Chelsea finishes Gone by Michael Grant! She did it, folks! Did she like it?.... well *seesaw hand-motion*

hey yall if anyone has read the gone series by michael grant PLEASE message me i need to talk ab how much i love it

edit: oh i also made a spotify playlist for the fayz and some are related to characters while others are simply vibes

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/789tWmSf5Q7F3WUya0uIBZ?si=j-Ok409ERVWfzaLmCGGvkQ

Ok so just re-read Gone and I’m absolutely reeling at the fact that Sam canonically called Albert ‘Mac Daddy’ in front of like the entire population of Perdido Beach 

Michael Grant continues to test Chelsea’s patience with talking coyotes. And we haven’t even gotten to Drake’s whip arm yet lol

Part III of making Gone characters with this picrew.

Albert, Brianna, Quinn, Taylor.

THIS. Thank you for the Mary reflection post! I have a lot of thoughts about the potential of her character, and I personally believe that a female author could’ve done her story justice, by taking the time to show us, the reader, how much she’s struggling, rather than just making her an afterthought.

Mary Terrafino: a character study

In Gone, we are first introduced to Mary and immediately told she has had issues with anxiety and eating disorders. She becomes the primary carer to the kindergarten of children left alone after the FAYZ started, resulting in the nickname “mother Mary.” Over the course of the first three books, we see Mary slowly descend into mental illness and starvation. When I first read Gone, as a 14 year old, I immediately felt akin to Mary. She was falling apart, and hiding it so well, taking on the weight of the world while wasting away, mind and body. I thought her character progression and arc may be one of the most tragic in the series, and would list her as a top favourite character. So why, when asked on twitter, did Michael Grant admit he “couldn’t wait” to kill Mary off? Mary has one strong characteristic that sets her apart from much of the main cast of Gone: she has no supernatural powers. But isn’t she superhuman in her own way? Doesn’t she, a 14 year old girl battling anorexia, take on an entire orphanage of young children? And who are the characters of Gone, or we, to blame her for slipping apart? In the end of Lies, we see Mary on the cusp of her Great and Fateful 15th birthday, and she has fallen into the rumors of Orsay- that if you “poof” you will be back with family and loved ones, safe and sound. She takes a large group, possibly the majority, of the makeshift daycare, holding hands in a chain, and jumps off a cliff. Sam saves the children, but Mary “poofs” and the next we hear from her is when she is found on the outside, mutilated into an inhuman form. Over the rest of the series, people refer to what happened to Mary as her ‘going crazy’ or 'endangering the kids’ 'leading them on a suicide mission.’ Here’s what I believe. Mary Terrafino was a 14 year old anorexic girl, suddenly left by all adults in the world, and ended up taking on an entire daycare of extremely young children. Some were sick from pre-FAYZ conditions, some were otherwise malnourished from days of not being discovered. Mary saw these children die. She had to be weaned off her medication, due to lack of resources, until she was in a frame of mind that would have shattered her without the presence of the FAYZ. The only person who could properly make sure she was eating, was her little brother. So when Mary, whose mental state had already been weakened, heard the possibility of hope- is it any surprise that she grasped on to it? I remember being 14 and depressed, and the slightest thing as a lyric would be enough for me to have some hope, to hold on. Some encouraging words, an idea things might someday be better. I know that given the majority of the characters are of similar ages, taking Mary being only 14 with all this pressure into account wouldn’t necessarily seem so obvious to the other characters, as they were all 14\15 too- but in hindsight, I believe they must think of Mary. If Michael Grant meant what he said, we won’t hear any more about Mary Terrafino in the spinoff series. But I know that Mary, though constantly overlooked and ridiculed, will always be remembered to these characters. She wasn’t what many seemed to label her, though- a 'saint.’ She was a 14 year old girl. And now she will only ever be a memory to look back on, and that is one of the biggest tragedies, to me, of this series. I believe she is one of the saddest stories to come from Gone, and I will always be saddened by Michael Grant’s apparent ease in throwing her away.

I almost spit out my coffee reading this xDD

me: caine was such a cool villain

caine:

Not that anyone was waiting with baited breath for this, but here is the next part in "Re-reading the Gone series, with my friend who hated it lol"

In this section, we got to the action packed scene with Caine's big monologue to Sam. We got some powers action! And I don't want to jinx things, but I think Chelsea's warming up to it.

Problematic Representation in GONE by Michael Grant

Hello FAYZ Fandom!

I’m Jay. My friend and I are revisiting the Gone series on Booktube, as it was my favorite during my teen years.

I’ve come to realize that Gone was VERY problematic, and I want to discuss the those problematic portrayals in a future video. In my early research, here are some resources that I’ve found:

“On Diversity” a blog post written by Michael Grant (w/ some *interesting* takes on representation in his books)

“Aw, They Hate Me” ... another blog post by MG after his first was ... um, not well received.

“Review: The Gone series by Michael Grant” -- which discusses problematic Austism rep with Little Pete’s character

“American Indians in Children’s Literature.” -- discussing problematic Native American representation w/ Lana’s character.

If you know of any blog posts, articles, or online conversations w/in the Gone fandom that talk about those valid criticisms, please send them my way! I want to learn as much as I can while making this video. I also want to just dive into conversations with the Gone fandom: How do we feel about Michael Grant’s problematic representation? How does it affect our enjoyment of the Gone series? Do we feel like he has improved in future books (ex: the Monster Trilogy, which I haven’t read)? Hope to hear ppl’s thoughts! 

Greetings! fellow one of the 5. What time is the Edilio Escobar fan club?

Ik this fandom probably only has 5 people nowadays, but i just wanted to say "Edilio Escobar deserves all the good things possible"

Update: Explaining the plot of HUNGER by Michael Grant (w/ my friend Chelsea, who hated it lol)

Hello FAYZ Fandom!

Hi I’m Jay! Eight years ago, when I was a teen, the GONE series by Michael Grant was my absolute favorite YA series.

I’m 25 now, and revisiting the books, along with my friend Chelsea, who, as you can tell from the title, was not a fan. BUT her curiosity to know what happens in this buck-wild series is carrying her through.

So, for the next few months, I will be recapping the entire series to her and recording her reactions. As of writing, we finished HUNGER yesterday, and I thought it would be fun to share some highlights from those conversations.

1. The two of us are major Albert stans, and we would honestly support a coup if he wanted to organize one.

2. There’s a scene where Diana is describing her appearance, noting her “sculpted” (*insert WTF face*) eyebrows. This led to one of many great conversations we’ve had about how Michael Grant treats his female characters.

3. In the scene where Caine THROWS A RADIOACTIVE FUEL ROD through the roof a nuclear reactor chamber, we imagined the Darkness sensing this like “Nononono! Be gentle w/ that!”

4. This exchange we had during one recap session, which gets me everytime.

Chelsea: Wait, Brittney died?

Me: Yeah

Chelsea: But you just said she becomes a major character.

Me: Oh. Spoiler alert, she comes back from the dead. 

Chelsea: asdfjkl;asdf

5. As far as Chelsea knows, Drake is dead. And I’m very much looking forward to her reaction when I reveal his resurrection story lol

-----

If you liked this recap, then woohoo! I would love to do more text posts like this! I plan on sharing our buddy-reading experience on Youtube, but those videos take a looong time to edit. The text posts would allow me to share Chelsea’s thoughts/reactions more quickly and easily for the few ppl who would be interested. 

My favorite w/ his favorite

(thank you @abjlk for sharing your art with me for a future video project!)

Why couldn’t they just be a happy family :(

adorable rendition of Astrid and Mary. Thank you @pearly-pastels / soleilstars.png

this time i only drew astrid and mary but i swear the next one will have three people again lmao

anyways i cant exactly find a description of mary so i went based off her last name being mainly italian so gave her tan skin, but for some reason ginger just didnt suit her for me

( also i now use this as a side blog for the gone series by michael grant! )

STUNNING

Well, here she is: Astrid Ellison as Pride

This one took forever because I wanted to get her perfect, but I couldn’t decide how to do it. I feel like Astrid’s pride and superiority complex is less a result of her truly believing that she is better than others, and more of a defence mechanism built to protect herself because she knows that she will never truly fit in. She’s called the ice queen - too cold and mechanical for most, and yet the one person she loves most in the world, the person who she would do anything to protect, finds her too present. She can’t win. And so she distances herself from people, often resulting in her being blinded by her ideals of morality, as she can’t really see how her actions affect those around her.

I chose blue and black for Astrid’s colour scheme - paired with some chromatic aberration, to appear almost like she’s short-circuiting. I wanted to keep close to her original colour scheme but, as this is a series based on the sins , I decided to switch her white to black.

Hope you enjoy :)

Thank you for the in-depth review! Sorry, it took a couple days b4 I could fully respond :). But YES, I love Chelsea's thoughts on Quinn and all the characters generally. This may come from her experience w/ writing scripts (esp. chracter driven ones). She wrote an INCREDIBLE screenplay about AI that gave off strong Ex Machina vibes ... I wish y’all could read it!

On Astrid, yes! She totally should’ve been brought up as a leader -- she’s known as the “Genius!” ... perhaps sexism stopped ppl from throwing her hat in the ring? ALTHOUGH,  as Chelsea and I read HUNGER, we started to dislike Astrid more -- she has an idealized/naive outlook that seems to slow down the development of their society. Ex: she and Sam try to encourage ppl to work b/c it’s ‘the right thing to do,’ w/out offering an individual incentive. So she’s a less effective leader in practice, but similar to Sam, should’ve been considered initially.

Same on your views of Quinn! I love how he doesn’t rise to the occasion of being a hero. He’s realistically what many of us would be, if we were put into the FAYZ. We want to be Sam, but we’re Quinn for sure. (Well, I’m a Quinn, I should say haha). Chelsea and I just finished Hunger, and we are delighted by the fact that Quinn has embraced the fisherman role, and he will no longer cause problems in the series lol

I also had a generous reading of Michael Grant's portrayal of characters of color. So we’re kind of in the same boat! When I was younger, I was less in-tune w/ social issues and the importance of Diversity in books. I’m more critical of those problematic portrayals now, but I’m not well versed in those nuances yet. That’s something I’m learning about as I go through the re-read. 

thank you for watching! <3

Rereading GONE by Michael Grant (Chp 1 -18) w/ my friend Chelsea

Hello FAYZ Fandom,

Part 2 of my deep-dive into GONE by Michael Grant is on Youtube! Will Chelsea come around to the FAYZ fandom? We'll find out!

Also, thank you to the artists who have reached out to me saying they would be open to letting me feature their fan art in this video series. I wasn't able to include any art in this video, but 100% will have your beautiful images in the next one.

Expect some DMs or emails from me shortly to confirm some additional details!

This show is my new obsession

Rosa Salazar as Lisa Nova

S1E1: I exist | BRAND NEW CHERRY FLAVOR (2021 - )

Rereading GONE by Michael Grant (Chp 1 -18) w/ my friend Chelsea

Hello FAYZ Fandom,

Part 2 of my deep-dive into GONE by Michael Grant is on Youtube! Will Chelsea come around to the FAYZ fandom? We'll find out!

Also, thank you to the artists who have reached out to me saying they would be open to letting me feature their fan art in this video series. I wasn't able to include any art in this video, but 100% will have your beautiful images in the next one.

Expect some DMs or emails from me shortly to confirm some additional details!