#laoft tina

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

August chapter 3 the day after my birthday and it wrecked me in the best way. Fuck dude, his house of cards. The most brutal way to have "tis better to have loved and lost than never loved at all" branded into your brain permanently.

I also really loved all of the meta portions and Brian knowing he was doing things technically wrong but also knowing that the story he wants, the story his family wants, and the story AUGGIE wants is that he brings her back and loves her right.

And Brian and Linda... The Grieving Cousins. Being an embodiment of grief and your cousin, who has worn grief as a second skin his entire life.

Also delighted Tina will be a return character and that auggie thinks shes funny I would agree with her (in her position. If I was Brian I think i would dissociate every time I saw her)

soooo true. Auggie's like 'look at it, she's just a sad wet cat who thinks she's a supervillain. it's adorable!'

Brian, white-knuckling while the unblinking black eyes of auggie's corpse stare at him: i have never disagreed with you harder in my life

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT CHAPTER TO APPEAR THAT FAST I AM DELIGHTED!!! Somehow I just wind up wanting even MORE of Auggie. Wondrous lunatic. The thought of her Vibrating With Excitement as she absorbs fae information. Her powers of disinformation. The image of White just Appearing and going, "You were right :). I am not a dog :)" without further elaboration. Getting inducted into chaos shenanigans with Linda. They'll be besties, I can feel it. And LINDAAAAA ;-;. Her not offering to go with Brian is still getting me, to be honest. And the first scene was so so much and so good and aaaaaa!! My poor bobcat!!!! The Feelings!! The references back to the Sister's Keeper conversation!!! "I want you to be happy more than I want to live forever" "Grief doesn't erase [the love], it just changes the shape" "I would rather lose you tomorrow and bear the grief than I would ever prefer to not have had you at all" FRICK (positive)!!!!!

And I ADORE the description of yourself as an Author in relation to the stories you write; it feels so wonderfully reflective of what writing actually is and what it does on structural and emotional levels, beyond a lot of the "playing God" stuff most fourth wall breaks do. And TINA. Delighted by Tina. Delighted by the fact that she is probably a late Summer somehow?? And also by the overall concept of ghouls as you've presented them. Has the distribution of Seelie and Unseelie ghouls changed as humanity's medicinal knowledge advanced and avoided more deaths by cold and starvation during the winter? Are there more weak ghouls like Tina for similar reasons? Would ghouls try to orchestrate specific deaths to propagate?? Are there good and nice ones? I want, like, a million of them. They're fascinating. I love them.

(...I came in here to bring up OTHER August-related questions and then got side-tracked with gushing. Maybe I will send in another ask at some point so that this isn't One William paragraphs long.)

you are right in that as human medical science has advanced, there are far fewer ghouls in wickhills than there used to be, especially blackeyes who are only spawned from the deaths of children. the people of wickhills are also pretty strict on their burial traditions (embalmed vaulted and buried as fast as possible, because a ghoul will not TOUCH an embalmed body, it will straight up poison them to death) and before embalming became ubiquitous wickhills had a lot of those cages that irl were used to prevent graverobbing, or for poorer families the coffins were bolted shut with iron to make them very hard to open

so the youngest generation of ghouls in wickhills by the time of August is probably mostly made of these anemic ineffectual dorks. the only ghouls who get a 'typical' spawning/birth are those whose death was some kind of accident that happened in the woods, either alone or alone enough that the ghoul got to the body before anyone could stop it.

A ghoul can be good and nice but they are primarily food-motivated so a ghouls idea of 'nice we are friends :)' is often like. 'gosh it would be so nice if i could eat my friend but still have my friend after. someone should get on solving that.'

NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR A LONG ASK I LOVE IT!!

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

Also, I absolutely am FASCINATED with Tina, will she be a recurring character 👀

yes but dont worry about her too much, she is a frenemy/harmless sympathetic villain/recurring nuisance. and due to being "deprived" of auggie's corpse at her birth she actually is a very weak frail and ineffectual ghoul. its teeth and strength are basically human, and it's, well, a baby, so its not very clever and mostly just does things like knock over trashcans and set off the dogs. Auggie thinks Tina is HILARIOUS, and nobody else agrees with her even a little.