying to say to himself “but I’m still here” It’s fucking terrifying how good it was written, and anytime I read it I feel like I’m experiencing it which is great for an author but bad for the reader in this case. I hate Roland so much but that was the one time I felt bad for him. Btw I definitely cried when I re-read it because it felt so real, it really feels like you’re actually going through it.

[supitsgdo]

Book review: Unwind series by Neal Shusterman

Rating:

Unwind: 5⭐

Unwholly: 3,5⭐

Unsouled: 3,5⭐

Undivided: 4⭐

Unbound: 4⭐

The dystopic worlds created by Neal are brilliant. This series in particular approaches some interesting and somewhat controversial topics, such as children/teenagers, organ donors, abortion, etc. Some of it is fucked up, but the way it was developed was 👌

I mean, I had dreams about it after I finished the first book, I couldn't sleep properly 😅 (The chapter 61 was heavy. I mean damn... I'm glad it was included.)

I gave a big rating to the first book because I was shocked tbh, and in the end my reaction was solely, 'damn..... What have I just read?!!?!'

With the second and third books, I didn't have the same feelings. In the fourth book, a lot was happening (actually, there was a lot happening in all books), but in this one specifically, I was already past the middle point and couldn't see the end. Get what I mean? Anyway, I liked how it ended. About the fifth book, I'm a sucker for these short stories. I just love to have more stories packed in one book, and they were all interesting to me.

I think this was a very interesting read, because the subjects were not easy to deal with, and were a bit shocking at times, but were developed and dealt with superbly, and kept me on the edge of my seat for a great part of it. I also think it's good to sometimes face these topics head on and trying to understand them better and how they make us feel.

PS: I LOVE THESE HARDBACKS!!!!! 😍😍😍

[wafflelovingbatgirl]

Looking good, hopefully they can leverage this + the animatic to get a proper series pickup

[lazysailor]

Unsouled spoilers

STARKEY WTF

FIRST YOU DECIDED TO HANG FIVE PEOPLE FOR ALMOST NO MEANINGFUL REASON AND JUST DO IT SO PEOPLE KNOW YOU EXIST. WHICH I EXPECTED HIM TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT SO I'M NOT SURPRISED BECAUSE HE ALREADY MADE A KID EXECUTE ONE GUY, BUT DAMN.

BUT THEN YOU DECIDED TO IMPREGNATE THREE GIRLS TO SPREAD YOUR GENES EVEN THOUGH THERE PROBABLY JUST GONNA STORK THEM!!