#wandian

[maysociety]

Wandian Spring Summer 2016

Wandian Spring Summer 2016 Collection

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[wanderinghomesomeday]

The host and my ruined life: a haiku

Why was this shit filmed The book was so beautiful Otp is dead

[wanderinghomesomeday]

If youre STILL waiting for the sequel to the host, clap your hands *CLAP CLAP*

[leoaustraliax]

 Video 1/2 #WANDIAN #wanderer #ianoshea #thehost

[leoaustraliax]

YOU.ARE.NOT.LEAVING.ME #wanderer #ianoshea #WANDIAN #thehost

[holzpolo-blog]

Hate havin a cold, but good side bout it i can watch THE HOST and SOUL EATER!!! SoMa and Wandian forever!!!!

[sharkumentary]

Love me like Ian loves Wanderer

[silverstreaksinthesky]

Reasons I love Wanda/Ian

If you haven't read The Host... do it now.

Seriously. I don't care if you think you hate Stephenie Meyer with a burning passion, I have seen hundreds and hundreds of people say they abhor Twilight with all their heart, but for some reason (accident, boredom, curiosity, etc.) gave The Host a chance and fell in love.

I went into the book not expecting much. After about a hundred pages I wasn't sure if it was going anywhere and almost quit reading. But I'm glad I stuck it out because just a few dozen pages later the story transformed into one of the best I've ever read.

And also my favorite book ship ever. Better than Ron/Hermione. Better than Alexia Maccon/Conall Maccon. Better than Artemis/Minerva. Than Anne/Gilbert. Eve/Roarke. Basically better than any book ship ever (although if you take the amount of ships I have for movies, books, TV shows and animated shows, books are probably at the bottom).

Why, you ask? Because that love story is comprised of so many unusual elements that it's practically unique. I am by no means an expert of every book ship ever, but in all of fiction I have never come across a couple who are perfect quite so fundamentally in quite this way.

Refresher course: Wanderer is a soul, parasitic alien species, who comes to Earth once it has been invaded by the souls who take over the humans' bodies. Humans without "souls" are nearly nonexistent, but the few remaining ones resist. They're violent and aggressive and rude and selfish and they'll burn this planet to the ground if it means just one more cheeseburger (yeah I'm quoting Kenzi from Lost Girl here but it it applies :P ). They do not deserve this wonderful planet. They do not deserve these beautiful bodies who have five and a half senses and such a spectrum of emotion. Souls are good, they have cured all diseases, there are no wars, the planet is beautiful and humans are evil. That is what Wanderer believes. That is what she has been told. That is what she experiences when the host she's given, a girl named Melanie, refuses to leave her mind, being a mean, always-present voice in her head that slowly drives Wanderer mad. Wanderer is good, kind,  responsible, unable to lie... just like all souls. But there's something that makes her different - the way she's unable to connect to her own species. She has never made a connection that's lasted more than one lifetime. She has never stayed on one planet longer than one lifetime. There is no one she would stay for. As such, she is one of a kind, having experienced nearly all planets souls have colonized.

Ian is one of the only resisting humans (it's really ambiguous at this point how many there are left, since Jeb's clan wasn't aware any others besides them even existed and they can't be the only ones who are unaware so with all the groups mentioned at the end, there are probably no more than 200 in the U.S. and maybe a thousand, possibly two in the whole world? Anyway, not a lot). Together with his older brother Kyle they live in Jeb's "house" - the underground volcano system that thirty-odd people call their home. He is good with a gun, good at tracking/hunting stuff, very strong and one of the most celebrated inhabitants of the tunnels. (Personal headcanon: he was best man at Kyle and Jody's wedding and part of the reason he hates the souls so much is because he saw what it did to Kyle when Jody was captured and a soul implanted into her.) As far as he and the rest of the humans are concerned, souls are not people. They are worms, centipedes. They are to be eliminated. Whatever pain they feel is moot, since they're not really living anyway. They took the humans' planet from them; they deserve whatever the humans throw their way, which, sadly, isn't a lot. It's hard just surviving, let alone thinking about taking the planet back. But they try. They search for ways to rid the body of the soul. They try to figure out a battle plan. But when faced with a soul, they have no qualms about killing, these humans who were previously... accountants, shopkeepers, maybe even humanitarians? Because the souls aren't people.

And that's what I love about Wanda and Ian - how fundamentally they change each other's perspective on the world (yeah, okay, other people were involved too, but mostly the two of them). It's a story of wrong first impressions, of looking beneath the surface, of thinking for yourself instead of what society has made you think.

Because in the span of one year, one single year, Wanda and Ian went from him nearly killing (choking) her upon first encounter to grudgingly accepting that she means no harm (while she's scared gutless of him and his affection for Glocks) to him being her sort of appointed bodyguard against everyone else, her participating in the community as best as she can and seeing that when not provoked, humans can actually be quite nice to each other, to observing each other and talking more and more, to becoming sort of friends, falling into an easy comradeship as she sees that he's actually very gentle and funny and he sees that she's honest, well-meaning, loving towards Jamie and very, very horrible at lying, to actually being really good friends, spending most of their time together, to him siding with her against Kyle when Kyle tries to kill her (and she denies it, because she is just that altruistic to a fault. she doesn't want to cause trouble. and also pain for Ian if his brother is kicked out. One of my favorite exchanges in the whole book actually happens here: "He's your brother. - He knew what he was doing. He's my brother, yes, but he did what he did, and you are… you are… my friend. - He did nothing. He is human. This is his place, not mine. - We're not having this discussion again. Your definition of human is not the same as mine. To you, it means something… negative. To me, it's a compliment–and by my definition, you are and he isn't. Not after this. - Human isn't a negative to me. I know you now. But Ian, he's your brother. - A fact that shames me.”), which is weird and uncomfortable and surprising for everyone but him, to him having a crush on her and her being very confused because even though she is technically thousands and thousands of years old, in this world, in this body she's just a child (and plus there's Jared to think about), to them being just so very comfortable with each other, going on raids together and knowing, understanding each other better than anyone else, both not quite fitting the norm of their race, to... well, falling really in love. There's the whole aspect of Melanie that I have barely mentioned at all, but what it comes down to is that Wanda has come to care for many humans - Melanie, Jamie, Jared, Jeb, Doc, Trudy, Walter, Wes, Geofrrey, etc. - and yet when she decides to sacrifice her life to save Melanie's, knowing that she could be brought back in another body, the only one who has any kind of influence over her is Ian. Because while she loves Melanie very much and Jamie too, she can leave them behind, knowing that they'll have each other. But leaving Ian is the hardest thing she's ever hard to do. She's finally found the person she'd stay on a planet for.

“She's trapped in here, Ian. It's like a prison–worse than that; I can't even describe it. She's like a ghost. And I can free her. I can give her herself back.”

“You deserve a life, too, Wanda. You deserve to stay.”

“But I love her, Ian.”

He closed his eyes, and his pale lips went dead white.

“But I love you, ” he whispered. “Doesn't that matter?”

“Of course it matters. So much. Can't you see? That only makes it more… necessary.”

His eyes flashed open. “Is it so unbearable to have me love you? Is that it? I can keep my mouth shut, Wanda. I won't say it again. You can be with Jared, if that's what you want. Just stay.”

“No, Ian!” I took his face between my hands–his skin felt hard, strained tight over the bones.

“No. I–I love you, too. Me, the little silver worm in the back of her head. But my body doesn't love you. It can't love you. I can never love you in this body, Ian. It pulls me in two. It's unbearable.”

I could have borne it. But watching him suffer because of my body's limitations? Not that.

aka "rip my heart out why don't you"

“Eight full lives,” I whispered against his jaw, my voice breaking. “Eight full lives and I never found anyone I would stay on a planet for, anyone I would follow when they left. I never found a partner. Why now? Why you? You're not of my species. How can you be my partner?”

Basically this is a ship that makes me have ALL the feels. They change each other for the better, they are great and funny and feely together and they have the most organic, natural relationship development basically ever. Because you can just see them caring more and more about each other without it being explicitly said, like when he's torn up over having almost killed her, shuddering at the thought that if he had gone on the raid during which everything changed back in the caves, he would still be of the mindset that Wanda was an enemy, not an ally and someone worth protecting.

But the relationship challenges aren't belittled either. She is in a body that doesn't belong to her. They do have someone (Melanie) always observing when they're together. Wanda does have feelings for Jared. Wanda is just a worm. She could have been brought into the world as a man. Or an old woman. She's just a worm. If Ian saw her in her true form, he'd be horrified, throw her to the ground and step on her. Not if he knew it was her, he says. But he couldn't tell them apart. And yet all these issues are resolved by the end- she gets a new body, one without a host's consciousness, the feelings for Jared are mostly gone and what little remnants are left she crushes down and, my favorite, - no, Ian can't tell souls apart. But once he actually sees one in its silvery, whithery, unmangled form, he's stunned by the beauty. It's not just about her anymore. He sees that souls are people too, that they do have a point. That maybe someday they could even coexist. Because if he can fall in love with an alien (and so can his brother, who is usually very adamantly against aliens; which by the way is one of the things I love - the O'Shea brothers are the only people in the caves to fall in love with souls so far), so can others. They need a bridge to connect the two cultures and see the faults and best things in both to make a new, even better world. And Wanda's opinion on humans is forever changed too.

Basically I really, REALLY want a sequel. Way more than I want the movie. Though I'm really looking forward to the movie because for once it looks like the adaption might actually be decent. I know it's supposed to be a trilogy and Meyer has been saying that she'd like to get to work on the next book "in the next few months" EVERY YEAR SINCE THE FIRST ONE CAME OUT.

And now I want to reread.

This ship makes me have ALL the feels. And The Host is truly an amazing book.