#Mary's menagerie

[maggicktouched]

Mary's Magical Menagerie: The Dream Reavers

Dream Reavers are beasts that can inhabit both the physical and the dream realm. They take the form of large, black horse-like creature. They have a similar body build to the akhal teke horse and three horns on their face. The longest juts out of the forehead, curling ever so slightly back. The next, along the bridge of the nose, and the last at the very tip. They have no manes, and very short fur all over. Rather than full, silky tails, the reaver has a long, lion-like tail with a tuft of fur on the end. From their pole to the base of their tail along their spine, they have a row of glistening scales that matches the color of their eyes (most often crimson or dark purple or almost entirely white). Stallions have two sharp, slightly elongated fangs, and produce a very painful venom. Both males and female can, at will, sprout leathery wings and take to the sky.

These extremely cantankerous magical beasts are known for their beauty as well as their bad tempers. Reavers are prideful and spiteful and highly intelligent magical creatures. They can run at impossible speeds, as well as travel along the Owl Road and into the world of spirits and dreams. Few witches can walk the Owl Road at all, better yet survive a trip physically into the spirit world. Thus, these magical creatures---if they can be caught---are highly coveted.

But catching one is no easy feat, and riding it is even trickier. It isn't uncommon for the beasts to act docile and agreeable until they cross the barrier into the world of dreams, only to overpower the will of their rider and drag them into living nightmares, where they will promptly buck them off and leave them to be slowly driven mad.

Dream Reavers are fairly solitary beings that tend to bond very closely with one or two other creatures, occasionally others of their own species, but sometimes witches or trolls or anything they take a particular fancy to and anyone willing to put up with their curmudgeonly behavior. They are very, very protective of those few and unlike a regular horse, will defend them to the death.

And don't underestimate their slender physiques. Reavers have enhanced speed, enhanced strength, and near limitless endurance. They have been known to run at their enemies head on, grabbing them by the necks and dragging them forcefully into the ugliest parts of the spirit realm.

Finally the dream reavers have a deadly cry. Similar to the mandrake, hearing a proper scream of a reaver has a devastating effect on other creatures, only rather than instantly slaying them, the scream will drive men to madness. The victims will be overtaken by insatiable hunger. They will eat and eat and think of nothing else but food, and they will eat anything they can get into their mouths, even driving them to kill. Eventually they will either drop dead from gorging themselves or from eating something they shouldn't have, or the reaver will return late in the night and drag them away to feast on their flesh.

#;;mary's magical menagerie

[sosuperawesome]

Plush Frogs // Marie Menagerie on Etsy

#frogs #plush #etsy

[staff]

tumblr tuesday: familiars you've fashioned

Behold! You've done it again. We want to take 'em all home and give 'em treats and wrap 'em up warm. Keep an eye on your dash on Monday to see the whole menagerie in full swing! And never fear. We'll still share your dazzling costume creations in the afterglow of Halloween proper next Tuesday.

@hiya-im-mary​:

@alexsketches:

@x-cherry-art-x​:

@soda-pap​:

@spacehippieface​:

@saroko-still-draws​:

@fluffy11cat​:

@nightshadeheart11​:

@moonamayillu​:

@jasbell​:

@rsrandomthings​:

@northofnothing​:

@sleepyslimerancher​:

This is already the final week of the Build a Beast challenge, but it's also never too late to build a beast—here's a reminder of week 1, week 2, and week 3 templates for your convenience. And here's this week's. Happy conjuring! 

#tumblr tuesday #familiars you've fashioned #build a beast #ocs #original characters #character design #creature design #artists on tumblr #blood tw #bones tw #worms tw #extreme cuteness tw

[eventidesworld]

An Important Notice

Almost every time I read a fanfic or see what people say on Tumblr and Pinterest, Inej is perceived as this perfect angel with no flaws and Kaz is the one who needs fixing.

This is really annoying.

Listen, people, Inej is amazing, don't get me wrong. She's one of the best characters in all of literature and I look up to her as a role model, but she's not perfect. She is not a saint or an angel, she's a human. Even she can be stubborn and arrogant from time to time. Let's not forget how she doubted Wylan's demo ability at the beginning of SOC. Her line, "I will have you without your armor, Kaz Brekker, or I will not have you at all," is iconic and I understand the meaning, but it's still a bit hypocritical when you think about it. She's telling Kaz to make himself vulnerable but it's not like she's that open about her own vulnerabilities either.

As for Kaz, the poor baby is almost always painted in the wrong light. He's the one with all the flaws, the one who doesn't deserve anything but misery, and the one who needs fixing. Even if he's just a character, I feel bad and think perhaps sometimes the Grishaverse fandom isn't fair to him. In the books, Kaz told Wylan how he shouldn't feel ashamed of his disability, VERBALLY said that he wanted to give himself up for the Crows, and didn't allow Jesper to use Parem even though it was a very efficient way to gain the victory. He even gave Nina Matthias's share of the kruge despite having the option to take it for himself.

And for Inej, the sweetheart did as much as he could. 😭

He was dead set on saving her at the beginning of CK and stopped at nothing until she was with him again. And his line, "I would have come for you, and if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you." He said he would crawl, CRAWL!! Fucking crawl to her, and knowing Kaz, he so would if he had to. And then he liquidated all, not some, all of his assets, every single cent, he gave it all up for her. To fully free her from the Menagerie. In the end, he bought her a ship, found her parents, and even went as far as taking off his gloves and holding her hand for a long time IN PUBLIC!!!! At the harbour where anyone could see. In fact, he's the reason why she's where she is in the first place. He got her out, gave her a knife, and made her dangerous. He gave her the freedom to grace the rooftops in the dead of night and haunt the streets. He gave her the option to leave if she wanted. HE LOVED HER TO THE POINT WHERE HE LET HER GO BECAUSE HER HAPPINESS AND DESIRES MATTER MORE TO HIM THAN HIS OWN!!!

He's not that bad okay. I know he's very flawed and traumatized, but he's got a very big heart, he just doesn't show it. He gave Jesper a place to go, provided Wylan with protection, and allowed Nina and Matthias to reunite. He formed the plans for the Ice Court and ended Van Eck and Pekka Rollins while doing his best to ensure that the Crows would stay alive. But still, he's the only one who has to fix himself. Some fans still think that he isn't worthy of Inej. Meanwhile, Inej is the perfect, flawless angel. I thought people didn't like a Mary Sue. And Inej isn't a Mary Sue, she has flaws, she has weak points, and she has things that she needs to work through as well.

For those of you who read all this, thank you for sparing some time.

#kaz brekker #grishaverse #six of crows #inej ghafa #third army #kanej #crooked kingdom

[pazzesco]

Too loud, too bright, too sexual… Mexico's Lupe Vélez was utterly broken by scandal-hungry 1940s Hollywood – even after her death.

The wild saga of Lupe Vélez, Hollywood's first tabloid casualty

On the evening of December 13, 1944, 36-year-old Mexican film star Lupe Vélez was found by her personal secretary, laid out on her bed in California like a painted doll and wearing blue satin pyjamas, surrounded by fresh flowers and burning candles.

She was dead, having intentionally overdosed on 75 Seconal pills (a barbiturate) with a glass of brandy after dinner. She was also pregnant, no doubt suffered from bipolar, and left behind a life papered in tabloid headlines and scandal.

Yet, what should have been an international tragedy – a wake-up call to the media around the fragility of celebrity and mental health – was soon turned into farce by underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger. He published Hollywood Babylon, a widely-sold compendium of Tinseltown’s juiciest rumours.

“Her ethnicity was played up for her films, and, for the sake of her 'public image' she fell into that characterization, both on and off screen,” writes Vélez biographer Michelle Vogel in her book Lupe Vélez: The Life and Career of Hollywood’s Mexican Spitfire.

Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel and Lupe Velez, in the 1930s

Lupe Velez and Douglas Fairbanks in O Gaucho

Violent love: Lupe Vélez and Gary Cooper in 1929

Vélez exercarbated the intrigue in her interviews, chillingly telling one fanzine, “I think I will kill my Gary, because he does not get angry when Lupe is angry with him.” Eventually Cooper left her, and was ordered by Paramount Studios to take a holiday on account of his nervous exhaustion and 45-pound weight loss considered a result of his relationship. The day he boarded the train to get away, Vélez ran onto the platform, smashed the glass of his window pane and tried to shoot him with her pistol while reportedly shouting, “Gary! You son of a bitch!”

A brief marriage to Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller followed suit in October 1933, and the bruises and love bites they both sported as a result of their “passionate lovemaking” were regularly noted in the press (and commented on by makeup artists on the Tarzan films, whose task it was to cover Weissmuller’s up).

“Another misconception is that she was a loose woman…” said Vogel. (In Hollywood Babylon Kenneth Anger described her “going through a small army of lover – cowboys, stuntmen, and American gigolos.”) “Sure, she loved to party and have a good time, but she was fiercely loyal to her men. She was committed to Gary Cooper and Johnny Weissmuller for almost 10 years of her life. She helped everyone and supported her extended family in Mexico for much of her life,” continued Vogel. Indeed, it was reported that Vélez kept her personal phone number listed so that fans could call her up and chat when they were in distress. She also had a big heart, keeping a large menagerie of rescue animals which included horses, monkeys, canaries, turtles and dogs.

“Although the public thinks that I'm a very wild girl. Actually I'm not. I'm just me, Lupe Vélez, simple and natural Lupe. If I'm happy, I dance and sing and acted like a child. And if something irritates me, I cry and sob. Someone called that 'personality'. The Personality is nothing more than behave with others as you really are. If I tried to look and act like Norma Talmadge, the great dramatic actress, or like Corinne Griffith, the aristocrat of the movies, or like Mary Pickford, the sweet and gentle Mary, I would be nothing more than an imitation. I just want to be myself: Lupe Vélez .”

#photography #lupe vélez #gary cooper #Johnny Weissmuller #old hollywood #douglas fairbanks #vintage photography #cliff clavin

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Batman's Bird Watching Scrapbook

This fic for the @batfam-big-bang was written for @jube-art's AU concept and artwork. The way the fic is done up, it just... it would be way too much work to post all 35 chapters on tumblr, so you get the first one, and the AO3 links. So far, the first 4 parts are up on AO3.

There are two versions of this fic.

The Cool Version, which has all the coding and formatting to make it look like an actual scrapbook. And

The Simplified Version, which does not have all the coding and formatting to make it cleaner and easier to read on mobile.

Chapter 1: Arrival of Haly's Circus in Gotham

The circus wouldn't normally attract my attention, but Alfred had been telling me shortly before, to lighten up and do something fun. I think he could tell that my mission had been taking me to a particularly dark place at that time. I snapped at him when he made the suggestion, and ended up taking it as a way to apologize to him. I had no idea what awaited me. — Bruce W.

Gotham Gazette April 5, 2009 Traveling circus comes to Gotham by Bill Finger

Though known to many as a dreary city, Gotham does have its bright spots. Yesterday afternoon, Haly's International Traveling Circus set down in Amusement Mile and set up their striped big top in the fairgrounds on the waterfront.

Performances begin tomorrow at 6 P.M. and are planned to continue daily until the night of April 18th, so be sure to get your ticket to see the show while they're still in town.

Haly's Circus boasts a wide variety of acts, carnival games, and sideshows including performances of trained, live, wild animals. Among those animals are Zitka the Asian elephant, and lions Gunther and Gurbel who perform alongside Wild Wilhelm the Lion Tamer. Haly's talented horseback dancer Linda Grey does the ballet atop Dungi the Zebra.

I had the privilege of being able to interview Mister Haly before opening day, though he was very busy, and am excited to pass on some of the highlights of what he shared with me.

"We've got all sorts here," he said, "all your standard circus folk, like Sando the strongman, Pedro the dwarf, our knife-thrower Zane and his lovely assistant Zephyr, a fabulously talented group of fire-dancers, as well as the greatest menagerie of clowns you'll find in any traveling circus around the world, if I do say so myself."

I asked him what made his circus special, and Mr. Haley was more than happy to answer me. "Well, sir, our circus may have many acts you've seen before, contortionists, and magicians, and a pair of stunning tattooed ladies, but you've never seen anything like the Flying Graysons," he claimed.

The main event at Haly's Circus, the Flying Graysons, Mary, John, and their son, are widely regarded as among the most skilled acrobats on Earth, with their young son, Richard, holding the high esteem of being the youngest acrobat in history capable of successfully performing a quadruple flip on the trapeze.

As if that weren't impressive enough, the Flying Graysons fearlessly perform all their daring trapeze stunts without a net. You'll definitely want to stay until the end to catch their closing act.

(showtimes for Haly's International Traveling Circus listed on pg. 14)

#dc #batman #batfam reverse big bang 2023 #batfam big bang #fic #things i wrote #epistolary #dc robin #batfam

[samepisodebracket]

justice for sam

If the spnepisodebracket craze has shown us anything, it's that the supernatural fanbase is extremely divided, with the lowly sam stan seemingly at the bottom of the pile. sam is always last in polls, so this is a bracket for the 10% or so who always votes for him. because yeah, there's 327 episodes of Supernatural, but how many are popular because of a dean or destiel moment? how many good episodes are drowned out because they focus on sam?

i've chosen, with some crowdsourced peer review (special thanks to @spneveryseason, @suncaptor, and @ambersock!) 125 episodes that are Sam Relevant. Some are extremely sam-centric, some just have a shot where sam looks like he's being crucified that gives me brain worms -- i tried to be generous about it to keep a relatively even seasons distribution! matchups will be random and polls will last 24 hours each. in the tradition of @spnepisodebracket (who this is obviously inspired by and would not be possible without!) i'll try to rb a gifset for every episode in the poll!

a final note: no this is not that serious but the criteria for voting here should be how good the episode is as a SAM episode, not as anything else, so please vote accordingly! i am making this for people who actually enjoy sam and if that is not you, then this is not the poll for you!

with that out of the way, here is the compiled list of episodes! voting starts this sammy sunday, 3/26!

Season 1 Pilot (1x01) Bloody Mary (1x05) Home (1x09) Asylum (1x10) Scarecrow (1x11) Nightmare (1x14) Shadow (1x16) Provenance (1x19) Salvation (1x21) Devil's Trap (1x22) Season 2 Simon Said (2x05) Croatoan (2x09) Hunted (2x10) Playthings (2x11) Houses of the Holy (2x13) Born Under a Bad Sign (2x14) Heart (2x17) All Hell Breaks Loose Part 1 (2x21) All Hell Breaks Loose Part 2 (2x22) Season 3 Bad Day at Black Rock (3x03) A Very Supernatural Christmas (3x08) Mystery Spot (3x11) Jus In Bello (3x12) Time is On My Side (3x15) Season 4 Metamorphosis (4x04) It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester (4x07) I Know What You Did Last Summer (4x09) After School Special (4x13) On the Head of a Pin (4x16) It's a Terrible Life (4x17) Jump the Shark (4x19) When the Levee Breaks (4x21) Lucifer Rising (4x22) Season 5 Good God, Y'all! (5x02) Free to be You and Me (5x03) Changing Channels (5x08) Sam, Interrupted (5x11) Swap Meat (5x12) The Song Remains the Same (5x13) My Bloody Valentine (5x14) Dark Side of the Moon (5x16) 99 Problems (5x17) Two Minutes to Midnight (5x21) Swan Song (5x22) Season 6 Exile on Main St. (6x01) You Can't Handle the Truth (6x06) Family Matters (6x07) Clap Your Hands if You Believe (6x09) Caged Heat (6x10) Appointment in Samarra (6x11) Like a Virgin (6x12) Unforgiven (6x13) The French Mistake (6x15) The Man Who Knew Too Much (6x22) Season 7 Meet the New Boss (7x01) Hello, Cruel World (7x02) The Girl Next Door (7x03) Season 7, Time for a Wedding! (7x08) Plucky Pennywhistle's Magic Menagerie (7x14) Repo Man (7x15) Out with the Old (7x16) The Born-Again Identity (7x17) Season 8 We Need to Talk About Kevin (8x01) Hunteri Heroici (8x08) Trial and Error (8x14) Taxi Driver (8x19) Pac-Man Fever (8x20) The Great Escapist (8x21) Clip Show (8x21) Sacrifice (8x23) Season 9 Holy Terror (9x09) Road Trip (9x10) First Born (9x11) The Purge (9x13) Meta Fiction (9x18) Season 10 Black (10x01) Soul Survivor (10x03) Fan Fiction (10x05) Inside Man (10x17) Book of the Damned (10x18) The Werther Project (10x19) The Prisoner (10x22) Brother's Keeper (10x23) Season 11 Form and Void (11x02) Baby (11x04) Just My Imagination (11x08) Oh Brother Where Art Thou (11x09) The Devil in the Details (11x10) Into the Mystic (11x11) Ouroborus (11x14) Red Meat (11x17) Don't Call Me Shurley (11x20) Season 12 Keep Calm and Carry On (12x01) Mamma Mia (12x02) American Nightmare (12x04) Rock Never Dies (12x07) The Raid (12x14) Who We Are (12x22) Season 13 Lost and Found (13x01) Patience (13x03) The Big Empty (13x04) Various & Sundry Villains (13x12) A Most Holy Man (13x15) Funeralia (13x19) Beat the Devil (13x21) Exodus (13x22) Let the Good Times Roll (13x23) Season 14 Stranger in a Strange Land (14x01) Mint Condition (14x04) Nightmare Logic (14x05) Byzantium (14x08) Prophet and Loss (14x12) Lebanon (14x13) Peace of Mind (14x15) Game Night (14x17) Moriah (14x20) Season 15 Back and to the Future (15x01) Atomic Monsters (15x04) The Rupture (15x03) Golden Time (15x06) The Gamblers (15x11) Unity (15x17) Inherit the Earth (15x19) Finale: Carry On (15x20)

Edits: Bugs (1x08) will be added, polls will not be completely random bc im not doing this for science im doing this to see a good episode win and my randomizer pit when the levee breaks against swan song in round 1

#samepisodebracket #sam winchester #polls #spn #spn polls

[sgiandubh]

Más se perdió en Cuba 

Whenever a stupid, annoying and predictable thing happens (the three criteria must simultaneously be met), somebody fundamental to me does an eloquent, unique eyeroll and lashes out with gusto: más se perdió en Cuba. The precise English translation of it being "worse things happen at sea".

Mordor's horrified reaction at the sight of S sporting recently a nice cigarillo, while holding the Belgian flag, is hilarious. Until it isn't. This is at best gullible, at worst parochial - you pick your side - and it goes to show how easily people spit on something completely foreign to their world, without checking for context or meaning.

Presenting yourself as a cigar aficionado is a deliberate marketing choice. It enhances the image of a grown-up, sophisticated man-about-town, flaunting Old World charm and an access to gentlemen's clubs worldwide. Most of which feature humidor rooms, where profitable networking and business conversations happen. In 2023, this hobby is akin to what fox hunting was to the Victorians: an occasion to meet and greet, stay relevant and keep up your social standing. It is also what remains of that Bond dream, shaken and stirred and long lost: but let's not scratch a wound that didn't properly heal, yet.

Lo and behold, the Naysayer Brigade quickly gathered speed, on Twitter and Tumblr: oh dear God, Mary, the Apostles and all their spoons, this is pure insanity, he is doing it again, how could that be, the Viking God is smoking like a mere mortal, good grief did you think of the ozone layer, what a stupid peasant, how dares he encourage such a VICIOUS THING?

In an effort to calm the menagerie, Miss Marple herself gave us her usual smug two cents, writing confidently something like "my favorite would be he does not inhale". This is where I parked my drone and laughed and laughed and laughed like a drain.

YOU NEVER INHALE A CIGAR, MEVROUW. EVER.

But you can do plenty of other fun things with it (don't be dirty, don't think Lewinsky). You can plunge the uncut tip in brandy, let it dry, savor the new complex aroma, cut and go for it.

I know I do. Not everyday, but from time to time. And it's glorious.

#fandom

[filmnoirsbian]

Hi !! I was wondering if you had any book recs/favorite books? Things that you think of as inspiration or just plain like? Genuinely curious. <3 im in love with your work btw i spent the other day binging your patreon

Some favorites that deeply impacted me from a young age up into teenagedom: the Animorphs series by K. A. Applegate, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein, Oddly Enough by Bruce Coville, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Little Sister by Kara Dalkey, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage, Piratica by Tanith Lee, the Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, Holes by Louis Sachar, The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg, Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Mori, The Sea-Wolf by Jack London, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins, Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath, Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan, The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg, The Iliad and Odyssey (allegedly) by Homer, The Táin by many people, Harlem by Walter Dean Myers, Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan, The Wall and the Wing by Laura Ruby, The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein, The Hainish Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin, Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, The Ethical Vampire series by Susan Hubbard, The Howl Series by Diana Wynne Jones, the Curseworkers series by Holly Black, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick, Android Karenina by Ben H. Winters, An Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, Beloved by Toni Morrison, A Stir of Bones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson, Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente, World War Z by Max Brooks, This is Not A Drill by K. A. Holt, Fade to Blue by Sean Beaudoin, Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, Crush by Richard Siken, Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo, Devotions by Mary Oliver, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Some favorites read more recently: The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey, Engine Summer by John Crowley, Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, The Princess Bride by William Goldman, Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot, My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, Reprieve by James Han Mattson, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, Kindred by Octavia Butler, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, Station Eleven by Emily St. John-Mandel, The Crown Ain't Worth Much by Hanif Abdurraqib, The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica, The Girl with All the Gifts by Mike Carey, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, She had some horses by Joy Harjo, Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón, The King Must Die by Mary Renault, Books of Blood by Clive Barker, Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin, Cassandra by Christa Wolfe

Plays: The Oresteia by Aeschylus, Electra by Sophocles, Los Reyes by Julio Cortázar, Angels in America by Tony Kushner, August: Osage County by Tracy Letts, The Bald Soprano by Eugène Ionesco, The Trojan Women by Euripides, Salome by Oscar Wilde, Girl on an Altar by Marina Carr, Fences by August Wilson, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, Our Town by Thornton Wilder, Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond

Graphic novels: The Crow by James O'Barr, DMZ by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli, Eternals (2021) by Kieron Gillen and Esad Ribić, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and John Higgins, My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris, Maus by Art Spiegelman, Tank Girl by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Through the Woods by Emily Carroll, Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol

#watchmen is difficult to recommend on account of the misogyny but beyond that it really did change my life lol #asks #an open window #book recs #also i know technically eternals isn't a graphic novel it's a comic run directly related to the avengers and such at large BUT #it is sooo so good and u don't really have to know much abt what the avengers losers are up to in order to understand it #i didn't include any other favorite comic runs bc they require other things to be read for context. ur welcome.

[seathiing]

Arc 3-

Sy like "girls are scary" and Jamie like no it's just you only know scary girls

I lost it when Helen and Mary bonded over figuring out how to hide knives in Mary's hair

> I don’t want to stand out when you all are saying, ‘that’s one big spider, do you think it eats horses?’ But no, I get freaked out and Sy acts like a penis, and Helen acts like she’s seen worse because she has and that doesn’t make me feel better at all!

Poor Lillian lmaoooooooo

Oh boy sub rosa time. This is a fun sequence, the way everyone's running around, pandemonium, sub rosa's bloody footprints, the menagerie of experiments she's letting out

#twigblr #twig liveblog

[maggicktouched]

Mary's Magical Menagerie: Umaltar

A magical creature that closely resembles a mammoth in both size and stature. They live in the deep forests of the Witch Wilds in cold climates all over the world and travel in large herds. Umaltar blend seamlessly into the forests around them because they are covered in a living coat of plant life. Flowers, grasses, ferns, vines, all weave in and out of their coats, but if you touch one, it will feel as soft and smooth as down feathers. Cutting the plants away from the beast severs the magic, and they’ll feel rough and fibrous once more.

Umaltar move silently throughout the woods, and despite their large size, often sneak up on witches traveling through the wilds. They are highly intelligent, and certain herds/individuals of the species are even thought to be sapient. As such, they’re often curious about travelers. However they’re also territorial and deeply prideful. They existed long before man or witch walked their woods, and are extremely defensive of it and one another. 

While not endangered, this is a highly protected species and killing or possessing one is a very serious crime. Not that they are easily killed or subduded, as the vast majority of spells will simply have no effect on them. 

Flowers grow around the head of the Umaltar and often spread down to tangle around their enormous tusks. If these flowers can be obtained they can be used in a variety of potions most commonly ever-bloom spells, but they’re powerful fertility and calming agents as well. 

Berries grow in the thicket of long, grassy fur between their front legs. These berries closely resemble cloud berries and have a tart but pleasant flavor. The young feed off of the berries for the first few years of their lives, and just one can sustain a man for a day.

Linnea Tandy has a very close bond with an ancient herd of Umaltar that live in the Fox Clan Wilds. Not only has her family ruled and cared for the Wilds for centuries, but during the War of the Twin Flowers, when the lands were under attack, she personally defended the herd from the ravagers that the Kestrel Clan released into the sacred forests. She can often be found standing at the back gates to the estate, speaking softly to their eldest member, Ödhger. He plucks the flowers from his crown and passes them to her through the bars, and she uses them to keep her massive garden thriving and in a state of constant blooming perfection.

#;;mary's magical menagerie

[clairelsonao3]

Last Line Tag

Everyone, I'm so ashamed of myself.

I started another WIP. (Well, to be totally accurate, I started another FIVE WIPs. Yes, it's a series.).🤦And I've been down a rabbit hole with it recently. (But don't worry, I haven't given up any of the other ones!)

@tabswrites @mysticstarlightduck @cowboybrunch and @sarandipitywrites tagged me in a Last Line Tag

But, because here is where I share my WIPs, after all, I figured I should share something. Presented without further comment, here's a line from Book One. (Not even close to the first scene, since as many of you know, I don't write scenes in order).

"See anything you like?" “Well, let's see," she said, with an exaggerated finger to her lips. "I don’t like tattoos, showing off, or upside-down idiots, so no. Now get down from there before anyone sees you.” “They've seen worse,” he said. “Hey, wanna play Spider-Man and Mary Jane?” She waved him off with disgust. "Are you insane?” “Nope,” he said. “They tested me for that, and I swear I passed. Hey come back!" he called before she slammed the office door in his face.

Gently tagging a few people I have not previously tagged (and a few I have) to share the last line they wrote, so please feel free to ignore if you're not into this kind of thing:

@romances-not-tragedies @menagerie-of-monsters @winterandwords @writingphoenix @kaylinalexanderbooks

@girlwithaquillpen

For informational purposes, also tagging @little-peril-stories who requested more info about this WIP!

#by the way i do not have a certificate to prove it soooo #😂 #last line tag #tag game #writeblr #my writing #unrevealed title not so silly whumpy romantic something wip

[neoneun-au]

A post for my book recommendations, to be continuously updated as I read and remember more. Because without reading, I would not be writing. 

All time favourites are marked with a ☆

All are sorted by genre and will be linked (if able) to their Goodreads pages so that you can dig deeper into whatever catches your eye.

(ps if you have a Goodreads account, you can add me here)

Anthology/Short Story Collections

Behold This Dreamer - Walter de la Mare ☆

Love Letters of Great Men - Ursula Doyle

Difficult Women - Roxane Gay

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories - Ken Liu

The Elephant Vanishes - Haruki Murakami

Essays

Bad Feminist - Roxane Gay ☆

Bluets - Maggie Nelson ☆

On Freedom - Maggie Nelson

In Praise of Shadows - Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

Malleable Forms - Meeka Walsh ☆

Fiction (Classic)

Persuasion - Jane Austen ☆

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

The Awakening - Kate Chopin

North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell ☆

Siddhartha - Hermen Hesse

The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera ☆

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Fiction (Modern)

All’s Well - Mona Awad ☆

Bunny - Mona Awad

Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach

The Pisces - Melissa Broder

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

For Today I Am A Boy - Kim Fu

The Vegetarian - Han Kang

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova ☆

Fall on Your Knees - Ann-Marie MacDonald

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing - Eimear McBride

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

The Road - Cormac McCarthy ☆

Under the Hawthorne Tree - Ai Mi

The Song of Achilles - Madeleine Miller ☆

After Dark - Haruki Murakami ☆

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - Haruki Murakami

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami ☆

Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell

The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

Boy, Snow, Bird - Helen Oyeyemi

Mr. Fox - Helen Oyeyemi ☆

A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki

The Overstory - Richard Powers ☆

The Godfather - Mario Puzo

Blindness - José Saramago

How To Be Both - Ali Smith

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt ☆

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

Ru - Kim Thúy

Brooklyn - Colm Tóibín

Big Fish - Daniel Wallace

Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto

Horror/Thriller

The Exorcist - William Peter Blatty

Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton

Gerald’s Game - Stephen King

The Shining - Stephen King

Audition - Ryū Murakami

I’m Thinking of Ending Things - Iain Reid

Manga/Graphic Novels

Basilisk - Futaro Yamada, Maseki Sagawa

Death Note - Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata

Eureka Seven - Jinsei Kataoka, Kazuma Kondou

Lore Olympus - Rachel Smythe

Nana - Ai Yazawa ☆

Paradise Kiss - Ai Yazawa

Uzumaki - Junji Ito

xxxHolic - CLAMP

Memoirs/Journals

Speak, Okinawa - Elizabeth Miki Brina

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness - Susannah Cahalan

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty

I’m Glad My Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi

Henry and June - Anaïs Nin ☆

The Glass Castle - Jeanette Walls ☆

Non-Fiction (General)

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking - Susan Cain

The Red Market - Scott Carney

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern - Stephen Greenblatt

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right - Jane Mayer

The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson

The Elements of Style - William Strunk Jr, E.B White

Non-Fiction (Philosophy/Spiritual)

The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge - Carlos Castañeda

Silence: In the Age of Noise - Erling Kagge ☆

The Kybalion - Three Initiates ☆

The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Bardo - Chögyam Trungpa

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu

Poetry Collections

I Love My Love - Reyna Biddy

Let Us Compare Mythologies - Leonard Cohen

The Prophet - Khalil Gibran

The Anatomy of Being - Shinji Moon

The Beauty of the Husband - Anne Carson ☆

Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth - Warsan Shire

Night Sky with Exit Wounds - Ocean Vuong

Speculative Fiction

Dune - Frank Herbert

Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel ☆

Battle Royale - Koushun Takami

True Crime

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders - Vincent Bugliosi

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote ☆

Young Adult

A Great and Terrible Beauty - Libba Bray ☆

The Diviners - Libba Bray

The Sun is Also a Star - Nicola Yoon

#book recs #mads.recs

[airplanned]

I really like the way you write romance stories and wanted to know if you had any books you would recommend. I just love the way you write character interactions and this is me checking the bookmarked tab of a favorited author.

oooooh! Okay! (I'm rubbing my hands together, because I love talking about my favorite books)

I don't read a lot of books that are specifically in the romance genre, but I read a lot where the romance is strong. There's just other stuff going on that is more crucial to the plot.

Howl's Moving Castle. My favorite book. It is not the same as the movie, so don't go in thinking it's going to be quiet, pacifist vibes, because it's not that. There's a lot of bickering and over-dramatics. It's so funny. Howl is my favorite fictional character of all time, and the way Sophie doesn't put up with his shit while knowing all the words to his rugby team's theme song is peek romance. Their banter is excellent, and their relationship is weirdly wholesome.

The Scholomache series, which starts with A Deadly Education. It's a magic school, but…more fucked up that you're expecting. Grumpy girl destined to be an evil sorceress and a himbo guy. Shit gets absolutely wild. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Love it.

Speaking of Naomi Novik, Uprooted has a similar relationship dynamic to Howl's Moving Castle. Also the Temeraire series, which starts with His Majesty's Dragon is very fun, although has next to no romance. It's the Napoleonic Wars but with dragons, and is both ridiculous and pointed.

The Scorpio Races. This is a really beautiful book about evil magic horses and loss and poverty and being stuck places. I love it.

A Far Wilder Magic. Holy shit, what did I read? Everyone else needs to read this too and confirm it exists. It's a Goddamned triumph.

Things without much romance, that I am going to recommend anyway:

Paper Menagerie (Devastating Short stories).

Orange World (Devastating short stories)

What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky (Devastating Short Stories)

The Murderbot Diaries, which starts with All Systems Red (Most relatable character ever)

Project Hail Mary (wild fun ride. If you like how I do Zelda talking about Sheikah tech, this is for you.)

Sourdough (cute novel about a magic sourdough starter and a robot arm)

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (I think about this an unhealthy amount)

The Girl from Everywhere (girl's sea captain dad can time travel using old maps)

Iron Widow (Pacific Rim with more revenge)

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride (rich prose. Perfect balance of fairy tale logic.)

If you go read any of these, or if you've read any of these, feel free to drop me a line shrieking about them. I would love that. I have a lot more to say about all of them.

#book recs

[completelymindfucked]

Currently thinking about how excited Dean gets over the slinky Sam grabs for him in 7.14 Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie

Like, that is the face of a man that never got to have toys after Mary died let alone for himself because he probably gave what they could afford or steal to Sam. Ontop of that there definitely was a point where John either threw them away or flat out told the boys they were too old for toys, not counting the ones left behind because they had to abruptly skip town.

#dean winchester #sam winchester #samdean #weechesters

[shepherds-of-haven]

I recently discovered that being a Wild Mage allows you to visit the Menagerie on days off and I will now no longer be playing as any other specialisation. I can use the QuickStart to gain the necessary stats for my Mary-Sue golden run mc because you can ply my magic zoo from my cold dead hands!

Yes, the magic zoo is so much fun!! Just keep in mind that the quickbuild won't be in the final version of the game--it's for alpha build purposes and testing only--but you can still have your golden run MC be a Wild Mage!! I believe in you!! 😂💖

#Shepherds of Haven #day off #alpha build #alpha preview #wild magic #types of magic