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can we take a moment to appreciate how tracy ate with every name like yeah that's Legendborn. it feels so Legendborn. like omg the vibes are Legendborn this name is so fitting. Bloodmarked. totally. could never find another name like Bloodmarked if i went to find it under an aether lamp in my hand like. Oathbound. truly the perfect name like yes this book deserves to be named Oathbound.

not even just the books like the characters. Briana. the clever 'bree/bri' wordplay too. you hear Selwyn and you're like oof. yes. totally fitting. Nicholas. look how the name flows like do you see it. William. the vibes. Alice. alice in wonderland my love. alice/alive wordplay. Sarah. Mariah. Greer. Valechaz. Elijah. Zoelle. Felicity. Russ. even Victoria as much as we should hate her and Cestra.

like the names man the fucking names i love it so much.

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imma respond to them because im petty and angry [the you I'm using is for the people who say these not you dear]

you are an idiot

you are an even bigger idiot

he was raised to be the scion of arthur, his mother taken away from him when he was a literal kid, he has a history of such intense trauma yet he is still kind, he was sacrificing himself just so he could end the cycle that took so much from him and everybody he loves, what the fuck were you reading. also, you're an idiot.

sel gave up his humanity for bree, nick has a piece of the crown embedded in him just so he can end the cycle and free bree, bree herself made a deal just so sel could have a chance to save himself, she yearned for nick all through the book. and they pretty much were about to fuck at given moments so like, platonic what.

does not explain your point.

its been three books by far. fuck you.

your head is so far up your ass you wouldn't differentiate poop and poetry.

you might as well go fuck yourself.

DO YOU EVEN READ

DO YOU EVEN FUCKING READ THE BOOK

nick is the golden retriever, looks like a cinnamon roll could kill you, chaotic good and sel is brooding dark haired character, looks like could kill you would kill you, lawful neutral. is it tropes? yes. does that make a book bad? no. are you an idiot? yes.

EACH OF THEM TALKED SO FUCKING MUCH you read with your eyes closed maybe i should sew them and your mouth as well.

why don't you go fuck yourself why did she say "so drown" for what the fuck is your problem

does not explain your point you're just hateful

just die

you are an idiot

the amount of angst in their stories is so far beyond your understanding your two remaining braincells are exhausted by your constant chanting of "boring" and the looming hatred nestled in your heart.

fuck you

The wild things people say about Nick/Nick and Bree - an evolving list

1. They are related

2. They are more like brother and sister

3. Nick is boring

4. They are platonic

5. Nick is too good/perfect

6. It’s Instalove

7. Nick actually still wants to be Arthur’s scion and is going to betray Bree

8. Nick hasn’t done anything for Bree/ hasn’t sacrificed anything for her

9. He’s barely in the story, we don’t know him

10. Their connection is all because of Arthur-Lancelot

11. Their relationship has too many tropes

12. Their relationship is only physical

13. Nick took advantage of Bree’s memory loss

14. “Call and response” is annoying

15. Their relationship is not as developed

16. Their relationship doesn’t add to the story as much as Sel and Bree’s

17. It’s all fluff

18. Just you wait now that Bree’s memories are all back she’s going to prefer/choose Sel

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I mean the shirt that did some very distracting things on selwyn kane moment was proof enough of our girl's unwavering focus.

someone is trying to break into bree and nick’s room and this girl is just focused on his abs and v line 😭😭

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Oathbound Character Art Commission Series by @kirbystomping ⚔️💖 Kirby did such an amazing job capturing a majority of the characters!! I'm so happy with how this turned out.

Bree Matthews

Nick Davis

Selwyn Kane

Alice Chen

William Sitterson

Mariah

Valec / Valechaz

Larkin Douglas

Zoelle

Elijah

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" ɴᴏ ᴏɴᴇ, ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴏʀ ᴀʟɪᴠᴇ, ᴄᴀɴ ᴄᴏɴᴛʀᴏʟ ʙʀɪᴀɴᴀ ᴍᴀᴛᴛʜᴇᴡs "

Characters from 'The Legendborn Cycle' by Tracy Deonn as usual 🩷🩷

It is done ??? Finally? This thing spiraled so far out of my current skillset the further I got, but I loved every minute of it and learned a lot I think 😅😅 I love painting textures and ngl even tho it took WAY longer than it needed to, repainting and fiddling with the different textures in this was rly fun (especially the stained-glass windows!!! Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!! 😭🩷✨️)

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okay yalls i've had a hectic week but good news is my exams are done so i will now be able to post oathbound content.

so if you see spam likes and reblogs i assure you this will happen again. hihi.

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Oathbound brain rot day number...continues! Pls feast ur eyes on this beautiful art of Bree Matthews looking very strong and very deadly! I got this after reading bloodmarked and oathbound confirmed that she really grew so much

Thank you @/VENNro0 (twt) for bringing this to life!

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i agree with everything here especially the losing memories thing so much!!

her strong feelings were actively hindering her ability to gain control of her powers and it was so so important like it wasn't the best option but it was helpful!! she grew so much!! and it made a very very important realization too; she will always look out for people around her. she saw nora for mere seconds but still wanted to save her, she saw the good in zoe and eli even though they were technically opposite to her, it is who she is, that is why i love her sm!! she literally lost a part of her soul, but she did not break, she grew around it!! that is so beautiful!!

it made her know more about her and yes, that also gave her the wake up call to focus on herself and not drown in guilt.

And I think coming to that realisation was actually her true quest.

beautiful, this is her quest and she succeeded so much. and she is finally reunited with everybody she cares about in one way or the other, I'm so so happy for her I'm gonna cry frr

Oathbound: Bree’s Character Development

🚨Beware spoilers 🚨

Just posting some of the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head because I need to get them out.

My controversial take is that Bree losing her knowledge/memories was necessary for her character growth in Oathbound.

I don’t agree with the mechanism by which she lost her memories (soul theft), but when I recall how much anguish and guilt she felt at the end of Bloodmarked (and the anguish I felt along with her), it felt like like a healing detour.

Bree’s love for people and for her friends was always, always going to have her prioritising their safety above her own, and I think it’s important that a space was created in the story for her to “put on her own oxygen mask.”

She developed control over her power without risking anyone else’s life.

She’s no longer the girl who has to run and hide, whose friends risk their lives to protect her - now she’s the girl who straps a dagger to her thigh and traps a warlock in a magical dome all while looking drop dead gorgeous.

Romance

There’s a lovely post by Annotate with Sara that explains this and more really well, but I thought it poetic that Nick was the one to initiate Bree’s reintroduction to her old self, seeing as he accidentally/unintentionally introduced her to the society that would lead to the discovery of her true identity in the first place.

While I’ve always maintained (mostly in my head) that Nick and Bree’s intelligences cancel each other out and together they tend towards foolishness, I think that the warmth, support and safety he offered is precisely what she needed in what was a very delicate space, particularly when Erebus told her to expect the exact opposite from her friends.

Nick’s first instinct was not to judge, fear, reprimand or even reject Bree:

…Pull the most frightening question up from my depths to breathe it into existence, because Nick makes it safe to do so.

“Do you think I made a mistake?”

He holds my face in both his hands until my eyes open. “No.”

and:

Nick lets me think. Lets me become who I need to be in the circle of his arms.

••••••••••

Looking ahead

“We’ve only just gotten started, Briana Matthews. You still bear my mark. You are a king without a sword. A Pendragon, poisoned. Your own pain and blood await.”

I feel as though the end of Oathbound sort of left us in a similar place as Bloodmarked. This book isn’t a full stop and it’s not a comma, but it’s a necessary parentheses.

At the end, all of Bree’s memories come flooding back when she reclaims the missing piece of her soul.

We aren’t given time to see what this really means for Bree because Sel goes full chaos mode and we end up with That Revelation, but she is going to have to reckon with the emotional fallout of Bloodmarked and also with her decision to choose her soul over Alice’s life.

She’ll have to address the guilt she feels towards Sel after he sacrificed himself and the consequences thereof.

However, unlike at the end of Bloodmarked, Bree is now equipped with the knowledge that she is still loved by those she ‘left behind’ on her quest with the Shadow King. The knowledge that relationships are sometimes messy and hard but that - to quote her dad - “Loving folks is a practice, baby.”

And I think coming to that realisation was actually her true quest.

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me reading alice's purgatory and her attempts to get out of it: maybe the way to get out of this loop is to not try anything sweetie, maybe you just have to accept to truth honey, maybe you just have to forgive yourself, maybe you need to know and forgive yourself because it wasn't your fault you couldn't have done anything sweetheart, you're perfect my dear-

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“Your supremacy”, Nick says, brows tight. “Your misogyny. Your racism. Your cowardice.”

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the way this canonically happened to selwyn kane

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“one more time” no one fucking talk to me im not okay

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I have so much fondness and love and awe and respect for Bree Matthews. The main character that she IS

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The audacity to say that Fourth Wing is more popular than The LegendBorn Cycle in the comments of videos where people, mainly Black booktokers, are rightfully calling out Barnes & Noble as well as Simon Teen for the absolute lack of respect towards OathBound and therefore Tracy Deonn for once again not giving it the same release day treatment as white authors and their books is just one reason why I will never trust white readers. The series that has made it onto the New York Times Bestsellers List with all three of its releases??? The award winning series??? That LegendBorn Cycle isn’t more popular than Fourth Wing??? It’s hard to know whether something is actually popular or just mediocre when bookstores and publishers actively try to bury works by marginalized peoples. That’s literal censorship. Keeping copies in the back, not setting up the proper displays, not promoting the book, not sending bookstores enough copies is literal nonsense and shouldn’t be happening, but here we are again for the second time. The exact same issue that happened with BloodMarked. Let’s not even get into the fact that people were review bombing OathBound before ARCs were even released either. It’s unacceptable, and I really don’t wanna hear nothing about that lady and her military propaganda when she apparently can’t even respect the Gaelic language despite being called out for the way she’s been treating it as some mythical/magical language while using incorrect grammar and pronunciations. Mirren | books + gaelic, or ceartguleabhar, addresses this issue on her TikTok and she is a Gaelic speaker. If you’re interested in knowing more about this topic I would go follow her cuz she’s amazing. Don’t be disrespectful and then try to pass it off as if what you’re saying is simply facts cuz it’s not. It’s ignorance and bias talking, and I genuinely really wish y’all would pay attention to the criticism books like Fourth Wing receive. People aren’t simply talking for their health in either of these situations. They are speaking because they are very real problems that often get glossed over with lazy excuses and phony promises to do better. Like seriously. Pay attention. It’s fantasy but it is that serious.

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look im not usually a far future epilogue fan but i think we get the final legendborn book, i would not be mad to see bree meet her granddaughter in the last few pages, just saying

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I think shadow king does genuinely affectionate for nastisa you see it. Maybe sel was accident

[spoilers for legendborn, bloodmarked and oathbound, read at your own caution ;)]

i do think so too. he did have genuine admiration for her, at least it seems so. maybe he heard the thing with giving natasia the permission to "bear an heir" (so fucking disgusting from the order but what can we expect) and so he stepped in?? this all sounds so so wrong on so many levels but he would probably do that. and maybe he then kept sel near him at the academy and all that yk.

its still very weird and now im sick to my stomach.

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Legendborn fanart