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vvivacious101 · 9 months

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The Perfect Storm

Katniss & Peeta in The Hunger Games

I believe there is a line in Mockingjay in which Katniss realises that her actions might have been the spark for the revolution but nothing she could have done after would have ever contained the wildfire that spark had grown into. Of course, it benefitted Snow to have Katniss on his side instead of the rebels but this entire idea of Katniss somehow being able to discourage people from revolting was ludicrous in itself. So, the idea that is central to this series is that spark. That’s what gets the ball rolling.

The thing about that particular spark is that it was definitely not only down to Katniss there are a whole host of events that created that storm that led to her action and had any piece not fallen the way it did, there would have been nothing to speak of but I guess that’s what makes the spark so unique, it was an event that was highly improbable yet it was unfolding before your very eyes.

There are a lot of people that led to that pivotal scene with the nightlock berries, there is Cinna, Haymitch, Rue, Thresh, Katniss and Peeta and everyone had to do something different than had been done before to get the result they did. But, I feel one of the most pivotal things, the domino that had to fall before anything could even begin was the relationship between Katniss and Peeta.

Peeta could easily have been just another boy and I sometimes wonder why Suzanne Collins didn’t go that route but frankly, now I realise how essential Peeta is to the story. There is literally no story without him, it’s his actions more than anyone else’s that truly influence Katniss.

When Katniss and Peeta are chosen as tributes from District 12, Katniss literally wishes it had been anyone but Peeta because she feels indebted to him and she already dreads having to kill him. This is crucial because, unlike other debts that can be ignored, Katniss literally believes the boy with the bread not only saved her life and that of her family. He literally gave her the very hope she needed to survive. And unlike other debts that can potentially be repaid Katniss remarks that the first debt is always the hardest to repay (because it was the time someone took a chance on you when they had no reason to).

So, there is this underlying current between these two and without even realising it Cinna and Haymitch kind of amp that current up. So, there is something crucial about the District 12 tributes catching the eye of everyone and that was totally down to Cinna’s genius but I feel the more potent act of rebellion at that parade is the fact that he tells them to hold hands. And, Katniss herself later remarks that it’s almost cruel to showcase them as a team when they will have to kill each other later as she notes the indifference the other tributes from the same district show each other during the parade.

Then Haymitch probably inspired by this hand holding tells both Katniss and Peeta to stick to each other during training with Cinna and Portia further compounding this by dressing them in identical costumes and Katniss is once again peeved at the twining act but all these situations kind of amp up and play into the scenarios that come up later.

I am absolutely sure that it’s actually Haymitch’s idea for Peeta to confess about his love for Katniss but I feel that there must be so many factors playing into this decision. There is the hand-holding (even if it was Cinna’s idea, everyone saw it), there is the fact that Katniss kisses Peeta on the cheek after the parade and then there is the fact that Katniss has definitely been paying more attention to Peeta than even she realises. All this compounded with the idea that Katniss has a real chance to win but is unlikely to wow people in the interviews (and in turn secure sponsors) probably cements the idea in Haymitch’s mind. And it works! Between the costumes, having the highest score in the individual assessment and Peeta’s confession, Katniss is unforgettable and has a real chance to win, especially with sponsors on her side.

When the 74th Hunger Games begin, Peeta and Katniss are separated but not before Peeta warns her not to go fight at the cornucopia. I feel like this is essential because it seems Peeta’s plan is all about joining the Careers to somehow keep them away from Katniss and since Katniss is wholly unaware of this plan and highly unlikely to survive the bloodbath of the cornucopia without an alliance with the Careers, it’s best to ward her away. And from the looks of it Peeta himself has a hard time getting in with the Careers (because in the books, he is badly bruised (as in having taken punches to the face) and limping when Katniss sees him next) and the only reason they seem to do so is because they think he can lead them to Katniss.

Now, Katniss is a threat, she has an 11 and seems to be a likely victor so she needs to go down, her 11 also means that the Careers are unlikely to ally with her because she is too likely to win, the only people the Careers (Marvel, Glimmer, Cato, Clove and the girl from 4) ally with are Peeta and the boy from third, both of whom are perceived as unlikely victors and therefore not a threat.

This is actually pivotal. Before Katniss ever does anything Peeta is already playing the Games in a manner they are not intended to be played in. In Catching Fire, she herself says that since she is playing these games to save Peeta she has in essence already subverted the actual intentions of the game and Peeta was doing that way before. In fact, I wonder why it was Katniss and not Peeta who was seen as the brave revolutionary maybe because it was all too easy to dismiss him as a boy in love.

When the whole event with the Tracker Jacker nest goes down Peeta literally saves Katniss' life by going against Cato for her. At this point in the story, Peeta already has bruising from his fight at the Cornucopia, has Tracker Jacker stings and now has a fatal wound to the leg from Cato. This is unfortunately nowhere near the amount of injuries he will sustain and in fact, his injuries are crucial and play a big part in making the spark what it was. Katniss meanwhile does something crucial she befriends Rue.

Now, unlike the Careers this alliance is not calculated. In fact, it’s pretty clear Katniss’ alliance with Rue benefits Rue a great deal more than it benefits Katniss but here is something that makes Katniss such a great character. She never does anything to make you feel she thinks of Rue as a burden instead she seems to think of her as an asset, someone who helped her escape the Careers by pointing out the tracker jacker nest and then helped heal her tracker jacker stings. This is critical because this alliance is healing, it probably helped cement the revolution in its own way. Everyone could see the inequality in the alliance and be awed by how far Katniss was willing to go for Rue.

When Rue is killed Katniss kills the boy who kills her, Marvel. This is important because, unlike the thing with the Tracker Jackers where it can be argued her intent was to escape rather than kill. Marvel is the first person she kills with intent. She not only avenges Rue’s death she sings to her before she dies and then gives her a proper send-off. This scene is powerful so much so that the District gift intended for Rue is sent to Katniss. This is amazing even Katniss remarks on it and there is also the fact that Thresh was very much alive at this point so they could have easily diverted the gift to him but they don’t. In that moment, Katniss has done something truly inspiring she has shown the districts a way to unite, and she has shown everyone that the districts can come together to beat the Capitol.

The Hunger Games not only serve to exhibit the power the Capitol exercises over the districts but also as a way to keep the districts forever divided because these victors are only victors because they killed someone you know and with every victory tour you get to see the victor and remember the children that are dead because this victor from another district is not. It’s divide and conquer at its simplest but Katniss’ actions are truly revolutionary. There is no reason for her to care about Rue but she does, there is definitely no reason to honour Rue as much as she does, but she does… forever cementing her actions as something that can be emulated. I feel Rue’s death is very very crucial to realising Katniss as the Mockingjay because District 11 now cares about Katniss, in fact in a strange little way her victory is now their victory.

After Rue comes the rule change. It’s clear this rule change is like the feast it’s intended to inject excitement in a game that may very well go stale as the tributes are down to single digits and interestingly, it might not even be an issue because there are only two districts with both tributes remaining and it might just so happen that no two tributes from the same district make it to the end making the rule change a non-issue or make the ending even more sensational (more on that later). But, in another way, it is also capitalising on the romance Peeta has single-handedly convinced the Capitol of. The rule change forces Katniss to Peeta but it’s clear her motivation for doing so is coming more from a place of loyalty to her district. She feels she wouldn’t be able to stand tall in District 12 if at this point she doesn’t partner with Peeta, so she does.

I don’t really want to get into Katniss’ feelings for Peeta because she really goes to extreme lengths to save him and there is a valid argument for her already feeling something romantic towards him, maybe even loving him but it’s clear that if those feelings are influencing her she herself is unaware about them and they are not her chief motivation.

When she finds Peeta he is badly injured and frankly on his deathbed. He clearly knows he isn’t going to survive and Katniss needs something for him to live for so she very clumsily kisses him. This kiss is only to motivate Peeta but it has an unexpected side effect that quickly becomes clear to Katniss. She soon realises that the Capitol is eating up the star-crossed lovers’ routine and Haymitch is selling it for all it’s worth to the sponsors so the more she is in love with Peeta the more likely he is to survive. It’s so completely Katniss to pretend to love someone just so she can save him, like she makes such a noble decision though it’s highly unclear what everyone else makes out of it. It’s clear from the subsequent books that everyone from the districts believes it’s an act but I’m unclear why. She might just be a bad actor but her actions should still speak for themselves. She is still going above and beyond or maybe this judgement is based more off of Katniss’ action with the berries (more on that later and yes, I am keeping track of these).

It’s probably prudent to mention that while Katniss' motivations might not be clear to spectators, her motivations to save Peeta are heavily influenced by the fact that he has now saved her life twice. Or maybe it is clear to the onlookers considering that the last time he saved her life was in the Hunger Games.

Pretending to be in love with Peeta, gets Katniss a whole horde of food (with plates and cutlery to boot) and a sleeping syrup that enables her to attend the feast behind Peeta’s back.

Despite Katniss’ ministrations it’s clear Peeta is still close to death and that’s when the feast is announced. A feast that contains items that are vital for the survival of the remaining tributes. At this point, there are six tributes left in the game. But, Peeta doesn’t want Katniss to go to the feast because she is likely to get killed and he doesn’t want her to endanger her life for his which would be a complete contradiction to what he’s been trying to do all along and it’s at this point that she gets the sleeping syrup. She tricks Peeta into ingesting it and makes her way to the Feast.

At the feast, she gets cornered by Clove who runs her mouth about Rue where Thresh can hear her. This turns out to be a fatal mistake. Thresh kills Clove and, realising that Katniss tried to save Rue, decides to repay her for Rue’s life by sparing her this once. This is another moment in which the tributes in the arena rise above the games. There is no need for Thresh to repay Katniss for Rue but he does maybe because he realises the brutality of having a twelve-year-old girl die for sport or maybe because he realises Katniss allied with Rue when he himself didn’t. That probably also shames him, because when Katniss could see the value in Rue why didn’t he?

So, Katniss saves Peeta and now it’s time to finish this.

With only Cato alive they head to the cornucopia only to be set upon by a group of mutts. In this fight, it’s quite clear that Katniss is running for her life and Peeta is only an afterthought. During this fight, Peeta’s leg will be badly injured, so badly injured that it will require amputation. Once Cato is finally dead after being torn to pieces by the mutts, Katniss and Peeta wait for victory only to learn that there can in fact only be one victor. This is actually a sensational idea because if Katniss and Peeta were anyone else it would probably mean that they would either turn on each other at this point or in the case of the lovers, have to be confronted with the idea of having to kill the other and wouldn’t it be something to see love so sullied but unfortunately Peeta’s love cannot be sullied (even as I type this I realise this was actually proven wrong and isn’t that something…)

Peeta at this moment moves to throw away his knife which Katniss takes as a sign of aggression and turns to point her bow and arrow at him only to be later horrified at her actions. Peeta tells her she should kill him but she refuses to, so Peeta removes the bandage slowing him down from bleeding to death. Peeta is so badly injured that Katniss need not do anything, he will bleed to death and she will be the victor but she refuses to do so.

At this point, during the final battle at the cornucopia it’s apparent that Katniss' actions towards Peeta vary differently from Peeta’s actions towards her, Peeta’s actions are more clearly dictated by love even at the cost of his own survival while Katniss' actions are more clearheaded and not shadowed by love atleast in this very moment. [A good contrast would be when she constantly puts Peeta’s life ahead of hers in the games in the next book. A moment that comes to mind is when Katniss runs to put herself between Peeta and the monkey even when she knows she will not get there in time, she still does it.]

This is when Peeta tells her that the Games must have their victor that she truly decides to go against the very notion of the Hunger Games when she convinces Peeta to a double suicide. Katniss could very well let Peeta bleed out but instead, she is going to make sure that when he goes she goes too, so that there is no victor to rub into the faces of the districts, so she can showcase how hollow the infernal hope of ever escaping the hard life in the districts is, forever motivating the districts to rally against the Capitol after all if a 16-year-old girl can do it why can’t they. So, she takes those berries in her hand and is ready to swallow them. This is another crucial detail. They both put the berries in their mouths before they are declared victors. Peeta and Katniss are actually willing to die and that is something. Because even when Katniss is pretty sure they will not let them both die she is fully willing to pull this off. I agree with Snow that at this point it would have been easier to just kill Katniss instead of letting them both win. It definitely would mean a little less immediate trouble but there is actually no guarantee that it would have worked entirely because the spark had already been lit.

I wrote this entire essay just to showcase how poignant Katniss' actions were but also to highlight how everything works to put her in that position how there are more things at play and how Peeta’s love for her is crucial in making it so. Peeta is unfortunately so obviously in love that it’s clear he has no motivations besides keeping Katniss alive but in its own way, his love is extraordinary, infinitely self-sacrificing, wholly unconditional and no less a beacon in its own right. There is clearly more to the Mockingjay than just Katniss.

It’s clear Katniss realises Peeta really likes her even as she pulls the ruse over his eyes but I feel it’s the necessity of putting her feelings on display that actually alienates her from her feelings for Peeta, because let’s not forget the movie of the 74th Huger Games they show Katniss and Peeta doesn’t end with the berries it ends with Katniss separated from Peeta banging on a door, screaming his name.

#The Hunger Games #Katniss Everdeen #Peeta Mellark #Everlark #The Mockingjay #myposts

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shesasurvivor · 2 years

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Ok also when Peeta remarks that when they’re back in District 12 they’ll both be sleeping on their own again and then when Katniss has the sleep syrup after hurting her foot and she knows she can’t ask Peeta to sleep with her like 🙌 the acknowledgment by both of them that it was never platonic for them to be doing that bc otherwise it would’ve been fine

THIS is the kind of thing that makes me love them so much!! It isn’t obvious stuff you’d normally find in a love story, but Suzanne Collins managed to write all the things you do when you have feelings for someone that completely betray your feelings, even when you’re trying to pretend you don’t have them. At her core, on a subconscious but motivating level, Katniss absolutely had feelings for him, but for various reasons had to suppress those feelings. But you can only do so much to deny how you truly feel; eventually they’ll come out in other ways. Especially in the case of the sleep syrup, Katniss had basically lost the inhibitions she held when not under its influence (doesn’t she basically tell us that it does this in the first book?). She was down to what she actually wanted, which was to have him with her, to stay with her. Collins is genius in understanding how this works psychologically in people.

#Everlark

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californiannostalgia · 4 years

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On the Victors of the Tenth Hunger Games

Wow. A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was riveting and horrifying. (I’m going to ramble about this, fair warning.)

*SPOILER WARNINGS FOR THE BOOK*

Okay, but seriously, that spiral downward was absolutely terrifying. Starting off, we've got Lucy Gray as the Snake and Coryo as the Songbird, and neither of them want to be where they find themselves. But the adults in their lives want them punished for the crimes of their parents (Lucy Gray as a District citizen and Coryo as the son to a hated man), so they're flung into the Arena to fight for their lives.

Snow made his choices that led him to where he went. His choices were his own, regardless of outer influences, and it should be acknowledged that though his “why”s are explained, that doesn't make him any better of a person. By the end of the book, he is every bit the villain, and it is his own goddamn fault.

That said, Let's get on to character construction.

What's so disturbing is that Snow starts off as Katniss and Peeta put together. He's trying to make ends meet for his family, he has panic attacks, he loves his cousin, he drools at the sight of food, and he wants desperately to win at survival with the lot he's been given. Sure, he's selfish and manipulative, but he genuinely cares for people, especially the other kids he grew up with. He says he doesn't want to, but it's still an instinct for him to speak up for Sejanus in front of an authority figure who terrifies him. He does his assignments out of fear for failing, and he readily shares credit with his classmate for an assignment he completed alone. He fights to keep up appearances of a steady home life. He's horrified to see people of his age group get tortured and killed.

He's just an experienced bullshitter with PTSD and a heavy distrust in a world that doesn't care about his survival. He accepts what authority figures tell him as the truth because he knows better than to challenge them. He has a nice voice, so adults turn him into a symbol without asking him for permission. He has no agency, not in monetary terms, not in his schoolwork.

What really sets him on the path from Songbird to Snake, though, is the man who hates him for wearing his father's face and the woman who wants him to be her tool. His situation was never stable, but every uncertainty is kicked into higher gear when he's reaped for the Games. (They literally read the names of the mentors out loud, it’s their Reaping.) He watches a childhood friend get brutalized by mutated snakes and realizes he really isn't safe anywhere because he is a child and he lacks power. He was thrown into the actual Arena and killed someone, after which he says to the person who orchestrated the threat on his life: "I think I wouldn't have beaten anyone to death if you hadn't stuck me in that arena!" (209). Slowly but surely, he's groomed into the belief that humans are innately evil, which is an opinion he outright refused until after he spent more time in the Games—because he can't stop playing the Games, and it gradually drives him mad.

This is the big message. If people are not shoved into an impossible situation designed to force their hand, odds are people will choose not to make that first kill. I can’t say much about Lucy Gray because we never got to know who she really was, but I suspect she was a mirror of Coryo. She started off manipulating this Capitol boy, but then the emotions got too overwhelming for her to process, and somewhere along the way she became unrecognizable to herself. If Coriolanus and Lucy Gray had not been forced into an Arena to fight for their lives, they would have probably never killed a person in their lifetime. At some point the desensitization and the survival instinct kicks in, and you can't go back to who you were before.

The biggest tragedy of Lucy Gray and Coryo is that they could've worked, if they hadn't been Victors. If they'd met in a warless world, I think they could've had an actual relationship, full of arguments and sweet moments in between. (Egotistic assholes can change, with therapy and arguments and the luxury of knowing his doubts won’t mean immediate death.) But they became Victors to survive, and the truth is that you can never leave the Games, once you're a Victor. The moment you step foot in that Arena, your death sentence is sealed. One of the essentials of survival is not to question the one ally you have. This led to them forming rose-tinted images of the other. They didn't want to acknowledge they were suffering in a similar soup of constant fear and second-guessing—they needed each other to be perfect—so they didn’t really talk about their ugliest nightmares until it was too late.

Sejanus didn't get Coriolanus's obsession with survival because although Sejanus had been a player in the Arena, he only had the barest grasp on the consequences of failing to survive. Lucy Gray and Coriolanus are intimate with the lethality of failure—they’ve known hunger and death all their lives. They latched onto each other because this desperate romance was the only thing they could choose for themselves, and focusing on it was a better alternative than losing their heads during their Games. Twenty-three tributes died, twenty-three mentors were eliminated. But the Games allow only one Victor; and they knew they should stop, but they couldn't stop playing. Once you start seeing death in every corner, you can't stop.

In Snow's case, the rationalizations start falling into place as he fights to run from his guilt. It is horrifying to read him break down after Sejanus's death, because that was the penultimate kill in his Games, and he killed the boy he loved. After that, he’s too far gone. His transformation into the Jabberjay is complete; he’s a Capitol mutt, through and through. Lucy Gray’s songs are all truthful insights except the one about her and Coriolanus—it is so terribly different from who these two really are that it's the final sign that they wouldn’t work. There's no way out, there's never going to be a way out for them. And so they hold the final showdown. At the end of the book, Snow is a full Snake, and Lucy Gray is immortalized as the Songbird whose name is decisively erased from history.

The whole book is essentially the Tenth Hunger Games. It seems to end with Snow as the sole Victor, having supposedly killed his star-crossed lover for his own survival. Katniss got herself out of the Games, eventually. Snow never left. Snow is Katniss unwilling to be honest, he is Peeta unwilling to climb out of his mutt engineering. The Tenth Hunger Games doesn’t end, really, until the Mockingjay sings seven decades later. And that is Lucy Gray’s victory. The Victor is Coriolanus Snow, but Lucy Gray Baird won their Games.

How horrifying is this; that it all comes down to two Victors who became manifestations of a higher ideal they didn't want to represent initially, locked in combat in the Arena they never wanted to enter. (Suzanne Collins is a freaking genius.)

#a ballad of songbirds and snakes #abosas spoilers #coriolanus snow #lucy gray baird #character analysis #ladies and gentlemen the victors of the 10th Hunger Games #my thoughts #my reviews

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sometimesrosy · 5 years

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Hii! I love your metas! Ive always hated doing literature analysis in school but ever since ive joined fandom, its been my fav thing to read/write and thats largely because of you and other people like you. So thank you for that 😊. I have kind of a random question but whats your favourite book (and why)?

Thank you! It warms the cockles of an ex english teacher’s heart. I love meta because I’m a book geek and I love stories and studying and teaching literature is a way to indulge my passion. I didn’t know people LIKED to hear that stuff until I came to this fandom, because even the biggest geeks in my life got bored hearing me go on about narrative and symbolism. And the english nerds were not interested in scifi and fantasy! So frustrating.

My favorite book is hard, because I’ve been such a big reader for so long, and yet have NOT read much in the last few years ( I hear tell that this is a symptom of PTSD and anxiety, being unable to focus on books, so I’ve been working on stretching my reading brain.)

I’ll give you a list instead of one book. Some of these are hard core sff geek stuff and it goes back to the 80s so outdated. But let me give a history of me through books.

Little House on the Prairie Books, Laura Ingalls Wilder. my first obsession with books. Girl POV, adventure, history, it swept me away into a different world.

A Wrinkle In Time and the rest. Madeleine L’engle. Girl POV, philosophy, science, adventure.

Pern Books, Anne McCaffrey, starting with Lessa (girl POV I’m sensing a theme) DRAGONS! I was so obsessed.

The Belgariad, David Eddings, like LOTR but fluffy. boy POV.

Clan Of The Cave Bears, Jean Auel, girl POV, prehistorical, adventure,

Enders Game etc, Orson Scott Card, boy pov, science fiction, philosophy, adventure. And this was before I knew what a pill Orson Scott Card was. DISAPPOINTED.

Emergence, by David R Palmer, out of print. girl POV, genius girl wakes up after all humans die in the apocalypse to find out she’s not human, she’s the next evolutionary step.

Cyteen, CJ Cherryh, science fiction, clones and engineered humans. Possibly one of my biggest influences. also girl POV.

Hamlet, Shakesepeare. honestly I love this play. This was the first literature that made me realize there was such a thing as subtext.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, found it in the school library and loved it. (we’re still in the 80s in my faves, I haven’t reached age 17 yet)

Beloved, Toni Morrison. destroyed me. so beautiful. magical realism and social commentary

Assassin Apprentice et al, by Robin Hobb, all the books in that world actually, Fitz and Fool and live ships. if The 100 were high fantasy. You’ll suffer but you’ll be happy about it.

World War Z, Brooks. I love the political imagining of this apocalypse book. Kill the zombies.

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins, post apocalyptic, girl POV, adventure, politics.

I feel like I should have more but I’m sticking with what I think are bigger influences and my brain kinda died after THG so I don’t have anything more recent. Favorite? Pick one of those. 3-10 was what I read for YA as a teen. 1 and 2 were as a child.

#books #faves

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ayearofpike · 5 years

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Black Knight (Witch World, Vol. 2)

Simon Pulse, 2014 441 pages, 9 chapters + prologue and epilogue ISBN 978-1-4424-6734-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Bl 2014 OCLC: 1065025018 Released December 2, 2104 (per B&N)

A month after her connection, Jessie Ralle starts dreaming about a young thief who mysteriously disappears in a flash of light. On the ninth night of the same lucid dream, she herself sees the flash, and wakes up next to the thief and four others in transport to a deserted jungle island. There are no ideas, no instructions, no obvious goals. There’s just a clue, a plaque mounted near their drop-off point that indicates that six groups just like theirs are here, but only one will make it out alive.

In other words: Remember that world-building we had in the first book, where it was implied that Jessie and her baby daughter were going to be integral components to the new and evolving leadership among the witch council? Remember the difficulty and heartbreak of Jimmy only being alive in one half of her life? Remember the potential new bonds of realizing her father was active in her upbringing, and could be again in both worlds? Well, fuck all that — let’s have a Hunger Games.

OK, technically this is more like Battle Royale, and Pike actually makes a reference to it as the young adults acclimate to their surroundings. But it is undeniable the influence that Suzanne Collins had on YA fiction, and certainly YA sci-fi/fantasy/analogues. In the wake of Katniss Everdeen, the market felt like it made a hard shift from doomed supernatural romances to dystopian future societies. It would be irresponsible of Pike to not try to cash in on that.

But this book ... is lacking in this regard. Collins’ success was not just that she made us care about Katniss, but that we cared about the bigger problem endemic to her (and all the other contestants’) situation. And Pike doesn’t give us enough to care about here. We don’t know what the stakes are, beyond survival. We don’t know who these people are, where they come from, or what they have to live for. We don’t even know where they are or why. I’m assuming there was another book or two planned for this series that would eventually get us to the meanings and revelations of this battle and why they were chosen to fight it and what ultimately was to come out of it. But this shit was so unsatisfying and we care so little about anyone or anything here that I can’t imagine we’ll ever see resolution.

(Like, does Pike even care? He claimed when the first one came out that it was going to be his “finest work,” and that the series could go “over ten books.” But it’s been almost five years and we haven’t seen another one of these. He didn’t mention his newer works at ALL in that recent Electric Lit interview. So who knows?)

The biggest problem is that the characters and setting we already know makes such a drastic shift to accommodate this story. And, like, I get it. The model of the industry, especially when this book came out, almost requires that you have established characters and an ongoing storyline before you ever publish anything. But it doesn’t feel connected to what’s come before. At all. It’s a new place we’ve never seen, everyone in the action except Jessie is a new character (and remember there are thirty-five of them), and there is almost zero resolution or explanation for what’s happening. There’s no reason this couldn’t have been literally anybody. Like, this could just as easily have been a Sita book, and maybe it would have actually made more sense, except that there’s no other vampires left. It probably shouldn’t have been a book about Jessie, who has a uniquely important position in witch world in light of the high-profile deaths she’s overseen and her responsibility to the Special. None of what happens in this story fits with anything that’s led up to it, and we are left a) wondering why the hell we’re reading this and b) ultimately unsatisfied.

I don’t even necessarily feel like there’s much to summarize, but I’m gonna do it anyway, because I’m dedicated.

We start with a chapter about the thief — Marc — whose MO is to hide in the trunk of a fancy car he’s valet-parked, wait for the owner to take him home, and then make off with the jewelry she (usually it’s a she) was wearing after she falls asleep. This heist is going to be his last job, because he doesn’t want to risk someone putting together a pattern that these high-profile thefts all came in the wake of the victims having been at his theater. So he steals the lady’s necklace and then her car to safely get out of Dodge, but when he stops to take a leak the light appears.

This is the dream Jessie has for over a week. The rest of the story is told from her immediate perspective, in first-person present tense just like a good little dystopian. She’s wondering about the dream, but she’s more concerned about who she just saw in the mall: the Highlander and President Coroner, just sitting there eating ice cream like they didn’t both get fatal holes in their chests last month. And yes, this is in witch world, where they died. She tails them and discovers they’re staying with (of course) the Alchemist, who tells Jessie there’s a reason for this and she needs to be prepared for ... something big, he isn’t clear on it. The Council has more info, maybe: the bad witches need to replace their leadership, and Jessie is first in line because she facilitated the killing. But what about the fact that she just saw President Coroner? The Council has an answer to that as well: one of the witch genes allows its bearer to control time, and so probably the Alchemist has that and has brought her and the Highlander forward from the past for some reason.

So Jessie goes home and has the dream again, only this time when the light appears she feels as though she’s yanked from her bed. She wakes up in the real world (and yes, I have expressed my hate for these names, but I’m sticking with them for consistency’s sake) in some kind of a shipping container with five other dudes, all of them wearing identical green outfits and matching unbreakable bracelets. And yes, one of them is Marc. The others are a precocious genius who’s going to MIT at 16, a quiet and scared Korean girl, an Israeli military fighter, and a Sudanese farmer who exudes strength and just seems to accept the situation. All of them were snatched at about the same time, globally and not locally — morning for the Americans, evening for Africa and Israel, middle of the night in Korea. But as far as Jessie can tell, she’s the only witch. So what is this about?

They don’t get very far before the next chapter, where Jessie wakes up in witch world and realizes she’s in some deep shit. She spends all day trying to find Marc, but like ... if he’s not connected, how is this going to help? She ends up not doing anything about it, and awakens again in the real world on some kind of volcanic jungle island. They find the aforementioned plaque and immediately realize that they’re going to need to work together and find a place to defend. They also need food, and so Jessie has to start showing her hand when she catches a bunch of fish just by grabbing them out of the water. They find a cave to hide out in, but they also see some fast-moving people in gray outfits, presumably another set of contestants.

The Israeli wants to hunt them down — kill before we get killed, she says — and so everyone except the brain and the Korean go tracking. What they find is a grotesque death scene: five bodies in various states of dismemberment. It’s not the gray people there, though: it’s a giant Swede who has a deal for Jessie. He wants her to kill her humans as a show of faith, and he’ll do the same, and then they can team up against the other witches. Because of course he’s gotten all the information already, having made better use of his interim day in witch world than stalking some boy. Jessie refuses, and they fight, only the Swede has a healing factor that works almost immediately. Luckily some of Jessie’s time-controlling gene kicks in and she manages to run away, but her teammates aren’t so lucky. Another witch shows up and throws motherfucking LAVA at them, killing the Israeli and spearing the Sudanese to a tree.

So her next day in witch world needs to be more productive than the last one. Jessie calls up the Council, who is all pissed off that she didn’t come to them already. To survive, they say, she’s gonna have to go back to the Alchemist, because obviously this is what he wanted to prepare her for. So she shows up and talks to the Highlander, who starts working with her on fighting. Specifically, he forcibly activates her telekinesis power by throwing her off a cliff. So after this she’s gonna want to unwind with her family and enjoy their time together, right? Nope — she goes straight to Marc’s house and tells him the world’s least believable story, ending in the prospect that she might want to try to kill him so his witch powers activate in the other world. But haven’t we already said that killing someone in witch world means they’re totally dead? Technicalities. So she gets home and, oh shit, Jimmy’s mad that she went on a date with some random dude without talking to him at all about her troubles! What a silly boy!

When they wake up in the real world again, the Sudanese warrior is totally healed. Apparently the Korean girl has a super-powered healing factor even though she’s not a witch, tied somehow to the death of her twin sister, who presumably channels the power through her. They’ve also been offered a truce by a couple of other witches, not the ones who tried to kill them last night. So they partner up, but the Korean girl’s healing factor is instantly undone when she tries to fix one of the other dude’s teammates but they die randomly on the walk. (Probably actually secretly strangled by the lava-thrower, who Jessie learned yesterday can also make herself invisible.) They talk about the bracelets, which have some kind of weird stone inside, and one of the other witches says he’s found the source: a giant wall that blocks off half of the island they’re on, which you can only see if you climb to the top of the volcano.

As they’re walking, the gray team attacks ... sort of. These people are short and pale, almost albinos, but they move faster than any human can and Jessie knows they have some kind of group mind that allows them to work together. They surround the group and lure them into a battle with the giant Swede, and while they’re fighting him the invisible lava thrower murders all the humans except five: Marc (who does take a poisoned knife to the back), brain boy, Korean healer, and two dudes on a new witch’s team. Jessie manages to lop off her hand and collect her bracelet before she totally vanishes and gets away. Oh, and the other witch has captured the leader of the albinos, and is holding her hostage to attempt to lure in the rest of them. She doesn’t talk, but her telepathy is unsettling at best.

Jimmy shakes her awake in witch world and tells her to do whatever she has to in order to survive. If that means blowing another dude, whatever. So Jessie calls up the Council, which gives her a little more info on the two witches she’s teamed up with. Watch out for the second one, they say (not the one who’s tied up an albino), because he might have choked his last boyfriend to death and successfully covered it up. She goes back to the Alchemist’s house, where President Coroner pins her down about why their present selves can’t help Jessie train. So she has to limit just what she says about their deaths, and in turn they limit telling her that they traveled to Jessie’s funeral in the near future.

Fuck this training, then, right? Jessie figures the only thing to do is help Marc live, and to do that she’ll have to activate his witch genes. But to convince him to die she’s probably gonna have to give up the booty ... only she can’t do it, she’s too busy thinking of Jimmy for a change in this novel. He wants to go through with it anyway (the death, I mean) but she has second thoughts and isn’t ready to put him through it. So they fall asleep next to each other and wake up in a cave on the side of the volcano, where the other two witches are fighting. It seems the first dude had his teammates on watch, but they mysteriously choked to death in the night while the second dude was backing them up. Huh. But they have to keep moving, climbing to the place where the second dude said he saw the wall, for ... like, reasons.

They find another cave near the top of the volcano, and inside there are drawings showing a woman who looks suspiciously like the Council president touching a bracelet to a giant wall. They have to learn more, but the second witch isn’t eager to reapproach the wall. Brain Boy wants to go, so they agree that Chokey Witch can watch Healing Girl and Slowly Dying Marc while the rest of them investigate. Brain Boy touches the wall and freezes, and even though Jessie knocks him away immediately he senses that a lot more time passed, and he’s seen things that happened in witch world but not the real world. So Jessie wants to try, and when she touches it she’s suddenly playing red queen with the dead gambler from the first book, who reminds her that there’s more to the game than just the next card in her own hand. What? I don’t know.

She comes to on the ground with a lot of screaming going on. The Swede is back, so she and the first witch have to fight him. But he forgets Jessie’s plan and attacks weird, getting stabbed in the gut by one of the flying spears Jessie is controlling with her new telekinesis. Oh, and here’s Invisible Lava Thrower too, about to kill Brain Boy! He acknowledges that there’s nothing he can do and succumbs so Jessie has enough time to grab the Swede’s head and crank it around 360 degrees. Lava Girl vanishes, and Jessie picks up our other witch and carries him back to the cave, which is suddenly being guarded by all six albino dwarves. The other witch says that in this proximity, killing the leader will cause all of them to die because of the group mind, so Jessie sneaks up and lops off her head, and then goes inside the cave by herself.

Sure enough, there’s Lava Girl, holding Chokey at machete-point. Marc is mostly submerged in a freezing stream, and Healing Girl is just, like, there. Chokey fights free, but of course Lava Girl hits him with ... you know, because they’re INSIDE A FUCKING VOLCANO. Only Jessie has realized something: these bracelets with the rock inside that matches the wall control their physical connection to the island. Lava Girl looks sick, pale, and weak since she’s lost hers, and when Jessie casually chucks it into the lava she drops dead.

And now Healing Girl comes to. She wants to try to help revive Marc before it’s too late, and wants to study the poisoned knife. Only she then tries to stab Jessie with it. Turns out that when she was alone with the first witch, the one hiding outside with a spear through his guts, he used his strongest power: mental suggestion. He turned Healing Girl into a slave, designed to kill those who weren’t expecting it. Jessie uses all her mental powers to break the hold, upon which Healing Girl ... jumps right into the motherfucking lava herself.

I don’t know, I guess because we’re getting close to the end.

So Jessie disguises herself as Healing Girl and goes to confront the last witch standing besides herself. Who, surprise, does NOT have a spear through his guts. Apparently he can disguise himself too, in addition to the hypnosis. So he tells her to kill herself with the knife, but she stabs him in the lungs just before dropping her disguise, and then ... slits her wrists.

So Marc can live.

Because only one can survive, and of course it should be some dude we just met rather than the main character of the LAST TWO BOOKS. THE ENTIRE SERIES THUS FAR.

But as Jessie’s soul is floating away, she sees something. She sees herself, only older. Even though I thought once you were connected you stopped aging. And she tells herself that it’s not over, and they can go wherever they want to go ... or whenever, rather.

The epilogue takes place at Jessie’s memorial service (not actually a funeral, because there is no body, Jessie’s just been missing for a month but because Marc is now connected they think they know what happened) where Jimmy approaches Marc and they talk about what they know. In particular, Jimmy asks Marc to watch after his real-world son, who oh yeah there was an unfollowed thread where they got a DNA report that said he wasn’t actually Jimmy’s kid but it was also prepared by Jessie’s still-mostly-absentee father who has an agenda in ascending the ranks of the Council so its authenticity is questionable. But then they talk about Jessie and ... neither one thinks she’s actually dead.

And that.

Is the end of Black Knight.

I can sort of pick out the seeds that Pike is sowing in this story. I can start to sense the coming trails and paths the characters might walk in the supposedly potential ten-book series about witches. But like. You just essentially killed your MAIN CHARACTER. Your NARRATOR. And we don’t actually care about this jewel thief guy, who by all appearances is a BAD PERSON. But you went ahead and put him in the forefront.

Is it any wonder this series fizzled out? Part of why I (and maybe a lot of us) got tired of dystopian fiction is that so many authors felt the need to keep raining shit on their protagonists. And yeah, this is another Hunger Games thing, but there’s a reason there — the dictatorial leadership fighting to keep rebellion down. To be perfectly honest, even though I see that reason, I didn’t like it there either. At some point, I wanted Collins to HELP Katniss rather than repeatedly jamming a boot in her face. We want to trust our authors to care about the protagonist the way we’re supposed to care. So when writers keep making their characters climb uphill, for no reason other than to try to get readers to buy the next one and see how they get over the obstacles, it becomes stale. If they obviously don’t care, why should we?

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caucasianbuttslut · 6 years

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Top 10 Female Characters

I wasn’t actually tagged by @serendipitous-rambles but I saw this and I do what I want. This was actually way harder than I thought it’d be because apparently, I don’t consume as much media with female characters as I thought I did.

Katniss Everdeen – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Johanna Mason – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (I knew from the second she slapped the shit out of Katniss for no particular reason that she was perfect)

Beverly Marsh – It by Stephen King (we love an eleven-year-old chain-smoker who defeats an ancient evil entity with nothing but a slingshot and six scrawny little boys then comes back twenty-seven years later and does it all again after beating her abusive husband with his own belt)

Max Mayfield – Stranger Things (you cannot look me in the eyes and tell me that the Duffers weren’t heavily influenced by Beverly while writing Max’s character)

Poison Ivy – DC Comics (the best girlfriend Harley Quinn could ask for)

Joyce Byers – Stranger Things (this loving mess is who I want as my mother)

Alex Russo – Wizards of Waverly Place (leave me alone, okay?)

Lydia Deetz – Beetlejuice (goth icon, Morticia Adams is quaking)

Vimini – Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman (she has literally no point in the entire novel, she is a ten-year-old terminally ill genius in a homoerotic romance novel and it’s fucking hilarious to me)

Wednesday Addams – The Addams Family (I don’t think you understand how excited I am for Finn Wolfhard to be playing Pugsley in the reboot)

Tags: @harringtonwife @ssstutteringbbbill @bigbilliamdenbro @edgelordtozier @obviouslyoleff @wyattermelon @willandspace @properparker

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nrhardin · 4 years

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Mockingjay Part 1 Blog

I want to start off by saying that watching this movie on Election Day was simultaneously a great and horrible move. I’m emotionally drained, the first polls close in a little less than two hours, and I’ve already cried like four times today. If I was to rank how influential books were on my childhood, The Hunger Games series would probably fall into second place after Harry Potter. As I re-watched Mockingjay Part. 1for the first time in years, I realized how much the series radicalized me. I mean, the book basically taught me what propaganda was. Needless to say, this blog may get a little rant-y but I’m hopped up on anxiety and leftover Halloween candy.

I was planning on doing a joint blog about both parts of Mockingjay, but there’s a lot to unpack so I’m going to do two. This is by far my favorite movie(s) out of the series, and Mockingjay was my favorite book out of the trilogy. Should the fact that the most violent and political out of the books was my favorite been concerning to the adults in my life? Who’s to say. Should that have been a warning sign that I was way too into politics and warfare at a very young age? Probably. Was the book/movie’s influence a subconscious precursor to me deciding to go into law and politics at like age 12? Yeah probably.

It is incredibly difficult, especially today, to try and ignore the parallels between The Capitol’s rhetoric and what is happening in America right now. One of the first scenes is President Snow and his assistant deciding what to call dissenters and he decides to call them radicals instead of criminals. Similarly during the on- going events of the Black Lives Matter movement, President Trump somewhat abandoned the “oh these are all criminals and looters” narrative to go after the ~allusive~ and radical ANTIFA “organization”. Then all of the districts are forced to watch President Snow address the nation and call for the “respect for law and order.” Where have I heard similar, although significantly more unhinged rhetoric? Ah yes, the President’s twitter which is circulated on every social media platform and news station so it is impossible to escape. Further in President Snow’s speech he calls the Capitol the beating heart of Panem and I had to remind myself that this man is pure evil and classist because that almost made me lose my mind since the Capitol doesn’t do sh*t… hmm the upper class relying on the labor of the lower and middle classes and taking credit for it…interesting.

Speaking of choosing between two horrible options, let’s talk about President Coin. As a child, I hated President Coin. Something in my 12 year old brain told me that that woman should not be trusted for some reason. Adult me realizes she shouldn’t be trusted because she’s a politician.

Politics aside, I think Suzanne Collins does a great job critiquing how female characters are traditionally presented in YA novels in the final part of the trilogy. A huge part of Katniss’ public persona is wrapped up in Cinna’s incredible clothing and the grandeur of her presentation to appease the Capitol. While Cinna is a genius and his death will always make me cry, it’s not Katniss. The scene where Haymitch (oh how I love that man) asks everyone about a time where Katniss actually moved them is so powerful. In the first attempt at producing a propo, Katniss’ essence was being boiled down to her clothing, manipulated scenery, and her yelling. The reason it was such an uncomfortable failure was because it simply wasn’t her. She’s not polished, she’s not a professional combat leader. She’s a kid who’s done a lot and seen a lot and it sick and tired. She’s the mouthpiece of an oppressed nation, not its general. She doesn’t need to be all done up to be powerful. While the cool dresses and makeup are fun, and nothing trivial, Katniss’ power and influence comes from her real emotions, not some manipulated political environment. Legitimizing dresses and makeup, things that are seen as feminine and are typically seen as trivial in a male dominated society, while not tying them to a woman’s worth is such a valuable lesson.

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thebridgeofdeaths · 5 years

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Where Ebon Sounds Like Ivory by A. Nicky Hjort

Norse legend has it that the arms of the Yggdrasil tree—a sacred instrument of Odin—are ever-reaching, and its survival is necessary for life itself to continue. During Winter’s Solstice, when the search for her mortal mother begins, Za will have to cross over the Ebon Branch of the Dead—a feat that has supposedly never been survived intact. But if she does make it across and back home, she just might discover why she and the other three Norn Sisters of Fate came to be.

A fairytale at heart, this is the second chapter in the epic saga of the youngest and most fickle of the four Norn Sisters. The same feisty immortal creature who must discover her true origins to understand her inherent inner darkness. Only this way can she learn the meaning of unconditional sacrifice in the name of impenetrable love…when, as her destiny would have it, all the branches of such a powerful tree tremble treacherously in her tiny little hands.

A veritable unraveling of Snow White, the narrative of Where Ebon Sounds Like Ivory journeys through the most horrible of realms where shocking truths emerge. Here where death mimics life, obsession masquerades as devotion, and the most unexpected endings become the most surprising beginnings of a classic tale. One…you thought you knew so well.

Welcome to a place where the darkest of melodies births a miraculous tune of surrenderance. Here Where Ebon Sounds Like Ivory and Christmas, as we know it, begins. Standalone or read in any order Ebook, PB & FREE on KU! myBook.to/Norn2Ebon

About A. Nicky Hjort

A. Nicky Hjort is originally from Arlington, Texas- the second of five siblings, all of whom have strong creative talents. She currently lives in coastal central California where she practices medicine as an Ob/GYN.

In between being a lovingly devoted mother and delivering babies, she writes stories that cross multiple genre lines- from Sci Fi to high fantasy, but all of her stories have thriller and strong romantic components. And for her clever reader, all of her manuscripts are subtly connected to each other, with their purpose to explore all facets of Love and Light.

She likes to say that her stories write themselves, and in the process, often write her, or at least the next version of her hoping to emerge. A lover of all the arts, A. Nicky Hjort hopes her stories might inspire you to find your inner creative genius.

As for her heroes- they are as varied and eclectic as her choice of narrative genres, but when pushed to list her favorite influences, she would say James Patterson, Barbara Kingsolver, Patricia Cornwell, Dean Koontz, Gene Roddenberry, Shel Silverstein, Suzanne Collins, and Walt Disney.

Connect with her on FB at https://facebook.com/Author.A.N.Hjort, Twitter at @A_NickyHjort, or Goodreads under A.Nicky Hjort Her website is www.ANickyHjortBooks.comPrizes: 3 Winners One winner gets choice of book One winner gets both Swag Pack Entry-Form

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thehollowworldofficial · 6 years

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Elise’s Pitch Wars Welcome!

Hello! My name is Elise Longden, and I’m writing this little introduction because I have written a manuscript and I’m planning to submit it to Pitch Wars, the mentoring programme!

Whilst this little blog is where I record my thoughts about my writing, I’ve never really introduced myself - mostly because I believed I would never let anyone see it. However, the Pitch Wars form has room for a website, and I would rather link this blog as opposed to my Twitter (which is inactive) or my Instagram (which is just full of cosplay and dog photos).

To clarify, I have written a book called “The Hollow World”.

Okay so, here’s some stuff about me:

Submission related stuff that potential mentors may be interested in:

In 2017 I won the UK National Flash Fiction Competition run by the University of Chester and was published in an anthology that had also once featured Margaret Atwood (SQUEE!). My piece entitled “Flotsam” can be found here:

http://www.chester.ac.uk/sites/files/chester/Longden%20Elise%20-%20Flotsam%20FINAL.pdf

I got an A* A-Level grade (It’s not to big myself up...just in case anyone not British doesn’t know what that means!!!!) in Creative Writing, and my coursework, which was 70% of my grade, was the first 30,000 words of my Pitch Wars manuscript.

The idea for ��The Hollow World” came to me in a Film Studies class at college. After trying /(and failing) to come up for an idea to base a project around, my teacher gave me an exercise to generate some ideas. She took a few traits typical of Hollywood films, and told me to flip them on their head. Thus, “The Hollow World”, or at least a basis for it, was born, and three (ish) years later, I still can’t get it out of my head.

Basically the idea of Ashe came from my bizarre urge to see a tiny little girl violently killing things in a film. I thought I was being super original, but the film Logan beat me to it. I can’t even be mad, because Dafne Keen is so incredible?!

The reason why I’m submitting to Pitch Wars, is because I need help. That’s the bottom line. I have edited my manucript the best I can, but I need someone who can take what I’ve written and look at it from a fresh, and new perspective. I am new to the idea of getting my manucript published (though I have always dreamed I would), and navigating the crazy world of publishing and agents and general make-your-writing-an-actual-book stuff....is scary. And I really, really, need your help. I need someone who is honest who can tell me what needs to be done. I’ve done the best I can, and now I need someone who is better than me.

I draw, so here’s some pictures of the characters from the “The Hollow World”, that may hopefully pique your interest:

ASHE

MAGPIE

NADIA

CASSIDY

SOME FACES

SOME MORE FACES

Whilst these were drawn about a year ago and aren’t my best work, I’m hoping they entice potential mentors, just a ‘lil bit more! :)

Some general stuff about me:

I am a pretty happy and positive person, who loves to work hard. If I have a task or idea inside my head, I will hyperfixate on it until it’s done. For example...this manuscript was unfinished (by about 20,000 words) on the 1st of August. It was my first draft that I hadn’t read through, it was unformatted, it was riddled with errors and inconsistancies, but after meeting the lovely Tomi Adeyemi and talking to her about Pitch Wars, I decided to enter. So I took my jumbled mess, I put my butt into gear, and I spent day after day writing, writing, writing, until I felt happy enought to submit it. I also had to learn what I query letter was, because I am a publishing term noob. My point is, I am willing to push myself, and go all out at 110% percent, if that somehow helps me achieve what I want to achieve.

I am 19 and I live in the UK (specifically near Liverpool).

I cosplay as well! I’ve been Rey, Leia, and a generic Jedi from Star Wars, Margaery Tyrell and Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones, Pirate King Elizabeth Swann from Pirates of the Caribbean, and I spend 70% of my time in my 13th Doctor costume.

I love Hamilton, and can rap all of it. I love musicals in general tbh.

I have an unhealthy obsession with Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes.

Have I mentioned that the 13th Doctor is the best thing ever to happen to me?

I have a dinosaur hat that I wear whenever I’m sad, because it’s pretty impossible to be sad with a giant T-Rex on your head. And by “hat” I mean this thing:

Pretty majestic, right?

ANYWAY

I’m ace/aro, which is why my book features no romance.

I love my dog Rocky more than anything. He looks like this:

As well as a mentor who can teach me writer-y things, I’m also looking for a friend, so here’s some stuff I like:

TV Shows:

Merlin (the love of my life, tbh, and it broke my heart), DOCTOR WHO (especially the 13th Doctor, even though she hasn’t aired yet), Hannibal, Orphan Black, Sense 8, iZombie, TOP GEAR (Yes, the car show. I’m obsessed), Game of Thrones, Parks and Recreation, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jessica Jones/any Netflix Marvel show, the 100 (early seasons because Lexa), RuPauls Drag Race, Queer Eye, Brooklyn 99, Stranger Things, Sherlock, Agent Carter...I’ve watched a lot okay?

Movies:

My ultimate favourite movie of all time is What We Do in the Shadows. Even if you’re not going to choose me as a mentee, then please what this dumb film. I love it. I LOVE IT. It’s dark comedy genius, and a real gem.

Other favourite films are: Wonder Woman, Ghostbusters (2017 version), Ocean’s 8 (will Cate Blanchett adopt me as her ace/aro child?), Marvel Films (particulary Thor: Ragnarok), Star Wars Films, Kingsman Films, John Wick Films, Pirates of the Carribbean Films, Harry Potter Films,Mad Max: Fury Road, Peter Pan Goes Wrong (if you pick me I’ll force you to watch it at some point, sorry), Disney Films (Mulan, Up!, and Hercules are my faves).

Books:

Some that don’t need an explanation: Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire, His Dark Materials, Lord of the Rings. Anything by Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, or Stephen King.

My favourite series, and arguably my “Harry Potter” is the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy. I’ve met Derek multiple times, and his books are just hilarious, soul-destorying, and MAGIC. I love them.

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers - Seriously, this Sci-Fi book is one of the most striking books I’ve ever read, mostly because it surprised me with it’s tender story, honest representations of real people, and general WOW-ness. I love it, and its flashbacks heavily influenced my own manuscript. You know when you love a book so much that you wish you could eat it? This is that book for me.

Moriarty by Antony Horowitz. My favourite villain of all time in a book that blew my mind? Yes please.

The Girl in 6E by A.R.Torre. I picked up this book for a quid in the supermarket, and it utterly suprised me. It’s about a sex-worker murder-obsessed cam girl who is asked to act out something on camera that’s a little too disturbing, so she tracks down the man who asked her in order to save a little girl from a vile act. Think Maestra meets The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It’s not the most sophisticated reading with all of the bizarre sexual stuff, but the wit and exasperation of the main character makes up for it. I love anything that surprises me, and this book was something I'd never seen before.

Anything (memoir or fiction) by Carrie Fisher. As a Star Wars nerd I knew I would love her work, but when I read them I was blown away by how poignant, poetic, and wonderous Carrie Fisher’s writing is. She seems to find the perfect balance between humour and emotion, and reading them was a genuine joy. Each funny sentence makes me laugh out loud, but each serious sentence is heavy, poised, and so amazingly crafted and emotional.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. I was lucky enough to meet Tomi on her UK tour, and I gave her my very long letter and a portfolio of art. I love the book, and I love even more what it stands for, and there’s not much else I can really say.

Other books I loved in no order: The Power by Naomi Alderman, The Cursed Prince by Holly Black, The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness, the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas, The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, the Gone series by Michael Grant, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, The Martian and Artemis by Andy Weir, Lost Stars by Claudia Gray, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Room by Emma Donoghue, Wicked by Gregory Maguire....and a helluva lot more....

And just so you know, here’s what I look like:

(I’m the human dressed as the 13th Doctor)

Hopefully this gives you an idea about me and my personality! I’m sorry this is so long, I just wanted to make sure I came across in an okay way! If any potential mentors are reading this, thank you for taking the time to!

If you want to read the notes/journal entries I kept on this blog when I was writing and editing my manucript, just search the tag #update!

My Twitter is: https://twitter.com/EliseLongden

My Instagram is: instagram.com/elise.longden/ (here you will find a lot of cosplay and dog pictures, and I’m not sorry)

If you have any questions or anything else you want to know, please feel free to shoot me an ask! Or just say hi!

#pitch wars #personal #elise's pitch wars welcome

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ayoungsummersyouth · 6 years

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Top 100+ Best Vacation Captions and Sayings

Hello, friends are you looking for vacations captions? then you have got a great place

Excursions are an opportunity to take a break from work, see the world and appreciate time with our family and companions. Everybody needs a vacation now and again as it unwinds, invigorates and revive. So don’t pause, influence your fantasy to trip happen and express your greatest days with our gathering of Vacation Quotes. Here we provide latest vacation caption that you can use for your Facebook and Instagram

Vacation quotes for facebook

Few vacations are as gratifying as those devoted to personal growth.- PAT KOCH THALER, New York Magazine, April 24, 1978

When in doubt, go on vacation!

I need a six-month vacation, twice a year.

Extend your vacation whenever possible.

Laughter is an instant vacation.

“When people went on vacation, they shed their home skins, though they could be a new person.” ― Aimee Friedman, Sea Change

My father was a sailor and our summer vacations were always on a sailboat. I had a little boat before I had a moped.

I enjoy melancholic music and art. They take me to places I don’t normally get to go. – Criss Jami

The ant is knowing and wise, but he doesn’t know enough to take a vacation. – Clarence Day

“I don’t want to go to Peru.” How do you know? You’ve never been there.” I’ve never been to hell either and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to go there.” ― Richard Paul Evans, The Sunflower

In matters of healing the body or the mind, vacation is a true genius! – Mehmet Murat ildan

The paradox of relaxation is the renewal of mind; rekindle of spirit and revitalize of strength. – Lailah Gifty Akita

The most successful people are those who do all year long what they would otherwise do on their summer vacation. – Mark Twain

Neglecting vacation is neglecting success because every success needs an accumulated positive energy! – Mehmet Murat ildan

A vacation trip is one-third pleasure, fondly remembered, and two-thirds aggravation, entirely forgotten. – Robert Brault

When people went on vacation, they shed their home skins, though they could be a new person. – Aimee Friedman

Inspirational vacation quotes

Every man who possibly can force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not. -William James (1842-1910)

I can’t think of anything that excites a great sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. -Bill Bryson

I’m not wild about holidays. They always seem a ludicrously expensive way of proving there’s no place like home. -Jilly Cooper

It isn’t how much time you spend somewhere that makes it memorable: it’s how you spend the time. -David Brenner

Laughter is an instant vacation. -Milton Berle

No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one. -Elbert Hubbard (1859-1915)

No matter what happens, travel gives you a story to tell. -Jewish Proverb

Let your holidays be associated with great public events, and they may be the life of patriotism as well as a source of relaxation and personal employment. -Tryon Edwards

No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one. -Elbert Hubbard (1859-1915)

A good vacation is over when you begin to yearn for your work. -Morris Fishbein

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance. -Unknown

Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind. -Seneca

Vacation is that time when you wish you had something to do while doing nothing. -Frank Tyger

Vacations brighten a man. They tend to make his work more attractive to him and to make him more attractive to his work. -Harry Van Demark

A period of travel and relaxation when you take twice the clothes and half the money you need. -Unknown

A vacation is a sunburn at premium prices. -Hal Chadwick

A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in. -Robert Orben

A vacation is like love – anticipated with pleasure, experienced with discomfort, and remembered with nostalgia. -Unknown

A vacation is over when you begin to yearn for your work. -Morris Fishbein (1889-1976)

A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking. -Earl Wilson

We’ve never had a holiday. A week or two at Balmoral, or ten days at Sandringham, is the nearest we get. -Princess Anne

When in doubt, go on vacation! -unknown

Who first invented work, and bound the free and holiday-rejoicing spirit down? -Lamb

With me, a change of trouble is as good as a vacation. -David Lloyd George

Family vacation quotes

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” –Mark Twain

“When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back.”

“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.” –Charles Swindoll

“A ship in a harbor is safe, but it not what ships are built for.” – John A. Shedd

“Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon.” – Paul Brandt

“Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling”. – Margaret Lee Runbeck

“I want/ I love/ I do/ I can is the best way to build your phrases, your days, and all your life!”

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” –Wayne Gretzky

“A wise traveler never despises his own country.” – Carlo Goldoni

“I can’t change yesterday, but I can change today!”

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family vacation quotes funny

“Thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything.” –Charles Kuralt

“The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist.” –Russell Baker

Canada is the vichyssoise of nations — it’s cold, half French, and difficult to stir.” –Stuart Keate

“On a New York subway you get fined for spitting, but you can throw up for nothing.” –Lewis Grizzard

“Gaiety is among the most outstanding features of the Soviet Union.” –Joseph Stalin

Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.” – Suzanne Collins

“You can shake the sand from your shoes, but it will never leave your soul.”

“Life is like a camera: you focus on what is important, capture the good times, develop from the negative and if things do not work out, take another shot”

“France is the only country where the money falls apart and you can’t tear the toilet paper.” –Billy Wilder

“Boy, those French. They have a different word for everything.” –Steve Martin

“You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.” –Charles Kuralt

“You got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might not get there.” –Yogi Berra

“Do not insult the mother alligator until after you have crossed the river.” –Old Haitian Proverb

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”

“Magic is believing in yourself. If you can do that, you can make anything happen.” – Johan Wolfgang von Goethe

These are the Top 100+ Best Vacation Quotes and Sayings I hope you will like this article if do you have any suggestions then feel free to ask thank you

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