the void screams back

a place for my thoughts about all the books I'm obsessed with

[alwaysfallingdizzy]

Long Live Evil, Chapter 1: “Consider this. You say ‘I love you’ to someone you don’t know. Is that a lie? … Later you learn the heart of the person you lied to. You say the same words, and ‘I love you’ is a great truth.”

All Hail Chaos, Chapter 39: “I loved you before I ever met you. I love you with all my heart.” -Rae

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[alwaysfallingdizzy]

Long Live Evil, Chapter 4: “Consider this. A witch who curses you is just telling the future you don’t want to hear.” -Rae

All Hail Chaos, Chapter 32: “You once told me it would be fun to be a witch and curse people. What curses would you lay on your enemies, if you could? … Then call it a game. I’ll play. Tell me the story of what you want. I can make it true.” -Key

All Hail Chaos, Chapter 39: Rae speaks the prophecy herself.

Welp, guess he made her a witch after all.

[literally-literate]

Love these parallels.

It would be wild if Rae became the one to deliver the entire prophecy. Would she choose to doom him, or could she change some words and make a new future?

[mcfif]

I'm so happy we can finally talk about All Hail Chaos 💚

[literally-literate]

Finally got around to making some concept art for @thesamuraiturnedpretty 's throw pillow:

Quote from All Hail Chaos by Sarah Rees Brennan

[unrelatedwaffle]

all hail chaos spoilers

rae's mom coming into that hospital room to find both daughters in a coma: oh that is it i am suing this fucking hospital

[alwaysfallingdizzy]

I have thoughts.

As a mother myself I have not stopped thinking about this. I’d sue the hospital. I’d hunt down the “author” of the Time of Iron books because this throughline they shared maybe the books had noxious fumes.

The straight fury. The grief.

Imagine if Ms Parilla comes into the books after her daughters. You wanna see someone tear a world apart? Fuck with a ruthless mother’s (and she’s a realtor, so) children.

She’ll grab Key by the ear and set him straight so fucking fast his head will spin.

Marius and Caracalla’s mom was quick to lay her life down for her kids and I have no doubts that Rae and Alice’s mom will or would also throw down.

[literally-literate]

(all hail chaos spoilers / kill your darlings theory)

Ok so even before I read this, my theory has been that Kill Your Darlings will open with Clara Parilla freaking out over Alice's disappearance and then meeting a mysterious lady with box braids who offers her a bargain to enter Eyam and save her daughters. Bonus points if they have a bitch session about their ex husbands first.

I am so ready for Clara to throw down and get shit done.

[alwaysfallingdizzy]

ALSO also

I think the The Captive Goddess and The Great Goddess are one in the same and I think The Goddess left Eyam and went to our world and has no way to get back.

Which is ALSO why she keeps sending people, besides as personal Tinder but she’s trying to get the plot resolved so either she can come home or bring her son to her.

[thesamuraiturnedpretty]

If Time of Iron did end up with all three Parillas in Eyam, it would give new meaning to Clara's business slogan, 'Live in your fantasy home'.

[literally-literate]

YES IT WOULD. I want her to establish her real estate business in Eyam! I want her to sell the Palace on the Edge and make a fat commission!!!!!!!!

[literally-literate]

r/relationships

I (24F) got my FWB (20M) killed. How do I convince him to break up with me?

[yellowraincoat]

r/AITA

Am I the Asshole for destroying my childhood skeleton to get back at my dad?

I (20M, undead and undying) recently got into a fight with my bio dad and had my ghouls burn my old skeleton from when my dad killed me in a ritual sacrifice and it really upset him. Am I the asshole here? Is there a way past this? He’s been trying really hard to reconnect with me for the past few days.

[literally-literate]

r/AskMen

I ritually sacrificed my son (20M) hundreds of years ago and he's still sensitive about it. How do I get him to man up?

He's acting like a brat and wasting his time on a low value mortal woman (6/10 and I am being generous). Should I send him some Andrew Tate videos?

[goodgrammaritan]

"Have you never considered art grants us the impossible? Art opens a door into someone else's imagination and lets us walk through. Art is the dreamed-of escape. Art lets the dead speak and the living laugh. Art takes you away from pain when no medicine can save you. Art is the first and last word. Art is the final consolation."

The Golden Cobra, Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

[literally-literate]

Thank you Prophet Eric because this is it!! This is why I find Time of Iron so utterly clever!!! Because it's ABOUT escapism in the face of death, and it also IS escapism in the face of death.

What the Once and Forever Emperor series was to Rae on her hospital bed is also what the Time of Iron series could be to someone in real life.

SRB really said hey, here's this book, here's this little vacation from the world, here's this little place you can go, that will exist in your head even after you've closed the back cover, because I get it, I've been there too, and I know exactly what these words and these characters could mean to you.

[literally-literate]

r/relationships

I (24F) got my FWB (20M) killed. How do I convince him to break up with me?

[thesamuraiturnedpretty]

She's wearing Ruby slippers because she's from another world 😮

[literally-literate]

So the obvious Wizard of Oz parallel is "she wants to go home". But what if it goes further than that? The twist in Wizard of Oz was that Dorothy had the power to return home the whole time, if only she knew to click her shoes together and wish for it.

I wonder if Rae will discover the same thing. That if only she'd told Key about her illness and her desire to return home, he'd have moved heaven and earth to get her there.

[literally-literate]

I feel like there are a disproportionate number of a-spec people in the Time of Iron fandom (myself included, love to see it). Does anyone have theories as to why?

The primary relationships are romances. There are no confirmed aro or ace characters. It doesn't make any sense, and yet, here we are???

[literally-literate]

Literally no one asked and this is completely off topic for my so-called book blog but the topic of evil women in suits came up so I feel compelled to say:

Friends, acquaintances, strangers, bots, I am begging - no, imploring - you all to go read the webtoon Hand Jumper by Sleepacross. Literally over 50% of the characters are evil women in suits and they've ALL killed before. And the art is amazing. Just LOOK at this:

Go. I beg you. It is free to read and has over a hundred chapters already. Then come back here and scream with me 😭😭

[literally-literate]

Gonna need to put @screw-wentloose-somewhere 's tags on blast for a second here:

You had me at suits. Say no more, friend.

[dabblingreturns]

I want my problematic otp of Rae and Key to live long, happy, comfortable lives together were they are allowed to clown around in the most villainous manner to thier hearts content.

However, I am not sure that two people who have struggled so much with the idea that other people are real should be left in charge of the government.

I think they would find it to be difficult and tiresome work.

[thesamuraiturnedpretty]

Hard agree. And neither of them actually want to rule, just as neither of them actually want All That Gold. They just don't want to be powerless or penniless or lonely in the way they have been in the past.

[literally-literate]

Agree with all points. I think about this a lot. What would a happy ending actually look like for Rae and Key?

They're not humble people. Key could have walked away from Eyam after his resurrection. Rae could have chosen not to swim in a pile of gold. But they're villains. They don't want to deny their worst impulses or sacrifice for the greater good.

As long as neither of them dies, I think the series will end with them ruling Eyam together, but hopefully as figureheads who delegate the actual ruling to Eric, Lia, and some competent ministers.

[the-grollican]

ishmael using a pseudonym is so funny. like what are you in witness protection? from the whale?

[thesamuraiturnedpretty]

No actually, I've changed my mind. Glacia was part of a (Tagar-related?) plot against Key not Rae.

Key never takes any threats towards himself seriously. At the end of the day, he believes in his power and his capacity to endure, but where he does respond to attacks, he does so swiftly and often without announcement or fanfare (e.g. kidnapping Vasilisa, walling up the dead).

If anyone threatens his lady however, he will make a bloody, public example of them (e.g. General Nemeth, that one lord in the meeting, the og Burning Hearts Ball).

Inviting Glacia to his chambers and quietly poisoning her meant that 1) he wanted intel first since Glacia had the truth potion in her, 2) he didn't want his ministers and/ or Rae to know.

The other option, of course, is that Glacia WAS after Rae, but that at this point in the book, Key had twigged that she didn't like the bloody public examples.

Which meant that it was STILL all for her.

[thesamuraiturnedpretty]

I just got to the Big Fight/ Escape scene in my reread and when Rae mentions Glacia, Key asks 'would you rather I died instead?', which implies that was the other option, and he was the target.

Whether it's that Glacia came at him with goddess-powers or a prophecy (great theories @literally-literate), or whether she put poison in his cup remains to be seen (although if Glacia did poison his tea, and Key made her drink it instead, can we Please get some Princess Bride type shenanigans when this is revealed).

[literally-literate]

Just reread that chapter and yeah I think that line is the biggest hint we've gotten so far. Glacia was going to kill him somehow. But how? Why? Who was she working for???

Pio noted in a different chapter that he doesn't know who she is and that she's probably a distant Starost cousin. Very suspicious IMO for the story to specifically point that out. A very Rae-style assumption, which means likely incorrect in the most dramatic possible way.

[literally-literate]

Literally no one asked and this is completely off topic for my so-called book blog but the topic of evil women in suits came up so I feel compelled to say:

Friends, acquaintances, strangers, bots, I am begging - no, imploring - you all to go read the webtoon Hand Jumper by Sleepacross. Literally over 50% of the characters are evil women in suits and they've ALL killed before. And the art is amazing. Just LOOK at this:

Go. I beg you. It is free to read and has over a hundred chapters already. Then come back here and scream with me 😭😭

[yellowraincoat]

Red flag #1 that Rae wasn’t really talking to the great goddess in that mirror was when she was like

R: …. So… this whole thing is just a matchmaking service for your son?

Fake Great Goddess (FGG if you will): fuck no bitch like he’d ever love you

Like the real Great Goddess would have had to own up to how that’s exactly what she’s been doing. Like she spawned Eric in the Cauldron. Who lived in the Cauldron at the time? Her murderous little son.

[yellowraincoat]

Oh and on the guardian angel theory, can we talk about how both she brought both Eric and Rae into the story at the point in time where they would be the same age IRL as Key.

Eric was 14 when Key was. Rae was 20 when Key was. Like we know it’s not a linear progression of time for the Great Goddess, so she can choose when to place them.

​she’s like. surely if I put enough kids his age into the story ONE OF THEM will want to have a playdate with my son.

And Rae was that bitch.

[thesamuraiturnedpretty]

If that was the Goddess' plan, the presence of the Oracle and Cauldron woman's German husband, as well as the implied many others, could support Key's theory that he's lived more than two lives.

[yellowraincoat]

Yes, and not only more than two lives but that the great goddess tries to provide the person she thinks Key most needs. Like the oracle is the first, maybe that gave the great goddess a better window into other potential timelines of the book. And I’ve suggested she sent people as potential friends, partners, and playmates for Key, but why not also a potential adopted parent?

[literally-literate]

Wait holy shit it's all coming together. I'd glossed over his theory that he'd lived multiple lives, but yeah, maybe it didn't take hundreds of years for him to be reborn, and he's been living and dying again and again as a normal person all this time.

So the question becomes, why did he never awaken his powers during those earlier lives?

I think he COULD have. I think every version of the Once and Forever Emperor series is the story of Key awakening his powers, rising from nothing, and eventually destroying the world. Not just Eyam, but all worlds, including ours. I think that's why the land is called "Eyam". It's a place that isolated itself to keep a plague from spreading. And the plague is Key. The Great God (fire, destruction, death) and the Great Goddess (doors) created a monster that could spread between worlds and destroy everything.

As for why it never happened in his previous lives, I think the Great Goddess has been intervening by sending people into his story to change its course and prevent his rise to power and self destruction. I think the Great Goddess has the ability to see the future, not change the past. If she could send people from our world into the story's past, then she could have also undone the sacrifice of her son. Therefore, I think the different versions of the O&FE series that exist in our world, that are updated each time a new character is added, are predictions of the future. The Great Goddess is changing the course of the future with each new person she adds, hoping to finally create a version of the story where her son doesn't destroy all worlds and die alone.

[literally-literate]

Reasons to panic about Kill Your Darlings:

The plot thus far

The prophecy of Key's downfall

The impending war against the gods

The infinite number of doomed timelines

The title

Reasons NOT to panic about Kill Your Darlings:

Eric said "the perfect form for a story is an exciting beginning, an angsty middle, and a happy ending" and he's a prophet 💜

[spending-life-pretending]

if yall arent reading the acknowledgments in books you gotta get into that; sometimes there are messages in there that make you weep