Things I enjoyed in the month of May:
Amy Harmon's, A Bird and the Sword:
But she isn't without sound. Without presence.
There's a weight to Lark, a reverential hum that fills the space her words should reside, and that reverence can be felt in the structure of this story, in the pacing and the chosen, measured wording.
It isn't necessary for Lark to speak, her silence speaks for itself.
I've read very few stories with a mute protagonist, but the ones I have reflect and fortify something I feel in my own life.
Words are wonderful.
Unsurvivable without.
But sometimes more is said with the silence that surrounds them.
If I didn't look too closely, I wouldn't see that Tiras wasn't there. If I didn't breathe too deeply, I wouldn't feel the hollow echo in my empty chest. If I didn't move too quickly, I wouldn't reach any painful conclusions. And if I didn't listen, I wouldn't hear the silence he always left behind.
I wouldn't say I'm great a talker.
I do speak, I enjoy conversation.
But I don't use my words easily? loosely? generously?
Most of my thoughts remain inside my head, kept lovingly and begrudgingly within to be rewritten, built upon, or discarded completely.
Not because I think they're of any great significance to anyone but because they're mine and inside they remain mine.
Words can soothe, can humour, can excite.
But they can also wound, and shame, and be shamed.
And once unleashed they can't be taken back.
Inside they can be nurtured and corralled if needs be.
Sometimes set free, often not.
But in that there is choice.
A choice to listen.
A choice to speak.
A choice to do neither.
But always a choice.
There is a difference between being silent and being silenced.
Lark is silenced.
Hushed because her words hold power.
Too much power.
I had been reduced to sharing nothing of my innermost thoughts for most of my life. Reduced to throwing things when I was angry. Reduced to tears when I was sad. Reduced to the simplicity of nods and bows, of having people look away from me or become frustrated when they didn't know what I was trying to communicate.
I had been alone for so long with thousands of words I couldn't express.
A pondered rhyme could lead to chairs upending themselves.
A candle's flame licked and set loose to burn anything its path.
A door unlatched to hasten escape.
A person's will unknowingly taken.
Lark's muteness is born out of fear and sustained through a desperate, steadfast will to do no harm.
I am not a weapon [...] You want to use me? I won't let you.
A harm that isn't even true.
Because even though she is silenced, she has a choice, it's just unknown to her.
It wasn't funny—I wasn't funny. He'd been given every word he needed, and every word had been stripped from me. I wanted them back. All of them.
Isn't history littered with women muzzled merely for showing a strength equal, if not surpassing, their oppressors?
Trained to stay silent for fear of retribution of a wrongly shaped word, a mistimed question, an unwelcome inflection.
Have you ever thought that maybe it is better this way? That I can't speak? If I can wield words without making a sound, what could I do if they were set free? I scare myself, Tiras."
Silent women with a life of words stolen from them for simply being a threat to someone else's vocabulary.
Lark is one of these women.
So beaten down they believe they deserve to be wordless.
With no one to inform them otherwise.
Until there is.
"You don't scare me," he whispered. "You frustrate me. You infuriate me. But you do not scare me."
Not now.
"Not ever."
The Bird and the Sword is a love story.
It is good triumphing over evil.
But it's also an untethering.
A women, and a man, acknowledging their shackles and slipping free of them.
Not breaking.
Slipping.
Because those restraints?
They didn't hold them in the first place.
Nothing that insubstantial ever could.
"You don't need wings to fly," she chirped.
"What do you need, Daughter?" I asked softly.
She looked up at me, her big, black eyes alight with knowledge, and she smiled.
"Words."
Seven stories.
Countless variations.
And why do we read them?
...
Because of the telling.
And what a wonderful telling The Bird and the Sword is.
"You don't need wings to fly," she chirped, repeating something I'd told her.
"What do you need, Daughter? I asked, quizzing her.
"Words," she answered, her big, grey eyes alight with knowledge.
That's how many original stories there are said to be in the world.
Seven.
And from those seven, yields a trail of every story after.
An inexhaustible lifetime of tales unwoven and spun again.
But why read anything but the original heptad?
Why read the same story retold through someone else's voice?
...
Because of the telling.
The Bird and the Sword isn't an original story.
It can't be, if the seven are to be believed.
A shackled princess.
A cursed prince.
A kingdom to be saved.
A love that eclipses all.
We've seen this narrative over and over again.
It's timeless.
But, why do we keep reading it?
How could it possibly be any different from the first?
...
Because of the telling.
The Bird and the Sword falls firmly into the category of Overcoming the Monster.
Our protagonist must conquer evil to save herself, her people, her love, her land.
I've devoured this kind of story countless times, it's one of my favourites, and I remain greedy for more.
More victories over evil.
More love to rival the greats.
More battles to scorch the earth.
More caged women breaking free.
Just more.
But it's not solely the story that nourishes this need.
It's the voices.
The words that feed my hunger.
To wield words the way some do is a true kind of magic.
And Amy Harmon wields them with a measured, bridled sort of grace.
This comes from our narrator, our protagonist, our heroine.
Lark.
Her name is Lark.
A discordant name for a girl who cannot speak.
Rendered mute by tragedy and a promise, she guides us through her story with only the words in her head.
A narrative within a narrative.
A sanctuary and a prison.
A cage for a bird who cannot sing.But she isn't without sound. Without presence.
There's a weight to Lark, a reverential hum that fills the space her words should reside, and that reverence can be felt in the structure of this story, in the pacing and the chosen, measured wording.
It isn't necessary for Lark to speak, her silence speaks for itself.
I've read very few stories with a mute protagonist, but the ones I have reflect and fortify something I feel in my own life.
Words are wonderful.
Unsurvivable without.
But sometimes more is said with the silence that surrounds them.
If I didn't look too closely, I wouldn't see that Tiras wasn't there. If I didn't breathe too deeply, I wouldn't feel the hollow echo in my empty chest. If I didn't move too quickly, I wouldn't reach any painful conclusions. And if I didn't listen, I wouldn't hear the silence he always left behind.
I wouldn't say I'm great a talker.
I do speak, I enjoy conversation.
But I don't use my words easily? loosely? generously?
Most of my thoughts remain inside my head, kept lovingly and begrudgingly within to be rewritten, built upon, or discarded completely.
Not because I think they're of any great significance to anyone but because they're mine and inside they remain mine.
Words can soothe, can humour, can excite.
But they can also wound, and shame, and be shamed.
And once unleashed they can't be taken back.
Inside they can be nurtured and corralled if needs be.
Sometimes set free, often not.
But in that there is choice.
A choice to listen.
A choice to speak.
A choice to do neither.
But always a choice.
There is a difference between being silent and being silenced.
Lark is silenced.
Hushed because her words hold power.
Too much power.
I had been reduced to sharing nothing of my innermost thoughts for most of my life. Reduced to throwing things when I was angry. Reduced to tears when I was sad. Reduced to the simplicity of nods and bows, of having people look away from me or become frustrated when they didn't know what I was trying to communicate.
I had been alone for so long with thousands of words I couldn't express.
A pondered rhyme could lead to chairs upending themselves.
A candle's flame licked and set loose to burn anything its path.
A door unlatched to hasten escape.
A person's will unknowingly taken.
Lark's muteness is born out of fear and sustained through a desperate, steadfast will to do no harm.
I am not a weapon [...] You want to use me? I won't let you.
A harm that isn't even true.
Because even though she is silenced, she has a choice, it's just unknown to her.
It wasn't funny—I wasn't funny. He'd been given every word he needed, and every word had been stripped from me. I wanted them back. All of them.
Isn't history littered with women muzzled merely for showing a strength equal, if not surpassing, their oppressors?
Trained to stay silent for fear of retribution of a wrongly shaped word, a mistimed question, an unwelcome inflection.
Have you ever thought that maybe it is better this way? That I can't speak? If I can wield words without making a sound, what could I do if they were set free? I scare myself, Tiras."
Silent women with a life of words stolen from them for simply being a threat to someone else's vocabulary.
Lark is one of these women.
So beaten down they believe they deserve to be wordless.
With no one to inform them otherwise.
Until there is.
"You don't scare me," he whispered. "You frustrate me. You infuriate me. But you do not scare me."
Not now.
"Not ever."
The Bird and the Sword is a love story.
It is good triumphing over evil.
But it's also an untethering.
A women, and a man, acknowledging their shackles and slipping free of them.
Not breaking.
Slipping.
Because those restraints?
They didn't hold them in the first place.
Nothing that insubstantial ever could.
"You don't need wings to fly," she chirped.
"What do you need, Daughter?" I asked softly.
She looked up at me, her big, black eyes alight with knowledge, and she smiled.
"Words."
Seven stories.
Countless variations.
And why do we read them?
...
Because of the telling.
And what a wonderful telling The Bird and the Sword is.
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Delightfully weird.
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Jexi:
I haven't seen Her, so I don't know how this measures up in the whole AI + human fucked up relationship spectrum but I do know that Jexi is funny as fuck.
My liking of Adam Devine just keeps getting stronger.
(He's like a not-shit Jack Black)
And Rose Byrne's foul mouth remains as majestic as ever....
I'm going to rewatch this.
No one can stop me.
Except, perhaps, if my tv decides to go all robot uprising on me.
But I don't see it happening. She's kind of a lazy fuck-knuckle.
.............................................
This is only a taste of the ones I liked because I'm stupid and feckless and forgetful, and didn't save them all.
...
.............................................
Ellie Sampson:
Miami beachfront paper property. A potential isolation escape— Ellie Sampson (@elliejsampson) May 20, 2020
💕🌴🌞🏩#architecture #paper #paperart #miami #artdeco pic.twitter.com/tdd0uuDLmh
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To all of these, yes.
Especially the tooth brushing scene in Bring It On.
Never has hygiene been so weirdly hot.
I mostly blame Jesse Bradford and his stupid face:
So stupid...
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Ryan Humphrey:
I know for many this will be too crude an image.
I get that.
Ryan Humphrey sources a lot of his imagery from porn.
Porn is confronting.
This image is confronting.
The angle, the exposure, the invitation.
It's not for everyone.
But those lines - so few lines - and that colour choice... they make my head spin.
To me, this very beautiful and about something more than just sex.
But perhaps that's easier for me to comprehend because a large part of art school is spent intently staring at naked human bodies and translating them to paper.
No one giggled in my life drawing classes.
No one made lewd comments.
Because it's a body, a series of shapes held together by sheer force of biology and will.
To sexualise it is a choice solely your own, influenced or not.
When people read erotic symbols into my painting, they're really thinking about their own affairs.
- Georgia O'Keefe
This image is confronting.
The angle, the exposure, the invitation.
It's not for everyone.
But those lines - so few lines - and that colour choice... they make my head spin.
To me, this very beautiful and about something more than just sex.
But perhaps that's easier for me to comprehend because a large part of art school is spent intently staring at naked human bodies and translating them to paper.
No one giggled in my life drawing classes.
No one made lewd comments.
Because it's a body, a series of shapes held together by sheer force of biology and will.
To sexualise it is a choice solely your own, influenced or not.
When people read erotic symbols into my painting, they're really thinking about their own affairs.
- Georgia O'Keefe
.............................................
Maybe because they don't directly pertain to me, so I'm not naturally attuned to them.
But I wish I did.
.............................................
Mermay:
Sean Anderson
Audrey Benjaminsen
Mary Buhl
Joel aka. wayriding
Bailie Rosenlund
Alejandra Oviedo
Gorcha
Mindy Lee
J. Shari Ewing
Jana Heidersdorf
Valentina Remenar
Kerilynn Wilson
Jo Rioux
Kacey Lynn
(Leafy Sea Dragons are my favourite sea creature. I'm not cool with the ocean but LSDs? They can stay)
Vanessa Gillings
Erin Vest
Ana
Travis Louie
Varguy
Chechula Čupová
Technically, this little guy's from April but I couldn't not include him:
Sara Duarte
Whale sharks are the only sharks I approve of.
Bonus Mer-Hop:
Sara aka. smod
My sister finds me the best things.
(Leafy Sea Dragons are my favourite sea creature. I'm not cool with the ocean but LSDs? They can stay)
Technically, this little guy's from April but I couldn't not include him:
Whale sharks are the only sharks I approve of.
Bonus Mer-Hop:
My sister finds me the best things.
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...
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This might just be the unicorn of YA movies.
It's teenage without being patronising.
It's romantic without being nauseating.
It's diverse without being stereotypical.
It's funny.
Genuine.
Pretty to look at it.
And it's got a good soundtrack.
...
It's teenage without being patronising.
It's romantic without being nauseating.
It's diverse without being stereotypical.
It's funny.
Genuine.
Pretty to look at it.
And it's got a good soundtrack.
...
Plus, there's this absolute puppy:
Look at that soft, lolloping pupper.
That boy needs belly rubs and a chew toy.
.............................................
Bao Pham
(I haven't even seen Sailor Moon and I want this desperately)
Ps. I love this:
Ryan Humphrey
There were more but just like the sixfanarts tag, I forgot to save all but these two.
...
(I haven't even seen Sailor Moon and I want this desperately)
Ps. I love this:
There were more but just like the sixfanarts tag, I forgot to save all but these two.
...
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Christ, that's pretty.
I'd buy the entire Hieroglyph anthology for those words alone.
There only so many of them in existence.
But infinite combinations.
To me, that's more significant than any higher power or deity.
...books and words and poetry, all the fierce passions of the world bound in leather and vellum.
- If We Were Villains
M. L. Rio
Ps. Follow Holly (The Grimdragon), she has excellent taste and reviews like a boss.
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Ketnipz just straight up living in my brain:
If I didn't know for sure I'd be sentenced to bathroomy death, I'd take a Sharpie with me in the shower to remember all the shit I think of while I'm in there, and promptly forget the millisecond I leave.
And I'd never answer the phone again.
Although, I do a pretty stellar job of that already.
Don't phone me. Don't text me.
Send me pigeons, if you must.
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#4 books for the apocalypse:
My sister told me about this Twitter tag and asked me what my four I'll never tire of you, you're the softest things I own, come here and comfort me you beautiful papyraceous bastards books would be.
...
I hurt my brain deciding.
I'm still not sure.
And as if I'd only have four books with me. That survival backpack would be 70% books / 30% snacks, and my muscle tone would be fucking impeccable because of them.
...
Or I'd be the zombie in the corner, gnawing on the corners of her beloved paperbacks because books are better than people.
The Lone Vegan Zombie, that'd be me.
Anyway...
My four (with wiggle room):
Sarah J. Maas', A Court of Mist and Fury
(Because it all happens. ALLLLL THE GOOD SHIT)
Ilona Andrews', Magic Bleeds
(Honestly, they're all my favourites; like my Urban Fantasy children, but this one felt like the one to photograph)
Patricia Briggs', Blood Bound
(Fucking terrifying)
(Because it was the start of my eternal love for a pissy Siren and her smart-ass Fae king)
This was hard.
Really hard.
I feel like I'm insulting Aaronovitch and Pratchett and Draven et al.
I'm sorry, authors, the internet made me do it.
Look at this cute as fuck fan art, though:
I did a drawing on the title page of ACOMAF after being really inspired for several days. It’s still one of my favorite books so I decided it would be chosen for the art 💕 pic.twitter.com/aPcPDG45Cn— Charlotte (@CCCrystalClear_) March 19, 2020
Charlotte aka. CCCrystalClear
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Romanticisation of mental illness:
Thank you Matilda of crazyheadcomics, I feel like I've been waiting forever for this.
The OCD reality is spot on.
Repetition is the saviour and curse of my existence
Thank you Matilda of crazyheadcomics, I feel like I've been waiting forever for this.
The OCD reality is spot on.
Repetition is the saviour and curse of my existence
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Money Heist Part 1:
Damn, this was fun.
Like the last bit of Fincher's, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo when Lisbeth goes all espionage and steals a fuck-ton of money for Blomkvist.
But Spanish and a total disaster.
...
I love it...
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Invitation:
I relate to vampires because I, too, must be clearly and specifically invited in before I have the audacity to try to participate in anything— Katherine 🕯️ (@MageOfSolitude) May 22, 2020
...
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Patricia Briggs', River Marked:
I put my hand on his thigh, and said, "We could head home—or drive to Seattle, Portland, or even Yakima and find a nice hotel." I looked out from the highway and down onto the river. From where the highway was, the river looked small and relatively tamed. "I have the feeling that if we stay, things might get interesting."
He gave me a quick smile before looking back at the road. "Oh? What gave you that feelin? People getting their feet bitten off? The ghost of your father? A mysterious old Indian who disappears at the river without a sign of how he left? Maybe Yo-yo Girl's prophecy of the apocalypse?"
"Yo-yo Girl?" I yelped. "Edythe is Yo-yo Girl? Yo-yo Girl sent us here?"
He showed his teeth. "Feeling scared yet? Want to go somewhere safe?"
I couldn't help myself. I set my cheek against his arm and laughed. "It won't help, will it?" I said after a moment. "We'd just run into Godzilla or the Vampire from Hell. Trouble just follows you around."
He rubbed the top of my head. "Hey, Trouble. Let's go find out what your mysterious Indian wanted us to know."
This might be my favourite Mercy book so far.
Which is strange, for two specific reasons:
1. It involves an ancient, people-crunching, tentacle-wielding, water-residing, snake/dragon/Cthulhu type thing, and I don't do aquatic creepers.
Nuh uh, no siree; the Kraken and his ilk can go back from whence they slithered and leave this landlubber the fuck alone.
Thalassophobia leaves no room for fluvial creature-features.
Especially the be-tentacled ones.
Even typing the word makes me shudder.
Blech.
No.
Yuck.
I'd rather lick an unwashed frat-bro's debauchery-soaked elbow than deal with oceanic nightmare fodder.
2. Aside from the last third of the book, this is a very placid chapter in the Mercyverse.
In comparison to the previous five books, nothing all that spectacular happens.
Of course, things do happen: ghosts dancing in the moonlight, multiple trips to the ER, frustratingly cryptic Thunderbirds, Mercy getting bitchslapped by Fae otters...
Y'know, the usual crap our heroine runs into on a seemingly daily basis.
But really, apart from battling the above mentioned cousin of Scylla, this is mostly drama free.
And it's Urban Fantasy.
...
I'm not here for navel-gazing and dark nights of the soul. I want blood and absurd fighting, and a whole load of squabbling between whatever cranky ship I'm currently invested in.
And River Marked isn't that.
Well, it is and it isn't, but mostly isn't.
Okay, it is.
But it's not.
Though, it kinda is.
...
It's hard to explain!
Indecision aside, because River Marked is not my preferred style of story from this genre, it does beg the question of why it's possibly my favourite of the series?
Funnily enough, because it isn't my preferred style, and it isn't overtly dramatic, and it isn't hyper-focused on Mercy finding herself in the midst of yet another supernatural clusterfuck.
I mean, she totally is in the midst of a supernatural clusterfuck - when is she not? Let's be realistic, here - but it's almost the least important part of the story.
What's compelling about River Marked is the attention it pays to Mercy herself.
Not defeating the big bad, not causing unnecessary conflict in her relationship with her significant other (Briggs doesn't tend to go in for that anyway. She's no romantical shit-stirrer, and thank Lugh for that), but the "why" of Mercy Athena Thompson Hauptman.
For six books, eight if you count the entire series, we've been drip-fed morsels of Mercy's history: her relationship with her adoptive werewolf family and the pack as a whole, her complicated relationship with her kinda sorta not pseudo-brother/boyfriend/bestie, Samuel.
Her relationship with Adam, her mate with all the over-protective squishy goodness inside.
We only just met her birth mother in the previous book - terrifying little woman.
And her father remains a mystery, even after showing up in this story, but slightly less of a mystery now that he has appeared. Sort of.
Mercy's heritage's always been unknown, even to her, but it would seem that after having a chat with dear old "Dad", she just might be something a little special.
Maybe not even the last coyote walker like she thought.
Maybe a key player in something big to come.
"Coyote doesn't usually lie, but sometimes he forgets. It is he who is angry with us. We gave him some advice he did not like, and he got mad."
Cherokee Woman narrowed her eyes at me. "We told him nothing good could come of letting Old Coyote Joe take the Anglo woman to his bed."
Inuit Woman smiled and touched my leg. "Obviously, we were wrong."
The coyote in Native American culture is described as a trickster and bringer of chaos, after all.
But also a maker of fateful decisions.
Which all suggests that Coyote is a facilitator of change, good and bad.
Mercy's changed things already:
→ Mated to a different species of shifter (interspecies relationships aren't really done in Briggs' take on the shapeshifter myth, especially coyote and wolf) who happens to be an alpha, which in turn makes her an alpha; something that doesn't exactly sit right with a pack of werewolves who feel themselves superior.
(Not all, the good ones with more than half a brain support it entirely)
The old man paused. "I think that is enough of the story. It ends tragically, as it usually does when two such different people love each other." There was a sharpness in his tone as he said the last sentence that made it obvious he wasn't just talking about Coyote and the chief's daughter.
"Lots of people who have more influence over both of us than you do have made that observation. We didn't listen to them either."
"Is it the werewolf or the Anglo that bothers you?" asked Adam, bringing a bag of premade hamburger patties out of the trailer. Other than his question, he didn't pay any attention to us as he passed by on the way to the grill.
"Wolves eat coyotes," Gordon said, but from his body language, I could tell that our marriage really didn't bother him one way or the other; he just enjoyed stirring the pot.
If he weren't an old man, I had some rude things I could have said to that.
"Yes," observed Adam blandly. "I do."
Yep. That was the one that came to mind. And he didn't even blush when he said it.
→ She has unheard of abilities for a coyote shifter - seeing and talking to ghosts, being able to resist certain magics or them having no effect on her at all (unlike other shifters), her relationships with so many different supernatural creatures.
"Walking stick?" asked Calvin, distracting me from Adam's distress.
I blinked at him. I couldn't remember if the walking stick was supposed to be a secret or not.
"It's an old fae artifact that attached itself to her while she was risking her neck to save a fae she knows," Adam muttered, and I could tell he wasn't happy about remembering me trying to save Zee, either.
"He was a friend," I reminded him.
"She does stuff like this all the time?" asked Calvin, looking at Adam with respect.
Adam lifted his head, and his eyes were yellow again—but his voice was only a little rough. "To be fair, it's usually not her fault. She doesn't start things."
Mercy is special, and not because she's the chosen one but simply because she's Mercy.
Good, sharp-tongued, cookie-baking, werewolf-bating Mercy.
It's why so many people love her.
It's also why trouble seems to stalk her,
That and her bleeding heart.
Show her an innocent, or even a semi-innocent, and she'll lay her life down if it means the end to something horrific.
"What would you do, Adam? Would you die so that little girl could live?"
I knew the answer—and from his body language, so did he.
That's not unique to Mercy, but it is special. Especially now that she has people other than herself to live for.
People like her new husband.
Another reason why this is probably my favourite Mercy book: my ship made it official.
Now, I don't need my fictional couples to tie the knot. Marriage in fiction and reality, for me, is all about choice.
Get hitched, don't get hitched, I'm happy either way.
It all depends on the characters.
Mercy and Adam?
They actually could have gone either way, but them plighting their troth just felt all kinds of right.
And they did it in an unexpected and disgustingly lovely way.
Butterflies and balloons.
All I'll say on the matter.
"Ley lines?" said Adam. "I can feel something." He closed his eyes and breathed in, as if trying to pick up that little bit more that isolating his senses might give him. "Ley lines, huh? Feels like someone stroking my hair in the wrong direction."
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" I asked.
He snorted. "No flirting. We're here on business."
We'd come early; my husband, the eternal tactician, had determined that would be the better course. I liked those two words together. "My" and "husband."
"What are you grinning about?" he asked.
I told him, and he grinned, too. "Hopeless," he said. "You are hopeless. We are supposed to be getting the lay of the land, not making goo-goo eyes at each other."
Stinkin' adorable.
This doesn't mean everything's suddenly sunshine and coyote treats, however.
This book's set during their honeymoon, for fuck's sake and it's an unmitigated disaster.
These two, my lovely headstrong two, will always have their issues.
Mercy, a lone creature with, technically, no one to answer to, and Adam, a dominant alpha werewolf means the dynamic of their relationship is going take some... balancing.
Adam is always going to have the urge to go above and beyond to protect his family, and he's been protecting Mercy since the second he met her, now they're married his coddling instincts have gone into overdrive.
And Mercy being Mercy, this doesn't and shouldn't sit right:
"Hey," I said, coming to a stop. "How about I shop here, and you head over to the grocery store and grab some food? I'll shop in peace, and you can pick me up in forty-five minutes."
He shook his head. "I'm not leaving you here alone."
"The only thing that wants to kill me is in the river," I told him, trying to keep my voice down, but the woman pushing a cart past us gave me an odd look. "I've been shopping at Wal-Marts for most of my life, and I've never been assaulted in one." I narrowed my gaze at him though I kept it focused on his chin. "As long as it's not demons, fae, or sea monsters, I can also take care of myself pretty well. I'm not helpless." And suddenly it mattered very much that he not treat me like some ninny who needed to be protected at all times, someone who would stand around waiting to be rescued.
He saw it in my face, I think, because he took a deep breath and looked around. "Okay. Okay."
I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "Thank you."
He kissed me back. Not on the cheek. By the time I'd recovered enough to process information, he was striding out the door, and everyone in view was staring at me.
I flushed. "We just got married." I announced, then felt even stupider, so I hurried to escape in the aisles.
Give and take.
Going both ways.
So they can protect and respect each other without driving each other crazy.
I can't begin to explain how much this matters to me when it comes to relationships portrayed in fiction.
Seemingly gone are the days of the vacant damsel in distress and the alpha male with selective deafness to the wants and needs of his prize, the "heroine".
It's not a trope I particularly enjoy, at least not to its fullest extent.
Because of course not all women are strong and capable of saving themselves.
Some need the hero to at least help them out.
Or vice versa.
Some need to fight each other.
Some need to fight side by side.
Mercy and Adam are the latter.
It's just going to take them a while to get there, but River Marked felt like a healthy start in that direction.
Even if Mercy's unwanted death wish is going to give Adam one mother of an ulcer for the rest of his days.
"What happened to you?" he asked. Then, his expression lightening, he said fiercely, "Did you do it?"
"We are minus one monster," I said, accidentally waking the woman in the chair—and Benny, too.
"Pain meds," murmured Adam in explanation of something. I think it was the giggling. "As you can see, taking out the monster was a close-run thing."
"Tell me," said Benny.
So I did. At some point—near where I was trying to climb up the river devil, I think—Adam sat on the floor next to the chair and leaned his forehead against my thigh. There was another chair in the room, so I wasn't quite sure why he was sitting on the floor. The drugs had fuzzed our bond, so it took me a moment to feel the sick fear that racked him.
[...]
"And then I swam back to shore."
"With a broken leg?" asked Adam.
"Pretty neat trick, huh," I said smugly.
"Really good drugs," Calvin's voice was dry.
Adam's face was hidden against my leg again. This time he had one hand wrapped around my good ankle. The other hand dug into the tile on the floor. The tile cracked with a pop.
"You're going to cut yourself," I chided him.
He lifted his head. "You are going to the death of me."
I sucked in my breath. The sudden surge of fear I felt at that thought broke through the happy glaze I'd been enjoying. "Don't say that, Adam, don't let me do that."
"Shh," he said. "I'm sorry. Don't cry. It's all right." He rose to kneel beside me, wiping my cheeks with his thumbs. 'Werewolves are tough, Mercy. I'm not the one who almost died tonight." He sucked in a breath. "Don't you do that ever again."
"I didn't do it on purpose," I wailed miserably. "I didn't want to almost die."
[...]
"Next time I go out to kill monsters," I told him as we came into town, "you should do a better job of stopping me."
He took my bandaged hand and kissed it. "I promised you that I wouldn't do that. Next time, pick a monster who doesn't live in a river or ocean, and I'll be more help."
"Okay," I paused and thought about it. "I don't want a next time."
He sighed. "Me either."
See that?
That's what we call balance.
My ship's the greatest.
Plus they flirt all the time:
Adam stood up then and came over to me. He put both arms around me. He didn't say anything, just held me.
"My life used to be normal," I told his shoulder. "I got up. Went to work. Fixed a few cars, paid a few bills, and no one tried to kill me. My father was dead; my mother was six hours away by car—I could even manage to make that trip last eight or nine hours if I worked at it."
"Argued with your back-fence neighbor," Adam said, his voice very gentle.
"And watched him when he wasn't looking," I agreed. "Because every once in a while, especially after a full moon hunt, he'd forget that I could see in the dark, and he'd run around naked in the backyard."
He laughed silently. "I never forgot you could see in the dark," he admitted.
"Oh." I thought about it for a while. "That's pretty good. Not quite up to my slowly eroding Rabbit, but you get points for that."
...
Okay! Enough swooning, onto the final reason River Marked is winning the Mercy book-off:
Battle scene.
Holy mother of battle scenes.
As I mentioned before, I don't do riverine critters but I'm going to make an exception here because Patricia Briggs absolutely nailed this fight sequence.
The pacing, the build up, the sheer fucking horror of it all.
Nailed it.
And impressively so, because I think this is the first time Mercy's had a fight at quite this scale before.
Not solely because the monster in question was, to be blunt, pretty fucking huge, but because it truly felt like an end of days kind of battle.
One of the epics.
One to be written and remembered.
David and Goliath.
George and his dragon.
Miss Piggy and her sex drive.
(I don't know, just go with it)
Like just maybe, Mercy wasn't getting out of this one unscathed.
Logically, I know that can't be true because there's plenty more books in the series, but it was written so damn well that I was genuinely scared for my girl.
She's faced down demon-possessed vampires, mercurial Fae gentry, ravening kelpies, the worst of humanity, her own damn pack but nothing, nothing, has come close to the big bad in River Marked.
I've never been scared for her before.
Sure, she's made my heart pound with the risks she takes and her absolute lack of self-preservation to save other people but I've never thought she actually might die.
But then again, she's never fought, essentially, a god before.
Thrown into a dubious situation, on her honeymoon, by the meddling Fae, Mercy doesn't get to bone her husband in peace.
No.
She gets to be the bait to catch an overgrown salamander/Swamp Thing/river snake hybrid.
Just what a girl wants to celebrate her nuptials.
Broken bones, viscera, and almost being swallowed whole by Nessie's jacked up distant relative.
The river devil had pulled me deep under the surface, and it was dark. I was watching her, and I saw nothing—but I felt the change in the currents of the water as she opened her mouth.
You, I shall consume with much pleasure, the river devil told me. And then I shall know how you defy me when no other mortal thing has. I shall learn and, learning, grow stronger.
Mercy! It was Adam, his voice a roar in my head overwhelming her words so I could move again. More by luck than by skill, though I was trying to feel for anything I could grab, my free foot caught the outside of a tooth that was longer than my shinbone, and I grabbed another upper tooth with my left hand and stopped myself, arching my body away from her.
Mercedes. His voice was a howl of grief that I couldn't answer, not if I wanted to save myself.
I remembered, from seeing her head above the water, that the teeth in the front of her mouth were spiky and stuck out almost like the quills of a porcupine. They were also long, and I hoped that she couldn't open her mouth wide enough to engulf me as long as I kept my feet braced on the outside of her lower jaw and my grip on the upper tooth.
You make things harder than they should be, she told me. You are caught and cannot get away.
She snapped her teeth together with wicked speed—but I am wicked fast, too. I bent and straightened with her. The water helped as well. When she snapped her mouth closed, the water pushed out.
She changed tactics and tried to use her tentacle to shake me loose.
[...]
I didn't know why she didn't try to grab me with another tentacle. Maybe she was just too angry right now. But when she did, I was dead. If this stalemate lasted much longer, I was dead anyway. My abilities didn't extend to breathing water, and I'd been underwater for a while.
[...]
My food. My food.
...
Poor Mercy.
The River Devil's a real she-bitch but she did bring up a moral quandary that isn't spoken of much in Fantasy:
"Here's what we need to figure out about whatever is in the river. How much harm is this creature doing? We don't really have a lot of data to go on other than a lot of scary talk about monsters. As the sole representative of monsters here, it is my . . . obligation to make certain we are looking at this with a balanced perspective. I am sorry that Benny's sister was killed and Benny injured. However, people are injured by"—he hesitated—"bear attacks, too. Just because something is dangerous does not make it evil Was it defending its territory? Are we correct that it is a single beast? How intelligent is it? Can we bargain to keep people safe? Should we kill the last or near last of its kind because it has killed a woman and hurt her brother? Is there a way to salvage this situation with no more deaths?"
When you are a werewolf, I thought, it's a little hard to point at another predator, and shout, "It's a scary monster, kill it! Kill it!"
...
The only other time I've come across this way of thinking in Fantasy is in Martha Wells', Books of Raksura series.
That doesn't mean it doesn't exist anywhere else, I'm sure it does but for me, it's a fucking revelation.
...
Christ, I love this series so much.
I give it a month tops before I'm gushing over milady Thompson again.
She's just so damn readable.
I'll leave you with this little delusional tidbit from our protagonist:
Someday, I'm going to meet some supernatural creature who tells me everything I should know up front and in a forthright manner—but I'm not going to hold my breath.
...
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Rogan Brown:
...
Rogan Brown:
...
Seriously.
This is paper.
...
PAPER.
...
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This article by Kali Wallace for Tor.com:
Actually bothering my arse to read the articles Tor posts is paying off this month.
I've only read the first in the Books of Raksura series (review, here) but I fell incredibly hard for Martha Wells' High Fantasy world of winged, anthropoid shapeshifters and the rich, diverse landscape they inhabit.
And a part of me acknowledged what Kali Wallace describes in her article but I wasn't aware of that acknowledgement until I read the article.
I need smarter people to point things out to me, you see.
I'm just here for the happy reading times, not the deep thinking analysis.
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Can't get the Barnes & Noble Special Edition, though.
Due to the current shipping restrictions.
...
Pretty sure Cardan would be proud of the petulant scowl adorning my face at the moment.
Pretty. Damn. Sure.
Taryn: why are jude and cardan sitting back to back?— IncorrectCruelPrince (@IncorrectCruelP) May 20, 2020
Vivi: they had a fight
Taryn:
Taryn: why are they holding hands?
Vivi: Cardan gets sad when they fight
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Gotta love this absolute dirtbag.
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Pillock:
This is a much used word in my family's vocabulary but I didn't know until know that my nearest and dearest were calling me a penis.
...
Sounds about right, though.
This is a much used word in my family's vocabulary but I didn't know until know that my nearest and dearest were calling me a penis.
...
Sounds about right, though.
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Fangs:
In light of the recent developments concerning a certain I'm-so-old-I-fucking-sparkle vampire POV coming out soon, I'm going to dedicate this section of the post to Robert Pattinson.
You poor boy.
It'll be okay.
We're all here for you, baby bat.
Robert Pattinson right now after hearing they’re making another Twilight book #MidnightSun pic.twitter.com/rgXE6MIHoB— StepKickKing (@StepKickKing2) May 4, 2020
Ps. Sarah Andersen is hilarious and I adore her. Read Fangs. How many damn times have I gotta say it?
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This article by Wendy Xu form Tor.com:
Emo vampire boys with the emotional maturity of an educated dust-bunny are not my thing.
But a good roasting of said vampire sad sacks?
Count.
Me.
The.
Fuck.
In.
Emo vampire boys with the emotional maturity of an educated dust-bunny are not my thing.
But a good roasting of said vampire sad sacks?
Count.
Me.
The.
Fuck.
In.
...
Look at this little bitch.
Don't you just wanna slap it mortal?
Oh, and finally a reason to post this tweet:
Look at this little bitch.
Don't you just wanna slap it mortal?
Oh, and finally a reason to post this tweet:
so vampires Do drain rats like a capri sun pic.twitter.com/WySQ6nRj7X— ◾️輝 (@_daifei) May 4, 2019
Not ashamed to admit, I laughed myself hoarse the first time I saw this.
And then I really wanted Capri Sun.
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And then I really wanted Capri Sun.
Sweet Tooth:
So excited to share the news! SWEET TOOTH is coming to @NXOnNetflix courtesy of @RobertDowneyJr and co! 🦌🧒 pic.twitter.com/6hJGDSjV69— Jeff Lemire (@JeffLemire) May 12, 2020
...
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Sense8 rewatch:
Just keeping tabs on the children.
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Final Girl:
With absolute certainty, this is my murder jam:
If you were the final girl what song would you want to play at the end of the movie when you grab a shotgun and start fucking shit up pic.twitter.com/p32A2gy1XB— khaleesi hefdong (@shadyboyband) May 24, 2020
With absolute certainty, this is my murder jam:
It all depends, though.
Sleigh Bells is my campy, monster murder jam, but Fever Ray is my arthouse, slow-mo murder jam:
Chelsea Wolfe is my Nancy Downs psycho-coven murder jam:
And No Doubt is my 90s, I'm so tired of this misogynistic bullshit murder jam.
I could go on.
I apparently have many a murder jam.
And many a murder jam aesthetic.
...
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Schitt's Creek final season:
I have no words.
My heart is palpating morse code love letters.
Because this show.
This gloriously soft show.
And to think, I watched it on a whim and I almost didn't watch it at all.
Thank god, I did, because where would I be without the Roses.
Up Schitt's Creek, that's where.
...
I'm genuinely sorry.
That was uncalled for.
Here's something to make up for my terrible punnage:
(This video has a major spoiler, watch at your own peril)
When, not if, you're done finishing the show, watch this.
I sobbed more watching it than I did the season finale.
And I sobbed hard during the season finale.
Maybe as much as Dan Levy on one of the last days of filming:
I've already started my rewatch.
Actually, I started it immediately after the credits stopped rolling on Best Wishes, Warmest Regards and my sobbing was... reasonably under control.
But I'm fucked now because Patrick's arrived and Mic Night's coming up.
...
Alright, sight-balls, let the leaking commence.
...
Actually, I started it immediately after the credits stopped rolling on Best Wishes, Warmest Regards and my sobbing was... reasonably under control.
But I'm fucked now because Patrick's arrived and Mic Night's coming up.
...
Alright, sight-balls, let the leaking commence.
...
Ugh, I miss them all so much already.
Here's some amazing fan art by Chris Ables to get us through the separation anxiety:
A gift.
This show was a gift.
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