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sweetcurlyhaz · 3 years

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Percy Jackson is an Hufflepuff- Part 1

Yes. Percy is an Hufflepuff, and now I’ll explain why. First, some brief introductions: English isn’t my first language, so sorry for my grammar errors. Pls be kind. Second, this is MY opinion, but I’ll argue with solid proofs, taking scenes from the books, comparing characters and more. Let’s go step by step.

-Why Percy is not a Ravenclaw? I really have to explain this? I think we all agree that Percy could never be a Ravenclaw.

-Why Percy is not a Slytherin? Oh, here we go. A lot of ppl think Percy is a Slytherin and I’m always like “WHAT”. And now I’ll show you why Percy could never be a Slytherin.

1- I think the best proof is in the Sea of Monsters, where at the end Percy give the Golden Fleece to Clarisse. We all know that Percy save the situation, that HE take the Golden Fleece, that HE saved Clarisse’s ass. Despite that, he gave the G.F. to Clarisse, who took all the credit. A Slytherin would never do that, a true Slytherin, already wouldn’t help Clarisse (not because Slytherin can’t be kind, but surely they’re not with ppl they don’t like), and above all wouldn’t give his/her own glory to Clarisse. Percy’s altruism, kindness and true sense of justice overcome his pride, glory and power. Is it just me that think about of our lovely Cedric Diggory? I mean, is almost the exact thing that Cedric does with Harry: he says to him to take the goblet fire instead of him. Percy does the same.

2- When he refuses to be a god. THIS. I mean, how Hufflepuff is this? What kind of Slytherin refuses a thing like that? I’ll tell you, NONE. Percy thinks about how wonderful should be being almighty, powerful, and immortal. BUT, he can’t abandon his friends and family. He could never do that, and this is so Hufflepuff, right? For Percy, family and friends always come first. In reverse, a Slytherin would take this chance because they are AMBITIOUS and they want to be POWERFUL (hear me out, this is not a bad thing at all). PERCY IS NOT AMBITIOUS, or he would have accepted to be a god! Also, what Percy ask to the gods, instead of being one? “all demigods have to be recognized, and all the minor gods should have a cabin at CHB.” His request is SO humble and SO unselfish that only an Hufflepuff could ask that.

3- His fatal flaw: loyalty. We all know that a main characteristic of being an Hufflepuff is loyalty, and that’s said all. But I’m a good person so I’ll explain this even if there’s no need, and also I’m sure someone could say “EvEN SLyThERin cAN be LoYAl”. Yeah, you’re right. BUT Slytherin’s loyalty is a lot different. Their loyalty is limited only to a small group of friends, and also if their friends affect their goals, a Slytherin is no more loyal to them. Example: Regulus Black. At first he’s loyal to Voldemort, because he truly thinks he’s right. But when he realize the means Voldy uses, Regulus goes against him (we love you Reg). His no more loyal because Voldemort’s behavior go against Regulus’ beliefs. Now, Percy (thanks to the gods) is a good person and has a straight moral on what’s wrong and what’s right. But have you ever think how dangerous he could be if he was evil? I mean, if someone dare to touch an hair of Annabeth he could loose his freaking mind. Evil Percy could be really a problem because his loyalty goes first of his other beliefs. He would do anything to protect his friends, anything.

Another example: let’s analyze the relationship of Percy and Nico. We all agree that Nico is an ambiguous character. He tries to kill Percy, than helps him, the lies to him, and more. I mean, he is the last character to be loyal to, right? But Percy still have faith on him, he’s still loyal to him. Percy asks Nico to bring the seven at the other side, and never doubts on him. A Slytherin would never place such responsibility on a character like Nico (I love Nico, but that’s the true). This loyalty, deep and irrational, can only be of an Hufflepuff.

4-Another proof (there are A LOT) why Percy isn’t a Slytherin: he doesn’t want to be powerful. I write this before in the second point, but I have another proof from The House of Hades. Do you remember when he controls poison against the goddess of discord? Okay, at first he likes what that power makes him feel, he doesn’t want to stop. But when he sees Annabeth’s face he calms down. So, this thing with poison is a new power for him: but he never uses it. Remember when, under the sea with Jason, he says something like “I could have controlled the poison, but I didn’t. It was the goddess’ revenge and I deserve it.” A Slytherin wouldn’t have such problem, they would use this new power on their favor. But Percy’s sense of justice overcome the feeling of power, even if he likes it somehow.

5-I saw that a lot of ppl think Percy is a Slytherin because of the cunning thing. English is not my first language and I have never heard this word before. So I did some researches: cunning is another way to say “smart” “clever” “sly”. Is like being smart but in a malicious way (please correct me if I’m wrong!!). And they take as an example that part in the Mark of Athena, where’s Percy trick the enemy’s crew by inventing the story of the Diet Coke and Mister D. Or another one is Percy gets Luke to admit to all CHB that he poisoned Thalia’s tree. And others. All of this are valid proof but remember why Percy does it. We have to go deeper, not just looking on what he does but WHY he does it. And all the evidences I said to you above are connected to one point: his fatal flaw. He is cunning to protect his friends, he would do anything for them. Also, how long being cunning is a Slytherin thing? I think there’s a lot of misunderstandings about this. Being a Slytherin doesn’t mean you have to be cunning or whatever, and be an Hufflepuff doesn’t mean you have to be always kind. I’m really sad that we don’t have a GOOD Slytherin (Ik there’s Regulus, but we don't have so much informations about him) to compare with Percy, that would be awesome and constructive (J.K. take notes).

6- “He’s not patient, he can’t be an Hufflepuff.” Alright, so I assume who said this is because Percy has ADHD and dyslexia. Ehm...what? What’s this supposed to mean? Only because Percy is a trouble kid doesn’t mean he can’t be an Hufflepuff. I really hate this way of thinking. Now, patient is not just like “See the plant growing and never get boring or impatient because is too slow.” Being patient is more. Percy is patient? No, he isn’t. Due to his character, and his ADHD, Percy can’t be patient. But this is when it comes to manual and practical things, like fight, or when he plays on capture the flag or when he’s angry. Let’s analyse how is Percy in the relationships. Percy and Annabeth (I love them); at first it might seem that Percy isn’t patient with her: they argue a lot, they yell at each other and so on. But, in reality Percy is patient with her feelings (apart the Luke thing, Percy is so jealous), he never push her, he never ask to her anything on what she feels. Even when they’re engaged he says (in MoA) their relationship is like a little statue of glass and he was terrified of having scared her with his big (and lovely) plans. I think that being with Annabeth involves a LOT of patient.

His relationship with Nico: I mean, we all love Nico, but who doesn’t want to give him a slap after he lied to him in the SoN? I think Percy would love to do it (I’M KIDDING. NO DI ANGELO WILL BE HURT IN THIS BLOG). Percy is really patient with him, from the very start: remember all the questions Nico asks Percy? And he was so annoying, but Percy was patient with him. Another example: Percy and Tyson. We love Tyson, he’s like a big bear, but how annoying was with Percy and Grover? But Percy always stand by his side, never yell at him the way he really want, and he is really patient with him. I’m not saying that Percy is the perfect patient boy, but in some way Percy is patient too when he wants (Annabeth is less patient than him in my opinion).

Ok, I think I said all about this. I have a lot more to say but this is becoming a poem so i have to stop XD. I wish i could do just one post but it’d be extremely long so i will split in Part 1 and Part 2 this argument. In the next post I will say why Percy can’t be a Gryffindor :). There’s one more thing I want to say, and I think is really important. The house thing is sadly really restrictive. Rick Riordan’s characters have a complex psychology and are really well built. I think that see a character psychology only in relation to his house is wrong. For example, Percy is such more than what we said. But if we have to put him in a house we can’t look to all his peculiarities. It’s like a brainstorming: when I said Percy, I always think about his sarcasm, his loyalty, his bravery ecc. To put someone in a house of Hogwarts is necessary to go streight to the point, and analyze WHY he does something, not only what.

Thank you for reading this, I will appreciate it if you comment your opinion or if you reblog this. And remember: We’re not just a house. We’re more.

#percy jackson #hufflepuff #slytherin #hogwarts house #percy is an hufflepuff #percy hufflepuff #analysis #fatal flaw #argument

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hforhonesty · 5 years

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Book Review #2 | Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

“Cath and Wren are identical twins and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they’re off to university and Wren’s decided she doesn’t want to be one half of a pair any more – she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It’s not easy for Cath. She would rather bury herself in the fanfiction she writes where there’s romance far more intense than anything she’s experienced in real life.

Now Cath has to decide whether she’s ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she’s realizing there’s more to learn about love than she ever thought possible…” [Official synopsis of the book]

Alternative title: “Ode to our Inner Fangirl” or “Every fangirl must-read”.

This book was pretty popular when I was still active on my fandoms but I, uhm, refused to read it.

(Because I’m disturbed)

(Ask anyone)

Seriously, though. I was only 14 at the time and I was going through that phase that didn’t let me read books outside the fantasy genre, given my not-so-little obsession toward Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Mortal Instruments, Hunger Games, and so on.

I bought my first copy on July 2014, during a fortnight study holiday in Dublin. I also got something like ten other books and had to purchase a carry-on because they wouldn’t fit in my luggage, but that’s another story.

Anyway, as soon as I started Fangirl, I decided to read only a few chapters for each night instead of finishing it in a glorious one-night-stand. You need to know that I have always been a fast-reader, but this time… I really didn’t want to finish it; instead, I wanted to enjoy every single line and make the book last as long as possible.

Before we start talking about Fangirl, you need to know that it is set in an alternative universe where Gemma T. Leslie is the actual author the Simon Snow Series, which is worldwide famous. Since the eighth and last book of the series is about to be published, most fans seized the day and decided to write on the Internet their own versions of the story, so that they could all have a say in the matter regarding the end.

“The whole point of fanfiction,” she said, “is that you get to play inside somebody else’s universe. Rewrite the rules. Or bend them. The story doesn’t have to end when Gemma Leslie gets tired of it. You can stay in this world, this world you love, as long as you want, as long as you keep thinking of new stories...” “Fanfiction,” Levi said.

“Yes.”

Cath Avery is undoubtedly Simon Snow’s #1 FAN. She loves the books so much that she owns something like every gadget of the series: posters, drawings, t-shirts, commemorative busts of Simon and Baz...

Just take a look at the fanart of her room made by Simini Blocker:

However, if someone asked Cath if there were something about the series that she wanted to change, the answer would be the most affirmative yes in the history of yes-s.

Because in Gemma T. Leslie’s version of Simon Snow, he and Baz Pitch are just enemies... And Snowbaz is a CRACK SHIP.

I mean, only G̶e̶m̶m̶a̶ ̶T̶.̶ ̶L̶e̶s̶l̶i̶e̶ a monster would write about their amazing chemistry and THEN DELIBERATELY CHOOSE NOT TO MAKE THEIR RELATIONSHIP ROMANTIC.

I need five minutes to calm down.

Inhala, exhala.

Okay. Fine. Fine. I’m cool. I’m fine.

So sorry you had to witness my wig snatching. Anyway...

Since R̶a̶i̶n̶b̶o̶w̶ ̶R̶o̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ Cath is also Snowbaz’s #1 FAN, she has to do something about this contempt of court, so she writes several fanfictions using the nickname Magicath and becomes beyond popular. People all around North America read her fanfictions, and she’s pretty well-known in Japan, too.

She’s currently working on her latest fanfiction, Carry on, which is her own version of the eighth book.

Wait a minute, you say. Is her fanfiction the same as Rainbow’s book?

The answer is no. Rainbow herself said that her book and Cath’s fanfiction are pretty much different, so you don’t have to worry about spoilers while you’re reading Fangirl. Moreover, here’s the link to my spoiler!free review/analysis of Carry on, which can be read by both newbies or og members of the fandom.

Anyway... As you can see, Cath loves writing – and she loves it so much that not only she’s majoring in English, but she’s also convinced her advisor to let her take Intro to Fiction-Writing, which is a class only for junior students.

Intro to Fiction-Writing is taught by professor Piper, whom I consider one of the best fictional-teachers of all time. One of my favourite scenes of the book is set during her very first lecture, when she asks her students why people write fiction.

The first time I read Fangirl, I remember putting the book down for a moment and asking myself how I would have answered if I had been one of those students. I probably would have kept the answer for myself, but the point is that, as I was getting lost on my thought, I couldn’t come up with an explanation of why I write.

It’s a tricky question for a writer, isn’t it? I bet that we could all come up with replies that couldn’t be more different from each other. We have a urge to write and we try to get along with it, but where does this urge come from? And what does it say? Does it speak a universal language?

Five years later, I think I’ve found my answer.

I’m an introvert. I’m loud and talkative when I’m with my friends, but I can’t even order a pizza on the phone — which is kind of funny, whatever.

Being an introvert also means that I have a hard time identifying myself with fictional characters. They are what I like to call the ‘Quiet Ones’, of course, but they seem to overcome their introversion, which is described as a huge problem that needs to be fixed, and gain tons of ““confidence”” (see: extroversion) toward the end of the book | series | movie | tv show, becoming totally different people.

So why do I write?

I write because I want people like me to know that they are not alone, that there’s nothing wrong with them, that there are people out there who think and feel things just like they do.

Because darling, we don’t need to be fixed.

We are just introverts.

Why do I write? Cath tried to come up with a profound answer – knowing she wouldn’t speak up, even if she did.

But she does. I mean, she does come up with an answer. More than one, actually. And while I was reading this scene, I was like, how is it even possible? How can I relate so much to a character that I’ve known for less than twenty pages?

“To explore new worlds,” someone said.

“To explore old ones,” someone else said. Professor Piper was nodding.

To be somewhere else, Cath thought.

“To set ourselves free,” a girl said.

To get free of ourselves.

“To stop hearing the voices in our head,” said the boy in front of Cath. [...]

To stop, Cath thought.

To stop from being anything or anywhere at all.

“Why do we write fiction?” Professor Piper asked.

Cath looked down at her notebook.

To disappear.

Cath can’t help isolating herself from everyone but her loved ones. Her father suffers from bipolarism, and her mother abandoned her and Wren because she wasn’t interested in motherhood.

When your family is incapable of loving you, it leaves a mark that lasts a lifetime. You’re afraid of rejection, you know that nobody will ever accept you for who you are, and you can’t stop thinking that if your own mother left you, then everyone else will eventually do the same.

So what’s the point in letting them break your heart any way?

“No,” Cath said, “seriously. Look at you. You’ve got your shit together, you’re not scared of everything. I’m scared of everything. And I’m crazy. Like maybe you think I’m a little crazy, but I only ever let people see the tip of my crazy iceberg. Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept, I’m a complete disaster.”

Reading this quote was like watching my reflection on the mirror. I felt every single word of what she was saying, I felt her insecurities, her second-guessing, her fears. For a moment she was me... and I was her.

Fangirl made me realise that I’m not alone, that there is nothing wrong with who I am, that there are people out there who think and feel things just like I do.

So it’s pretty obvious that Cath belongs to the Quiet Ones. What makes her different, however, is that she doesn’t give anything up; instead, she accepts herself for who she is. And at the end of the story, she has gained more confidence, it’s true, but she’s still Cath Avery, which is one of the reasons why I love this book so much.

Thank you for reading my review. I hope you guys enjoyed it! :)

With love,

M.C.

Post scriptum: I can’t believe that my first review on Carry on got 102 notes! That’s insane, guys! I can’t believe it! Okay, enough with the exclamation marks. It’s just that... Wow. Even Rainbow Rowell herself liked it. I mean, RAINBOW ROWELL. For Heaven’s sake, I couldn’t be more thrilled.

So thank you, thank you very much. You’ve made my year.

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apolloappreciationblog · 5 years

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What do you love about Trials of Apollo and why? How'd you get into the series? What do you hope/think will happen in books 4 and 5?

Thanks so much for asking! This got really long so I’m putting it below. I guess it’s also sort of like an about me also in regards to the fandom, for anyone who wants to talk Trials (please do, I’m obsessed)

How did I get into Trials?

I read PJO a long time ago back when it was new, fresh, and super popular, and instantly fell in love with the series (like everyone else) but fell off the boat a bit after the first Heroes book came out (I guess, also like everyone else). It’s not that I didn’t like it, I was busy at the time, and since The Lost Hero had just come out, I lost track of waiting for the next books to come out and somehow just forgot about them as a whole (No I still haven’t read them all (oops). Yes, I’ve been stuck on the “It’s Percy! Oh my gods he has amnesia!” cliffhanger for years now).

It’s been a long time since then, and I thought I’d pretty much made peace with the series. But for some reason I was smacked over the head with nostalgia after someone I know mentioned how fun it would be to play a powered by the apocalypse game in a PJO setting (I’m a pretty huge tabletop rpg nerd). Naturally that thought sent me down a rabbit hole and I decided I was going to literally build a big homebrew system for PJO (which I still am, currently), despite the fact that I hadn’t engaged with the series in years. My memory was far from perfect, and I ended up doing a ton of research-sifting through wikis and even rereading some parts of the books-and while I looked around I noticed there was a new series being written. I read the synopsis and instantly fell in love. I’m a huge fan of the tropes present in trials, and the more I thought about what ridiculous shenanigans were possible from the idea, the more I absolutely could not resist reading them. I came to be entertained and stayed for the heart wrenching character development, but I’m sure we’re all the same.

Which brings me to your first question! What do I love about Trials?

First and foremost I am a real sucker for the whole general concept. Like, taking one of the gods and making them a pathetic mortal teenager?? Making it PJO’s Apollo of all gods??? I don’t think I would have ever said I needed that absolutely horrific and yet genius concept, but here we are. I was also under the impression this was a freakishly fun spinoff series (RIP me), and I mean, it kind of was, for like…half of book one.

And then, oh gods, I realized Rick had made this self important asshole likeable. In fact, even more than that, he had made him a sympathetic and compelling asshole. Where it was completely fine and fun to relish in Apollo’s hilarious punishment in book one, suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore (ok maybe just a little)-it was heartbreaking (Rick you monster, stop making him wet his pants!). But hey, that’s good writing for you.

So basically I really love the concept and, well, I just really love Apollo. The books are executed so good you don’t even realize you are completely rooting for the kid you were laughing at two books ago (because, like YIKES man, that ego!), and gladly die for him (No? Just me?) and the character development is such a subtle and delicate change, but it’s noticeable, really effective, and extremely compelling (and heartbreaking, mostly, in a good way). The comedy is on point (Sometimes it’s hard to tell if Apollo’s taste in pop culture is just bad and cringey or if it’s Rick. The truth is that it’s both and thanks, I hate it) and all of the characters, both new and old, are nostalgic and fun, and there are real reasons you can understand for every action they take and thing they say. The plot doesn’t let you down with twists and turns, but also easy to grasp and follow, and keeps you turning the page even if it’s 3am and you have class at 8. I found that TOA’s books seemed to be more focused, every encounter, no matter how seemingly random, pushes the protagonists in a way that progresses something meaningful, whether it’s the plot or their own development. It’s also really nice to see Rick return to his first person roots, especially when he does it so damn well.

It’s a fresh take on a series I grew up with and it’s just as enchanting now as it was when I was a kid. I do have some gripes with a few things in the series (Listen, I didn’t even read HoO but I loved Jason) but overall it does what it’s set out to do really well, and Rick sure knows what he’s doing (for better or worse).

What are my hopes or predictions for the rest of the series?

Oh boy. Honestly, the overall plot of Trials being “Will Apollo be restored to godhood or not?” is probably the worst plot for my heart, since I don’t even know, ever? We all know it’s going to be a yes, but at the same time…

I didn’t read HoO, though I know the general plot of it, so I can’t really do any elaborate theorycrafting in regards to Camp Jupiter or the roman demigods, but here are my thoughts on the big plot themes:

Promises Kept: Rick’s made it really clear that Apollo didn’t give a flying hoot about promises or oaths before Trials, but it’s quickly evolved into one of the biggest themes in the books. Apollo will keep his promises, maybe even regardless of the cost, and I think we’ll really see that shift in the next two books given the ending lines of book 3. This sort of also bleeds into Apollo considering the weight of life and his own heart, and the whole idea of him trying to change to make amends for his past behavior. I think by the end of this, we really might just have #1 Dad (and God) Apollo (I’m very hopeful).

Choice of Mortality: Heavily foreshadowed in book 2 (looking at you, cal), there’s going to be some crazy stuff in the coming books regarding this. We got a small glimpse of it near the end of book 3 when Apollo was questioning that, if given the option, would he go back to Olympus and abandon his friends in that moment? With circumstances debating, it’s really the heart of the plot and the series and I think we’ll see him questioning Olympus in general. The similarities between Zeus and Nero, and in turn, Apollo and Meg, are made incredibly clear in the series. Apollo would never let Meg return to Nero-it’s his goal to help her to free her from his influence and guide her through her trauma-and yet Apollo is in the same exact situation, the stakes are just, arguably, a lot less black and white. Meg will most definitely not return to Nero and overcome his manipulation, and in turn, I think it will inspire Apollo-making the choice harder than it already is.

There’s no doubt Apollo will ultimately return to Olympus, but that doesn’t made the ride any easier. While there’s no hope of Meg coming to terms with Nero (And I’m not saying there should be (please kill Nero)), Zeus is a problem that isn’t going to go away, and I hope that at the very least, Apollo can overcome his abusive relationship with his own father at the end, and maybe even revolutionize Olympus. It would make a great resolution to the series, and I think that’s what it’s pushing for and heading towards, the complete opposite of what the gods are doing now, and Apollo may just be the one to start it.

Misc predictions and wants:

>Meg and Apollo will HUG (godsdammit, even if I have to force them myself!) And for the love of the gods, can we please get a clear cut reference to their relationship regarding the SUN and PLANTS. LISTEN MAN,

>Someone else is going to die. If they don’t, they will come extremely close, and be saved by Apollo (solidifying his character development regarding the effects of his actions on others) in some intense true self sacrificial way that can’t be debated (i.e., Apollo’s excuses for being able to stabbing himself in the chest). And…the Styx is hungry.

>I have no idea what Annabeth’s up to in MC, but I’m hoping that she will make an appearance (and hopefully along with percy?). I’d also guess that camp jupiter and half-blood will come together again, but that’s just purely hoping (Don’t look at me like that, I have no idea what funk was in HoO).

>REUNION WITH ARTEMIS. PLEASE. FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS.

>I really want more camp half blood life. I really, really, really do. We’re sure as hell not going to get it. But oh, what I wouldn’t do for Apollo’s extended stay at camp, or even just, camp in general for anyone. Please!

>Everyone is going to hate the shit out of Apollo for Jason’s death (arguably, they should be upset at Rick and not my stupid, stupid son…) and oh boy is he going to have a fun time with that. I initially thought that Apollo didn’t react nearly as strong to Jason’s death as he should have (was it just me or did he mourned Crest harder than Jason?? You could argue unreliable narrator, but come on), but oh boy, I think it may be because the worst is yet to come regarding that.

>Probably some shitty forced romance for Apollo. I do not want this. I really do not want this (does ANYONE want this???). But the arguments predicting this are pretty darn hard to refute, sadly. One can only pray.

At the end of the series I really want Apollo to be like “Fuck you guys, I’m the god of demigods now. Fuck you. Especially you Zeus. I’m protecting everyone in this bitch. You can’t stop me.” and proceed to aggressively aid demigods everywhere wearing the camp half-blood shirt. Also if he moved in to camp, I sure as hell would not complain. I also wouldn’t complain if he gave driving lessons to his kids in the sun chariot. Or if he made amends with everyone he’s ever hurt. Or if he kept aspects of Lester’s appearance (like those love handles) because hey, he doesn’t have to be insecure anymore and you know what, it’s cute dammit, abs are so out. Or…well, you get the idea I’m gonna stop myself there.

That was long (LIKE, FOUR FREAKING PAGES LONG) but I hope I answered your questions!

#asks #about me

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nightmaretyrantvantas · 5 years

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So I have a rant and a half build up of rambling about my very first Percy Jackson Oc Elysia and I need to let it spill so all of you get to hear this info dump about her and my feels

Im putting a trigger warning here I made her when I first read the whole series a few years back. Her backstory isnt the happiest. So im going to put trigger warnings for mentions of (but not going into detail of) abuse, self harm, suicidal thoughts, so if you cant handle mentions of that please dont read this I dont want to upset you

Anyways I have years of work into this bab of mine and I need to get it all out

Also An important thing to note is the timeline of her(and my other ocs) stories. Basically it kinda takes place...as if Trials of Apollo didnt happen?? Sorta? I made her before it ever came out and set her story after Blood of Olympus before trials of apollo was announced so its basically diverges after Blood of Olympus...if that makes sense...I hope it does.

So basically....At the start of her story Elysia is 13 Nico is 16(from what I remember its been about two years since I read the books so please forgive me)

Ok this might jump around alot because im kinda word vomiting and info dumping about her so if something doesnt make sense please feel free to ask me to clarify I love to

OK SO MY BAB

So her full name is Elysia Angela Melina and shes a Daughter of Hades. At the start when she gets to camp shes 13.

Im going to attatch two pictures ive drawn of her to the post here

This is her with a referrence sheet of her at 13-14 and the digital picture is one of her at the present time that I tend to write about her at age 16.

So Elysia doesnt have things easy. She comes from an abusive household that really fucked her up mentally and emotionally before she got to camp. She ran away at 13 after getting kicked out of her sixth or seventh school and thigs got ugly at home. Stuff happened and she was brought to camp(im refining and probably going to redo how that happens) and well...she doesnt exactly fit in.

Shes on the shorter side for her age and shes lanky and skinny(partially from both skipping meals and sometimes only eating when she can sneak food at home) and she comes onto the scene wearing oversized hand me downs in all dark colors and long sleeves thats got a clear fearful and insecure posture and stance and is always trying to blending into the background and hide from being noticed. Shes got a thick mane of not very well cared for black hair and eyes so dark in color they look completely black, sometimes even in the light with pretty dark bags under them highlighted by really really too pale skin. So it makes her an easy target to be bullied ya know? But she silently takes it like she always does while clutching this beat up little backpack she ran away with as shes put in the Hermes cabin until she’s claimed(which has a 1-3 day delay depending on the god, because a lot of kids come to camp especially at the start of summer)

When she gets claimed she freaks out and panics because everyone is staring at her and shes suddenly the center of attention because it happened in the middle of the campfire.

So begins the bonding with her big brother.

Shes got alot of inner turmoils and traumas and problems and inner demons and as a result she has undiagnosed anxiety disorders, depression, and some PTSD along with a very low amount of self-esteem and confidence in herself from the ordeals of before reaching camp. Though once shes at camp and she eventually settles in she starts recovering bit by bit. She slowly gets close with nico(it starts kinda awkward for both of them and she comes off really quiet and shy and terrified of sudden movement so its a little hard but they overcome it)

By the end of her first year at camp shes gotten close to Nico but has a really hard time making friends with other campers her own age so she ends up sticking close to Nico and following him like his shadow because theres a period of time that heś the only person Elysia feels even remotely safe and comfortable around. And as a result at first she spends alot more time with Nico’s friends and various members of the Big Seven and she gets close to them as well(more to her siblings at first but she gets there shes a nervous bean give her time)

Though in the middle of that first year she meets a girl that soon becomes one of her best and closest friends, a daughter of Hephaestus named Karter Becks(the second oc for this fandom I made) and I’ll get to more about their friendship later.

So by the second year at camp shes settled in a little, shes decidedly become a year-rounder because she would rather be eaten by a harpy than go back to “that horrible place”as she dubs it(not to mention its very very dangerous for her outside of camp)

More things about Elysia!!!

At thirteen she had absolutely NO control of reign of her abilities. She couldnt raise or summon the dead, her shadow travel was horribly spotty and half the time she couldnt even do so correctly and her most experience with spirits is that she can sense them and she can hear and speak to them but she cant really see them( they appear as really really blurry shapes that hurt her eyes to look at for too long) of course she beats herself up over this lack of skill, mostly because she(stupidly but understandably) compares her lack of teaching and training and beginner skill level to Nico’s at the time current skill level. Yeah its dumb and yeah in the back of her mind where her common sense is she realizes this but she cant stop herself from doing so, just like she unfairly to herself compares her sword fighting skill to older campers that have been there longer.

She eventually gets her own sword of Stygian Iron, because no matter what else she tries no other swords feel...right to her. They’re always too heavy or too light too awkward to hold dont work right with her swings or just dont feel right to her so at some point shes overthinking herself to death about it and beating herself up for being too picky when Karter suggests innocently that she tries swinging around her brother’s sword. “After all Elys, whats the worst that would happen, that it feels too heavy?”

But what ends up happening is that though its too heavy for her, it still feels...right. The best way to describe it is that she feels more connected to her powers and to herself in a way. After hearing that she gets her own of Stygian iron and its...perfect to her. Its not too heavy on her wrist or too light to wield. And afterwards she actually starts getting some more confidence which helps her improve a little faster than before.

Once Elysia is fully apart of camp life it takes a long time for it to fully click that her belongings...are hers and her likes and interests and likes are respected. They wont get taken away or threatened, she doesnt have to hide what she likes or pretend she doesnt like one thing or another. She’s free to be her own person for the first time in her life and she struggles for awhile to adjust to that and accept it. Those struggles result in alot of scattered breakdowns and even one or two...relaspes that for once in her life she has a support system of her half brother and half sister, his friends, her two close friends, and chiron to catch her and help her back to her feet. She has people to lean on and depend on and not have to be afraid of and this helps alot into her recovery and acceptance of herself and her mental illnesses. It takes her two of the three years shes been at camp for her to get at the better place shes at when shes 16, where she now has a small group of good friends, shes managed to bring up some of her self-esteem and self confidence, shes been clean for a year and shes in therapy for her PTSD and depression and shes opened up more to those around her and shes not the terrified jumps at her own shadow kid but a more quiet but kindhearted and sometimes even giggly teen whose slowly getting her life back together with plans for the future.

But on the topic of things she likes...

This girl loves-no ADORES animals, all kinds mythical or not. She didnt show it at first but she was so SOOOO excited when she realized the camp had Pegasi even though she tried to keep a distance from them because she realized she made them nervous. Oh man you shouldve SEEN her when Chiron took a group of campers her age into the woods and they caught a glimpse of a passing through unicorn. She was giddy about it for DAYS guys. She just...she has so much love and admiration and excitement for animals its so cute you guys.

Elysia also loves(ironically) learning about Mythology, from all over the world. Its her special interest and when she finds and buys a old broken touch screen phone(or one of those touch screen i-pod or something) and gets Karter to fiddle with it and (eventually after shenanigan filled misadventures of trying to upgrade it to not be detected by monsters and fix the cracked screen) she fills that thing to the brim of downloaded auidobooks of different mythologies as she can and she listens to them when doing schoolwork(she ends up having do be “homeschool” by online classes because things just do not go right when trying to attend schools outside of the protected borders)

She also loves anything soft. Especially stuffed animals. Oh my god she loves stuffed animals, well into her teens. She had one she managed to bring with her to camp that is her ultimate comfort object, a older beat up and been through a life time of ringers and back stuffed husky doll that she cherishes and takes care of like one might take care of gold. Over time (once they found out her birthday--October 5th) she starts getting stuffed animals as presents or just even as little splurges on herself . She also loves soft blankets soft clothes soft anything. She loves the texture and feel of it and it makes her happy.

She’s an aspiring writer and songwriter and can even sing a little but she has no confidence in her ability in any of those. But she has boxes and piles of notebooks and journals filled with little cartoony doodles and pages upon pages of stories and songs shes been writing for years now

Fun fact during her first year at camp Percy and Annabeth dropped by for a visit during their winter break to visit friends and I have this whole little story I might post about hoe when Percy’s walking to go meet someone he finds Elysia sitting alone at the beach doodling animals in her journal and he goes up to her(shes sitting all curled up so at a distance it probably looked like she was crying or something) to see if shes ok and because Nico had been telling him about her via iris messages and updates since she got there but he didnt get to meet her during the summer(stuff happened and she kinda hid from alot of people) but he finds her and he sits with her(after announcing his presence because Nico has told him about her being very jumpy and easily scared and that at that point hes the only one she really opens up to so dont take offense to it) and they sit for a bit and Percy asks her about her doodles and she just, for the first time like ever, she starts to open up because she gets so freaking excited and hyper about it that she just starts babbling away about her doodles and the animals of them and then about animals in general and she goes on this whole, like 30-40 minute info dump/ rant about them complete with diverting tangent questions that she answers herself before continuing with this just lit up and openly happy and ecstatic expression as she goes on and on while hes sitting there just listening to her and smiling down at her partly nostalgically because at that moment she reminds him so much of how Nico was when he first met him and you got him started on Mythomagic and that shes being so open about her excitement and then she looks at him and realizing what she was doing and she shuts herself up now panicking about how much she just word vomited on her big brother’s friend and more importantly this huge shot demigod Son of Poseidon whose saved the world not once but TWICE and who is probably very busy too busy to be hanging around with her--you get the idea of her panicking until Percy slowly reaches out his hand and she nods to let him know its ok and he ruffles her hair and tells her its ok he liked listening to her and holy shit I went on a tangent about that.

She also has alot of sweet bonding moments with Nico and Hazel because they teach her about having a loving and caring family and what thats like and its really sweet and cute and emotional

Did I mention she likes taking Nico’s shirts? Oh yeah she likes “borrowing” Nico’s shirts, and some of his jackets, mostly t-shirt and long sleeved shirts because once they get close his scent and presence really relaxes her nerves if she gets anxious. Of course its not stealing, its just borrowing and eventually giving back on laundry days...or he just lends it to her without being fully aware of it. Its cute because shes so short that they end up really big on her and she loves flapping the sleeves and the feeling of being engulfed in the safety of his presence without him even being there

ANYWAY COUGH COUGH

uhhhhhhh....yeah thats alot about her huh I think i’ll leave you all with that to take it and make sense of and I might make a part two(or you guys can ask about her too)

and yeeeeeeeeeee thats my PJO oc Elysia Melina!!

@phantommoonpeople

@kid-crashed

@demidorks (im sorry if im bothering you by tagging you youre one of the pjo blogs I follow and one of my favorites)

#percy jackson #percy jackson oc #percy jackon and the olympians #my oc #oc info #oc introduction #i guess #my art #my artwork #art wips #pjo #pjoverse #tw abuse #tw self harm mention #tw suicidal thoughts mention

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funkzpiel · 7 years

Note

It's five in the morning I just woke up AGAIN and my body has been doing this to me for the past week I am exhausted :(

I’m so sorry, lovely! I meant to respond to this WAY EARLIER - but fucking LIFE™ got in the way. Have some teeth rotting fluff (edit: whatever this ended up being) as my apology. I hope you’ve been able to sleep well since.

[EDIT] As a quick side note now that I finished writing it, I am super tired and just realized I changed tenses a million times - please forgive me if this or the characterization OR THE ANYTHING doesn’t make sense. XD I tried.

It’s common knowledge that Percival Graves does not sleep. The aurors tell Newt that the man’s blood is made of coffee. He ingests more cups of black, soul crushing coffee than he does water; or food, for that matter. One might even call it an addiction, if they really didn’t give shit about their job or their life.

He takes his biggest cup in the morning - it is also his strongest cup. The sharp, heady stench of black roast can be smelt all across MACUSA every morning from Graves’ cup alone. From there, he has another two before lunch time. Sometimes, he’ll eat a sandwich or hotdog. Usually, he’ll forget. He’s only got time to brew a cup or grab a bite before his 1 o’clock meeting, and everyone knows what he’ll pick.

There’s another large cup that comes around 3. Another before the end of the day, and finally - after his most painful Wednesday meeting - a cup of blonde roast with just one dollop of honey, to soothe his enraged throat after a meeting of enraged interdepartmental fighting.

Everyone knows that Percival Graves does not sleep.

But everyone also knows that now more than ever, fresh from his measly two-week recovery vacation (in which he barely vacated MACUSA at all, let alone rest), Percival Graves needs to sleep.

They can see it in the dark, waxy skin under his eyes and in the way his cheeks are drawn and tight, jaw clenched in an eternal struggle to stay awake and present. They can see it in the dull, muted shine of his hair and the tremble in his hands that no one dares mention. They can see it in the way his suits aren’t exactly wrinkle free, not like they usually were.

He misplaces files he never used to misplace. He loses track of time. He enters a room, blinks, then exits - and everyone knows he’s forgotten why he came.

And most worryingly of all, he doesn’t go home. They thought he was just working late, but Tina’s tried to outstay him. He doesn’t go home. He just doesn’t. Instead, he stays in his office and makes a bed of his rather uncomfy (but very beautiful) black leather couch. No blanket to warm him, no pillow to ease him away.

And even then, he doesn’t sleep. He just reclines, resting his aching bones, and goes over more documents - a warm cup on his belly, soothing the cramping of his empty belly.

He’s thin. His clothes are beginning to drown him.

Tina’s beside herself. All the aurors worrying they’re watching him slip away, unable once again to save him. They try to bring him food - and he accepts graciously - but always forgets to eat, too quickly absorbed into another document, another meeting, another case. They’ll find the sandwich on his desk - a perfect row of teeth through the corner and no more.

They try to give him water. They try to walk him home.

Then finally, sleep comes in the form of one Theseus Scamander. He comes as a favor to MACUSA to help consult on a case, as well as discuss more opportunities for partnerships between the aurors of America and the aurors from the Ministry of Magic. Long time friends as they are, it takes Theseus one second to recognize what’s wrong.

He leaves Graves’ office after their first greeting to return to the hotel and settle his things, but not before spotting Tina and stopping at her desk.

“How long has it been?”

Tina blinks.

“Excuse me?”

“Since he slept. How long?”

Tina blinks again, even more surprised.

“I–” she trails off, her mouth a long, pursed line; unsure of how much to reveal. Hopeful that if this man knew the director well enough to notice within moments, that he might be able to help. She had heard stories of their friendship, after all. Maybe… “Weeks, just a few hours here and there.”

“Of course,” he muttered, then slung his case atop the empty desk next to Tina. She balked, wide eyed and captivated as Theseus then opened his case and began to sort through some of his possessions, muttering all the while very much like his brother - and that made something in Tina’s heart flutter. Finally, the man pulled back from his case with a candle and a book-sized parcel in hand and let loose a small, victorious noise before turning back to Tina. “Would you mind terribly if I left my case in your care for a moment?”

“O-of course not,” Tina stammered.

And with a wink, Theseus disappeared back down the hall and into Graves’ office.

Graves blinked up at him mildly from over the rim of his cup - full, Theseus noted, when he had just finished one during their chat.

“Did you forget something?” Graves asked blandly, the faintest hint of concern at the edge of his question, poorly disguised. Theseus waved him off and smiled.

“Nothing of grave importance–”

“–wasn’t funny in the barracks, isn’t funny now,” Graves groaned.

“But my darling brother did want me to pass this along to you, as a thank you for backing his book. As I understand it, you went in on a deal to jump start the publishing until such a time that its proceeds could cover the costs of production and turn profit.”

Graves blinked.

“I did no such–”

“The publishers told us, Percy,” Theseus said, hushing him as he handed over the brown papered parcel. “Take it.”

He watched as the man took the bundle with the slightly flush and gently unwrapped it, muttering all the while that ‘it was the least he could do, considering,’ and whether he meant that in reference to Newt recognizing Grindelwald as an imposter or because Grindelwald tried to execute the man while in his skin, Theseus didn’t know.

What he did know was that he had a small opportunity to set the candle he had behind his back upon the table behind one of Graves’ very few knickknacks and light it before the man would notice. It was a testament to the man’s exhaustion that he didn’t catch Theseus cast the “notice me not” spell upon the little thing, nor the spell that activated the scent within.

“Percival Graves,” he murmured to direct the spell, and unfortunately that caught the man’s attention.

“Hmm?” he said, fingers just about to open the little book he had been admiring.

“Look for yourself, right inside the cover,” Theseus said quickly, “Special Thanks to Percival Graves.”

Graves flushed a little darker.

“He didn’t have to–”

“–he wanted to. It was a kind gesture you did for my kid brother, Percy. Really helped get the ball rolling for him.”

Graves gently closed the book, a softness in his eyes Theseus hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

“I’m glad I could contribute in some way.”

“Once you read it, do send him a letter. He’d be overjoyed to know you read the blasted thing. Even more so to hear your feedback.”

“Of course,” Graves said. “I’ll try to carve out some time.”

And then he did something that made Theseus smile. He yawned. A long, suffering yawn that put tears in his eyes and made him look twice at his coffee cup.

“Strange…perhaps that was decaf,” he said as he stood, no doubt of a mind to refill it, only to suddenly plop back down in his seat with wide, adorable stunned eyes.

“You alright there, Percy?” Theseus asked, mock concern as he watched the man’s lids flutter, then jerk open, only to flutter again. He slouched ever so slightly, fingers digging into his arm rests as though to anchor him.

“Theseus, I think I’ve been–”

“Drugged?” Theseus asked, and those brown eyes flicked lightning quick to focus on him. Stunned, betrayed - a little afraid. Something in Theseus winced, but in the face the man’s exhaustion, he found he didn’t regret it. “No, not directly. It’s a candle my brother made. Helps the lighter sleep - or in this case, helps the lighter put someone else to sleep.”

He lifted the tiny, flickering candle to Graves’ gaze.

“Theseus, what the fucking hell?”

“I remember how you used to get during the war, Percy. Used to run yourself ragged. Had to pin you to a bunk or spike your drink to get you to take a wink. It’s not good for you. I thought you had overcome it.”

“I had,” Graves croaked, and he didn’t need to say another word for Theseus to know what had changed. Instead, the redhead merely nodded.

“I’ll stay with you,” Theseus said. “Nothing will happen to you, I swear. Will you let me do that, Percy? Let me watch your back, like I used to?”

And slowly, but all at once, Graves sagged - exhausted, relieved.

“You giant fucking git.”

Theseus smiled, then rounded the desk to sit on its edge beside Graves and lean down to straighten the man’s rumpled tie.

“Wanker,” he said back with a smile, and waited for sleep to take his friend. When it had - when Graves was finally limp in his chair, hair tickling his brow and wrinkles finally slack and smooth as they should be - Theseus gently gathered him up with a softly muttered ‘too fucking light, Merlin's balls’ and disapparated them to the address Graves had been writing to him from these past years.

He’d collect his luggage later. It’d be safe with the woman that had stolen Newt’s heart.

#percival graves #original percival graves #theseus scamander #mini fic #I already remember nothing that I wrote...#I hope this wasn't utter shit #>.>

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itsanelizathing · 7 years

Text

Another Writer’s Tag

March 31, 2017

I’ve been more focused on my writing lately so here’s another tag!

1. What type of writing do you do?

Short stories and poems but with the end goal of producing a novel.

2. What genres and/or topics do you write about?

Right now I’ve been focusing on Young Adult romance/coming of age. My passion is fantasy and romance.

3. How long have you been writing?

Since I was in 2nd grade, so about 8 years old? I was a late bloomer in reading so it took me longer to get into writing but once I was in, that was it.

4. Are you published?

I have a poem that was published in my college’s magazine but that is it.

5. What was the first story you ever wrote?

It was about my tabby cat Peeko. Peeko was a super hero cat who fought against Evil Dog to save the world! I was 8… it wasn’t the most thought-out story.

6. Why do you write?

I have so many stories that float around in my head that if I don’t get them out, then they will never leave me. I love watching the words go onto paper and create something wonderful.

7. How do you find time to write?

I make time. I’m tired? Too bad, start writing. Spend 15 minutes writing, whatever it takes. I make sure that I have something creative going on each day, to stimulate my brain.

8. When and where are the best times to write?

I love writing about 10 pm until 2 am. Usually with my laptop on my lap and in bed. My cat’s next to me so I can pet him whenever my brain fails on me. Also during my world lit class because I hate it. Tuning out the teacher does wonders for my word count.

9. Favorite food/drinks while writing?

I eat a lot of candy while writing and drink a lot of water.

10. Your writing playlist?

I don’t have a playlist per say, but I do tend to listen to a lot of K.Will. I usually listen to up-beat, dance music but when I’m writing I want slow, soothing music. K.Will has a beautiful voice and the words just flow from me as I listen to him.

With my most recent story I’ve been listening to ocean sounds.

11. What do family/friends/loved ones think of you writing?

Does this mean in supportive or nonsupportive ways? My family doesn’t consider writing a “real job” so there’s that. My friends seem to like my writing but I’m not sure if they really like it or are just being nice and doing their friendly duty by encouraging. Basically I write for myself and no one else.

12. Parts of writing you enjoy the most?

I love writing the scenes where the characters connect to their soul and discover who they really are. My favorite is when I can write a strong, female lead that kicks serious ass.

13. Parts of writing you find challenging?

Romance. Chemistry. I’ve not had that kind of connection yet so it’s hard for me to feel it and put those feelings into my writing.

14. What do you write with and on?

If I have a computer or my phone handy, I use google docs. If not I will write on paper.

15. How do you overcome writer’s block?

If I’m struggling with writer’s block on a scene, I skip it and continue on. Then when I’m able to I go back and write it. If an entire story is killing my brain, I just switch to another until I can focus on the first one.

16. How do you motivate yourself to write?

I write. I pull up the document and write. If I need inspiration I listen to music that fits the scene.

17. Authors who inspire you as a writer?

Rick Riordan inspires me the most. I love his books and his writing style. I first read his Percy Jackson series when I was 11 and fell in love with Mythology because of him. If you have middle school kids or want a fun read, check out his books.

While I haven’t read Jenna Moreci’s book yet, I follow her tumblr and YouTube channel and she’s taught me a lot of things that I hadn’t thought about. If you’re aspiring to publish or just write for yourself, I recommend checking out her social medias.

18. Books that inspire you as a writer?

Books don’t inspire me, myths and fables do. I love reading about legends from around the world and they give me inspiration to continue to write.

19. Best advice you’ve gotten as a writer?

To write and start looking at publishing options.

20. Writing goals this year

I would LOVE to finish 4 short stories or maybe more. I’ve already written one and have one half-way finished, so I should probably bump that number up. I’d like to work on one of my novel ideas and get them planned out and wrote.

~*~

So that’s that!

~Eliza

#Writing #Writer #Writer's Tag #Short Stories

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the-last-airbadger · 7 years

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Get To Know Me Questions

Ok so I reblogged this thing a few days ago, and even though nobody asked me questions, I’m still going to answer them, because I really like doing these things and maybe, just maybe, there’s someone out there that’s actually interested in my answers to these questions but was too shy to ask me or didn’t see the post. But now the answers will be in my personal tag forever. Yay ^-^

(please beware this is a very long post these are 125(!) questions! It took me three days to finish!)

I hope you enjoy these questions and my answers to these questions!

1. What is your full name? Skylar Elliott (Dutch last name). (I’m not sure if I wanna post my last name on tumblr…)

2. What is your nickname? I don’t really have a nickname… everyone calls me Sky though, I guess that counts…

3. What is your zodiac sign? Gemini!

4. What is your favorite book series? Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I have never enjoyed reading a book as much as I enjoyed reading these books.

5. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts? I don’t know? I’d like to say I believe in aliens and ghosts but there’s always this voice in the back of my head that tells me that it’s “cool, but they don’t actually excist because it hasn’t been proven”. Although I do believe that aliens must be out there somewhere I mean the universe is so big we cannot be the only life forms. I just think aliens are so much more different than we humans can even imagine.

6. Who is your favorite author? Rick Riordan! Very sassy, author of my favourite book series and cares a lot about representation in books which is very gud.

7. What is your favorite radio station? I mean I don’t really listen to the radio but I kinda like skyradio because it has part of my name in it and I also love npo2 between christmas and new years eve because they play a top2000 of music that you can vote for and it’s really fun. (These are both dutch stations I believe, so if you don’t recognise these stations, that’s why)

8. What is your favorite flavor of anything? Usually strawberry. Strawberry ice cream, strawberry sweets, strawberry sauce, strawberry lemonade, strawberry tea, strawberry smoothies… I love them all.

9. What word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? “Awesome” or “cool”

10. What is your current favorite song? Heaven - Troye Sivan ft. Betty Who Prove me wrong - Fireflight Escape - Fireflight They share the first place so I listed them all. I literally cannot choose.

Heaven makes me feel much lgbtq+ pride and happiness, as well as sadness and determination to change the world. Plus I can really relate and let my emotions out by listening to this song

Escape is a very good song about overcoming fears and, again, I can really relate to this song. I really like the refrain because when singing it I can really throw my emotions into this and let them out. Again, this song fills me with determination to change the world and the way I handle problems. It makes me feel stronger. And the ending is really reassuring and beautiful.

Prove me wrong, I can also really relate to. It’s about being insecure about yourself but then someone else helps you see that you are actually a really nice person. It reminds me of my friends.

11. What is your favorite word? Ethereal - “Extremely delicate and light in a way that seems not to be of this world”

12. What was the last song you listened to? Heaven - Troye Sivan ft. Betty Who (listening to it right now)

13. What TV show would you recommend for everybody to watch? Brooklyn Nine-Nine because it’s hillarious and very progressive and inclusive and the characters are very lovable.

14. What is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? Probably just any Harry Potter movie. They never get old.

15. Do you play video games? Sometimes. I’m not that big of a fan of videogames but I like games like life is stranger or all the harry potter games and I sometimes play mario with my brother.

16. What is your biggest fear? I’m afraid of my house setting fire and I’m kinda afraid of all bugs but I think my biggest fear is wasting my life and dying unhappy and unfulfilled.

17. What is your best quality, in your opinion? I’m a very positive person and I have and okay face and I make bad jokes (that I secretly think are hillarious). And I always try to learn and improve myself and become the best person I can be.

18. What is your worst quality, in your opinion? I’m insecure about EVERYTHING and I overthink every move I make in life and that makes me feel like I’m failing everything and everyone especially the people I care about.

19. Do you like cats or dogs better? Cats! I think dogs are very cute but irl I kinda shy away from dogs because I’m still lowkey scared of dogs but cats are so cuddly and cute and I want

20. What is your favorite season? Probably fall. Because of Halloween and the leaves FALLing (get it? Fall, falling. haha) from the trees and the colours and the wind and the whole leadup to christmas. I also like that the temperature isn’t to high or to low. Winter’s too cold and summer’s to hot and spring is okay but not that special.

21. Are you in a relationship? Nope. But right now I’m only interested in friendships anyway so I don’t mind. (also being both ace and trans I kinda feel like it’s impossible to find anyone who’d actually want to date me so I kinda just… don’t bother. Transition first, relationships later)

22. What is something you miss from your childhood? I miss that I was so social and talked to everyone without restraint or fear. And I miss having the time to read.

23. Who is your best friend? @asiandutchgirl @the-official-pentacorn They’re both two of the most wonderfull people I’ve ever met don’t you dare make me choose

24. What is your eye color? Brown. There’s some green in them somewhere too if you look really closely but it’s mostly brown.

25. What is your hair color? Also brown but I’ve been thinking about dyeing it for a long time… but usually I can’t because my acting class won’t allow it.

26. Who is someone you love? My siblings, my parents, my best friends, my grandparents, my household, my pets (although pets aren’t really people but I LOVE THEM OKAY)

27. Who is someone you trust? My siblings and my best friends. I could tell them anything.

28. Who is someone you think about often? I hope this doesn’t sound weird but My best friends. They make me happy and they’re a big part of my life even though I don’t see them nearly as often as I should. And I guess, because of that, I just miss them often.

29. Are you currently excited about/for something? I’m in the middle of the process of legally changing my name and gendermarker! I cannot wait to see them on my new ID!!

30. What is your biggest obsession? At the moment definately VOLTRON (season 2 was so guddd)

31. What was your favorite TV show as a child? I used to loooooove Zack and Cody. And after that I started to enjoy ICarly and Victorious a lot. I used to spend whole weekends watching these shows.

32. Who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone? My best friends and my sister.

33. Are you superstitious? A little bit. I mean I know it’s bullshit but somewhere, in the back of my mind, I still believe bringing “lucky items” to stressfull situations will help me somehow.

34. Do you have any unusual phobias? Uhh… not really? I mean the only thing I can think of is that I cannot sleep in a room with, for example, my mom, because I know she snores and then I am so afraid that it’ll keep me awake that I cannot sleep… -_-

35. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? I prefer to be in front of the camera because being behind the camera makes me responsible for the final product while being in front of the camera comes pretty natural to me. My granddad always films every important family event and I grew up with a love for acting and being on stage so… I like that.

36. What is your favorite hobby? Watching a show that is soooo goood you just have to binge it and being on the edge of your seat the whole time and just getting lost in it basically.

37. What was the last book you read? A book for school. “Two women” by Harry Mulish. I didn’t really like it. *spoilers* a lesbian main character was killed in the last two pages just as I thought she’d live happily ever after -_-

38. What was the last movie you watched? Iron man… I think… yeah I watched that the day before my brothers birthday when his friend stayed over.

39. What musical instruments do you play, if any? I play the piano! I’m not that good at it but hey, I enjoy it.

40. What is your favorite animal? I really like Lions. They’re like big cats and also super majestic.

41. What are your top 5 favorite Tumblr blogs that you follow? the-official-pentacorn, asiandutchgirl, hagraeven-side-blog, slytherin-bookworm-guy, relatable-pictures-of-pidge… I think…. there are much more, I’m sure, but these are the first ones I came up with and they all have a special place in my heart.

42. What superpower do you wish you had? I’d love to be able to fly, but, as a trans guy, I think shapeshifting would probably make me the happiest.

43. When and where do you feel most at peace? In the cinema. Just comfortably sitting in a chair with food. My only responsibilities being watching a movie, keeping my mouth shut and eating. Perfect.

44. What makes you smile? Music, My friends, A happy scene in a tv-show or book, a very bad joke, realising how much I love the people that matter to me, having an actual nice social interaction that wasn’t in any way awkward, gender euforia, doing something I love.

45. What sports do you play, if any? …Have you ever seen me trying to exercise?

46. What is your favorite drink? Fresh Lemonade. I had some in Greece and it was literally the best thing I’ve ever tasted… Why don’t we have that in the Netherlands :’(

47. When was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody? Probably sometime when I left the house to get some groceries and didn’t know when my dad would be home so I left him a note on the table

48. Are you afraid of heights? It depends. If I’m walking next to a very deep drop I’m terrified I’ll fall, but in a rollercoaster, on a plane, or even a on bus that’s driving on narrow roads next to a massive ravine, I have no problem with heights. I guess I just don’t trust myself at great heights because of my clumsiness.

49. What is your biggest pet peeve? Whenever I’m trying to concentrate on something I cannot handle it when people ! start ! to ! eat ! crisps ! or ! nuts ! or ! something ! VERY ! LOUDLY !!!! Somehow this mainly happens around my mom and sister and not really anyone else but sometimes it gets so bad I literally have to leave the room. Also snoring… because if someone starts to snore I will not be able to sleep for hours unless I have my phone and some earbuds nearby.

50. Have you ever been to a concert? Yes! I’ve seen Al di Meola (when I was six, with my dad), Lissie, Maria Mena, Delain, Within Temptation (twice), Vanessa Carlton and K3 and I’m gonna see Lindsey Stirling in March!

51. Are you vegan/vegetarian? Nope! But my dad is vegan so half of the time the only meat I eat is the sausage on my sandwiches.

52. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? Cassier, Artist, Inventor, Archaologist, Game-Designer, Actor, Writer, Idfk. All in this order.

53. What fictional world would you like to live in? I’d love to live in the world from Avatar: The Last Airbender because it’s basically the same as ours only with DRAGONS and BENDING and all other kinds of cool animals and cool stuff.

54. What is something you worry about? In a week and a half I have test-week and then in a little more than a month I have another test week and then in May I have my final exams and I have SO MUCH LEFT to study and SO MANY PROJECTS left to do and SO MANY BOOKS left to read and I worry I will never pass and die in the process and start hating my life. (which I already kind of do because of school, but hey, only four months left… only four months left…)

55. Are you scared of the dark? Depends. Around 8pm I have no problem with the dark but around 11pm/12pm/1am I am not a fan of walking down two sets of stairs to go to the toilet.

56. Do you like to sing? YES. Omg I absolutely love singing!! I sing everyday and I’m also in a choir (that has been founded for trans people specifically so I don’t have to worry about my high voice) which is super awesome and I love it.

57. Have you ever skipped school? Nope. At least not without my parent’s permission.

58. What is your favorite place on the planet? Probably just any cinema or my home. They’re both places I can just feel at ease and eat.

59. Where would you like to live? Tbh I am perfectly happy in the places I live right now and I don’t think I’ll ever move far away from here, but it would be supercool to live in London!

60. Do you have any pets? Yes! I have two guinea pigs (who are both supercute and cuddly) and a cat (who is supercute, but anything but cuddly)!

61. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl? Night owl. Mornings are for sleep

62. Do you like sunrises or sunsets better? Sunsets because sunsets happen around my favourite time of the day, and I only see sunrises if I have to wake up very early or if I’ve pulled an all-nighter and I hate both of these things. Like I said, mornings are for sleep.

63. Do you know how to drive? No, I don’t. I will probably start lessons next year though!

64. Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? I prefer headphones because of the sound quality, but after I’ve worn my headphones for an entire day they always start to hurt because they press my glasses against my head and when I’m going outside earbuds are a lot easier to take with me. Same when I’m trying to listen something calming to fall asleep, earbuds are easier.

65. Have you ever had braces? Yes, I’ve worn braces for about nine months when I was thirteen

66. What is your favorite genre of music? I don’t really have a favourite genre, but I really enjoy soundtracks, rock, some pop and some dubstep songs.

67. Who is your hero? I don’t really have a hero. There are a lot of people I look up to but I think that if I’d have to choose someone right now I’d choose Thomas Sanders because he’s just the nicest human on the planet and I aspire to make people laugh and smile like he does.

68. Do you read comic books? No, not really. They don’t really grab my attention the way books or tv-shows do and I always end up skimming the pages and spoiling myself.

69. What makes you the most angry? Ignorance. Whenever someone refuses to be open minded. Whenever someone claims to know something better than I do and refuses to listen to me. Whenever someone tells me how I should be feeling when they don’t even try to understand what I’m feeling. Whenever someone even tries to shit on my community, friends and interests.

70. Do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? I prefer reading a real book because books never run out of power, smell good, and just give me that nice reading vibe. And because my e-reader is slow as heck and I have to wait ages for the pages to turn.

71. What is your favorite subject in school? My favourite subject is probably Ancient Greek. I really like learning the ancient greek language and culture and I’m also pretty good at it. Plus my ancient greek class is a very nice group of people and we have an awesome teacher.

72. Do you have any siblings? Yes! I have a sister who’s eightteen and a brother who’s fourteen and I love them very much.

73. What was the last thing you bought? Last monday I bought myself crisps, cola and some liquorice candy because I had a sore throat. (edit: and today I bought some more crisps, some more cola, and candy’s agains coughing… they didn’t help)

74. How tall are you? Last time I checked (about nine months ago at the hospital) I was about 165 cm tall which is about 5’5″

75. Can you cook? … I can make eggs… and pancakes… and really easy pieces of meat that you basically only have to heat up in a pan…. And I can warm up soup from a can… and that’s about it I guess lol

76. What are three things that you love? Time for myself, watching tv-shows, rain.

77. What are three things that you hate? playing sports, homework, stress.

78. Do you have more female friends or more male friends? Definately more female friends. I can’t relate as much with cis men and I don’t have that many trans people that are actively involved in my day to day life. Plus girls are amazing.

79. What is your sexual orientation? I identify as asexual. I don’t really understand what sexual attraction is exactly… and like… I do not understand how you can associate people you actually know in your life with sex without being creeped out? And the idea that people that are in a relationship are having sex with eachother just… really boggles my mind. Especially because to everyone it seems so normal? and then I’m just like “why would you do that…”

80. Where do you currently live? I have two houses (divorced parents) and I live in both a small city and a big village. They’re both about half an hour away from Rotterdam in the Netherlands but I’m not sure if I wanna post the exact places I live on tumblr…

81. Who was the last person you texted? My brother. He asked me which one of us would buy banana’s and chocolate. I said he should because I was still at school.

82. When was the last time you cried? Last sunday. I was super stressed out because of school. I had to finish a project and I had two hours left but my brain was dead so I kinda crashed.

83. Who is your favorite YouTuber? Phil Lester (AmazingPhil), Dan Howell (danisnotonfire), Sean McLaughlin (Jacksepticeye) and Chase Ross (uppercasechase1). Dan and Phil always make me laugh and make me feel appreciated and I love them and their video’s and their dynamic a lot, Jack feels like one of my closest friends and he’s such a nice and funny guy, and Chase has helped me so much with transition-related problems. They’re all amazing and I cannot imagine my life without them.

84. Do you like to take selfies? Yes, I do! A lot! Whenever I’m on a trip or I look good or I just feel like trying on some new clothes and stuff, I always make selfies.

85. What is your favorite app? Probably the tumblr app. I spend half my life on there. Nothing is better than using my tumblr app to avoid social contact.

86. What is your relationship with your parent(s) like? Really good. My mom is a very warm person that I can tell almost anything to. She’s very understanding and her hugs are very soft. She values my opinions a lot and is always there to listen to what I say. With my dad I find it harder to tell him everything but that’s probably because I get the feeling that he expects a bit more from me? Idk if that’s true though, might just be my imagination. But he’s a very chill and self-assured person and I like that it’s always so calm at his house, whereas at my moms house things can be very chaotic and sometimes stressfull. My dad is very open and very accepting and he keeps surprizing me with how much he’s okay with. Overall my parents are really really nice. They support my transition and my life choices and they just want me to be happy. I couldn’t have wished for better parents.

87. What is your favorite foreign accent? I really love scottish it’s amazing. A gift to humanity.

88. What is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? Japan!! I really wanna go there it seems so awesome!!

89. What is your favorite number? 13

90. Can you juggle? I can’t even aim, throw or catch a ball of course I can’t juggle

91. Are you religious? Nope

92. Do you find outer space of the deep ocean to be more interesting? Outer space. There are so many things left to discover and it’s so big!! It feels like everything is possible in space. Also it’s very pretty.

93. Do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? Not really. Whenever something scary happens, I’m out. I’ll run away as fast as I can. I do really like rollercoaster and stuff though and I’d love to try and sky-dive or bungee-jump… but I guess that’s because I’m not the one who’s in control in these situations.

94. Are you allergic to anything? Not that I know…

95. Can you curl your tongue? Yup.

96. Can you wiggle your ears? A little bit

97. How often do you admit that you were wrong about something? I try to always admit it when I’m wrong about something. It’s a very decent thing to do and it prevents conflicts from happening or escalating. Plus you won’t really gain anything by refusing to admit you’re wrong about something.

98. Do you prefer the forest or the beach? The forest. I hate the beach. It’s either way too hot or way too cold and there’s sand everywhere I hate it.

99. What is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? I don’t know. I can’t really remember all the advices I’ve ever been given, and I don't think that one piece of advice alone can have that much impact. It’s the combinations of all the advice you’ve ever had that really makes a difference. If you can combine different people’s experiences and advices you’ll figure out what to do by yourself. But I guess if I had to choose one piece of advise that I value, I’d say: “It’s good to think about others and help other people, as long as it isn’t at the expense of yourself. In the end, you are the most important to yourself. You are the one that has to live with yourself for the rest of your life. You shouldn’t always put others before yourself because you are important too and you deserve love and kindness and happiness too. You deserve to be happy” (I think most of this advice I actually got from markiplier, from his most recent believe in yourself video. It’s a very motivational video, go and watch it!)

100. Are you a good liar? Yes I am. I used to lie about everything to fit in with the cool kids and keep them as my friends. It was like second nature to me. I guess I did learn something from acting class… I still lie a lot to my acting friends by the way, just because they party every week and I hate parties but if I tell the truth they think I don’t like them, which isn’t true at all. I like them! But I really hate parties… and they can be a bit draining to be around.

101. What is your Hogwarts House? You might belong in Hufflepuff, Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true And unafraid of toil

102. Do you talk to yourself? Yep. Pretty often. Whenever I’m home alone I just sorta narrate my life. Sometimes I make it a musical!

103. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Introvert. Interacting with people is fun but after a while I really need time alone, it really drains my energy, especially when I am not feeling well anyway. The only interactions with people that actually give me energy are interactions with my closest friends and family.

104. Do you keep a journal/diary? I keep a transition-diary to write down the important moments related to transition, so I can read it back when I’m older and I won’t forget anything.

105. Do you believe in second chances? Yes. If someone is really willing to better themselves and are working hard to improve I think they deserve a second chance to give them the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

106. If you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? Probably leave it. I woudn’t want to go through either the trouble of handing it in or the guilt of not doing that, so I’d probably place it somewhere more noticable and let someone else decide what happens with it.

107. Do you believe that people are capable of change? Yes. People go through all kinds of things in live and they keep learning and bettering themselves. If a person really wants to change then I believe they can, no matter how long it takes. They’ll get there.

108. Are you ticklish? Yes. Very. If you tickle me I start screaming and kicking and I sometimes fall on the floor. It’s my weakness…

109. Have you ever been on a plane? Eight times. To Rome and back, to portugal and back, twice to greece and back.

110. Do you have any piercings? Do earrings count? Because I wear earrings sometimes.

111. What fictional character do you wish was real? Aang. I feel like we would be pretty good friends and our world really needs the avatar tbh.

112. Do you have any tattoos? Nope. But I do want one. I just cannot decide what I would want on my body forever… probably either something avatar related (like the air-nation logo or something, because that’s really cool) or something transition-related because it’s such an important part of my life and it’s something about me that will never change.

113. What is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? Coming out and contacting the hospital to start my medical transition. Because without that, where would I be? I’d be the unhappiest little shit ever.

114. Do you believe in karma? Nope

115. Do you wear glasses or contacts? I’ve worn glasses ever since I was eight years old. I will never wear contacts. ever. They freak me out! Why would you put something in your eye.

116. Do you want children? I don’t know. I always wanted kids, but ever since I found out I was trans and realised that I couldn’t have them naturally, I’m not sure anymore, because I don’t know if I want to adopt. I think it’s really gonna depend on if I have a partner or not and what the possibilities are… we’ll see. Babies are very cute though… and I think I’d love being a dad, even though I’m very afraid of becoming a terrible father. If I have kids I want them to be happy and decent humans. My sister will definately have kids though because she really really wants kids so I’ll definately be an uncle and maybe that’ll be enough for me. Who knows? And mayble I’ll get a partner with young kids and help them raise their kids… I think I’d prefer helping someone raising kids and giving the kids good life advice and do fun things together without being the one who has the most responsibilities.

117. Who is the smartest person you know? My sister has a friend who scored really well in school (an average score of around 90% I believe), who now studies both medical science and classics, plays the piano flawlessly, and is also a very nice person. She also won a price in an ancient greek competition, she was the best of the country!!

118. What is your most embarrassing memory? I was ten years old and I had a friend who was a pretty big bully and I really wanted to stay her friend so I kinda just went along with it. One day I thought I was being cool and asked said friend to place a folded airplane on the bullied guy’s table that said something like “idiot” on it. The guy then proceded to tell the teacher who told the entire class and demanded to know who had done it. I was terrified! Then my supposed friend ratted me out. I wanted to dissappear!! My teacher at the time was kind of my hero and I did not want to dissappoint her at all. I then proceded to lie that I just wanted to give the guy a folded airplane because I knew he liked them and didn’t know that it had the word “idiot” on it. I said that the word idiot wasn’t directed toward the guy and that I didn’t turn myself in because I was to scared the teacher would be angry at me. She believed me and everything went well but damn. This is the memory that still haunts me at 3am when I’m trying to sleep.

119. Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? Yes. A lot. Always at sleep-over parties. I used to really love pulling an all-nighter but now… not so much. When it’s 4am, I just want to sleeepppp.

120. What color are most of you clothes? Most of my clothes are blue! I have a lot of dark blue sweaters and hoodies.

121. Do you like adventures? Meh. I used to, but now I just want to go home and watch a movie.

122. Have you ever been on TV? Nope, but I’m probably gonna be! Right now there is a documentary in the making about my choir, which will be on TV and I’ll be in it!

123. How old are you? I’m 17 years old and I’ll turn 18 on June 4th 2017.

124. What is your favorite quote? I really like the entire songtext of escape by fireflight, but I can’t really put an entire songtext here, can I? The part of the song I love most are: “You are not hopeless. You are not worthless. You are loved. Don’t give up. This is your time” and “We don’t want to save ourselves” But if I had to pick an all-time favourite quote I’d probably pick the following quote from Dan Howell: “And at the end of the day, if something makes you and other people happy, that’s what’s important”

125. Do you prefer sweet or savory foods? Savory. I really like sweet foods from time to time but I am always craving savory foodsss ohm yg od

So there it is, I hope you enjoyed these questions and getting to know me a bit more! I really enjoyed answering these questions and they also kinda helped me study, because I only allowed myself to answer ten questions after finishing a certain amout of homework, so that’s good…

I hope you liked this and have a nice day!

#personal #long post #troye sivan #fireflight #music i like #gemini #hufflepuff #dan howell #phil lester #jacksepticeye #chase ross #thomas sanders #markipleir

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justanotherdumpingground · 5 years

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Chapter Reviews: March 26-30, 2019

High School Story Class Act Chapter 7:

Man, I'm feeling worried for Ajay. I know that him taking out his anger is unacceptable, but at least he apologized to Skye. Their stories need to have good progress and satisfying conclusions that answer how they overcome their respective turbulent home lives.

Still miffed that the Clint and Graham side romance amounts to nothing of particular substance. As I've said before, it would've been better if Graham's so creepy obsessed that it makes Clint uncomfortable that he tells Natalie that this is how Rory feels like whenever they're around.

The ending of this chapter made me dislike the twin for taking the election too personally. I was like "your campaign for more sports is redundant because it's already the most supported program at school". This isn't even a joke that sports gets a lot of attention at schools. This is evident in the first trilogy. Book 1 focuses on getting ready for the Homecoming game, especially because Brian's rotten behavior and transfer to Hearst left Berry desperate to search a suitable quarterback. Book 2 has Ashley Faris diverting all funding from cheer and band to the basketball team after she appointed her brother as coach. I even saw some people calling Rory out for taking offense at the MC should they support the twin, who is family no matter how annoying they can be. I guess this means the election is dumber than I thought.

Across the Void Chapter 15:

Honestly, this chapter is much better than the previous ones. I get to learn about the lore of the setting for free, especially on The Void, the origin of the Vanguard-Jura conflict, and astradust creating various races in the story. About time the story goes somewhere, though it should've been shown earlier on. Regarding the Void, it seems that they're a bunch of nihilists who want to plunge the galaxy to oblivion while playing the Vanguard and Jura like sniveling fools.

One thing that captures my attention is the possible connection to Endless Summer and maybe even Hero. Barlow mentioned a planet that got destroyed millennia ago that lights blue flames and has pieces entering its wormhole creating various races. What if it reached Earth and played a role in La Huerta's formation? What if some of them entered through the wormhole in Northbridge and created the superhumans in Hero. I hope this will get addressed in Book 2 of Hero.

On another note, why do they make Barlow a love interest? MC already has five, one of them is shared with Eos. Honestly, the story's writers are wasting time, resources, and effort enticing us with more love interests than necessary, excessive amounts of time with Eos and Pax, and catering to insufferable passengers while not focusing on the Vanguard-Jura conflict enough.

Didn't buy the biodroid, though it remains a low priority choice to get for me someday. I also didn't pick the premium option to check the library with Zekei, but after I watched on YouTube that it's about the MC torn away from the people they love almost every time, I actually felt ambivalent because the love interests aren't developed enough, though Kepler comes close.

I'm starting to think Pax's loyalty is put to the test and allow us to determine whether she'll stay loyal to the Jura or sever ties. Either way, I don't care because I find her annoying.

Desire & Decorum Chapter 14:

Duke Richards's journal is just another proof of how deranged he is, which is getting redundant. At least I have proof that he has been manipulating Dominique, which is another step up I need. Might as well replay this book and get the other pieces of evidence to see the full outcome.

Oh, Hamid. I really want to spend time with you, but my diamonds for other books go first. Don't worry. I'll spend diamonds on you so you and my MC can live happily ever after.

*sigh* The sight of the MC's mom's ring thrown into the fire better be the last straw because I've had enough of Duke Richards being continually despicable, as if I don't know that already. A part of me wants him to have some sort of depth that makes him well-developed while still irredeemable. That would've made him memorable and interesting instead of just someone I should hate. Here's hoping the wedding day gets disrupted and the tables turned against him.

America's Most Eligible Chapter 11:

I'm so relieved Eden and Kiana are alive, even though they're injured and had to drop out of the show. Their safety matters first and foremost. To think that something life-threatening like this to occur in a fun show is proof of mismanagement. I still don't know whether it's an accident or someone rigged the go-kart, but either way, it's carelessness on Carson's part.

This chapter is surprisingly calming, and it helps that neither Ivy nor Vince are around to stir trouble. It's just me, Adam, Derek, Mackenzie, and Jen relaxing. My MC had a fine date with Adam and even had a steamy moment with him even though they have maximum relationship points. Anyway, can't wait to see what Iceland has in store for AME.

Passport to Romance Chapter 3:

I'm starting to like Sumire for giving her own spin of the Louvre tour even after the MC missed the one Yvette booked. It was a fun take, and I enjoy watching her incorporate her love and knowledge of art together.

So, I picked the premium option to find the Mona Lisa painting and flirted with the security guard. That was a really dumb move on everyone's part, including the MC's. I think taking a picture of Mona Lisa should've been pushed to a later chapter and have everyone involved to ask when it will be ready for display again. Might as well throw Elliot under the bus for suggesting that we trespass in the first place.

Wow! All the love interests look stunning in their formal outfits! It's making me hard to determine who my MC will pursue, even though his vlog is named Sexcapades (don't judge).

I'm starting to dislike Yvette for talking trash about the love interests, even though she warmed up to me earlier this chapter for approving of a fresh tour of the Louvre. I get that she wants her magazine to improve, but I also think a balance between work and friends is needed. During the dinner, I threw Elliot and Marisa under the bus and defended Ahmed and Sumire from her. I actually think Marisa's okay, however.

Open Heart Chapter 7:

I cringed when that kissass with Percy Mendoza's model tried to smooch Aurora into paying for her lunch. Talking about the downsides of popularity. I think her aunt rigged the list in her favor while handing out the "most interesting" cases. In other words, Harper Emery could be up to no good.

Okay, telling Bryce to flirt with Ines and Zaid is pretty fun to watch. It's like he thinks he has a suave way to get around people, and acts like he succeeds. Anyway, glad that he succeeded in buying the MC time to follow Ethan.

For Remy, I told him the truth about his condition that will deprive him from his ability to move his limbs. I'm willing to risk a patient's short-term anger over withholding important information on his condition. Not to mention the latter is unethical. It was touching to see him accept his condition and resolve to live his life to the fullest.

So Patient X is Naveen Banerji? No wonder he resigned. And Ethan telling the MC to not tell this to anyone else just comes across as suspicious. Were they trying to preserve Edenbrook's reputation while one of their top doctors was dying of an illness?

The Elementalists Chapter 3:

I'm worried for Atlas and their search for the girl Dean Goeffe was watching over. It makes me wonder whether they'll resort to extreme measures to take down Kane or something. I grabbed the letter, and it seems that Dean Goeffe served as the girl's caretaker in secret. I think she knows who she is instead of merely stumbling upon her.

I didn't get the enlargement spell when I first played this chapter, so I saved up diamonds and restarted the book just so I could get it. I hope it will come in handy, even when the MC and Atlas's magick goes on and off, probably because of a disturbance in the force or something.

For once, Beckett's presence is kept to a minimum. A welcoming thing, actually. As for the ward Kane sent to the MC, I'm starting to admire him for being as interesting as Redfield. He might be the kind of person whose sense of right and wrong is different from other people's. I'd love to know more about him. Here's hoping he's a genuinely complex character.

Ride or Die Chapter 11:

Well, Logan manipulating the MC in the first place only to fall for her doesn't change my stance on him. I continue to reject him for the mess he caused. Regarding Mona, who apparently didn't know about Logan's actions before, her comment on suggesting to kidnap the MC put me off. That makes her come across as cold-blooded in some ways that it makes me less secure.

Why am I at Riya's house? She pushed MC into pursuing Logan in the first place, then complained that she's feeling lonely as a result. At least she gave the MC a place to stay for now, and Jason told the MC that her dad misses her.

Anyone thinks Toby could be a Brotherhood agent? I mean, good for him that he didn't participate in Colt's foolish plan, but how did he reach Riya's house? Did he have some sort of tracker? Or did he search the area one by one? Whatever that is, Colt's package could be a super dangerous bomb capable of super destructive damage. It's really rash of him.

Regarding the Brotherhood, I think it being the greater evil is never expanded on. Even though the narrative mentions it as worse the MPC, it just comes across as bland and forgettable. It doesn't help that the only Brotherhood member MC encounters is a baseball hat guy Teppei met.

#choices stories you play #chapter reviews

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emmagreen1220-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published on Literary Techniques

New Post has been published on https://literarytechniques.org/epiphany/

Epiphany

Epiphany Definition

Epiphany is Greek for “manifestation” or “showing-forth,” and, in its original, religious sense, it denotes the manifestation of God’s presence in the world. James Joyce, however, appropriated this term and introduced it into literary criticism to mean a secular revelation in the everyday world—though one which still has some mystical, almost otherworldly, connotation, owing to its atemporal (Nichols), “expansive, mysterious, and intense” nature (Martin Bidney).

An epiphany is, basically, the moment when all the pieces come together, and things suddenly become clear as they have never been before. It is—as explained by Joyce in the unpublished first draft of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man—“a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself.”

In a moment of epiphany, as Umberto Eco says, “a thing becomes the living symbol of something else,” or, to go back to Joyce, “its soul, its whatness, leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance. The soul of the commonest object, the structure of which is so adjusted, seems to us radiant.”

This is precisely what happens at the beginning of Welles’ cinematic masterpiece Citizen Kane. Holding a snowball, tycoon Charles Foster Kane utters the word “Rosebud” and dies. At the very end of the movie, the camera reveals that “Rosebud” was the name of Kane’s childhood sled, the one he had been playing with on the day that he was separated from his family.

It seems that the last thing Kane experienced on this planet was a chilling epiphanic moment, grasping the whatness (Proust would say “the essence”) of his “Rosebud” sled, which suddenly became for him the living symbol of his lost youth, of the unfortunate and ultimately fateful break with his family.

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Epiphany Examples

Epiphany in a Sentence

Example #1: John Keats, “Letter to Benjamin Bailey” (November 22, 1817)

O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts! […] The simple imaginative Mind may have its rewards in the repetition of its own silent Working coming continually on the spirit with a fine suddenness—to compare great things with small—have you never by being surprised with an old Melody—in a delicious place—by a delicious voice, felt over again your very speculations and surmises at the time it first operated on your soul—do you not remember forming to yourself the singer’s face more beautiful that it was possible and yet with the elevation of the Moment you did not think so—even then you were mounted on the Wings of Imagination so high—that the Prototype must be here after—that delicious face you will see—What a time!

For the Romantic poets, as pointed out by Robert Langbaum in an essay on William Wordsworth, epiphany was all but a “substitute for religion;” in retrospect, it seems that most of the Romantics understood the full extent of its artistic and developmental significance more than a century before Joyce. There’s not only much truth in Wim Tigges’ description of Wordsworth’s Prelude as his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but also a case can be made for M. H. Abrams’ claim that Wordsworth was the pre-eminent poet of epiphanic experiences, foreshadowing both Joyce and Proust (Morris Beja). At one place in The Prelude (XI.258-9) he describes them beautifully as “spots of time,/ which with distinct pre-eminence retain/a vivifying virtue” and, at another (VIII.543-54; reference) he shows them at work. In a manner similar to Joyce, Wordsworth’s younger contemporary, Percy Bysshe Shelley, described all poetry as “the record of the best and happiest moments… arising unforeseen and departing unbidden.” As can be seen in the excerpt above, John Keats, the youngest of the six great Romantics, had a profound understanding of the concept of epiphany as well; and his “Ode on a Grecian Urn” undoubtedly records one such epiphanic experience.

Example #2: Walter Pater, “The School of Giorgione” (1873)

Now it is part of the ideality of the highest sort of dramatic poetry that it presents us with a kind of profoundly significant and animated instants, a mere gesture, a look, a smile, perhaps—some brief and wholly concrete moment—into which, however, all the motives, all the interests and effects of a long history have condensed themselves, and which seem to absorb past and future in an intense consciousness of the present.

One of the foremost stylists of the English language, Walter Pater was an English art critic of the 19th century, whose studies of the Renaissance are so poetically written that W. B. Yeats decided to include his prose description of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa as an introductory poem in his Oxford Book of Modern Verse (reference)! In Pater’s opinion, just like poets, the Venetian painter Giorgione and his followers were capable of selecting “such ideal moments… exquisite pauses in time, in which, arrested thus, we seem to be spectators of all the fullness of existence, and which are like some consummate extract or quintessence of life.”

Example #3: John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1874)

I was reading, accidentally, Marmontel’s Mémoires, and came to the passage which relates his father’s death, the distressed position of the family, and the sudden inspiration by which he, then a mere boy, felt and made them feel that he would be everything to them—would supply the place of all that they had lost. A vivid conception of the scene and its feelings came over me, and I was moved to tears. From this moment my burden grew lighter. The oppression of the thought that all feeling was dead within me, was gone. I was no longer hopeless: I was not a stock or a stone.

It is a little-known fact that John Stuart Mill might have been one of the earliest authors to describe the emotional nadirs of a terrible mood now known as depression. He slipped into it at the age of twenty, a period during which he was frequently pondering suicide. Fortunately, six months into it, while reading the Memoirs of the French historian Jean-François Marmontel, “a small ray of light broke it upon [his] gloom.” Interestingly, it is an epiphanic scene which induces his own epiphany: a boy experiences “the sudden inspiration” to take the duties of his dead father upon himself. Even though this bore no relation to Mill’s reality, the power of the scene overcame him and gave him a reason to live. It also profoundly altered the worldview of Mill, who was unexpectedly able to read some poets he didn’t like before. One of them, Wordsworth, eventually all but cured him of his depression.

Epiphany in Poetry

Example #1: William Blake, Auguries of Innocence 1-4 (1803)

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

As we hinted above, the Romantics believed in epiphanies much more than they believed in God. As a consequence, we could have chosen any number of Romantic poems to illustrate how epiphany works in a poem, but, ultimately, we opted for the first four lines of William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence. Written in 1803—but not published until six decades later—we believe that these lines serve as both a definition of epiphany and a demonstration of what it does to the constraints of time and space—namely, annihilate them. “Indeed,” writes C. C. Barfoot, “this is an evident example of one of the ways in which a Romantic poet may experience the amplification of time and space as an epiphany in which the most commonplace of material objects and a mere portion of the day give direct access to an experience of the universe in which all physical experience is forever out of the reach of change and decay.” No wonder Morris Beja paraphrases Blake to define one form of epiphany as “eternity within the pulsation of an artery”!

Example #2: Kenneth Rexroth, “Proust’s Madeleine” (1966)

…[I] do a coin trick To amuse my little girl. Suddenly everything slips aside. I see my father Doing the very same thing, Whistling ‘Beautiful Dreamer,” His breath smelling richly Of whiskey and cigars…

When a poem bears the title “Proust’s Madeleine” you can be more than convinced that it deals with some sort of an epiphanic experience involving involuntary memory. In Kenneth Rexroth’s case, the madeleine is actually an old poker chip inscribed with the letters b.p.o.e. (standing for the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks) and a picture of an elk’s head on it. One day, while doing a coin trick for his daughter, the subject of the poem realizes that this is something he has already witnessed himself, performed for him by his drunk father, quite possibly with the very same chip. In a second, all of his father’s life passes before his eyes—from “him coming home drunk/ From the Elks’ Club” up to “him dying of cirrhosis/ of the liver and stomach/ ulcers and pneumonia.” Unlike Proust’s epiphany, Rexroth’s is not a particularly pleasant one—but it is an epiphany, nevertheless.

Example #3: Elizabeth Bishop, “The Moose” (1972)

Taking her time, she looks the bus over, grand, otherworldly. Why, why do we feel (we all feel) this sweet sensation of joy?

The “she” in the stanza above—the penultimate of Elizabeth Bishop’s long and famous poem “The Moose”—is the titular creature: a female moose which suddenly appears “out of/ the impenetrable wood” in front of a crowdy bus, in the middle of the moonlit road bent along the coast of Nova Scotia. “Towering, antlerless,/ high as a church,/ homely as a house,” the moose sniffs at the bus’s hood and spends a few moments watching the passengers watching her back. And then something happens, something magical, something which overcomes all passengers with a “sweet/ sensation of joy.” Why? “The answer is never given,” writes Toby Eckert. “For Bishop, it seems to lie in the curious power of nature to transform a rather ordinary moment into a transcendent one.” A similar epiphany, points observantly Kerry McSweeney in The Realist Short Story of the Powerful Glimpse, seems to happen in Raymond Carver’s short story “Feathers,” the opening short story of his collection Cathedral (1983), in which the animal in question is a rainbow-tailed peacock. Now, there’s some homework for you, right there!

Epiphany in Literature

Example #1: Marcel Proust, Combray I (“Overture”) (1913)

No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate, a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. (Tr. C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin)

Even though not many can claim to have read Marcel Proust’s gargantuan masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, from start to finish, almost everybody who has heard of him knows how it all begins, and has at least a passing familiarity with the phrases “involuntary memory, “the madeleine episode,” or “the Proustian moment.” Proust was no Hemingway, so it is rather difficult to quote the entire episode—you can read it here if you’d like to—but the three sentences excerpted above should give you just enough taste (pun intended) of Proust’s madeleine, and maybe demonstrate to you how even trivial everyday objects such as a cookie and a cup of tea can sometimes send shivers across your spine and, moreover, imbue your life with meaning and significance. In Proust’s case, as it is almost too well-known, “the whole of Combray and its surroundings [spring] into being, town and gardens alike, from [his] cup of tea.”

Example #2: James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird […] Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird’s, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark-plumaged dove […]—Heavenly God! cried Stephen’s soul, in an outburst of profane joy. He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand. His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On and on and on and on he strode, far out over the sands, singing wildly to the sea, crying to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him.

Edward Quinn’s Facts on File Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms calls this “probably the best known of [Joyce’s] epiphanies.” It occurs near the end of the fourth chapter of Joyce’s debut novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, soon after the main protagonist, Joyce’s alter-ego Stephen Dedalus, is singled out by his Jesuit supervisors as an exceptional student, ripe for priesthood. However, while roaming about and considering this offer, in a moment of profound crisis, he happens upon the unnamed girl described in the excerpt above, wading in the waters along Dollymount Strand. Suddenly, his limbs all a-trembling and his heart a-thumping, Stephen is overcome with a desire “to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him… To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.” In the blink of an eye, he sees that religion is just too ascetic and austere for his taste: he had been born to translate the ethereality of beautiful things into memorable words. “This vision of a girl wading in the surf becomes a moment of truth for the novel’s young hero,” notes Quinn, “a realization that he will become an artist, a servant of beauty.”

Example #3: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927)

Quickly, as if she were recalled by something over there, she turned to her canvas. There it was—her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.

In the first part of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Lily Briscoe is a young, inexperienced painter trying to draw a portrait of Mrs. Ramsay and her son James at the Ramsays’ summer home on the Isle of Skye. A decade later (when many of the characters, including Mrs. Ramsay, are dead), she finally has her vision and finishes the portrait—at the precise moment when Mr. Ramsey, James, and Camilla reach the lighthouse, a trip that should have taken place ten years before. Since this is the final paragraph of the book, and since the problem of the painting resembles the structure of the novel (both seem to be organized in the manner of “the letter H”), the paragraph is self-referential as well. So, in a way, this epiphany works on two levels, capturing both Lily’s and Woolf’s realization that there is more to being an artist than leaving a legacy—namely, executing your own, original, and uncompromising vision.

(Further Reading: Top 10 Examples of Epiphany in Literature)

Songs with Epiphany

Example #1: The Drifters, This Magic Moment (1960)

This magic moment, so different and so new Was like any other until I kissed you And then it happened, it took me by surprise I knew that you felt it too, by the look in your eyes.

Popularized by the 1993 movie The Sandlot—which is why This Magic Moment, in the minds of many, will forever be associated with Michael “Squints” Palledorous and Wendy Peffercorn (reference)—This Magic Moment is one of the best-known songs in the repertoire of pianist Mort Shuman and lyricist Doc Pomus. Originally performed by Ben E. King and The Drifters, as noted by Victor Robert Kennedy, This Magic Moment makes use of all of the main qualities of epiphany, describing an intense and mysterious moment which arrives suddenly and has the power to negate time (“This magic moment while your lips are close to mine/ Will last forever, forever ’till the end of time”). The real epiphany, however, is left unuttered, hiding beneath the word “it” in the quatrain above, ethereal, describable only in terms of comparisons (“sweeter than wine/ softer than the summer night”).

https://youtu.be/bacBKKgc4Uo

Example #2: The Monkees, I’m a Believer (1966)

Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer Not a trace of doubt in my mind I’m in love I’m a believer, I couldn’t leave her if I tried

Written by Neil Diamond and first recorded by the Monkees in 1966, I’m a Believer tells the story of one of the most common—and yet, also, one of the most potent—epiphanic experiences a person can go through: that of discovering the whatness of a person. In the case of I’m a Believer, this finding leads to an even more important revelation: namely, that love exists. “I thought love was only through in fairytales,” sings Micky Dolenz here, “meant for someone else but not for me.” However, merely seeing the face of a certain unnamed girl immediately changes his point of view. Now, there’s “not a trace of doubt” in his mind that love exists and that, moreover, he has found her. He is, as the title states, a believer.

https://youtu.be/wB9YIsKIEbA?t=27

Example #3: KT Tunstall, Suddenly I See (2005)

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see) This is what I wanna be Suddenly I see (suddenly I see) Why the hell it means so much to me

According to KT Tunstall, Suddenly I See is a song “about the photograph of Patti Smith on the cover of Horses.” If you have ever seen that image, then you already know what KT Tunstall means when she says that “she fills up every corner like she’s born in black and white” or that “she holds you captivated in her palm.” If not, please take a few moments and have a look (reference). Back here? Is it not obvious to you now why Tunstall had an epiphanic experience and was inspired to become a musician after first laying her eyes upon Patti Smith’s unisex pose on the cover of Horses? “Oh, she makes me feel like I could be a tower,” Tunstall sings, “a big strong tower.” Camille Paglia is absolutely right: that has to be “one of the greatest pictures ever taken of a woman”!

https://youtu.be/9AEoUa0Hlso?t=40

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danithebookaholic-blog · 7 years

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A Book You Picked Solely Because of the Cover

The Fallen: The Fallen and Leviathan

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

This week’s suggestion on the Pinterest Reading Challenge is to pick a book solely based on its cover. So, I looked through my collection of books that I’ve gathered up through the years and thought to myself, “Hum… what looks good?”

With this week’s suggestion, I didn’t have the full pleasure of “judging a book based on its cover”—because I am trying to go through the hundreds of books that I already have—I’ve read all the synopses on their covers before. But I did make myself pick through a selection of books based on a few guidelines: the book couldn’t be a movie or TV show, it couldn’t be a classic that everyone knows the gist of the story line, and it couldn’t be one that I’ve been itching to get my hands on. I made myself look through the ones that I haven’t looked at for a while, the ones that were bought on a whim, written by someone I’ve never heard of before, or given to me from someone who reads genres that I’m not that into. This week I was going to make sure it was something different for me… Or so I thought.

Looking solely at the covers of the books I had collected—a couple fantasy, several YA and children’s chapter books (I don’t know why I gravitate to these so much!), a mystery, and a memoir—I kept coming back to the same one over and over. A black and white photograph of a lone figure with the title written in red. The lighting in the photograph had the lone figure highlighted in all the right places—the contours of his face and muscular arm—this alone will have you thinking to yourself that this must be some kind of romance novel, a spinoff of a harlequin perhaps and this will catch the females of the audience and make them want to pick it up. But romance novels are not my thing, so that is not what caught my attention. It was the dark angelic wing protruding from his back, and with a title of The Fallen, I couldn’t help myself but to pick it.

Some History:

The Fallen: The Fallen and Leviathan is a Young Adult read. It was originally published in 2003 and reprinted in 2010 with the new above picture on the cover. It is book one of five in The Fallen series, and it turns out it was also made into an ABC Family movie, Fallen, in 2006. (Oops! So much for those guidelines I made for myself!)

The Synopsis:

***SPOILER ALERT***

I wrote this review a little different than usual. I’m not sure why, other than this is how it came out, and I apologize that it 1) reads a bit like a school book report, and 2) does give away some of the ending.

Aaron Corbet is a child of the foster care system and has finally found a foster family who he regards as his mom, dad and his brother, Stevie. On his eighteenth birthday he can suddenly understand and speak languages of all kinds even though he’s had no education in them. On top of that, he comes across a “homeless” man who begins following Aaron, telling him about his troubled past and the future that is to come: Aaron is Nephilim—the son of a mortal and an angel—and he has been chosen to redeem the Fallen.

The angel Verchiel is the master of the Powers and a Messenger of God. His duty is to cleanse the earth of the filth that the Fallen have produced upon the earth: Nephilim. Using his human hounds and divine senses he tracks down Nephilim and purges them from the earth. The Nephilim he’s currently hunting is Aaron Corbet.

With the help of Zeke, the Grigori, Camael of the Fallen, and his best friend Gabriel, Aaron transforms into the Nephilim he is, and not a minute too late: Verchiel has finally found him and is ready to purge his filth from the earth. A battle ensues and Aaron turns out to be more powerful than Verchiel originally thought. Aaron injures Verchiel, who flees, taking Stevie with him. Now Aaron must not only fulfil the prophecy, but find his brother before Verchiel turns him into one of his human hounds.

Aaron and his posse begin a road trip in search of Stevie, with a powerful pull toward Blythe, Maine. Along the way they encounter a group of Orishas, another product the Fallen have created. However, the Orishas are ruled by Verchiel, who has bestowed the mission of killing Aaron upon them, but they don’t succeed. Only one Orishas remains, and before fleeing it gets a small revenge and bites Gabriel.

Arriving in Blythe, they find Gabriel a doctor to treat the infected Orishas bite, but the townsfolk here are a little strange: they look suspicious of everyone and act as if they’re being controlled. That is everyone but Dr. Katie McGovern, who later tells Aaron that she, too, is an outsider, new to town. She came to town because her ex-boyfriend, Dr. Kevin Wessell, had e-mailed her with a strange request that she visit, but when she got to town he was missing and hadn’t been in to see his patients for days.

Katie enlists the help of Aaron around the office until Kevin hopefully returns, but after finding several strangely mutated animals in Kevin’s freezer, she begins to think that Kevin may have dug up some dirt on the town that someone didn’t want him finding out. Katie and Aaron agree that they need to find out what’s going on around the town and try to find Kevin, but the mission is doomed from the beginning when Katie turns up missing herself. Aaron begins the mission alone, only to find himself in the lair of Leviathan, “that spark of uncertainty in the Creator’s thoughts as He forged the world—that brief moment of chaos—before Genesis.”

Leviathan, a great sea monster, entraps its victims by making their mind’s eye see whatever paradise it wishes to see, then swallows them whole and lives off the life force stored inside them. Aaron finds that both Camael and Gabriel are in Leviathan’s stomachs, and knows that in order to save them he must overcome his fear of letting the Nephilim power within him out and do the one thing the Archangel Gabriel could not: destroy Leviathan.

Aaron defeats Leviathan and frees all those within Leviathan’s stomachs including his friends and the Archangel Gabriel. Aaron then fulfills the prophecy and forgives the Fallen who are found within Leviathan’s many stomachs and sends them to their Heavenly home. But before The Archangel Gabriel ascends he gives Aaron another hint about the prophecy he is fulfilling and a wink of information about who his real father is.

The Fallen concludes with the townspeople of Blythe, Maine being released from their captor’s control, Katie and Kevin reunited, and Aaron with a lot of questions: Who is his real father? What does his father have to do with the prophecy? And where is Stevie?

The Review:

The Pros:

Of course, I liked The Fallen, it’s right up my alley (so much for breaking out of my habits and trying something new!) First, it’s a YA read, so you know I’m hooked there.

Second, it’s a present-day mythology just like the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan or The Mortal Instruments and Shadowhunter series by Cassandra Clare, both of which I’m a big fan of. To take a myth—and I use this word to group together the whole, so please you Christians out there don’t hate on me for using this word, I’m a Christian, too! —but to take a myth such as angels or Greek gods and to create a new story for them is awesome! You’re taking those classics that a lot of people don’t read any more because they find them boring or too difficult to understand and are making them readily available to today’s societies so that Genesis, Matthew, Luke, Homer and Sophocles are getting a new—and usually younger—generation to ignite and share their stories again.

Third, something that I found that set The Fallen apart from most YA books was the language. I, myself, don’t have the best vocabulary by any means (I should have listened to my mother and studied for those vocabulary tests!), but I have grown my knowledge and understanding over the years, and this book still had me looking up words in the dictionary (or rather dictionary.com, yay technology!) I like that about a book! I like that while I’m reading for pleasure I’m still learning things. I don’t think that everything should be dumbed down so everyone in the general population can understand it. I think you should always be learning something and improving on yourself, and if that means you must get a dictionary out to understand what’s happening in the storyline then that’s great! You learned something in the process; you made yourself better and had a better experience because of it!

The Cons:

Aaron Corbet is a little fake. He’s too good and not moody enough to be a teenage boy and a child of the foster system who has just found out that he’s this mythological creature. In the beginning, you’re told that he has a troubled past, that he was moved from foster home to foster home, but the person sitting in front of you is polite, never causes a stir, and when he does have an emotional outbreak of some kind its abbreviated and almost void of emotion. Almost like his outburst were an afterthought, like Thomas Sniegoski’s editor said, “Hey, don’t you think he would be a little upset that this is happening?” The lack of emotion he shows when someone he loves is hurt or killed is the biggest one for me. He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t get angry and yell, he just tells himself that he can’t believe that they are hurt or dead. I understand shellshock, but I think this is a bit more than just that. Aaron is not fleshed out enough to be a real person, but then again, I guess he really isn’t, after all he is Nephilim.

My other qualm with The Fallen is defeat is too easy. With each battle scene—if you can really call them that—the fight was ended really before it began. These are some big monsters he’s going up against, and yet I saw how the end of each battle was going to play out from the moment they started. There was no adrenaline rush of “is he going to make it?” in any of the battle scenes. From the beginning, you knew he was going to be just fine and good would prevail over evil once again.

The Wrap-Up:

Overall, I enjoyed The Fallen. I thought it was a great storyline with a good mystery: I want to know who Aaron’s father is myself! Who is this—as Camael puts it— “angel of formidable power to have sired one like [Aaron]?" ? And does he ever find Stevie? All the questions Aaron has at the end of the book are questions I have too, which is a sign of a good story. The author has you hooked to make you want to pick up that next book. Which I plan on doing just that!

From one wine-loving bookaholic to another, I hope I’ve helped you find your next fix. —Dani

Love this book? Check out The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare or one of her many other Shadowhunter series.

Pair it with: Lost Angel’s 2016 Mischief—Fruit-forward and jammy, with hints of cocoa.

Not all good wines are expensive, and this one is just that: good, easy on the wallet and fits with the trouble that Aaron gets himself into.

Start a conversation: What book have you chosen based solely on its cover and why? Was it worth the gamble?

Have a book you’d like to suggest or one you’d like me to review? Please feel free to leave your comments down below.

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emmagreen1220-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published on Literary Techniques

New Post has been published on https://literarytechniques.org/epiphany/

Epiphany

Epiphany Definition

ExamplesQuizFlashcardsWorksheets

Epiphany Examples

Epiphany in a Sentence

Example #1: John Keats, “Letter to Benjamin Bailey” (November 22, 1817)

Example #2: Walter Pater, “The School of Giorgione” (1873)

Example #3: John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1874)

Epiphany in Poetry

Example #1: William Blake, Auguries of Innocence 1-4 (1803)

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

Example #2: Kenneth Rexroth, “Proust’s Madeleine” (1966)

Example #3: Elizabeth Bishop, “The Moose” (1972)

Taking her time, she looks the bus over, grand, otherworldly. Why, why do we feel (we all feel) this sweet sensation of joy?

Epiphany in Literature

Example #1: Marcel Proust, Combray I (“Overture”) (1913)

Example #2: James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

Example #3: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927)

(Further Reading: Top 10 Examples of Epiphany in Literature)

Songs with Epiphany

Example #1: The Drifters, This Magic Moment (1960)

This magic moment, so different and so new Was like any other until I kissed you And then it happened, it took me by surprise I knew that you felt it too, by the look in your eyes.

https://youtu.be/bacBKKgc4Uo

Example #2: The Monkees, I’m a Believer (1966)

Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer Not a trace of doubt in my mind I’m in love I’m a believer, I couldn’t leave her if I tried

https://youtu.be/wB9YIsKIEbA?t=27

Example #3: KT Tunstall, Suddenly I See (2005)

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see) This is what I wanna be Suddenly I see (suddenly I see) Why the hell it means so much to me

https://youtu.be/9AEoUa0Hlso?t=40

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