Reader's Journal

[cromulentreader]

Okay.... ...but.... ... was Balekin talking about his brother's love life, or his human book collection?

[chaiichait]

All the things finally lined up (motivation, drawing tools and time) for me to be able to finish this animatic! Enjoy this TFOTA animatic :)

[viivdle]

GUYS IT'S HAPPENING EVERYBODY STAY CALM.

[cassandraclare]

how would kit and cardan get along? 😈

Well, Holly is here as I said, so I figured, why not discuss?

She said Cardan is desperate for an heir and I pointed out that Kit does not want to be the Heir so possibly Kit would just run away. We agree Cardan might get along with Ash though as they are both faerie princes with annoying, decadent friends.

[cromulentreader]

Oh, the shade girl!

[madockisser]

A conspiracy of Charming Monsters: Tales from Elfhame by Holly Black short stories assumption/ theory

Join me in this possibly concerning yet in depth assumption in Holly’s new addition to the Elfhame Series 💋:

So we know that 2 of the stories in this 304 page book will be new content, but what about the others?

I assume that this will include:

1. The Lament of Lutie-Loo, which spans 29 pages.

2. The deleted scene at the end of the Barnes and Nobles edition of The Wicked King (6 pages total)

3. New story based on Madoc in the mortal world

4. Seems like The Lost Sisters will finally be published outside of an ebook? Doesn’t sound like it will be a new story following Taryn. (Spans 50-100 pages depending on format)

5. Heather is on the cover, meaning we could get The Honest Folk- heathers short story that followed the end of the queen of nothing. It is 25 pages long.

6. Cardans new story

Cardans new story theory:

The cosmopolitan mentions that 2 stories will be new INCLUDING a new one of HIGH KING (specifically) Cardan who “realizes what he most desires” … so i assume we get a short story focusing on him when jude is in exile?

Normally i would say that Cardan knew he wanted jude as his queen for a while, but the timeline is weird.

(since we are already getting a story on his pov WHEN she was taken)

So it seems it’s either BEFORE the events of the wicked king, the 5 months that passed when Jude was seneschal, or AFTER she was taken by the undersea, which would primarily be her exile. Which is why i think his letters may finally be released (the author also mentioned finally having rights over them so it’s not impossible) Possibly even his pov when he married jude?

i highly doubt it’ll be from after the events of the queen of nothing bc he already had what he wanted (Jude)

It makes sense because there was a bit of context to explore there. Cardans letters (will these finally hit non-exclusive publishing?) and him going to heathers/vivis apartment.

Unrelated to Cardan but alternative possibility:

1. A Visit to the Impossible Lands (lutie AND Kaye being on the cover makes me want to think there will be more modern faerie tales content, but I’m unsure) UNLESS Holly decides to MERGE the two stories into a dual pov thing. Maybe unlikely due to limited amt of pages tho! the timelines also match up. Lutie pisses off balekin- then later Kaye and roiben travel to witness dain being crowned. Could work. and i know that these characters are beloved, not just by fans but by the author, so i remain positive about this theory!

In total, we have 304 CONFIRMED pages. It’s unclear about the sizes of the other stories obviously, and it’s unclear if Holly black will add to these stories, especially one of cardans stories, as jude was kidnapped, since that was a deleted (and very short) scene

The wicked king deleted scenes: 7 pages

cardans letters which i assume will be included: 7 pages?

Rough estimate of the lost sisters: 70~ish pages

The Honest Folk: 25 pages

The Lament of Lutie-Loo: 29 pages

A visit to the impossible lands: 14 pages

Which adds up to around 151 pages. This leaves around 50+ pages for the NEW stories + any additions that may be added to the deleted scene

We must remember it’s going to be illustrated, so I’m just gonna cut the total page number in half… 150~

This is where the REAL delusion begins:

To compare this new book with the other illustrated novella, Rovina Cai’s artwork spanned over 54 FULL/ half pages- of the 172 pg book (1/3 of the book).

i don’t know how different the formatting will be, but i assume that frostbites illustrations will cover around 1/3 of the book. Meaning that around 100 pages may have illustrations- that cover atleast half the page? (This may be a complete and utter stretch, especially due to the fact that 100 different artworks that cover more than half of the page- in 2(?) years mind you (going off of the enemies and lovers timeline) may be utterly ridiculous. Artists lmk 😭)

I assume there won’t be THAT many pages of full illustrations/ filler pages inbetween stories, which leaves more for the writing.

Which may mean that there will be around 200+ pages of writing content?

Which also leaves madocs and cardans short story, which could or could not span around 25 pages each? less? more?

I’m rereading this and giggling at how absurd i sound BUT i digress

Again, this is all theoretical, and i probably missed some things, so please feel totally free to add on!! 🫶 love y’all

[cromulentreader]

Cordial acquaintances don't still half your army though.

[cromulentreader]

"I may be rotten, but my one virtue is that I’m not a killer. I wanted to frighten you, but I never wanted you dead. I never wanted anyone dead." Meanwhile, Jude was expecting his want-dead list to look like this all along.

[cromulentreader]

"The hag was given to prophecy and divined futures in eggshells. And do you know what the hag said? That Eva’s child was destined to be a greater weapon than Justin could ever forge."

Do you think Madoc knew about this prophecy?

Yes - before he found Eva

Yes - after he found Eva

No - he was the resident Jon Snow

Voting ended onMar 12

[cromulentreader]

January reads

[cromulentreader]

What are your headcanons for cardans inner circle? like what do you think they did when they hung out/their friendships as it kinda seemed like they hated eachother😭 i mean valerian liked seeing their pain, locke played nicasia and cardan so im curious as to what their dynamic was like as we only see them interact when bullying jude and taryn (SRY FOR SENDING TWICE I WANTED TO ELABORATE)

They sound like every group of bullies whose parents won't turn up to school until one of the other kids smacks them.

My headcanons: - Locke did very little other than incite the others. Cardan might have been less incitable, making Locke target him more in his cast of terrible plays. Sounds like he was part of the group because he had a place to himself. - Nicasia mostly just lazed around, making people weep and complaining about the Land. - Valerian just latched on to Cardan at some awfully inappropriate Grackle event. Cardan found his violent nature amusing until he didn't. Locke thought he lacked grace. - They definitely had digs at the others' weaknesses when not messing with common Folk.

[cromulentreader]

Let's talk about how absolutely horrible Jarel and Nore are. They were complete monsters to the child Suren: first abandoning her, kidnapping her from a loving family, enslaving her, and putting her on a leash like she was some animal. Like forget Eldred and Asha, these two are the worst parents ever.

I don't know now, Eldred got one kid poisoning him, and the other FIVE are like:

One doesn't get that amount of love out of nowhere. I think of Jarel and Nore more like Suren's blood donors. But they did suck.

[cromulentreader]

So apparently Eldred put some protections on mortals, why would he do this?

He did? I don't recall. Unless the ask is in terms of laws, which he would have since Faeries depended on Mortals so much.

[cromulentreader]

Any other theories about Eldred or Val Moren?

Not a theory, but it would be super funny if Val Moren was like 50 and Jude thought he was old AF because she's 17 and thinks 35 or 350 is kind of the same vibe.

[cromulentreader]

i would love to see a nicasia analysis from you. do you like/forgive her at the end?

I'm pretty neutral about her, actually. I don't feel like she's the type of character that requires forgiveness or redemption even.

I mean, she's mean, petty and tried to shoot a girl for hooking up with her ex. But I don't dislike her for Jude's time in the Undersea because 1. She never pretended to be on Jude's side (Taryn, looking at you). 2. Nicasia thought Jude had something on Cardan or done something to him( both true, she just didn't know Cardan didn't care too much ) 3. She was raised to be awful so her shred of decency is just right to me. 4. Her mother was in charge, she was as much her daughter as she was her subject.

[cromulentreader]

can you do an analysis on eva duarte and madocs relationship?

This one if from January sorry 😔 I'll do it when re-reading, I promise! Maybe as a series even.

[cromulentreader]

What do you think the relationship between Oriana and Liriope was like exactly?

We actually don't see many female friendships in this world build so it's a tricky one. We're never told Oriana's age but I suspect she was very young when made consort. Liriope sounded kind so if there was no funky love compelled mambo Jambo their relationship was probably healthy-ish by faerie standards 🤞

[cromulentreader]

You think Hazel is someone Jude might've been had Madoc not found Eva and Justin?

This one took me a while.

I'm going with no, because Hazel is also the result of being raised aware and wary of faeries. Not at the same degree, true, but I don't think Eva and Justin would be very open with the twins about faeries even with Vivi being one.

Fundamentally I think the yearning that Jude had of besting and playing others is innate before learnt. And although they both have communalities they would have different drivers. I don't have the book on me but I think there's a passage on Hazel's delight in the serpent's battle while Jude's delight - despite being a good fighter - was in pulling strings.