#treacherous is the night

[thebiggaybookclub]

Treacherous Is the Night by Anna Lee Huber

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Historical mystery, Cozy mystery

A London séance sets a lady spy on a deadly mission across Europe in this post-WWI Era mystery by the Daphne Award-winning author of This Side of Murder.

Verity Kent can sympathize with those eager to make contact with lost loved ones. After all, she once believed herself a war widow. But now that she’s discovered Sidney is very much alive, Verity is having enough trouble connecting with her estranged husband, never mind the dead. Still, at a friend’s behest, Verity attends a séance with a medium claiming to channel sensitive information from a surprising source: a woman Verity once worked with in the Secret Service.  Refusing to believe her former colleague is dead—let alone divulging secrets—Verity is determined to uncover the source of the medium’s top-secret revelation. But her investigation is thwarted when the spiritualist is murdered. As once-trusted Secret Service agents turn their backs on her, Verity heads to war-torn Belgium, with Sidney by her side. But as they draw ever closer to danger, Verity wonders if she’s about to learn the true meaning of till death do us part.   “Huber combines intricate puzzles with affecting human drama.”—Publishers Weekly

Source: Publisher

Pros: I found the writing to be very efficient. It was descriptive, the characters and dialogue was believable, it didn't feel like she was adding a bunch of unnecessary description to reach a word count or have a more intellectual book. Most of the characters are likeable, as far as the protagonists, even the one I didn't like, I still felt on the fence about because of how real and complex the characters feel.''

Cons: There is really only one character I disliked, but it didn't really take away from the story. One scene was incredibly frustrating, because it felt like the characters only acted the way they did to prolong the novel. If they had acted differently (and I feel logically) the book would have been a few hours shorter, but we wouldn't have discovered all of the nooks and crannies of the mystery. I appreciate what the author did for the story of the book, but I wish that scene had been handled differently because it felt like a huge plot hole.

Book Club Question:

Are the characters likeable? What does that mean for the story? Which character do you most relate to?

For the most part, yes. I don't like Sidney though. For me, this makes the story easy to read, as I'm not annoyed constantly by characters I can't stand. I'm not sure I relate to any of the characters. A lot of them had straight-people-problems I just don't empathize with. There is at one point, a spirit that is summoned during the séance at the very beginning of the book who I interpreted as gay. I could see my parents being in the same situation as his, so I think I connected the most with him, even though he only had like one line.

How Queer is it?

I give a 2/5 on the queer scale for the above reason.

Rating

Setting: 4/5

Story: 4/5

Characters: 4/5

Queerness: 2/5

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

#Book review #feel free to reblog with your own takes and response to the book club question #anna lee huber #treacherous is the night #book club

[linferry]

Typical 3am

#fsdfsdk i am trying to work on more encanto au but i barely have time to sit and draw #please accept my late night sketches done for shit and giggles #namine is me trying not to wake up my family bested by a treacherous floor #also don't make jilk #it doesn't taste good #it's a mistake #kingdom hearts #sora #riku #kairi #namine #roxas #soriku #lin draws

[shopwitchvamp]

We've got three @vetiverfox designs up for preorder now!!

Constellation Skaters; Treacherous Garden and Black Velvet Joggers Preorders are open now thru March 26th at 11:59pm CT. Come take a look while there's still time (and take advantage of unlimited inventory)!! 🖤witchvamp.com🖤

#witch vamp #vetiverfox #constellation #treacherous garden #black velvet #skater skirt #joggers #skirts #skirts with pockets #pocket skirt #dark aesthetic #goth #gothic #goth aesthetic #casual goth #floral #poisonous flowers #poisonous #stars #starry #starry sky #constellations #night sky #deer #crow #flora and fauna #nature #fashion #dark fashion #dark academia

[queer-cosette]

How Hiccup and the five human villains are parallels of each other

Hiccup, Alvin, Dagur, Viggo, Drago and Grimmel are all different sides of one six-sided dice. I’m not including Johann or Krogan here, because they do not parallel Hiccup (although I will mention them at the end).

There are parallels between Hiccup, Alvin, and Drago, in that they all desire knowledge about dragons in order to gain the power that comes with it, but...

Hiccup gives up on that desire early on in favour of genuine curiosity.

Drago never gives up on it, and it is what destroys him eventually.

Alvin, meanwhile, represents the halfway mark. He himself is nearly destroyed by his desire for power, but because Hiccup managed to spark that curiosity in him, however unintentional - remember, Alvin was able to train dragons because he learned Hiccup’s method, while Drago never learned that - Alvin is able to bring himself back and learn compassion and true leadership.

Hiccup, Dagur, and Grimmel are a similar triangle this way, but for another reason.

They are all outsiders with heavy expectations placed upon them - Dagur and Hiccup as sons of chiefs, and Hiccup and Grimmel as members of dragon-killing societies.

They all eventually gain power through certain circumstances - Hiccup chooses not to kill a dragon, Dagur chooses to let people believe he killed his father, and Grimmel chooses the opposite path Hiccup chose and kills a dragon.

Grimmel and Dagur both represent who Hiccup might have become, but in two different aspects.

Grimmel is obvious - he chooses to kill a Night Fury as a young boy, and the glory he receives twists him into a murderous maniac bent on the destruction of all dragons, based on what gained him that glory in the first place.

Dagur, on the other hand, is who Hiccup might have become if there had been no Night Fury at all. We learn from Dagur’s backstory that he was pushed around himself as a kid and treated as an unfit heir to his father’s throne, and as so many unhappy people do, he coped by exercising power over others when he could - setting his own toddler sister adrift, bullying Hiccup, and eventually seizing power when his father disappeared.

But, like Hiccup and unlike Grimmel, the reason he is able to redeem himself is because he learns compassion when he sees himself in someone else - his sister Heather. Someone who made the best of a powerless situation. The only Berserker to actively question him and not let him push her around. The family he might have had if he’d been able to choose compassion the way Hiccup did. That is the reason Dagur is able to bring himself back, and Grimmel is destroyed because he was never able to bring himself back. Grimmel was never able to see himself in someone else, not even in Hiccup.

Viggo and Hiccup are sort of a mix of both.

We don’t know much of Viggo’s backstory, of how he and Ryker came to be dragon hunters. What we do know is that he is the only antagonist who ever came close to truly defeating Hiccup.

He and Hiccup are equals in a lot of ways. They are equally intelligent. They are equally good strategists. They can keep up with each other in a swordfight, and even moreso in a battle of wits.

What makes them so interesting as enemies is that they are equals in so many ways - but it is the parts they choose to focus on that make them different.

We know Hiccup has always been cunning. Our introduction to him has him build a weapon that takes down the dragon everyone thought was impossible to catch. He uses what he learns about Toothless to protect the arena dragons while appearing to defeat them: their fear of eels, their curiosity, their reaction to garlic grass, the pressure point in their necks. He figures out what angers them and what makes them feel respected.

And then it is revealed that Viggo knows as much as Hiccup does about dragons and their weaknesses! The difference is, while Hiccup uses his knowledge to protect dragons, Viggo uses it to hunt them.

And now I’m going to say something controversial: Viggo always had the same capacity for compassion as Hiccup did. He would not have completely changed his view of dragons when the Monstrous Nightmare saved him, if he hadn’t always been capable of compassion.

The difference between Viggo and Hiccup is that, while they are cunning and compassionate in equal measures, Hiccup chose to nurture his compassion, and became a leader who is kind, who is understanding, and who will always do his best to save as many innocents as possible.

Viggo, on the other hand, chose to nurture his cunning, and became a leader who takes pleasure in cruelty, who chooses profit over life every time, and who is as ruthless to his supporters as he is to his enemies.

Being equally capable of cunning and compassion is what makes Viggo and Hiccup so able to keep pace with each other.

Johann and Krogan are also interesting antagonists, and they do parallel certain characters - but they do not parallel Hiccup. They respectively parallel Viggo and Eret, and represent who they would have become if they had not been able to learn from Hiccup and the Dragon Riders.

Johann and Viggo are both cunning and ruthless businessmen, but Viggo is able to learn respect for dragons while Johann is not, because Viggo had the capability for kindness that Johann never did.

The same is true for Krogan and Eret - but it is not compassion that saves Eret; it is the ability to think for himself. Krogan never strays from Drago’s instructions, and follows them to the point where it kills him, but Eret, however self-serving his motivations are, betrays Drago’s instructions to save his own neck - and in doing so, sees an existence for himself where he is free from every obligation but one: respecting life. This is what makes him a parallel to the other Dragon Riders rather than to Hiccup, because it is not compassion or seeing himself in someone else that saves him, but rather the potential of a new, happier, safer, more fulfilling life, which is how Hiccup saved them all the way back in the first film.

In conclusion, I will never be over the amazing use of parallels and mirror imagery in this series.

#how to train your dragon #dragons: riders of berk #dragons: defenders of berk #dragons: race to the edge #how to train your dragon 2 #how to train your dragon 3 #hiccup horrendous haddock iii #toothless the night fury #alvin the treacherous #dagur the deranged #viggo grimborn #krogan #trader johann #eret son of eret #drago bludvist #grimmel the grisly #httyd analysis

[solena2]

so you know how sometimes you make typos with your mouth

today i accidentally said some music sounded like it something from “five nights at funkin”

#as opposed to friday night funkin which was the thing my treacherous mouth was /supposed/ to say #💀 #sol speaks #original post

[bigbluebeautifulthings]

Taylor Swift - Red

debut / fearless / speak now / red / 1989 / reputation / lover / folklore / evermore / midnights

all artists

#taylor swift #moodboard #mood board #red tv #red taylor's version #state of grace #treacherous #i knew you were trouble #all too well #22 #red #begin again #nothing new #i almost do #everything has changed #i bet you think about me #the moment i knew #we are never ever getting back together #stay stay stay #the very first night

[fightingdragonswiftyou]

My favorite part of the possessed piano story arc was when she started explaining how the piano broke and said, "long story short," then immediately realized that she was quoting her own song title.

#it's giving “treacherous” on jimmy fallon during the lover era #my show #long story short #taylor swift #eras tour gillette night 3

[seventh-fantasy]

hlht ep 2 // 8: 故人之子

#god. literally dk how to articulate how this makes me emotional #left all alone in the world to take the treacherous paths their bloodline has cursed them to take #watching the only remaining connection they have to their parents die to secure them on those paths #the paths which they might ponder in the dead of the night about whether it was ever what they really wanted for their lives #or they were just an instinct of desperation to hold onto whatever that made them feel belonging to a family they should be part of #god they're basically each other.............bound together by history and blood even before they ever know #the way wang yu delivered this fucking scene.......the torrid undercurrents beneath a stone cold facade?? fuck me #the similar ways xdq and xcp (under such circumstances) keep their heads high before their subjects but are clearly tormented inside #鹤唳华亭 #royal nirvana #hlht #平定天下 #my posts

[carlytayjepsen]

#was listening to treacherous for the first time in a while last night so yeah

[howtodrawyourdragon]

And although I would love to say that Alvin the Treacherous was a brilliant swordfighter, the truth is that he was just so-so at the Art, preferring to poison his enemy's cup or bash him from behind with a rock to fighting him face to face. But he was still much older, stronger and more experienced than Hiccup.

And he's also a grown man attacking an injured 10 year old boy who's already been through the wringer for completely petty reasons.

#he's nothing special and he should be ashamed of himself is what i'm saying #at least blackbeard faced a 15 year old who did everything in his power to physically make his life worse #horrendous has been nothing but helpful even against his better judgment #and is now tired #and injured #and thinks he's about to face a slow death by starvation #and he also doesn't have a night fury to back him up #or even a father #or a mother for that matter because where has she been this entire time? #httyd books #httyd book 2 #how to be a pirate #liveblog #hiccup horrendous haddock III #alvin the treacherous

[clonerightsagenda]

Had to get the brackets on five teeth moved and I went into the appointment going "huh they did all that fancy stuff with light activated bonding to get them on, I wonder what the trick to get them off will be" and it turns out the trick was pliers.

#they slopped so much glue on that it actually glued a few of my teeth together #so these guys did NOT want to come off #I will be spending the night in the arms of my treacherous love ibuprofen

[ao3-anonymous]

Fastest Growing Fandoms on AO3 This Week (08/02/2022)

Every week I pull data on how many fics are in each fandom and compare to the previous week, then calculate the percentage increase to determine fastest growing fandoms.  Since this naturally skews towards smaller fandoms, I have included the same data filtered to Over 1k, 5k, & 10k fics.

Overall:

Over 1,000 Fics:

Over 5,000 Fics:

Over 10,000 Fics:

Source: AO3 Fandom Dashboard

#ao3 #ao3 stats #The Black Phone #Legally Blonde - Hach/O'Keefe/Benjamin #Ni Shui Han Treacherous Waters #Welcome To The Statehouse #Welcome To The Table - Ben Brainard #2007 Super Boy 2007 #KinnPorsche: The Series #MILGRAM #Top Gun #Stranger Things #The Walking Dead #3rd Life Last Life SMP Series #Motherland: Fort Salem #Light and Night #Heartstopper #Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE! #Our Flag Means Death #ENHYPEN

[125storejuice]

.

#i miss walking around at night #i cant really do it where i live now because the roads are treacherous ?

[shopwitchvamp]

Extras of @vetiverfox's Treacherous Garden and Constellation joggers are up now!!!

🖤witchvamp.com🖤

#witch vamp #vetiverfox #joggers #treacherous garden #constellation #plants #flora #deadly plants #stars #constellations #witchy #celestial #night sky #aesthetic #aesthetic clothes #fashion #dark fashion #goth #gothic #alt fashion #alt style #alternative fashion #plus size friendly #online shopping #restock #low stock #collab #collaboration #unisex #comfy clothes

[night-terror-project]

Here's to hoping this formats correctly - super new to Tumblr, and still figuring everything out. If anybody has any pro-tips that would make the viewing/reading experience more enjoyable on the Tumblr side-of-things then please let us know!

#treacherous #waves #night #terrors #mira #seigi #captain #boat #ship #pirate

[evansbby]

i just read all about the uruguayan plane that crashed in the andes mountains which the movie “society of the snow” is based on and oh my god, it’s crazy what the human body can achieve in survival mode, and it’s also crazy the power of faith 🥹🥹

#the way those two hiked all the way through that treacherous cold snowing blizzard mountain terrain for SEVEN DAYS to reach civilisation #with no mountaineering equipment or hiking stuff nothing #and they were so young too… one of them 19 and other one in his early 20s! #there was a third guy but he died during the trek 🥲 #not to mention all of the survivors back at the plane crash #imagine waiting those seven days thinking those two had died #no but it’s honestly so astonishing like their pure will to survive #the fact that all of them survived out there for 72 days is insane #but hiking up and down and through snowy mountains and -30 degree weather at night AND THEY ACTUALLY SUCCEEDED #it’s admirable #also how a few days into their trek to find civilisation they found the back of the plane and some more suitcases #which had a box of chocolate and food and comic books?? #and they read comic books that night???( #OH MY GOD how did i not know about this?????? #so so admirable fr it makes you appreciate your own life so much more